pine if they came out.'
'Another thing I want to do,' she said, 'is to put in a flowering gum tree, here, I think that'd look lovely in the summer.'
'Takes about five years to come into bloom,' he said.
'Never mind. A gum tree there would be just lovely, up against the blue of the sea. We could see it from our bedroom window.'
He paused, considering the brilliance of the scarlet flowers all over the big tree against the deep blue sea, in the brilliant sunlight. 'It'd certainly be quite a sensation when it was in bloom,' he said. 'Where would you put it? Here?'
'A bit more over this way, here,' she said. 'When it got big we could take down this holly thing and have a seat in the shade, here.' She paused. 'I went to Wilson's nurseries while you were away,' she said. 'He's got some lovely little flowering gum trees there, only ten and sixpence each. Do you think we could put in one of those this autumn?'
'They're a bit delicate,' he said. 'I think the thing to do would be to put in two fairly close to each other, so that you'd have one if the other died. Then take out one of them in a couple of years' time.'
'The trouble is, one never does it,' she observed.
They went on happily planning their garden for the next ten years, and the morning passed very quickly.
When Moira and Dwight came back from church they were still at it. They were called into consultation on the layout of the kitchen garden. Presently Peter and Mary went into the house, the former to get drinks and the latter to get the lunch.
The girl glanced at the American. 'Someone's crazy,' she said quietly. 'Is it me or them?'
'Why do you say that?'
'They won't be here in six months' time. I won't be here. You won't be here. They won't want any vegetables next year.'
Dwight stood in silence for a moment, looking out at the blue sea, the long curve of the shore. 'So what?' he said at last. 'Maybe they don't believe it. Maybe they think that they can take it all with them and have it where they're going to, someplace. I wouldn't know.' He paused. 'The thing is, they just kind of like to plan a garden. Don't you go and spoil it for them, telling them they're crazy.'
'I wouldn't do that.' She stood in silence for a minute. 'None of us. really believe it's ever going to happen- not to us,' she said at last. 'Everybody's crazy on that point, one way or another.'
'You're very right,' he said emphatically.
Drinks came, and put a closure on the conversation, and then lunch. After lunch Mary turned the men out into the garden, thinking them to be infectious, while she washed the dishes with Moira. Seated in deck chairs with a cup of coffee, Peter asked his captain, 'Have you heard anything about our next job, sir?'
The American cocked his eye at him. 'Not a thing. Have you?'
'Not really. Something was said at that conference with P.S.O. that made me wonder if anything was in the wind.'
'What was it that was said?'
'Something about fitting us with new directional wireless of some kind. Have you heard anything?'
Dwight shook his head. 'We've got plenty of radio.'
'This is for taking a bearing-accurately. Perhaps when we're submerged to periscope depth. We can't do that, can we?'
'Not with our existing equipment. What do they want us to do that for?'
'I don't know. It wasn't on the agenda. It was just one of the back-room boys speaking out of turn.'
'They want us to track down radio signals?'
'Honestly, I don't know, sir. How it came up was that they asked if the radiation detector could be moved to the forward periscope so that this thing could be put on the aft periscope. John Osborne said he was pretty sure it could, but he'd take it up with you.'
'That's right. It can go on the forward periscope. I thought they wanted to fit two.'
'I don't think so, sir. I think they want to fit this other gadget in its place on the aft one.'
The American stared at the smoke rising from his cigarette. Then he said, 'Seattle.'
'What's that, sir?'
'Seattle. There were radio signals coming from someplace near Seattle. Do you know if they're still coming through?'
Peter shook his head, amazed. 'I didn't know anything about that. Do you mean that somebody's still operating a transmitter?'
The captain shrugged his shoulders. 'Could be. If so, it's somebody that doesn't know how to send. Sometimes they make a group, sometimes a word is clear. Most times it's just a jumble, like a child might make, playing at radio stations.'
'Does this go on all the time?'
Dwight shook his head. 'I don't think so. It comes on the air irregularly, now and then. I know they're monitoring that frequency most of the time. At least, they were till Christmas. I haven't heard since.'
The liaison officer said, 'But that must mean there's somebody alive up there.'
'It's just a possibility. You can't have radio without power, and that means starting up some kind of a motor. A big motor, to run a big station with global range. But-I don't know. You'd think a guy who could start up an outfit of that size and run it-you'd think he'd know Morse code. Even if he had to spell it out two words a minute with the book in front of him.'
'Do you think we're going there?'
'Could be. It was one of the points they wanted information on way back last October. They wanted all the information on the U.S. radio stations that we had.'
'Did you have anything that helped?'
Dwight shook his head. 'Only the U.S. Navy stations. Very little on the Air Force or the Army stations. Practically nothing on the civil stations. There's more radio on the West Coast than you could shake a stick at.'
That afternoon they strolled down to the beach and bathed, leaving Mary with the baby at the house. Lying on the warm sand with the two men, Moira asked, 'Dwight, where is Swordfish now? Is she coming here?'
'I haven't heard it,' he replied. 'The last I heard she was in Montevideo.'
'She could turn up here, any time,' said Peter Holmes. 'She's got the range.'
The American nodded. 'That's so. Maybe they'll send her over here one day with mail or passengers. Diplomats, or something,'
'Where is Montevideo?' asked the girl. 'I ought to know that, but I don't.'
Dwight said, 'It's in Uruguay, on the east side of South America. Way down towards the bottom.'
'I thought you said she was at Rio de Janeiro. Isn't that in Brazil?'
He nodded. 'That was when she made her cruise up in the North Atlantic. She was based on Rio then. But after that they moved down into Uruguay.'
'Was that because of radiation?'
'Uh-huh.'
Peter said, 'I don't know that it's got there yet. It may have done. They've not said anything upon the radio. It's just about on the tropic, isn't it?'
'That's right,' said Dwight. 'Like Rockhampton.'
The girl asked, 'Have they got it in Rockhampton?'
'I haven't heard that they have,' said Peter. 'It said on the wireless this morning that they've got it at Salisbury, in Southern Rhodesia. I think that's a bit further north.'
'I think it is,' said the captain. 'It's in the middle of a land mass, too, and that might make a difference. These other places that we're talking about-they're all on a coast.'
'Isn't Alice Springs just about on the tropic?'
'It might be. I wouldn't know. That's in the middle of a land mass, too, of course.'
The girl asked, 'Does it go quicker down a coast than in the middle?'
Dwight shook his head. 'I wouldn't know. I don't think they've got any evidence on that, one way or the
