Authors: Alistair MacLean
"I'm afraid Bentall here is of a rather different calibre from your men and our scientists," he said, as if in explanation. "Bentall is, for instance, an excellent actor: no other man has ever fooled me so long or so successfully. Bentall allows himself to be savaged by wild dogs and never shows a sign. Bentall, with one arm out of commission, meets up with two experienced knife-fighters in a darkened cave and kills them both. He is also, for good measure, highly skilled in burning down houses." He shrugged, almost apologetically. "But, then, of course, it requires a very special man to become a member of Britain's Secret Service."
Another peculiar silence, even more peculiar than the one that had gone before. Everybody was looking at their first Secret Service man, and they couldn't have been unduly impressed. With a drawn haggard face like that of a cadaver and a body that looked even more so, I wouldn't have done at all as a subject for a poster to attract fresh recruits to the service. Not, of course, that they used posters. I wondered how on earth Witherspoon had known. The Chinese guard, Hang, had heard us, of course, but he hadn't yet spoken to Witherspoon.
"You
are
a government agent, Bentall, aren't you?" Witherspoon asked softly.
"I'm a scientist," I said, just to see how it would go. "A fuel research technician. Liquid fuel," I added pointedly.
A sign that I didn't see and a guard advanced and pressed his gun-barrel against Captain Griffith's neck.
"Counter-espionage," I said.
"Thank you." The guard fell back. "Honest to goodness plain scientists aren't expert in codes, wireless telegraphy and Morse. You appear to be well versed in all of them, don't you, Bentall?"
I looked at Lieutenant Brookman. "I wonder if you would be kind enough to fix up this arm of mine?"
Witherspoon took a long step towards me. His mouth was as white as the knuckles of the hand that held the malacca cane, but his voice was as unperturbed as ever. "When I'm finished. It may interest you to know that within two minutes of my returning home tonight after the fire a message started coming through on our radio transmitter. From a vessel by the name of the
Pelican,
in which I have a considerable interest."
If it wasn't for the fact that my nervous system seemed to have completely stopped working, I'd probably have jumped a foot. If I'd the strength for any gymnastics like that, which I hadn't. As it was, I didn't move a muscle of my face. The
Pelican!
That had been the first name I'd seen on that list under the blotter, the copied list that now lay between my sock and the sole of my right foot.
"The
Pelican
was listening in on a certain frequency," he continued. "It had instructions to do so. You may imagine the radio operator's astonishment when an S.O.S. started coming through on that frequency, a frequency far removed from the distress channels."
I still didn't move any facial muscles, but it called for no will-power this time, the shock of realization was enough, the shock of appreciating the enormity of my blunder. But it wasn't really my fault. I had had no means of knowing that the 46 in the list I had picked up meant that the
Pelican
and the other ships-probably all the other names were ships' names too-were to begin listening in, to keep a radio watch at forty-six minutes past every hour. And, as nearly as I could remember, I had begun to transmit my first experimental S.O.S., when I was trying to line up the receiver and transmitter, at almost exactly that time and on the pre-set wave-length of Foochow, which just happened to be the transmitting wave-length they were using.
"He was a clever man, this operator," Witherspoon continued. "He lost you, and guessed it was because you had dropped down to the distress frequencies. He found you there and followed you. He heard the name Vardu mentioned twice, and knew something was far wrong. He copied down letter for letter your signal to the
Annandale.
And then he waited ten minutes and called back."
I was still giving my impression of one of the statues on Easter Island, carved from stone and badly battered. This wasn't the end, this wasn't necessarily the end. But it was the end, I knew it was.
" 'combo ridex london'-the telegraphic address of the chief of your service, wasn't it, Bentall?" he asked. It seemed unlikely that I could convince him that all I had been doing was sending a birthday message to my Aunt Myrtle in Putney, so I nodded. "I guessed so. And I thought it might be rather useful if I sent a message myself. While Hewell-who bad now discovered you were missing-and his men were already pickaxeing away 'what was left of the tunnel, I composed a second message. I had no idea, of course, what your coded message had been, but the one I sent to 'combo ridex london' should meet the case. I sent: 'please disregard PREVIOUS MESSAGE EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL ESSENTIAL YOU DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CONTACT ME FORTY EIGHT hours no time code', and took the liberty of adding your name. Do you think that will meet the case, Bentall?"
I said nothing. There was nothing I could say. I looked round the faces at the table, but no one was looking at me any more, they were almost all staring down at their hands. I glanced in Marie's direction, but even she wasn't looking at me. I'd been born in the wrong time and place, I should have been in Rome two thousand years ago and toppling slowly forward on to my sword. I thought of the nasty big hole a sword would make and then, by association of ideas, of the nasty big holes in my upper left arm, so I said to Wither-spoon: "Would you permit Surgeon-Lieutenant Brookman to fix up my arm now?"
He looked at me long and consideringly, then said quietly: "I could almost regret that life has placed us on opposite sides of the fence. I can well understand why your chief sent you on this mission: you are a highly dangerous man."
"I'm better than that," I said. "I'm a lucky man. I'll carry your coffin yet."
He looked at me for a brief moment, then turned to Brookman. "Fix this man's arm."
"Thank you, Professor Witherspoon," I said politely.
"LeClerc," he said indifferently. "Not Witherspoon. That babbling old idiot has served his purpose."
Brookman made a good job. He opened and cleaned the wounds with something that felt like a wire brush, stitched them up neatly, covered them all with aluminium foil and bandage, fed me a variety of pills then, for good measure, jabbed me a couple of times with a hypodermic syringe. Had I been alone I'd have put any dancing dervish to shame but I felt I'd done damage enough to future Secret Service recruitment so I kept reasonably still. By the time he was finished the room itself was beginning to go into a dancing dervish routine, so I thanked Brookman and without a by-your-leave made shakily for the table and sat down heavily opposite Captain Griffiths. Witherspoon-or LeClerc, as I had to think of him now-sat beside me.
"You feel better, Bentall?"
"I couldn't feel worse. If there's a hell for dogs I hope that damned hound of yours is roasting."
"Quite. Who is the senior scientist among those present, Captain Griffiths?"
"What damnable evil are you up to now?" the grey-haired man demanded.
"I won't repeat the question, Captain Griffiths," LeClerc said mildly. His misted white eyes flickered for a moment in the direction of the dead man collapsed on the table.
"Hargreaves," Griffiths said wearily. He glanced in the direction of the sound of the voices behind the closed doors of the P.O.'s mess. "Must you, LeClerc? He's only just met his wife for the first time in many months. He won't be fit to answer anything. There's not much going on that I don't know. I'm the man in overall charge, you understand, not Hargreaves."
LeClerc considered, then said: "Very well. In what state of readiness is the Black Shrike?"
"Is that all you want to know?"
"That's all."
"The Black Shrike is completely ready in every respect except for the wiring up and fusing of the firing circuitry."
"Why wasn't this done?"
"Because of the disappearance of Dr. Fairfield..." I tried to focus on Captain Griffith's face among the kaleidoscopic whirl of people and furniture and dimly realised that it was only now that Griffiths was beginning to understand why Fairfield had disappeared. He stared at LeClerc for long moments, then whispered huskily: "My God! Of course, of course."
"Yes, of course," LeClerc snapped. "But I didn't mean that. Why was the circuitry and fusing not finished earlier. I understand that the loading of the propellant charge was completed over a month ago."
"How-how in heaven's name do you know that?"
"Answer my question."
"Fairfield feared that the propellant mixture might show inherent instability in very hot weather and regarded that as sufficient risk in itself without the additional risk of fusing it." Griffiths rubbed a sun-tanned hand across his damp and bleeding face. "You should know that no projectile or missile, from a two-pounder to a hydrogen bomb, is ever fused until the last possible moment."
"How long did Fairfield say the fusing would take?"
"I once heard him mention a period of forty minutes."
LeClerc said softly: "You're lying, Captain. I know the great virtue of the Shrike is that it can be fired instantaneously."
"That is so. In time of war or tension it would be permanently fused. But we are as yet not quite certain as to the inherent stability of the propellant."
"Forty minutes?"
"Forty minutes."
LeClerc turned to me. "You heard. Forty minutes."
"I heard bits of it," I mumbled. "I'm not hearing very well."
"You are feeling sick?"
"Sick?" I tried to stare at him in vast surprise, but I couldn't find his face anywhere. "Why should I be feeling sick?"
"You could fuse this, Bentall?"
"I'm a specialist in liquid fuel," I said with difficulty.
"I know differently." I could see his face now, because he'd stuck it within three inches of mine. "You were Fairfield's assistant at the Hepworth Ordnance Branch. You worked on solid fuel. I
know."
"You know an awful lot."
"Can you fuse this?" he persisted quietly.
"Whisky," I said. "I need a drink of whisky."
"Oh, my God!" He followed this up with some more language, most of which I fortunately couldn't catch, then called to one of his men. I suppose lie Chinese must have gone to the officers' mess, for a few moments later someone was putting a glass in my hand. I gazed blearily at it, a hefty three fingers in a tumbler, and put it all away in a couple of gulps. When I'd stopped coughing and wiped the tears away from my eyes, I found I could see almost as good as ever. LeClerc touched my arm.
"Well, what's the answer? Can you fuse up the Shrike?"
"I wouldn't even know how to start."
"You're ill," LeClerc said kindly. "You don't know what you're saying. What you need is some sleep."
CHAPTER TEN
Friday 10 A.M.-1 P.M.
I slept for two hours. When I awoke the sun was high in the sky and Dr. Hargreaves, the hypersonics specialist, was shaking me gently by the shoulder. At least he thought he was shaking me gently, it was probably the fact that I had a blanket drawn over me that caused him to forget that he shouldn't have been shaking me by the left shoulder. I told him to be more careful, he looked hurt, maybe it was the way I said it, and then I pushed back the blanket and sat up. I felt stiff and sore practically everywhere, my shoulder and arm throbbed savagely, but much of the tiredness was gone and my head was clear again. Which, of course, was what LeClerc had wanted, you can't have a man fusing and wiring up the complicated circuitry on a propellant with the disruptive potential of a hundred tons of high explosive if he's peering, fumbling and staggering around with exhaustion like a drunken man. From time to time I have cherished my share of illusions but one which I didn't cherish was that LeClerc had finished with me.
Hargreaves looked pale and distressed and unhappy. I didn't wonder. His re-union with his wife couldn't have been a very happy one, the circumstances hadn't been very favourable and the immediate prospects even less so. I wondered what they had done with Marie, whether they had put her in with the other women, and when I asked him he said they had.
I looked around the tiny hut. It was no more than eight by eight, with racks along the walls and a tiny steel-meshed window above my head. I seemed to remember vaguely that someone had mentioned that it used to be the small arms and ammunition storage shed, but I couldn't be sure, I'd just dropped on to the canvas cot they'd brought in and gone to sleep instantly. I looked at Hargreaves again.
"What's been going on? Since this morning, I mean?"
"Questions," he said tiredly. "Questions all the time. They interviewed my colleagues, myself and the naval officers separately, then they split-us up and separated us from our wives. We're all over the place now, two or three to a hut."
LeClerc's psychology was easy to understand. With the scientists and naval officers broken into tiny groups, agreement on a concerted plan of resistance or revolt would be impossible: and with the scientists separated from their wives and in a consequent and continuous state of fear and anxiety over their welfare, their cooperation with LeClerc would be absolute.
"What did he want to see you about?" I asked.
"Lots of things." He hesitated and looked away. "Mainly about the rocket, how much did any of us know about the fusing. At least that's what he asked me. I can't speak for the others."
"Do you-do any of them know anything about it?"
"Only the general principles. Each one of us knows the general principles of the various components. We have to. But that doesn't even begin to be enough when it comes to the complex particulars." He smiled wanly. "Any of us could probably blow the whole thing to kingdom come."
"There's a chance of that?"
"No one has ever given a guarantee on an experimental rocket."
"Hence the blockhouse-that sunken concrete shelter to the north?"
"The test firing was to have been carried out from there. Just a first-time precaution. It's also why they placed the scientists' quonset so far away from the hangar."