Editing On the Beach (novel) (section)

==Plot==
In 1963, World War III has devastated most of the populated world, polluting the atmosphere with [[nuclear fallout]], and killing all human and animal life in the Northern Hemisphere. The war began with a nuclear attack by Albania on Italy, and then escalated with the bombing of the United States and the United Kingdom by Egypt. Because the aircraft used in these attacks were obtained from the [[Soviet Union]], the Soviets were mistakenly blamed, triggering a retaliatory strike on the Soviet Union by [[NATO]]. The Soviets also attack the People's Republic of China, which may have been a response to a Chinese attack aimed at occupying Soviet industrial areas near the Chinese border. Most, if not all, of the bombs [[cobalt bomb|included cobalt]] to enhance their radioactive properties.

Global air currents are slowly carrying the lethal nuclear fallout across the [[Intertropical Convergence Zone]] to the Southern Hemisphere. The only parts of the planet still habitable are Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the southern parts of South America, although they are slowly succumbing to [[radiation poisoning]] as well.

People in Australia detect a mysterious and incomprehensible [[Morse code]]-like radio signal originating from the American city of [[Seattle]], Washington. With hope that someone has survived in the contaminated regions, one of the last American nuclear submarines, USS ''Scorpion'', placed by its captain, Commander Dwight Towers, under Australian naval command, is ordered to sail north from its port of refuge in [[Melbourne]] (Australia's southernmost major mainland city) to contact whoever is sending the signal. In preparation for this journey, the submarine makes a shorter trip to port cities in northern Australia, including [[Cairns]], Queensland, [[Port Moresby]], in Papua New Guinea, and [[Darwin, Northern Territory|Darwin]], Northern Territory; no survivors are found. Two Australians sail with the American crew: Lieutenant Peter Holmes, naval liaison officer to the Americans, and a scientist, Professor John Osborne.

Commander Towers has become attached to Moira Davidson, a young Australian woman distantly related to Osborne who tries to cope with the impending end of human life through heavy drinking. Despite his attraction to Davidson, Towers remains loyal to his wife and children in the United States. He buys his children gifts and imagines them growing older. At one point, however, he makes it clear to Moira that he knows his family is almost certainly dead, and asks if she thinks he is insane for acting as if they were still alive. She replies that she does not think he is crazy.

The Australian government provides citizens with free suicide pills and injections to avoid prolonged suffering from radiation poisoning. Periodic reports show the steady southward progression of the deadly radiation. As communications are lost with a city, it is referred to as being "out."

Peter Holmes has a baby daughter and a wife, Mary. Mary is in denial about the impending disaster. Because he has been assigned to travel north with the Americans, Peter tries to explain, to Mary's fury and disbelief, how to kill their baby and herself, by taking the pill should he not return from his mission in time to help. The bachelor Osborne spends much of his time restoring and subsequently racing a [[Ferrari]] racing car (the [[Ferrari Dino 246|Ferrari 246 F1]] used by [[Luigi Musso]] to win the [[1958 Syracuse Grand Prix]]) that he had purchased (along with a fuel supply) for a nominal amount following the war's outbreak.

USS ''Scorpion'' travels to the [[Gulf of Alaska]] in the northern Pacific Ocean, where the crew determines that radiation levels are not decreasing. This finding discredits the "Jorgensen Effect", a scientific theory positing that radiation levels will decrease at a greater rate than previously thought, aided by the weather effects, and potentially allow for human life to continue in southern Australia or Antarctica. The submarine approaches [[San Francisco]], observing through the [[periscope]] that the city had been devastated and the [[Golden Gate Bridge]] has fallen. In contrast, the [[Puget Sound]] area, from which the radio signals are emanating, is found to have avoided destruction because of missile defences. One crew member, who is from [[Edmonds, Washington|Edmonds]], Washington, which the expedition visits, jumps ship to spend his last days in his home town.

The expedition members then sail to an abandoned navy communications school south of [[Seattle]]. A crewman sent ashore with oxygen tanks and protective gear discovers that although the city's residents have long since perished, some of the region's hydroelectric power is still working due to primitive automation technology. He finds that the mysterious radio signal is the result of a broken window sash swinging in the breeze and occasionally hitting a telegraph key. After a stop at [[Pearl Harbor]], the remaining submariners return to Australia to live out what little time they have left.

Osborne takes his suicide pill while sitting in his Ferrari. When Mary becomes very ill, Peter administers a lethal injection to their daughter. Despite Peter feeling relatively well, he and Mary take their pills simultaneously to die as a family. Towers and his remaining crew choose to [[Scuttling|scuttle]] the ''Scorpion'' in the open ocean, fulfilling a naval duty to not leave the unmanned vessel "floating about in a foreign port", after her crew succumbs to suicide or radiation poisoning. Moira watches the submarine's departure in her car, parked atop an adjacent hilltop, as she takes her pill, imagining herself together with Towers as she dies.