'I haven't. I brought everything there was. Honest.'
'I hope you're telling me the truth.' They got up into the driving seat and started off towards the village. Almost immediately he said, 'That's a beech tree! There's another!'
She glanced at him curiously. 'They grow round here. I suppose it's cooler on the hills.'
He looked at the avenue, entranced. 'That's an oak tree, but it's a mighty big one. I don't know that I ever saw an oak tree grow so big. And there's some maples!' He turned to her. 'Say, this is just like an avenue in a small town in the States!'
'Is it?' she asked. 'Is it like this in the States?'
'It certainly is,' he said. 'You've got all the trees here from the Northern Hemisphere. Parts of Australia I've seen up till now, they've only had gum trees and wattles.'
'They don't make you feel bad?' she asked.
'Why, no. I just love to see these northern trees again.'
'There are plenty of them round the farm,' she said. They drove through the village, across the deserted bitumen road, and out upon the road to Harka-way. Presently the road trended uphill; the horse slowed to a walk and began to slog against the collar. The girl said, 'This is where we get out and walk.'
He got down with her from the buggy, and they walked together up the hill, leading the horse. After the stuffiness of the dockyard and the heat of the steel ships, the woodland air seemed fresh and cool to him. He took off his jacket and laid it in the buggy, and loosened the collar of his shirt. They walked on up the hill, and now a panorama started to unfold behind them, a wide view over the flat plain to the sea at Port Phillip Bay ten miles away. They went on, riding on the flats and walking on the steeper parts, for half an hour. Gradually they entered a country of gracious farms on undulating hilly slopes, a place where well-kept paddocks were interspersed with coppices and many trees. He said, 'You're mighty lucky to have a home in country like this.'
She glanced at him. 'We like it all right. Of course, it's frightfully dull living out here.'
He stopped, and stood in the road, looking around him at the smiling countryside, the wide, unfettered views. 'I don't know that I ever saw a place that was more beautiful,' he said.
'It is beautiful?' she asked. 'I mean, is it as beautiful as places in America or England?'
'Why, sure,' he said. 'I don't know England so well. I'm told that parts of that are just a fairyland. There's plenty of lovely scenery in the United States, but I don't know of any place that's just like this. No, this is beautiful all right, by any standard in the world.'
'I'm glad to hear you say that,' she replied. 'I mean, I like it here, but then I've never seen anything else. One sort of thinks that everything in England or America must be much better. That this is all right for Australia, but that's not saying much.'
He shook his head. 'It's not like that at all, honey. This is good by any standard that you'd like to name.'
They came to a flat and, driving in the buggy, the girl turned into an entrance gate. A short drive led between an avenue of pine trees to a single-storey wooden house, a fairly large house painted white that merged with farm buildings towards the back. A wide verandah ran along the front and down one side, partially glazed in. The girl drove past the house and into the farmyard. 'Sorry about taking you in by the back door,' she said. 'But the mare won't stand, not when she's so near the stable.'
A farm hand called Lou, the only employee on the place, came to help her with the horse, and her father came out to meet them. She introduced Dwight all round, and they left the horse and buggy to Lou and went into the house to meet her mother. Later they gathered on the verandah to sit in the warm evening sun over short drinks before the evening meal. From the verandah there was a pastoral view over undulating pastures and coppices, with a distant view of the plain down below the trees. Again Dwight commented upon the beauty of the countryside.
'Yes, it's nice up here,' said Mrs. Davidson. 'But it can't compare with England. England's beautiful.'
The American asked, 'Were you born in England?'
'Me? No. I was born Australian. My grandfather came out to Sydney in the very early days, but he wasn't a convict. Then he took up land in the Riverina. Some of the family are there still.' She paused. 'I've only been home once,' she said. 'We made a trip to England and the Continent in 1948, after the Second War. We thought England was quite beautiful. But I suppose it's changed a lot now.'
She left the verandah presently with Moira to see about the tea, and Dwight was left on the verandah with her father. He said, 'Let me give you another whisky.'
'Why, thanks. I'd like one.'
They sat in warm comfort in the mellow evening sun over their drinks. After a time the grazier said, 'Moira was telling us about the cruise that you just made up to the north.'
The captain nodded. 'We didn't find out much.'
'So she said.'
'There's not much that you can see, from the water's edge and through the periscope,' he told his host. 'It's not as if there was any bomb damage, or anything like that. It all looks just the same as it always did. It's just that people don't live there any more.'
'It was very radioactive, was it?'
Dwight nodded. 'It gets worse the further north you go, of course. At Cairns, when we were there, a person might have lived for a few days. At Port Darwin nobody could live so long as that.'
'When were you at Cairns?'
'About a fortnight ago.'
'I suppose the intensity at Cairns would be worse by now.'
'Probably so. I'd say it gets worse steadily as time goes on. Finally, of course, it'll get to the same level all around the world.'
'They're still saying that it's going to get here in September.'
'I would say that's right. It's coming very evenly, all around the world. All places in the same latitude seem to be getting it just about the same time.'
'They were saying on the wireless they've got it in Rockhampton.'
The captain nodded, 'I heard that, too. And at Alice Springs. It's coming very evenly along the latitudes.'
His host smiled, a little grimly. 'No good agonizing about it. Have another whisky.'
'I don't believe I will, not now. Thank you.'
Mr. Davidson poured himself another small one. 'Anyway,' he said, 'it comes to us last of all.'
'That seems to be so,' said Dwight. 'If it goes on the way it's going now, Cape Town will go out a little before Sydney, about the same time as Montevideo. There'll be nothing left then in Africa and South America. Melbourne is the most southerly major city in the world, so we'll be near to the last.' He paused for a moment in thought. 'New Zealand, most of it, may last a little longer, and, of course, Tasmania. A fortnight or three weeks, perhaps. I don't know if there's anybody in Antarctica. If so, they might go on for quite a while.'
'But Melbourne is the last big city?'
'That's what it looks like, at the moment.'
They sat in silence for a little while. 'What will you do?' the grazier asked at last. 'Will you move your ship?'
'I haven't decided that,' the captain said slowly. 'Maybe I won't have to decide it. I've got a senior officer, Captain Shaw, in Brisbane. I don't suppose he'll move because his ship can't move. Maybe he'll send me orders. I don't know.'
'Would you move, if it was at your own discretion?'
'I haven't decided that,' the captain said again. 'I can't see that there's a great deal to be gained. Nearly forty per cent of my ship's company have got themselves tied up with girls in Melbourne-married, some of them. Say I was to move to Hobart. I can't take them along, and they can't get there any other way, and if they could there's nowhere there for them to live. It seems kind of rough on the men to separate them from their women in the last few days, unless there was some compelling reason in the interest of the naval service.' He glanced up, grinning. 'Anyway, I don't suppose they'd come. Most of them would probably jump ship.'
'I suppose they would. I think they'd probably decide to put the women first.'
The American nodded. 'It's reasonable. And there's no sense in giving orders that you know won't be
