Leaving the train I joined the legions of commuters that marched through the streets of the business district of the city, into Queen Street and entered the steel and glass tower of the insurance company where I now worked at precisely 8.22 each day. Morning tea was taken at 10.15, lunch from 12.45 to 1.30, afternoon tea at 3.15 and from 4.15 onwards I watched the slowly advancing hand of the clock until knockoff time at 5pm.
    Marching back to the station, I caught the 5.17 from platform 10 east, express to Moorabbin,  and arrived home at five past 6, which—since it was a working-class family—was one hour and five minutes after dinnertime. My own dinner would always be on a plate, in the oven or else atop a saucepan of bubbling water, and I would devour it alone, and then join the rest of the family for the evening television programs.

Then the trough of a wave came, deeper than the rest. For an instant the port hydrovane was bare of foam, streaming with water that showed grey paint underneath.
He cleared his mind of that, and for less than a second concentrated all of his being upon levelling the machine off. Then, as the bow of the submarine passed out of view beneath the bottom of his windscreen, the gloved hand on the throttles moved to the firing-switch and jabbed it firmly. The first stick of four bombs fell away as the monoplane swept forty feet above the grey hull.
   The machine rocketed up to three or four hundred feet, and the pilot threw her round in a steep turn. Behind him he heard the rattling chatter of the gun as Corporal Lambert blazed away at the steel hull. Then the submarine swung around into the pilot’s view again as the monoplane banked steeply round her.
   One of the bombs had landed near the foot of the conning-tower, or on it; the superstructure was all wreathed in smoke. A stick-like object, mast or periscope, had fallen and was poking sideways from the conning-tower; the pilot got an impression that the submarine had stopped her engines. The deck was awash by this time; she was quickly going down…
   An RAF pilot bombs and sinks what he is certain is a German submarine in the English Channel, only to discover that a British submarine has gone missing at the same location in Nevil Shute’s very good yarn Landfall. The young man faces vilification by his peers, court martial inquiry and disgrace but that is nothing compared to the torment of his own guilt at his dreadful mistake. Even though he remains convinced that it was a German—as does the women who loves him blindly—his conscience troubles him so deeply that even his eventual vindication cannot put the matter right. Strong, thoughtful stuff.