The Dark Crusader

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I'd said to LeClerc that I could close up the wiring circuitry and fuse the Black Shrike in fifteen minutes. In point of fact it took me exactly an hour. Bentall wrong as usual, but this time it wasn't Bentall's fault.

It wasn't my fault because my arm and face hurt so violently that it was impossible to concentrate on the job. It wasn't my fault that I was mad with anger, that my vision was so blurred and indistinct that I could scarcely decipher my own notes, that my right hand-I did practically everything with my right hand-was shaking so badly that I had great difficulty in adjusting the time clock, in feeding cables through their allotted grooves, in fitting the fuses into place in the bases of the solid fuel cylinders: it wasn't my fault that, when arming the sixty pound disruptive charge, my sweating hand dropped a fulminate of mercury, detonator that went up with so white a flash and so loud an explosion that it was touch and go whether Hewell, who was supervising the operation, pressed the trigger of the pistol he had lined up on me.

And it wasn't my fault that LeClerc had insisted that I work on both rockets at once, or that I was hindered by the fact that he had appointed Hargreaves and another scientist by the name of Williams to check on every move and write it down in their notebooks. One on either side of me on the narrow gantry platforms, they got in my way with nearly every move I made.

I could see the logic of LeClerc's insistence on the simultaneous wiring. He'd certainly warned Hargreaves and Williams that if they as much as spoke to each other they would be shot and probably warned that the same thing would happen to their wives if their notes did not compare exactly at the end of the day. Thus, if the first firing of the Shrike was a success and the compared notes for the wiring up of both rockets were absolutely the same, then he would have a guarantee that the second rocket would also be perfectly wired.

The simultaneous wiring, of course, also served notice of sentence of death on me. Had he been intending to take me with him along with the others, he would hardly have had me wire up both rockets at once, especially in view of the urgency: the most recent message from the Neckar spoke of seas so high that there was a possibility of having to abandon the test. Not that I needed any notice of this sentence. I wondered when I was slated to die. Immediately after I had finished the wiring or later, along with Captain Griffiths and his men, after the scientists and their wives had been embarked? Later, I thought, even LeClerc wasn't likely to embark on a blood bath with so many witnesses watching. But I wouldn't have spent a penny to gamble on it.

A few minutes before two o'clock I said to Hewell: "Where are the keys for the destruct box?"

"Are you all ready to go?" he asked. The last move before the rockets were in final firing order was to make the switches in both the propellant and destruction systems, but the switch for the latter that completed the circuit to the 60 Ib. T.N.T. charge couldn't be made without a key which operated a safety lock on the handle of the switch.

"Not quite. The switch in the suicide box is sticking. I want to have a look at it."

"Wait I'll get LeClerc." He left, leaving a watchful Chinese in charge, and was back with LeClerc inside a minute.

"What's the hold-up now?" LeClerc demanded impatiently.

"Two minutes. Have you the key?"

He signalled for the lift to be lowered, told the two scientists with their notebooks to get off, then climbed up beside me. When we regained working height he said suspiciously: "What's the trouble? Thinking of pulling the last minute fast one of a desperate man?"

"Try the switch yourself," I snapped. "It won't move across."

"It's not supposed to move more than halfway before the key is turned," he said angrily.

"It won't even move at all. Try it for yourself and see."

He tried it, moved it less than a quarter inch, nodded and handed me the key. I unlocked the switch, undid the four butterfly nuts that held the switch-cover in position and as I eased the switch-cover off over the switch I managed to dislodge with the tip of my screwdriver the copper core of a piece of flex which I'd forced in between switch and cover to make the former stick. The switch itself was of the common type with the spring-loaded rocker arm where, when the switch handle was pushed over to the right the two copper lugs jumped over from the two dead terminals on the right to the live terminals on the left. As quickly as my blurred vision and shaky right hand would permit I unscrewed the central rocker arm, lifted out the switch, pretended to straighten out the copper lugs and then screwed the switch back in place.

"Fault in design," I said briefly. "Probably the same in the other." LeClerc nodded, said nothing, just watched carefully as I replaced the cover and nicked the switch from side to side several times to demonstrate how easily it worked.

"All finished?" LeClerc asked.

"Not yet. I've got to set the timing clock on the other one."

"That can wait, I want this one on its way-now." He looked up to where Farley and an assistant were fussing around with the automatic guidance and target location systems. "What the hell's keeping him?"

"Nothing's keeping him," I said. Farley and I made a pair, both of us with great red and purple welts down the left hand sides of our faces: his was even more angry-looking and rainbow hued than mine, but that was only because it had had more time to develop: give me twenty-four hours and nobody would even notice his. Twenty-four hours. I wondered who would give me twenty-four hours. "He finished days ago," I went on. "He's just a last minute fusser, wondering if he turned all the taps off before he left home."

If I pushed LeClerc hard enough, I mused, he might break his neck on the concrete floor ten feet beneath: on the other hand he might not, and then I wouldn't have twenty-four seconds left me, far less twenty-four hours. Besides, Hewell had his cannon pointing at me.

"Good. Then we are ready to go." LeClerc turned the key in the switch cover, pushed the switch to the 'Armed' position, withdrew the key and closed and locked the door of the rocket. The lift sunk down to the ground and LeClerc beckoned to one of the guards. "Go tell the wireless operator to send a message. Firing in twenty minutes."

"So where now, LeClerc?" I asked. "The blockhouse?"

He looked at me coldly.

"So that you can hide there in safety while the rocket blows itself up because of some fix you made on it?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about you, Bentall. I have no illusions. You are a highly dangerous man." Sure I was dangerous, but only to my friends and myself. "You have the ability to jinx the firing mechanism so that only you would know. Surely you were not so naive as to imagine that I would overlook the possibility? You, the scientists and naval men will remain out here in the open while the rocket is being fired. They are already assembled. We shall go to the blockhouse."

I swore at him, violently and viciously. He smiled.

"So you had overlooked the possibility that I would take precaution?"

"Leave men out in the open, you damned murderer. You can't do that, LeClerc!"

"Can't I now?" The slaty milky eyes stared into mine, as he went on softly: "Perhaps you have jinxed it, Bentall?"

"I've done damn all of the kind," I shouted. "It's just that this solid fuel is inherently unstable. Read Dr. Fairfield's notes and you'll see that. No one really knows what's going to happen. The fuel has never been tried before on this scale. Damn you to hell. LeClerc, if that thing goes up not a single man within half a mile has the ghost of a chance of survival."

"Exactly," he smiled. He smiled, but I became gradually aware that he wasn't feeling like smiling. His hands were out of sight in his pockets, but I could see they were knotted into fists: he had a nervous tic at the corner of his mouth and he was sweating more than the heat of the sun justified. This, for LeClerc, was the most crucial moment of all, the moment when all could be won or all could be lost. He didn't know just how ruthless I could be, he suspected I'd go to the limit and stick at nothing, that I'd even sacrifice innocent lives to stop him, after all I'd already told him that he could shoot every officer and seaman on the base as far as I was concerned. Maybe he thought I wouldn't be so willing to sacrifice my own life, but he wouldn't lay too much stress on that, he knew that I knew that I was going to die anyway. All his staggering plans, his hopes and his fears depended on the next few moments, would the Black Shrike take off or would it blow itself to bits and all his schemes and dreams along with it. He had no means of knowing. He had to gamble, he just had to gamble: but if he gambled and was wrong at least he wasn't going to let me know the satisfaction of winning.

We walked round the corner of the hangar. A hundred yards away, sitting in two ragged rows on the ground, were the naval and scientific personnel of the base. But no women, I couldn't see any women. Two Chinese were standing guard with automatic carbines at the ready.

I said: "How do the guards feel about having to stay there when the rocket is fired?"

"They don't; they come to the blockhouse."

"And do you seriously imagine we're just going to keep on sitting there like good little boys once the guards are gone?"

"You'll sit there," he said indifferently. "I have seven women in the blockhouse. If one of you stirs, they get it. I mean it."

The last three words were completely superfluous. He meant it all right. I said: "Seven women? Where is Miss Hopeman?"

"In the armoury."

I didn't ask why he hadn't shifted her also-I knew the bitter answer to that, she was probably either still unconscious or too unwell to be moved-and I didn't ask that she should be moved. If the Black Shrike exploded she would have no more chance than we had, the armoury was less than a hundred yards from the hangar, but better that way than to survive in the blockhouse.

I sat down at the end of one of the rows of men, Farley beside me. Nobody looked at me, everyone was staring fixedly at the doors of the hangar waiting for the Black Shrike to emerge.

They hadn't long to wait. Thirty seconds after LeClerc and Hewell had left us the two big gantry cranes with the Black Shrike between them rumbled slowly into view. Two of the technicians were at the controls of the gantries. The bogies of the gantries were spanned by two connecting bars that spanned the rocket bogie, so ensuring that the gantry clamps holding the Black Shrike remained in exactly the same relative positions. After about thirty seconds the bogies stopped, leaving the Black Shrike planted exactly in the centre of the concrete launching pad. The two technicians jumped down, removed the connecting bars and, at a gesture from one of the Chinese, came and sat beside us. Everything was now radio-controlled. The guards themselves left for the blockhouse at a dead run.

"Well," Farley said heavily. "A grandstand seat. The murderous devil."

"Where's your scientific spirit?" I asked. "Don't you want to see if the damn thing works?"

He glared at me and turned away. After a moment he said significantly: "My part of it will work, anyway. It's not that I'm worried about."

"Don't blame me if it blows up," I said. "I'm only the electrician around here."

"We can discuss it later on a higher plane," he said with heavy humour. "What are the chances, you think?"

"Dr. Fairfield thought it would work. That's good enough for me. I just hope you haven't crossed any wires and that it doesn't come down straight on top of us."

"It won't." He seemed glad to talk as everybody around seemed glad to talk, the strain of just sitting and waiting in silence was too much. "Worked before, often. Never a failure. Our latest infra-red guidance system is foolproof. Locks on a star and stays there."

"I can't see any stars. It's broad daylight."

"No," Farley said patiently. "But the infra-red cell can. Heat detection. Wait and see, Bentall, 1,000 miles and it will be bang on target to a yard. To a yard, I tell you."

"Yes? How's anybody going to pinpoint a yard in the South Pacific?"

"Well, eight foot by six," he conceded magnanimously. "A magnesium raft. When the rocket re-enters the atmosphere the stellar navigation unit is switched off and an infra-red homer in the nose takes over. The rocket is designed to home in on a heat source. A ship, of course, especially a ship's funnel, is also a heat source, so a magnesium raft, a source of tremendous heat, will be ignited by the Neckar's radio ninety seconds before the missile arrives. The rocket will make for the greater source of heat."

"I hope so for the Neckar's sake. Just too bad if they're ninety seconds late in igniting the raft."

"They won't be. A radio signal is sent from here when the rocket leaves." He paused. "Well, if it leaves. The Shrike will take exactly three and a half minutes for the flight, so they ignite two minutes after receiving the signal."

But I was hardly listening to him any more. LeClerc, Hewell and the last of the guards had disappeared behind the blockhouse. I looked away, over the shining sands and the green gleam of the glass-smooth lagoon and stiffened abruptly as I saw a vessel about four miles out heading for a break in the reef. I didn't stay stiff long, this wasn't any knight-errant naval vessel coming to the rescue, it was that intrepid navigator Captain Fleck, coming to collect his wages. Hargreaves had mentioned that he was expected that afternoon. I thought about Captain Fleck, and I thought that if I were in his shoes I'd be steering my schooner in the diametrically opposite direction and putting as many sea-miles as possible between myself and LeClerc. But then Captain Fleck didn't know what I knew, or I was reasonably certain he didn't. Captain Fleck, I thought, a shock awaits you.

I twisted round as the rumble of bogie wheels came to my ears. The two gantry cranes, weirdly unmanned and controlled by radio, were moving slowly away in opposite directions, withdrawing their top clamps and leaving the Shrike supported only by the extensible clamps still gripping its base. Ten seconds to go, perhaps less. No one was talking any more, finding a suitable conversational topic when you've perhaps only eight seconds left to live isn't a thing that many people have had practice in.

The big high-speed turbine induction fans near the nose of the Shrike whined abruptly into life, two seconds to go, one, everybody rigid as stone and with eyes half-closed against the shattering shock they would never feel, the base clamps leapt apart, a single thunderclap of sound and a great seething ball of orange flame appeared at the foot of the Shrike, completely enveloping the bogie. Slowly, incredibly slowly, the Shrike lifted off the ground, the ball of orange flame riding up with it, and now the echoes of the thunderclap were replaced by a steady continuous roar, terrifying in its intensity, battering at our shrinking eardrums like the close-up thunder of giant jet engines, as a fifty-foot long brilliant red tongue of flame pierced the flaming sphere at the base of the rocket and lifted the Black Shrike on its way. Still it climbed slowly, unbelievably slowly, it seemed that it must topple over at any moment, then at 150 feet another violent explosion as the second set of fuel cylinders ignited, the Shrike doubled its rate of climb, a third explosion about 600 feet and then it began to accelerate at fantastic speed. At about five or six thousand feet it turned over abruptly and headed south-east on a trajectory that seemed almost to parallel the surface of the sea, and within eight seconds was completely lost to sight with nothing to show that it had ever been except the acrid stink of the burnt fuel, the flame-blackened bogie and the thick white trail of its exhaust which stretched bar-straight across the hot blue sky.

By this time my chest was hurting me, so I started breathing again.

"Well, it works!" Farley smacked a fist into a palm in grinning exultation. He gave a long tremulous sigh of satisfaction, he'd been without oxygen even longer than I had. "It works, Bentall, it works!"

"Of course it works. I never expected anything else." I rose stiffly to my feet, rubbing the wet palms of my hands against my drills, and crossed over to where Captain Griffiths sat with his officers. "Enjoy the show, Captain?"

He studied me coldly, not bothering to hide the dislike, the contempt in his eyes, and glanced at the left side of my face.

"LeClerc seems to like using his cane, doesn't he?" he asked.

"It's just an addiction he's got."

"And so you collaborated with him." He looked me up and down with all the enthusiasm of an art collector who's been promised a Cezanne and finds a comic coloured postcard in front of him. "I didn't think you would, Bentall."

"Sure, I collaborated with them," I agreed. "No moral fibre at all. But the court-martial can wait, Captain Griffiths." I sat down, pulled off shoe and sock, removed a paper from its plastic cover, smoothed out the creases and handed it to him. "What do you make of this? Quickly, please. I found it in LeClerc's office and I'm certain it's in some way connected with his plans for shipping the second Shrike to its destination. Nautical stuff isn't in my line."

He took the paper reluctantly as I said: "The Pelican's a ship, we know that, because LeClerc himself told us. I suspect the others are too."

"Pelican-Takishamaru 20007815" Captain Griffiths read. 'Takishamaru is a Japanese ship name, no doubt about that. Linkiang-Hawetta 10346925. Probably all ships' names. All paired. Now, what would that be for. The numbers, always eight numbers." He was getting interested. "Times, could they be times? 2000 could be 8 p.m., none of the first four numbers go higher than twenty-four. But the second four do. References of some kind. Ships, eh? Now what kind of references-" His voice trailed off, I could see his lips moving, then he said slowly: "I think I have it. No, I know I have it."

"2000 is twenty point oh-oh. Latitude twenty degrees south. 7815 stands for 178.15 degrees east. Together they give a position less than fifty miles west of here." He studied the paper in silence for almost a minute while I looked over my shoulder to see if there was any sign of LeClerc approaching: there was none, he would be waiting to hear from the Neckar about the success of the firing.

"They're all lat. and long, positions," Griffiths said finally. "It's difficult to be sure without a chart but I could be fairly certain that if those positions were plotted they would represent a north-east curve from here to some position off the Chinese or Formosan coasts. I should imagine those ships- pairs of ships, rather-will be located on those positions, I should also imagine they would have the duty of escorting the vessel carrying the rocket, or keeping a lookout or seeing that the road is clear. LeClerc would have taken precautions, I imagine, against the premature discovery of the fact that the rocket had been stolen."

"They would be armed, those ships, you think?" I said slowly.

"Highly unlikely." He was an intelligent incisive old bird with a mind that matched his sharp speech. "It would have to be concealed arms, and no amount of concealed arms would be a match for any searching warship which would be the only thing they would have to fear."

"They might be radar-equipped vessels, searching the sea and air for fifty, a hundred miles round?"

"They might. They probably would be."

"But wouldn't this ship carrying the rocket be equipped with its own radar?"

Captain Griffiths handed me back the paper.

"It won't be," he said positively. "LeClerc is the kind of man who will always succeed because he takes precautions elaborate to the point almost of the ridiculous. Almost, I say. This paper is of no use to you, even if you could act on the information enclosed. Those vessels are almost certainly screen vessels which will travel some miles in advance and in the rear of the vessel carrying the rocket. At various points they will turn this vessel over to another pair, if air searchers saw the same two ships going in the same direction the same distance apart for days on end they'd start getting suspicious."

"But-wait a moment, Captain, my mind-it's just about stopped." I wasn't joking at that, the heat of the sun and the fact that my wounds hadn't been treated since I'd been knocked about in the blockhouse made my head reel dizzily. "Yes. But what happens if some warship or aircraft does come on the scene. You can detect them with radar but you can't shoot them down with radar. What does the vessel with the Black Shrike do then?"

"It submerges," Griffiths said simply. "It will be a submarine, it's bound to be a submarine. Enlarge the loading hatch and practically any submarine in service could carry the Shrike in its for'ard torpedo room. The screen vessels will enable it to travel on the surface at top speed. If anything happens it just submerges and proceeds at much lower speeds. But it'll get there. A hundred naval ships equipped with Asdic could search for a year and never locate just one solitary sub loose in the Pacific. I think you can take it for granted, Bentall, that if that rocket leaves the island we will never see it again."

"Thank you very much, Captain Griffiths." No question, he had the final truth of it. I pushed myself wearily to my feet, like an old old man making his final attempt to leave his death-bed, tore the paper into pieces and let them fall on the thin sun-browned grass. I looked in the direction of the blockhouse and could see several figures just appearing from the back. Out at sea Fleck was coming in through the gap in the reef.

"One more request, Captain Griffiths. When LeClerc returns ask him if you and your men can remain out in the open for the remainder of the day, in the fresh air instead of baking in those corrugated iron huts. It's likely they'll soon start encasing the other rocket"-I pointed to the two twenty-foot steel boxes with the built in cradles in the hangar- "ready for shipment, and point out the fact that it would then need only one guard to look after you instead of the four or five required to watch the doors and windows if you're locked up in the huts, so releasing more of his men for the work. Give him your word there will be no trouble. If the test went well, he'll be in a good mood and likely to grant your request."

"Why do you want this, Bentall?" The dislike was back in his voice.

"I don't want LeClerc to see me talking to you. If you want to live, do as I say." I wandered aimlessly off to inspect the extent of the damage caused by the rocket leaving the launching pad. Two minutes later, out of the corner of my eye, I saw LeClerc and Griffiths speaking to one another, and then LeClerc and Hewell came towards me. LeClerc was looking almost jovial, the way a man is apt to look when he sees his greatest dream coming true.

"So you didn't jinx it after all, did you, Bentall?" He obviously didn't want to embarrass me by showing too much gratitude for the job I'd done.

"No, I didn't jinx it." But I'll jinx the other one, Mr. LeClerc, oh, brother, how 111 jinx the other one. "Successful?"

"Completely. Absolutely on target-after a thousand miles. Right, Bentall, finish off the other one."

"I want to see Miss Hopeman first."

He stopped being jovial.

"I said finish it off. I mean finish it off."

"I want to see Miss Hopeman first. Five minutes. No more, I promise you. Either that or wire up your own damn rocket. See how long it takes you."

"Why do you want to see her?"

"Mind your own damned business."

He looked at Hewell, who gave an all but imperceptible nod.

"Very well. But five minutes. Five minutes only. You understand?" He handed a guard the key and gestured us on our way.

The guard unlocked the door of the armoury and let me in. I closed the door behind me, not worrying whether I was hurting his feelings.

The room was in near darkness, with its shutters drawn. Marie was lying in a cot in the corner, the same cot as I had slept in that morning. I crossed over and sunk to my knees by the side of the cot.

"Marie," I said softly. I shook her shoulder with a gentle hand. "Marie. It's me. Johnny."

She must have been in deep sleep and she took some time to come out of it. Finally she stirred and twisted round under the blanket. All I could see was the pale blur of the face, the sheen of the eyes.

"Who-who is it?"

"It's me, Marie-it's Johnny."

She didn't answer so I repeated my words, my face and mouth and jaws were so stiff and sore that perhaps she couldn't catch my thick mumble.

"I'm tired," she murmured. "I'm so very tired. Please leave me."

"I'm terribly sorry, Marie. Honest to God, I could shoot myself. I thought they were bluffing Marie, I really thought they were bluffing." Again no answer, so I went on: "What did they do to you, Marie? For God's sake tell me what they did to you?"

She murmured something, I couldn't catch it, then said in a low voice: "I'm all right. Please go away."

"Marie! Look at me!"

She gave no sign that she had heard.

"Marie! Look at me. Johnny Bentall on his knees." I tried to laugh, but it was only a froglike croak, a frog with bronchitis at that. "I love you, Marie. That's why I fused up their damned rocket, that's why I'd fuse up a hundred rockets, that's why I'd do anything in the world, anything that's right, anything that's wrong, just so no harm would ever come to you again. I love you, Marie. I've been so long in seeing it but you should know by now what to expect from a fool like me. I love you and if we ever come home again I want to marry you. Would you marry me, Marie? When we get home?"

There was a long silence, then she said softly: "Marry you? After you let them-please leave me, Johnny. Please leave me now. I'll marry someone who loves me, not someone-" She broke off and then finished huskily: "Please. Now."

I rose heavily to my feet and went to the door. I opened it and let the light flood into the room. A shaft of light from the westering sun illuminated the bed, the fair shining hair spread on the rolled-up coat that serves as a pillow, the great hazel eyes in the pale and exhausted face. I looked at her for a long long moment, I looked until I couldn't bear to look any longer, I'd never more shed tears for the martyrs who went to the stake, it was all too easy. I looked at the only person I'd ever loved and as I turned away, Bentall the tough guy to the end, not wanting even his Marie to see the tears in his eyes, I heard her shocked whisper: "Dear God, oh, dear God! Your face!"

"It'll do," I said. "It won't have to last me a great deal longer. I'm sorry, Marie. I'm sorry."

I closed the door behind me. The guard took me straight to the hangar and luck was with me and LeClerc, for I did not meet him on the way. Hewell was waiting for me, with Hargreaves and Williams, both with their notebooks at the ready. I got onto the lift without being told, the other two followed and we started work.

First I opened the junction box on the inside of the outer casing and adjusted the timing devices on the rotary clock, then, checking that the hand-operated switch on the destruct box was locked at 'Safe', I took a quick look at the second break in the suicide circuit, the solenoid switch directly above the timing device. The solenoid, normally activated when its enveloping coil was energised, was held back by a fairly stout spring which required, as a quick tug informed me, about a pound and a half of pressure to close. I left the box open, the lid hanging downwards and secured by a couple of butterfly nuts, then again turned my attention to the destruct box: when pretending to check the action of the switch I did the same as I had done on the first Shrike, forced a small piece of wire between switch and cover. Then I called down to Hewell.

"Have you the key for the destruct box? Switch stuck."

I needn't have bothered with the wire. He said: "Yeah, I have it. Boss said we might expect trouble with this one too. Here, catch."

I opened the cover, unscrewed the switch, pretended to adjust it, replaced it and screwed home the rocker arm. But before I'd replaced it I'd turned it through 180°, so that the brass lugs were in a reversed position. The switch was so small, my hands so completely covered it that neither Hargreaves nor Williams saw what I was doing: nor had they any reason, to expect anything amiss, this was exactly, they thought, the same as they had seen me doing on the destruct box in the other rocket. I replaced the cover, shoved the lever to the safe position: and now the destruct box was armed and it only awaited the closing of the solenoid switch to complete the suicide circuit. Normally, the switch would be closed by radio signal, by pressing the EGADS button in the launch console. But it could also be done by hand…

I said to Hewell: "Right, here's the key."

"Not quite so fast," he growled. He signalled for the lift to be brought down for him, rode up to the open door and took the key from me. Then he tried the destruct box switch, checked that it was impossible to move it more than half-way towards 'Armed', let it spring back to the 'Safe' position, nodded, pocketed the key and said: "How much longer?"

"Couple of minutes. Final clock settings and buttoning up."

The lift whined downwards again, Hewell stepped off, and on the way up I murmured to Hargreaves and Williams: "Stop writing, both of you." The hum of the electric motor covered my words and it wasn't any trick to speak without moving my lips, the left hand side of my mouth was now so puffed and swollen that movement was almost impossible anyway.

I leaned inside the door, the cord I'd torn from the blind concealed in my hand. To fasten one end of the cord to the solenoid should have taken maybe ten seconds but my hand was shaking so badly, my vision and coordination so poor that it took me almost two minutes. Then I straightened and started to close the door with my left hand while the cord ran out through the fingers of my right. When only a four-inch crack remained between the door and the outer casing of the rocket, I peered inside-the watching Hewell must have had the impression that I had one hand on either side of the door handle, trying to ease its stiffness. It took only three seconds for my right hand to drop a round turn and two half hitches round the inner handle, men the door was shut, the key turned and the job finished.

The first man to open that door more than four inches, with a pressure of more than a pound and a half, would trigger off the suicide charge and blow the rocket to pieces. If the solid fuel went up in sympathetic detonation, as Dr. Fairfield had suspected it would, he would also blow himself to pieces and everything within half a mile. In either case I hoped the man who would open it would be LeClerc himself.

The lift sank down and I climbed wearily to the ground. Through the open doors of the hangar I could see the scientists and some of the sailors sitting and lying about the shore, an armed guard walking up and down about fifty yards from them.

"Giving the condemned boys their last few hours of sunshine, eh?" I asked Hewell.

"Yeah. Everything buttoned up?"

"All fixed." I nodded towards the group. "Mind if I join them? I could do with some fresh air and sunshine myself."

"You wouldn't be thinking of starting something?"

"What the hell could I start?" I demanded wearily. "Do I look fit to start anything?"

"It's God's truth you don't," he admitted. "You can go. You two"-this to Hargreaves and Williams-"the boss wants to compare your notes."

I made my way down to the shore. Some of the Chinese were man-handling the metal casing for the rocket on to a couple of bogies, with about a dozen sailors helping them under gun-point. Reck was just tying up at the end of the pier, his schooner looked even more filthy than I remembered it. On the sands, Captain Griffiths was sitting some little way apart from the others. I lay on the sand not six feet away from him, face down on the sand, my head pillowed on my right forearm. I felt awful.

Griffiths was the first to speak. "Well, Bentall, I suppose you've just wired up the other rocket for them?" He wouldn't win many friends talking to people in that tone of voice.

"Yes, Captain Griffiths, I've wired it up. I've booby-trapped it so that the first man to open the door of the Black Shrike will blow the rocket out of existence. That's why I did so good a job on the other rocket, this is now the only one left. They were also going to shoot you and every other sailor on the base through the back of the head and torture Miss Hopeman. I was too late to stop them from getting at Miss Hopeman."

There was a long pause, I wondered if he had managed to understand my slurred speech, then he said quietly: "I'm so damnably sorry, my boy. I'll never forgive myself."

"Put a couple of your men on watch," I said. "Tell them to warn us if LeClerc or Hewell or any of the guards approach. Then you just sit there, staring out at sea. Speak to me as little as possible. No one will see me speaking in this position."

Five minutes later I'd finished telling Griffiths exactly what LeClerc had told me he planned to do after they had the Black Shrike in production. When I was finished he was quiet for almost a minute.

"Well?" I asked.

"Fantastic," he murmured. "It's utterly unbelievable!"

"Isn't it? It's fantastic. But is it feasible, Captain Griffiths?"

"It's feasible," he said heavily. "Dear God, it's feasible."

"That's what I thought. So you think booby-trapping this rocket-well, it's justifiable, you think?"

"How do you mean, Bentall?"

"When they get the Black Shrike to wherever it's going," I said, still talking into the sand, "they're not going to take it out to any remote launching field. They're going to take it to some factory, almost certainly in some heavily populated industrial area, to strip it down for examination. If this solid fuel goes up with the T.N.T. I don't like to think how many hundreds of people, mainly innocent people, will be killed."

"I don't like to think how many millions would be killed in a nuclear war," Griffiths said quietly. "The question of justification doesn't enter into it. The only question is-will the batteries powering the suicide circuit last?"

"Nickel cadmium nife cells. They're good for six months, maybe even a year. Look, Captain Griffiths, I'm not just telling you all this just to put you in the picture or to hear myself talking. It hurts me even to open my mouth. I'm telling you because I want you to tell it all to Captain Fleck. He should be coming ashore any minute now."

"Captain Fleck! That damned renegade?"

"Keep your voice down, for heaven's sake. Tell me, Captain, do you know what's going to happen to you and me and all your men when our friend LeClerc departs."

"I don't have to tell you."

"Fleck's our only hope."

"You're out of your mind, man!"

"Listen, carefully, captain. Fleck's a crook, a scoundrel and an accomplished rogue, but he's no megalomaniac monster. Fleck would do anything for money-except one thing. He wouldn't kill. He's not the type, he's told me so and I believe him. Fleck's our only hope."

I waited for comment, but there was none, so I went on: "He'll be coming ashore any moment now. Speak to him. Shout and wave your arms and curse him for the damned renegade you say he is, the way you would be expected to do, nobody will pay any attention except LeClerc and Hewell and all they'll do is laugh, they'll think it highly amusing. Tell him what I've told you. Tell him he hasn't long to live, that LeClerc will leave no one behind to talk. You'll find that LeClerc has spun him some cock-and-bull yarn about what he intended to do here, one thing you can be certain of, LeClerc never told him of the rocket or what he intended to do with the rocket, he would never have dared with Fleck and his crew calling so often at Suva and other Fijian harbours where one careless word in a bar would have ruined everything. Do you think LeClerc would have told him the truth, Captain?"

"He wouldn't. You're right, he couldn't have afforded to."

"Has Fleck ever seen the rockets before?"

"Of course not. Hangar doors were always closed when he called and he was allowed to speak only to the officers and the petty officer who supervised the unloading of the boat. He knew, of course, that it was something big, the Neckar was often anchored in the lagoon here."

"So. But he'll see the Black Shrike now, he can't help seeing it from where he's berthed at the end of the pier. He'll have every justification for asking LeClerc questions about it and I'm much mistaken if LeClerc will be reluctant to talk about it. It's the dream of his life and he knows that Fleck won't live to talk about it. Fleck might even then still have some doubts left as to what's in store for him, so just that he can understand exactly what kind of man he's dealing with, tell him to go-no, better tell him to send Henry, his mate, he himself better not be seen to be missing-to see what LeClerc really is capable of." I told Griffiths exactly how to find the spot where Hewell and his men had broken through the hillside, told him where to find the cave with all the dead men. "I wouldn't be surprised if there are two more dead men there now, Fijian boys. And ask him to find out if the radio in LeClerc's cabin is still there. After Henry comes back Fleck will have no more doubts."

Griffiths said nothing. I only hoped I'd convinced him: if I had I couldn't leave it in better hands, he was a wily old bird and sharp as they came. By and by I heard a movement as he got to his feet. I peered out of the corner of one eye and saw him walking slowly away. I twisted round till I saw the pier. Fleck and Henry, dressed in their best off-whites were just leaving the schooner. I closed my eyes. Incredibly, I went to sleep. Or perhaps not so incredibly. I was exhausted beyond belief, the aches in my head and face and shoulder and body merging into one vast gulf of pain. I slept.

When I woke up I'd yet another ache to add to my lists. Someone was kicking me in the lower ribs and he wasn't trying to tickle me, either. I twisted my head. LeClerc. Too late in the day for LeClerc to learn the more rudimentary rules of courtesy. Blinking against the sun, I turned round till I was propped up on my good elbow, then blinked again as something soft struck me in the face and fell on my chest. I looked down. A hank of cord-window cord-neatly rolled up and tied.

"We thought you might like to have it back, Bentall. We've no further use for it." No fury in that face, not the vindictive anger I would have expected, but something approaching satisfaction. He looked at me consideringly. "Tell me, Ben-tall, did you really think that I'd overlook so obvious a possibility-to me the certainty, rather-that you wouldn't hesitate to jinx the second Shrike when you knew there would be no further danger to yourself? You sadly underrate me, which is why you find yourself where you are now."

"You weren't as smart as all that," I said slowly. I felt sick. "I don't think you did suspect. What I did overlook was the certainty that you would take Hargreaves and Williams apart and threaten to kill their wives if they didn't tell you everything that happened. Separate huts and the usual menaces if their stories didn't tally exactly. Maybe I do underestimate you. So now you take me away somewhere quietly and shoot me. I don't really think I'll mind."

"Nobody's going to shoot you, Bentall. Nobody's going to shoot anybody. We're leaving tomorrow and I can promise that when we do we will leave you all alive."

"Of course," I sneered. "How many years practice does it take, LeClerc, to get that ring of conviction into your voice when you tell your damned lies?"

"You'll see tomorrow."

"Always tomorrow. And how do you propose to keep forty of us under control until then?" I hoped his mind worked as mine did, or I'd probably wasted my time in sending Griffiths to Fleck.

"You gave us the idea yourself, Bentall. The blockhouse. You said it would make a fine dungeon. Escape proof. Besides, I want all my men for the job of crating the Shrike tonight and I don't need guards for anyone inside the blockhouse." He looked at Hewell and smiled. "Incidentally, Ben-tall, I believe there is no love lost between yourself and Captain Griffiths. He was saying some pretty hard things about you for fusing up that first rocket."

I said nothing. I waited for it.

"You'll be pleased to hear he's met with a little trouble. Nothing serious. I gather he took it into his head to berate Captain Fleck-as one Englishman to another-for his treasonable activities. Fleck, one gathers, took exception to Griffiths taking exception. In age, height and weight the two master mariners were pretty evenly matched and if Captain Griffiths was a bit fitter Fleck knew more dirty tricks. It was a fight to see. Had to stop it eventually. Distracting my men."

"I hope they beat each other to death," I growled. LeClerc smiled, and walked away with Hewell. The world was going well for them.

It wasn't for me. The booby-trap sprung, Griffiths and Fleck at blows, the last hope gone, Marie finished with me, LeClerc winning all along the line and a bullet in the head for Bentall any hour now. I felt sick and weak and exhausted and beaten. Maybe it was time to give up. I rolled over on my face again, saw Griffiths approaching. He sat where he had been sitting before. His shirt was dirty and torn, his forehead grazed and a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.

"Congratulations," I said bitterly.

"They are in order," he said calmly. "Fleck believes me. It wasn't difficult to convince him. He was on the other side of the island this morning and found a dead man-or what was left of him-a Fijian, I think, floating out near the reef. He thought it was sharks. He doesn't now. His mate has gone to investigate."

"But-but the fight?"

"LeClerc came out of the hangar. He was watching us closely, much too closely. It was the only way to kill suspicion." I looked up and he was smiling. "We managed to exchange quite a bit of information as we were rolling around."

"Captain Griffiths," I said, "you deserve a battleship for this."

The sun sunk down towards the sea. Two Chinese brought us some food, mostly tinned, and beer. I saw another couple take some across to the blockhouse where the seven women were still held, probably as additional security against our making trouble. Lieutenant Brookman fixed my arm again and he didn't seem too happy with its condition. All afternoon the Chinese and about half the sailors, closely supervised by Hewell, were dismantling two gantries and setting them up one on either side of the railway track in preparation for lifting the Shrike into its metal crate, which was already in position on a pair of bogies. And all the time I wondered about Marie in her loneliness, whether she was asleep or awake, how she felt, whether she thought about me, whether her despair was half as deep as mine.

Shortly before sunset Fleck and Henry came strolling along the sands from the other side of the pier. They stopped directly opposite me, Fleck with his legs spread and arms akimbo. Griffiths shook his fist at him, there would be no doubt in any watcher's mind that another violent argument, verbal or otherwise, was about to begin. I rolled over on my right elbow, the most natural thing in the world if one heard two people arguing over one's head. Fleck's brown hard face was set and grim.

"Henry found them all right." His voice was husky with anger. "Eleven. Dead. The rotten lying murderous devil." He swore bitterly and went on: "God knows I play rough, but not that rough. He told me they were prisoners, that I was to find them by accident tomorrow and take them back to Fiji."

I said: "Do you think there's going to be any tomorrow for you, Fleck? Don't you see the armed sentry on the pier waiting to see you don't make a break for it with your ship? Don't you see you'll have to go the same way as the rest. He can't leave anyone behind who'll talk."

"I know. But I'm all right, tonight, anyway, I can sleep on my schooner tonight, a coaster from Fiji by the name of Grasshopper and manned by the most murderous crew of Asiatics in the Pacific is coming here at dawn. I've got to pilot them through the reefs." For all his anger, Fleck was playing his part well, gesticulating violently with every second word.

"What's the coaster for?" I asked.

"Surely it's obvious?" It was Griffiths who replied. "A big vessel couldn't approach the pier, there's only ten feet or so of water, and though they could load the rocket on to Fleck's after deck he hasn't anything in the crane line big enough to transship it to a submarine. I'll bet this coaster has a jumbo derrick, eh, Heck?"

"Yes, it has. Submarine? What-"

"It can wait," I interrupted. "Did Henry find the radio?"

"No," Henry himself replied, lugubrious as ever. "They've blasted down the roof at the other end of the tunnel and sealed it off."

And tomorrow, I thought, they'll shove us all inside this end of the tunnel and seal that off. Maybe LeClerc hadn't been lying when he said he wouldn't shoot us, starvation wasn't as quick as shooting but it was just as effective.

"Well, Fleck," I said, "how do you like it. You've got a daughter in the University of California in Santa Barbara, right next to one of the biggest intercontinental ballistic missile bases in the world, the Vanderberry Air Force Base, a number one target for a hydrogen bomb. The Asiatics sweeping down on your adopted country of Australia. All those dead men-"

"For God's sake, shut up!" he snarled. His fists were tightly clenched and fear and desperation and anger fought in his face. "What do you want me to do?"

I told him what I wanted him to do.

The sun touched the rim of the sea, the guards came for us and we were marched away to the blockhouse. As we went in I looked back and saw the floodlight going up outside the hangar. LeClerc and his men would be working all through the night. Let them work. If Fleck came through, there was an even chance the Black Shrike would never reach its destination.

If Fleck came through.