'Kind of awkward for her, that.' The farmer walked to the alley of the milking shed and stood in the warm sunlight, looking the bicycle and trailer over. 'That's a good trailer,' he said. 'As good a little trailer as I ever saw. Made it yourself, didn't you?'
'That's right.'
'Where did you get the wheels, if I may ask?'
'They're motor bike wheels. I got them in Elizabeth Street.'
'Think you could get a pair for me?'
'I could try,' Peter said. 'I think there may be some of them about still. They're better than the little wheels- they tow more easily.' The farmer nodded. 'They may be a bit scarce now. People seem to be hanging on to motor bikes.'
'I was saying to the wife,' the farmer remarked slowly, 'if I had a little trailer like that I could make it like a chair for her, put it on behind the push bike and take her into Falmouth, shopping. It's mighty lonely for a woman in a place like this, these days,' he explained. 'Not like it was before the war, when she could take the car and get into town in twenty minutes. The bullock cart takes three and a half hours, and three and a half hours back; that's seven hours for travelling alone. She did try to learn to ride a bike but she'll never make a go of it, not at her age and another baby on the way. I wouldn't want her to try. But if I had a little trailer like you've got I could take her into Falmouth twice a week, and take the milk and cream along to Mrs. Holmes at the same time.' He paused. 'I'd like to be able to do that for the wife,' he remarked. 'After all, from what they say on the wireless, there's not so long to go.'
The naval officer nodded. 'I'll scout around a bit today and see what I can find. You don't mind what they cost?'
The farmer shook his head. 'So long as they're good wheels, to give no trouble. Good tires, that's the main thing-last the time out. Like those you've got.'
The officer nodded. 'Til have a look for some today.'
'Taking you a good bit out of your way.'
'I can slip up there by tram. It won't be any trouble. Thank God for the brown coal.'
The farmer turned to where the separator was still running. 'That's right. We'd be in a pretty mess but for the electricity.' He slipped an empty churn into the stream of skim milk deftly and pulled the full churn away. 'Tell me, Mr. Holmes,' he said. 'Don't they use big digging machines to get the coal? Like bulldozers, and things like that?' The officer nodded. 'Well, where do they get the oil to run those things?'
'I asked about that once,' Peter said. 'They distill it on the spot, out of the brown coal. It costs about two pounds a gallon.'
'You don't say!' The farmer stood in thought. 'I was thinking maybe if they could do that for themselves, they might do some for us. But at that price, it wouldn't hardly be practical…'
Peter took the milk and cream billies, put them in the trailer, and set off for home. It was six-thirty when he got back. He had a shower and dressed in the uniform he had so seldom worn since his promotion, accelerated his breakfast, and rode his bicycle down the hill to catch the 8:15 in order that he might explore the motor dealers for the wheels before his appointment.
He left his bicycle at the garage that had serviced his small car in bygone days. It serviced no cars now. Horses stood stabled where the cars had been, the horses of the business men who lived outside the town, who now rode in in jodhpurs and plastic coats to stable their horses while they commuted up to town in the electric train. The petrol pumps served them as hitching posts. In the evening they would come down on the train, saddle their horses, strap the attache case to the saddle, and ride home again. The tempo of business life was slowing down and this was a help to them; the 5:03 express train from the city had been cancelled and a 4:17 put on to replace it.
Peter Holmes travelled to the city immersed in speculations about his new appointment, for the paper famine had closed down all the daily newspapers and news now came by radio alone. The Royal Australian Navy was a very small fleet now. Seven small ships had been converted from oil burners to most unsatisfactory coal burners at great cost and effort; an attempt to convert the aircraft carrier Melbourne had been suspended when it proved that she would to too slow to allow the aircraft to land on with safety except in the strongest wind. Moreover, stocks of aviation fuel had to be husbanded so carefully that training programmes had been reduced to virtually nil, so that it now seemed inexpedient to carry on the Fleet Air Arm at all. He had not heard of any changes in the officers of the seven minesweepers and frigates that remained in commission. It might be that somebody was sick and had to be replaced, or it might be that they had decided to rotate employed officers with the unemployed to keep up seagoing experience. More probably it meant a posting to some dreary job on shore, an office job in the barracks or doing something with the stores at some disconsolate, deserted place like Flinders Naval Depot. He would be deeply disappointed if he did not get to sea, and yet he knew it would be better for him so. On shore he could look after Mary and the baby as he had been doing, and there was now not so long to go.
He got to the city in about an hour and went out of the station to get upon the tram. It rattled unobstructed through streets innocent of other vehicles and took him quickly to the motor dealing district. Most of the shops here were closed or taken over by the few that remained open, the windows still encumbered with the useless stock. He shopped around here for a time searching for two light wheels in good condition that would make a pair, and finally bought wheels of the same size from two makes of motorcycle, which would make complications with the axle that could be got over by the one mechanic still left in his garage.
He took the tram back to the Navy Department carrying the wheels tied together with a bit of rope. In the Second Naval Member's offices he reported to the secretary, a paymaster lieutenant who was known to him. The young man said, 'Good morning, sir. The admiral's got your posting on his desk. He wants to see you personally. I'll tell him that you're here.'
The lieutenant commander raised his eyebrows. It seemed unusual, but then in this reduced navy everything was apt to be a bit unusual. He put the wheels down by the paymaster's desk, looked over his uniform with some concern, picked a bit of thread off the lapel of his jacket, and tucked his cap under his arm.
'The admiral will see you now, sir.'
He marched into the office and came to attention. The admiral, seated at his desk, inclined his head. 'Good morning, Lieutenant Commander. You can stand easy. Sit down.'
Peter sat down in the chair beside the desk. The admiral leaned over and offered him a cigarette out of his case, and lit it for him with a lighter. 'You've been unemployed for some time.'
'Yes, sir.'
The admiral lit a cigarette himself. 'Well, I've got a sea-going appointment for you. I can't give you a command, I'm afraid, and I can't even put you in one of our own ships. I'm posting you as liaison officer in U.S.S. Scorpion.'
He glanced at the younger man. 'I understand you've met Commander Towers.'
'Yes, sir.' He had met the captain of Scorpion two or three times in the last few months, a quiet, soft-spoken man of thirty-five or so with a slight New England accent. He had read the American's report upon his ship's war service. He had been at sea in his atomic-powered submarine on patrol between Kiska and Midway when the war began, and opening his sealed orders at the appropriate signal he submerged and set course for Manila at full cruising speed. On the fourth day, somewhere north of Iwo Jima, he came to periscope depth for an inspection of the empty sea as was his routine in each watch of the daylight hours and found the visibility to be extremely low, apparently with some sort of dust; at the same time the detector on his periscope head indicated a high level of radioactivity. He attempted to report this to Pearl Harbor in a signal but got no reply; he carried on, the radioactivity increasing as he neared the Philippines. Next night he made contact with Dutch Harbor and passed a signal in code to his admiral, but was told that all communications were now irregular, and he got no reply. On the next night he failed to raise Dutch Harbor. He carried on upon his mission, setting course around the north of Luzon. In the Balintang Channel he found much dust and the radioactivity far above the lethal level, the wind being westerly, force 4 to 5. On the seventh day of the war he was in Manila Bay looking at the city through his periscope, still without orders. The atmospheric radioactivity was rather less here though still above the danger level; he did not care to surface or go up on to the bridge. Visibility was moderate; through the periscope he saw a pall of smoke drifting up above the city and formed the opinion that at least one nuclear explosion had taken place there within the last few days. He saw no activity on shore from five miles out in the bay. Proceeding to close the land he grounded his ship unexpectedly at periscope depth, being then in the main channel where the chart showed twelve fathoms; this
