Authors: Philip McCutchan
One of the men looked up, spotted Ackroyd in the group. Hope came into tired, anxious eyes. Ignoring the brass, he yelled out, “Here he is—he’s back, Mr. Ackroyd is!”
Ackroyd giggled; the technician looked at him, startled. Then the physicist stumbled forward; Shaw gestured the others urgently away. Better, he thought, to let the man do things in his own manner and hope something would click in that disordered mind of his . . . and then suddenly the pathetic little figure lurched heavily into the machine. There was a scream. A scream which tore across the strung-up nerves of every one in the power-house. Ackroyd bounded backward, body curved like a bow, shuddering and twisting; but he didn’t fall. There was a stench, the sharp, acrid smell of burnt flesh and clothing. As the doctor went forward Ackroyd turned. Shaw caught a glimpse of a reddened patch on his chest where the blackened edges of the burnt shirt gaped, and a huge blister forming on one arm, red and angry and bulbous with undischarged liquid.
And then Ackroyd started cursing.
Tears pouring down his face, he screamed out with perfect lucidity every word which those present had ever heard in their lives, together with a great many more that they hadn’t—a stream of back-street abuse which came oddly from the respectable-looking little form.
He broke off to deflect the doctor; he said, “Leave me be, lad, leave me be for a while. I’m okeydoke.” The tears of rage, of pain, still ran down his cheeks. Shaw grabbed the doctor’s arm, pulled him away.
He said, “Leave him, P.M.O. If you don’t let him get on with it he’s going to die anyway—and I believe the shock of that burn has done the trick.”
After that the only sound was the thudding, the dum-da, of the fuel unit. Every one was staring at Ackroyd. Shaw felt the atmosphere like a blow, felt his skin creep. Ackroyd took a pace back and turned towards the machine again. Speaking to one of the mechanics, he said, “Eh, lad, you’ve let ’er over’eat, that’s what.”
The man stared back at him, licked his lips. Shaw signalled urgently to him, and he nodded back understanding^. In a soothing tone he said, “That’s right, Mr Ackroyd, sir. We were waiting for you . . . see, we knew you were the only one who really understands her.”
Ackroyd nodded, frowned. He lurched over to the main control panel, examined the dials. Pursing his lips, he whistled. Somehow he seemed oblivious of his pain now, though it must have racked his body. “Poor old beauty,” he said in a low voice. “She’s just about wore ’erself out, she ’as. We’ll need some spares before she’ll go again.”
He was quite unconcerned; seemingly quite unaware of the danger, though the dials showed the hands hovering on the red mark, even slightly over it. They all held their breath, the men down there. Mr Ackroyd studied the dials again, critically, scratched his head. Hammersley was standing as still as a statue, intent, as it seemed to Shaw, on doing nothing that might rattle Ackroyd. Shaw’s own nerves were jumping just as though he had St Vitus’ Dance and then—very suddenly—it happened. Mr Ackroyd moved two dials on the control panel and AFPU ONE changed its note with shocking abruptness, changed its tempo, its whole dreadful rhythm. The dum-da seemed to speed up, very quickly, became one long, continuous wail, a shrill whistle which filled the enclosed cavern with an unbearable, unearthly din—a shriek from the depths of very hell which reverberated off the rocky walls.
Ackroyd’s body went rigid; for a moment it looked as though he was going to panic, and then he ran to the starting-panel in the side of the fuel unit. The look in his eyes was quite different now. Working swiftly, deftly, he opened the panel, fingers twiddled at knobs and lever. In an automatic motion he put a hand out behind him. He said, “Quick now, lad.” A technician, his fingers shaking badly, passed him a screwdriver. Shaw moved closer, felt the sweat pour off his body. The atmosphere seemed alive now. Ackroyd removed a steel plate with that screwdriver and fumbled about inside —not looking, just feeling—his eyes staring with a frown of concentration, unseeingly, on to the hot, blank side of that shaking, shrieking machine. He was working very swiftly now. When he put his hand out again Shaw slid into it the little sliver of metal with the serrated, semicircular head.
Ackroyd took it. He said briskly, “That’s the ticket, lad, that’s the ticket.”
As they watched Ackroyd slid the metal part into the innards of the starting-mechanism, fiddled about for a little while, then started to screw back the steel plate. He stopped, frowned, moved his knobs and levers again, then once again slid the screwdriver into the grooves of the screw-heads to finish replacing the panel.
The rest of the group stood quite still, as though fascinated into immobility, while that horrible noise shrieked on around them. Suddenly the note altered again. Mr Ackroyd, who was nearly finished with the panel, left it as it was. His hand moved to the little red button.
He pressed it
Shaw heard a loud click, a kind of plop as the cogs and gears—he presumed—engaged. The light on the control-panel began to die away, the hand on the dial dropped back to zero.
AFPU ONE stopped.
As that whistling note died out Mr Ackroyd began to tremble violently, and then seemed to stagger. Turning to the Surgeon-Commander, Shaw said, “All right, doctor. He’s all yours now.”
Shaw found his own body heaving in great unconcerted, uncontrollable jerks as Hammersley quietly picked up the phone and passed the orders cancelling the evacuation, the orders diverting the shipping back to its normal occasions but under escort of the Navy so as to keep up the pretence of the exercise. Shaw felt almost unable to move towards the exit from that awful compartment, and afterwards he remembered nothing at all of the walk and drive back along Dockyard Tunnel to The Convent, nor of the congratulations, nor of being put to bed in The Convent under the care of Lady Hammersley herself.
Next morning the sun came up over a Gibraltar which had subsided into complete normality. During the night all the troops with their lorries and equipment had left those steep, white streets, and the big ships (all except the
Cambridge
, now at the South Mole) had stolen away through the Straits or past Europa, stolen away into the night, and ‘Exercise Convoy’ was ending. The people were quite prepared now to accept that explanation of an ‘exercise’—after all, the Services were always messing about at something like that to keep themselves occupied. There was even a feeling of half-angry anticlimax, and those who had been most anxious before now released their tension in blistering remarks about the Governor—he had caused, they said, quite needless alarm by his realism.
Shaw himself didn’t know a thing more until nearly thirty-six hours later. They’d given him a sedative, of course, and then just let him sleep it off—but even without it, he’d have slept the clock round those three times, he thought. After he woke they told him that Ackroyd had collapsed altogether after leaving the power-house, but he was getting on fairly well now, and it was quite likely that in time he’d forget his experiences enough to regain his full normal capacity. For a start he would be flown home shortly so as to free his mind from local associations, and he’d have expert psychiatric treatment. Meanwhile AFPU ONE was out of action indefinitely, and other experts on nuclear matters were to be given a chance of putting it to rights and of learning all about the thing. Ackroyd’s monopoly was to be broken now; quite right, of course—but Shaw couldn’t help feeling sorry for the little man.
Seven days later Shaw got stiffly out of the Portsmouth train at Waterloo and made for the Underground. It was fairly late in the day, and he decided his visit to the Old Man could wait until next morning. They’d already had his full report by cyphered signal; he’d sent that in during his last days in Gibraltar before embarking for home in the
Cambridge
when Debonnair had seen him off—she wasn’t coming home just yet, as her company’s business, owing to sundry interruptions, hadn’t yet been concluded. Waiting for a train to take him to Charing Cross, where he would change on to the District Line, Shaw grinned to himself as he thought back to that homeward run. Captain Kent-Thomas, of the
Cambridge
, had said, when he’d greeted Shaw on his quarterdeck:
“You again, Shaw, what? Haven’t they
scragged
the Admiralty Inspector?” The large, square form had frowned down at him, hands clasped behind the immense back, face glowering in mock scorn which hadn’t been all that mock. “Bet it was your blasted nose-poking that caused all that damn silly flap and panic the other day.”
Shaw had asked innocently, “Oh? What was that, sir? I must have missed it.”
“Missed it!” Kent-Thomas snorted. “S.N.A.S.O. tells me you’ve been gallivantin’ about in Tangier, so I’m not surprised you missed it.”
“Quite, sir,” Shaw murmured. “It was very nice in Tangier.”
“I’m certain it was. Wine, women, and song.” Kent-
Thomas sniffed. “I’ve been patrolling off Malaga, lookin’ out for some damn’ crook who’s wanted for extradition.” Shaw lifted an eyebrow. “What—-all the time, sir?”
Kent-Thomas flushed. “Don’t be silly. Best part of twenty-four hours.”
“Well, I dare say it made a change. Er . . . did you find him—the crook?”
“No.”
At about six-fifteen Shaw got out of the District Line train at West Kensington station. He crossed over the road at the traffic lights and left-inclined into Gunterstone Road past the gardens in the Gunterstone and Gwendwr Roads intersection. It was so colourful—very colourful and gay. Something about it sent Shaw’s mind racing away from thoughts of the deserted flat which was waiting for him, and which would smell as dank as all places smell when they have been shut up for a time; sent his thoughts racing back to the Plaza Generalisimo Franco in La Linea, which was also a colourful little square; that reminded him once again that he’d have to see Latymer to-morrow. He fumbled in his pocket for his Dr Jenner’s and slid a tablet into his mouth, keeping it to one side so that it would melt slowly as the directions on the packet said. There was a sour taste in his mouth which the tablet soothed; though it couldn’t soothe it right away, for it was partly the sour taste of loathing for his job, of a nameless longing, and of defeat and self-reproach—that reactive feeling he always had except when he was actually on a job. The diplomatic hoo-ha over the boarding of the
Ostrowiec
was still going on, and he felt sorry for Hammersley, though the worst of the fuss was over now. And almost certainly there were things he could have handled better in the last two or three weeks, and he’d get a bawling-out, a bawling-out which wouldn’t stop Latymer giving him another assignment as soon as he’d have a spot of leave.
He gave a deep sigh. He didn’t realize he’d sighed aloud, very much aloud. The typist, who by some wonderful stroke of luck had happened to be on the same train as Shaw, and had pushed up against him in the crush, and was now devotedly dogging his homeward footsteps, heard it. It distressed her. She hadn’t seen the interesting-looking man for seventeen days, and now he looked thinner and more lonely than ever. And his face! It had given her quite a turn, it had really, quite grey and so worried-looking. Starved. It was dreadful. In the tube she’d wanted to stroke his cares away. The typist was inclined to think Mum had been right about him being a musician—he’s been away, probably, for part of the season, at the seaside. Her mind ran on and on . . . Clacton, Blackpool, Ramsgate . . . some dance-hall, or perhaps the pier. They must have worked him very hard, perhaps he hadn’t been able to stand the hours and he’d been given the sack. . . .
She reached home and saw the vague shape of Mum looking out through the net. She stood a moment looking after Shaw until he turned the corner and vanished into Gliddon Road. Then she ran up the steps. To-morrow, perhaps, she’d see him again.