Gibraltar Road (27 page)

Shaw felt sick.

That chap had been grabbed from his station at San Roque, had probably expected to be happily at home by now in some little whitewashed hut . . . now he’d be going back there in a box, and maybe some woman who’d seen him off that morning would be a widow, some children fatherless. And none of this had really been the
guardia’s
concern, except in so far as it was his duty to maintain the law and order of Spain. Shaw found one brief moment in which to loathe his job once more, and then, his face quite bloodless, he fired twice towards that remaining man who’d now come back behind the boulder. Shaw’s response had been slow, too slow to save that
guardia
, but it wasn’t all that slow, and his aim was first-class, steadied by the hate that was concentrating in him now. The large gun was only just swinging round on to him when the first bullet came from his heavy Service revolver and caught the man—it was Garcia—in the stomach and doubled him up; the second, coming a fraction of time after the first, took the man smack between the eyes and pushed the dying body straight again as the brains spattered over the sand.

The sub-machine-gun dropped.

In a flash Shaw was racing across the beach towards it, keeping low, but Karina got to the gun at the same instant. Shaw had no niceties left in him now. Savagely almost, he flung himself at Karina, got his arms around her body, feeling his hands roughly on her breasts, her thighs, the woman struggling and kicking and tearing at him like a maniac. He managed to get his hands round her wrists, held on like a vice, cruelly, panting and gasping. Karina was sobbing with rage, and biting whenever she got the chance . . . Shaw felt a burning pain in his ear and the trickle of blood down his neck. Something in him seemed to break then. He flung Karina to the ground, came down on top of her; they rolled madly for a moment. Then, panting and sweating, Shaw forced her hands behind her back and held her there, pinned, rigid and helpless.

He dragged in gulps of air. He gasped, “Pack it in, you bitch. Pack it in before I put a bullet in you. You can’t do any good for yourself now.”

She swore at him, drawing back her lips like an animal. Filthy names poured from her—he’d called her a bitch; that was mild enough in comparison. Shaw looked into her eyes, saw the whites shining in the moonlight and that horrible snarl twisting up her mouth. Certainly in that moment of seeming defeat there was something animal in her, and Shaw recognized it; but he knew too that for him Karina’s spell would never be wholly gone. He felt her breath coming hot and fast on his cheek, inhaled her scent heavy on the night air. The close contact began to trouble him now. Just for an instant of time he was conscious only of the fact that he was lying on sand beneath a bright moon with Karina once again, then sense returned, and with it a feeling of shame. Holding Karina with one arm and the weight of his body, he relaxed his grip with his right hand and stretched out for the submachine-gun lying on the beach.

As his fingers closed on the grip a bullet zipped over his head and ricocheted across the water, bouncing and kicking up little trails of spray and ripples in the calm, sleepy sea. Turning his head, he saw Debonnair running down the sand towards him.

She cried out, “Esmonde—the boat. It’s pulling out!”

It was the girl who’d fired that shot. . . . Shaw twisted round in alarm, saw that the boat, with Ackroyd half sitting, half lying in the sternsheets, was moving out fast. Debonnair, at the water’s edge now, fired again, hit the gunwale of the boat, put off her stroke by the need to aim clear of Ackroyd. Shaw started to lift himself, and at once Karina’s knee came up and smashed into his groin. There was a moment of excruciating agony, and a whole spectrum of coloured lights flashed in his head; he doubled up. Karina wriggled away, rolled clear, and then was on her feet and running fast into the darkness of the roadway. Quickly, anxiously, Debonnair came back up the beach towards Shaw, bent over him.

His face was green and he was in great pain, but he forced himself to action, brought the heavy gun up, aimed to put a burst over Karina’s head. But when his fingers pressed the trigger nothing happened. The magazine was empty. Maybe that was why he’d got Garcia before Garcia got him. A mocking laugh floated back as he reached for his own gun. He swore, turned, saw Ackroyd’s distance increasing.

Debonnair asked, “Esmonde, do you want me to fire—or not?”

Shaw snapped, “Leave her for now—she can’t get far.”

“She can get our car.”

Shaw cursed, savagely. “Well, she’ll just have to, that’s all. Ackroyd is the important thing now.”

The sweat of agony poured off Shaw as he struggled to his feet and stumbled for the water. He just set his teeth and carried on. He plunged in, struck out for the boat, and the coolness of the water eased the burning pain a little.

A terrible dread gripping her heart, Debonnair watched him go.

Her revolver was up, and she was ready to give him covering fire the moment she was able to sight without fear of hitting Ackroyd. Shaw seemed to her to be gaining a little on the boat—the man in it was pulling very badly, catching one crab after another under the stress of his hurry. But it didn’t look as though Shaw would close the distance before the boat reached the parent vessel; and soon he would come under the fire from that fishing-boat, for surely there would be guns aboard.

The girl’s heart thudded and she sent up a prayer. . . .

Then she saw the rowing-boat turn to make its approach to the side of the larger vessel, and that gave her her chance and she took it. The angle of the turn had brought the solitary rower clear of Ackroyd, so that she could sight on him without being in danger of hitting the little physicist.

Icily calm, Debonnair sighted. She fired three times.

The first shot seemed to zip into the boat’s woodwork, but the second and third shots got the man fair and square; the boat swung, the oars jammed in the rowlocks. The man hung head down in the water, canting the boat over and bringing it right round to circle to a stop before he flopped over into the sea. Debonnair waded in then, started swimming out to help Shaw, who soon had an arm over the gunwale. Ackroyd was lying flat in the bottom of the boat now, moaning to himself and shivering, water slopping about over him. Shaw grabbed at a rope lying in the boat and made fast to a ring-bolt in the bows; bringing the rope’s-end out with him, he dropped back into the water as the girl swam up.

They both heard then the sound of the fishing-vessel’s motor starting up. Shaw said urgently, “Deb, we’ll tow him inshore . . . keep your head down, for God’s sake, old girl. They’ll be bound to start shooting any moment now—unless they catch up with us first.”

They each took a grip on the rope, put their heads down, and went forward in a one-armed crawl. They didn’t make much speed, but there was no shooting, and Shaw wondered if that was because they were right out of the moonlight, in a big, spreading patch of pitch-darkness under the lee of a jut of land. A moment later Debonnair, who had noticed that the boat’s engine was getting fainter instead of louder, rolled over and looked back. Then she spluttered, “They’re pulling out—going to sea! Wonder what that’s in aid of?”

“What!”

Shaw’s head came clear of the sea and he eased down. He blinked the water from his eyes, looked ahead. Then he swore softly. “That’s what,” he said. “Back water, Debbie . . . look at the beach.”

Debonnair looked. Two men of the Civil Guard were coming down to the water’s edge and were staring out across the sea towards the now fast-retreating fishing-vessel. One of them cupped his hands and shouted out across the sea; a moment later a couple of shots were fired. Another
guardia
was kneeling by the bodies on the beach. None of them seemed to have seen the rowing-boat in its deep shadow, a shadow made blacker by the bright moonlight elsewhere, and Shaw whispered to Debonnair to keep very, very still and quiet. He said, “We don’t want to meet those chaps any more than our pals back there do. If they get hold of us it’s all up with Gibraltar. They’ll never believe our story—and three dead Spaniards, one of ’em a
guardia
, are going to take an awful lot of explaining away.”

“What do we do, then?”

“We stay at sea for a bit. It’s all we can do, Debbie.”

“Uh-huh.”

Miserably, she shivered. She knew she hadn’t sounded very enthusiastic, but she knew Shaw was perfectly right. Shaw swung round and very slowly, imperceptibly, keeping well in the dark, he edged the boat away from the land, his own breathing sounding loud in his ears. As they went they heard a car’s engine starting up ashore, and then the sound of furious driving along the road to Algeciras. Shaw said, “That’ll be Karina—in our car.”

Looking back, he saw the Civil Guards rushing up the beach.

The fishing-vessel was almost out of sight by now, heading flat out for the North African coast—Tangier was Shaw’s guess. Well, that was all right—they evidently didn’t realize that Shaw’s boat was coming out again. Shaw went on heading slowly out to sea, and the beach dwindled.

A little later he was able to speed up and, well clear to seaward, they passed Tarifa Point.

Very soon Shaw would have to head back in or risk being run down by the shipping in the Straits—he had no navigation lights, and wouldn’t have dared to use them if he had—or be picked up again if the skipper of that fishing-vessel should take it into his head to return.

Shaw had helped Debonnair over the gunwale as soon as it seemed safe to do so, and followed himself. They sat there shivering in the cool night air. Mr Ackroyd’s teeth chattered away, and he stared up at the two apathetically while they did what they could to make him comfortable. Shaw searched through the little man’s clothing, bringing a cry from him as he jolted the bruised arm. He didn’t find anything during that search.

A little later Debonnair asked, “Where do we head for?” She snuggled back into the comparative warmth of Shaw’s body. “Could we cross Algeciras Bay in this, d’you think, and enter Gib by sea?”

“We could, Debbie—it’s only about five miles by sea from Carnero Point—if it wasn’t for something I was trying to find on Ackroyd when I was going through his clothing a little while ago.” Briefly he told her about the technician’s theory, the theory that Ackroyd had removed a piece of AFPU ONE’s starting mechanism—told her in such a way that he didn’t have to divulge much, though he made her realize the vital importance of what he was saying. When he’d finished she lay back and looked up at him sideways and said, “Oh, my God,” very softly.

Shaw said, “We’ll have to try and get something out of Ackroyd about it as soon as he’s in a fit state. If it really is missing—and I do feel sure he
did
take it—then ten to one Karina’s got it now. So—we’ve got to find Karina.” Bitterly now he reproached himself for not having immobilized his own car. “That means we’ve got to try to land—I’d say, somewhere near Carnero—and walk into Algeciras itself. We’d look a bit suspicious, entering the port by sea after what’s happened to-night.”

She nodded. “And when we get ashore—what then?”

He said wearily, “Debbie my dear, God may possibly know, but I certainly don’t. Let’s get to Carnero first.”

She moved closer into his arms. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I’ll stop asking silly questions, darling.”

“They’re not silly questions,” said Shaw gently, stroking her wet hair. “It’s my fault for not having the answers ready, that’s all!” So near Gibraltar and yet so damn far, he thought miserably, and until we cross that little strip of neutral ground beyond La Linea every man’s hand—practically—is against us.

Shaw took up the oars, sculled the boat along to the eastward, still keeping well clear of the land. The girl drew away from him, to give him more freedom of movement, but he pulled her back to lean against his chest. She was shivering so . . . God, but he should never have allowed her to come with him on this job. . . .

Mr Ackroyd was humming again, and Shaw clamped his teeth down hard.

Dum-da, dum-da, dum-da. . . .

That was going to drive him mad soon. And he still had to get this little lunatic to talk.

Hammersley hadn’t so very much to do himself in these final stages, with the evacuation organized and timed to begin at noon—less than twelve hours to go now.

He had made the decisions, and he would stand or fall by those decisions—not that it made much difference to his own position either way, because he didn’t intend to leave his command. So he wasn’t likely to be called to account in any way. They could say anything they liked after he was gone and he wouldn’t care. All he could hope for now was to do the best he could for the people who depended on him. And now the donkey-work was being carried out by the staff and by the regimental officers and the men under their command.

But Hammersley couldn’t sit around in The Convent and do nothing—nothing but wait, and count the hours—the hours at first, and then it would become, as the time drew nearer, the minutes and the seconds. During the morning—so long, long ago—after he’d seen Forbes and then sent the hastening signal to the evacuation fleet, Hammersley had driven round the town and had gone up the Rock to the out-stations for a word with the troops. And everywhere it had been the same; the routine going on, yes, but the strain, the frightening air of expectancy, the worried faces of those who suspected that this was more than just the exercise which Hammersley had announced recently in the
Gibraltar Chronicle
. A few of the locals, smelling danger despite the security muzzle, had got out under their own steam already—the rich ones, or those with connexions across the frontier or in Tangier. He couldn’t stop them; wouldn’t if he could. They had a right to protect their own lives—he couldn’t even blame them morally. The rest waited, on the whole dumbly, not knowing what was going on but neither wishing nor able to leave the Rock that was the only home they knew. All Hammersley wished, so fervently, was that he’d been able to advise them—order them—all to get out while the going was good.