Gibraltar Road Page 2

  However, there it was, and he was damned lucky to be alive at all, let alone back in his old job . . . though it had all happened quite a few years back, he kept on reminding himself, whenever he looked appreciatively round that beautifully appointed office of his, to be thankful.

  Now Mr Latymer smiled gently, and when he spoke he spoke as a seaman. That was just one of the reasons why he always looked forward to seeing Shaw—he could forget pretence for once in a while. He’d have liked a long chat, but because he was busy he decided to get the customary formalities over without delay. So he began, “Well, Shaw. Usual pain in the guts, I suppose?” The heavy pink face loomed over the desk.

  Shaw’s eyebrows tilted and he grinned. “Yes, sir,” he admitted.

  Latymer waved a hand. “Take a tablet if you want to, my boy. Don’t mind me.” He rapped the desk. “Come on now—out with it. Let’s get the next stage over. You want to resign.”

  Shaw flushed a little, but his eyes remained steady, looking directly at Latymer. He said, “I didn’t realize it was quite so routine, sir.” He sounded diffident.

  “But, God dammit,” snapped Latymer—though there was a flicker of amusement in his mask-like face—“you hand in your resignation before every blasted assignment! Have done for the last ten years.”

  Shaw felt the gripping pain twisting his guts. Rubbing the side of his nose with his left forefinger, he said stubbornly, “This time I really do want to get out. I mean it. I’ve had enough, sir. More than enough.”

  Shrewdly Latymer studied Shaw’s set face. “Reason?” he demanded.

  Shaw hesitated.

  Latymer said briefly, “It’s your damned stomach. I’m not unsympathetic—don’t think that. But dammit to hell, man, you can’t let your ruddy guts—in the purely stomachic sense, I mean—stand between you and your duty.” He added wearily, “How many times have we had this out?”

  Shaw persisted. “This time it’s different. I’m fed up with this life, sir. I’m a sailor.” He leant forward, a deep frown of concentrated effort driving down between his eyes. “I know my health wasn’t too good during the War, but I want to go back to sea again.”

  Quietly Latymer said, “So do I. A ruddy admiral, Shaw, a ruddy admiral, and only once worn my flag at sea. Only once—and that was cover. And never will again—now I’m pushing up the daisies!”

  Shaw met his glance and smiled. “I know, sir. I’m sorry. But at least you have worn it that once, and between the wars you commanded ships—genuinely, and not just as cover. I’ve never had that chance.”

  “And wouldn’t even if you went back to General Service, the way the Navy’s going now,” said Latymer bitterly. “Won’t be any ships left before long. . . . No, Shaw, you’ve got to stick it. You’re far too valuable to lose back to the Fleet now anyway. And you can do a lot—a hell of a lot—to help keep some kind of Fleet in being. Far more than you could ever hope to do as commander of a ship at sea.”

  Latymer had been looking steadily into Shaw’s face all the time he’d been speaking. He knew all about Shaw, naturally. He knew, for instance, that though Shaw looked older he was only in his thirties, knew that worry and the almost overwhelming responsibility which the man had borne alone and for so long had put those deep lines where they had no right to be, stretching from nose to mouth, cutting ruts which showed up the determination in mouth and chin, driving the sharp cleft between the brows. It had made the eyes look tired and old, though Latymer knew that those eyes were capable of lighting up wonderfully, of taking away the years, when Shaw looked at something that pleased him—little things, such as a flower thrusting through earth bravely into the polluted air of a London square, or a child at play. Latymer knew, too, that Shaw’s stomach complaint was real enough—that it, like Shaw’s present employment, had been due originally to the War.

  He knew that Shaw had been pitchforked out of Dartmouth to join the Fleet as midshipman in an old destroyer, lurching wildly around the North Atlantic on convoy escort duty, running out from the ice and bitter winds of Scapa Flow to Forty West in the most diabolic weather and under revoltingly primitive conditions, the seas often so high that to venture along the open decks was unsafe and the watch on deck had to remain at their stations for maybe forty-eight hours at a stretch, wet through and hungry and shivering in the icy gale until their messmates could venture from below and slither across the reeling iron deck to the guns and the bridge; each passage had been ten days of hell for Midshipman Shaw, who had been a victim, an agonized victim, of shocking sea-sickness. Shaw’s Commanding Officer had noticed his midshipman’s travail, though Shaw himself had never said a word about it to anyone. What that Commanding Officer had failed to notice was that Shaw never ate a thing at sea, except the occasional ship’s biscuit which was all he could keep down; and that when they returned to swing round a buoy in the blank grey dreariness of Scapa for a couple of days between trips Shaw had made up for lost time, and had grossly over-eaten. All that, for too long extended, plus a couple of sinkings and some days adrift on a Carley float on the Atlantic rollers, had resulted in an ulcer. That ulcer had in turn resulted in Shaw being consigned, at least temporarily, to shore service. It had eventually been cut out; but the indigestion and the discomfort had returned and had remained, his constant legacy—and so, to his intense disappointment, had the ‘shore service only’ note on his papers, for by that time the Admiralty had found excellent use for a loyal and intelligent officer whom they considered had been wasted for too long in a job for which he was not, because of his disability, wholly suited. Shaw had thenceforward ceased outwardly to be a naval officer, and for the rest of hostilities he exchanged the bitter North Atlantic for the heat of the Western Desert and for the fleshpots and intrigues and dangers of Egypt, North Africa, and Spain, and for many other places, and he wore his uniform only when on leave.

  Except for one sea commission, peace and the cold war had perpetuated Shaw’s special duties, to his great dismay.

  All this Latymer knew—and knew, too, what Shaw’s thoughts were as he sat before his desk; he knew, because those thoughts were in so many ways like his own. Thoughts that circled nostalgically round a British Battle Squadron at sea in line ahead, the strings of coloured bunting blowing out from the signal halyards, or the winking masthead lights at night; a great concourse of grey ships entering Malta’s Grand Harbour to anchor together on the signal from the flagship, the lower- and quarter-booms being extended, the boats and gangways lowered, and the anchors let go at split-second timing, all together, as the engines thrashed astern to bring the ships up; misty dawns in Scottish anchorages, with a red sun behind the haze rose-tinting the distant, towering hills as the White Ensign was broken at the jackstaff, the bugles echoing savage and triumphant as they blared out for Colours; a picket-boat coming alongside a cruiser’s quarterdeck ladder, her crew soaked in spray, caked with the salt of a brisk, windy morning; a vanished Light Cruiser Squadron steaming at speed into a West Indian sunset; the Northern Lights, viewed from a destroyer’s bridge off Lyness, or the Old Man of Hoy standing out to starboard, in broad daylight even at two bells in the middle watch, as a ship steamed north about through the Pentlands from the Firth of Forth to the Clyde; the wondrous, fairy-like beauty of the Kyle of Lochalsh and a night passage under moonlight of the Minches with the Isle of Skye to port and a wind blowing through the Sound of Harris; an old County-class cruiser, battling through boisterous seas in the Great Australian Bight with a roaring wind coming straight off the southern ice; China-side, and the mysteries and glamour of the East, and dances on the quarterdeck beneath the awnings in Trincomalee and Singapore, of laughing, sun-browned girls in summer frocks on golden sandy beaches fringed with the dark green of palms and the bright blue sea beyond . . . old days, and all gone now . . . memories or ambitions, perhaps, of a once seasick midshipman who’d never had the good fortune to know all the former glories—but memories, too, of a land-bound admiral and ones which would never, never fade . . . memories
which were so much better than recalling the knife in the back, the hidden identity, the traitorous friend, and the ever-cautious speech.

  Latymer began to speak, quietly but with the quality of steel which was always in his voice. He reminded Shaw that it was well known in the Admiralty that he wanted nothing more than to rejoin the Fleet and to serve as a sailor in accordance with his training; pointed out that Their Lordships, in deciding otherwise, had taken into account that very fact that he didn’t want to go on serving in the department. An agent who was in it for the romance or the money or the prestige among his comrades within the department would be of no use. Neither would be an agent who suffered from over-confidence; if his nerve had really cracked, of course, they wouldn’t have been able to get rid of him fast enough; but they knew, as Latymer knew, that Shaw’s nerve when on the job was of steel. It all came out of his system in the working-up period, as now. They had a saying in the outfit, and Latymer reminded Shaw of it now:

  “When Shaw’s showing the strain—that means he’s going to do a first-rate job.”

  Wearily Shaw shifted in his chair, felt the bitterness in his mouth. He’d never get free of this lot, it was no use trying. Besides, he had to admit to himself that what Latymer said was true.

  Latymer was going on, “You know perfectly well we never force anyone to accept an active job if he doesn’t want it, but no one’s ever refused yet, and I don’t believe you’re going to be the first to do so. Anyway, I’m not allowing you to resign from the department, and that’s final.” He looked at Shaw with a sly grin. “If you want to arse about and kick your heels in glorious idleness on extended leave—say so!” He added quietly, “It happens I’ve got a very special job lined up for you. I sent for you because you’re the best-qualified man I’ve got for it. For one thing, you know Spain pretty well and you speak Spanish. And—there’s another reason.”

  Latymer stopped there, got up, and went over to the window, letting Shaw think things over for a bit. He knew quite well that Shaw would never put up with sitting around on his backside so long as he was still in the Service and his friends were risking their necks—and he kept him sizzling for a while. Then he returned to his desk and sat down. He leaned forward, arms folded on the massive leather top, pink, scarred face lowered like a bull. He asked:

  “Want to hear what that job is?”

  Shaw sighed. “All right, sir. Go ahead.”

  “That’s better!” Latymer grinned, and seemed to relax a little. He pushed a box of cigarettes across to Shaw, took one himself, and flicked a lighter. Two trails of smoke spiralled up, were lost in the ornate ceiling. Latymer asked:

  “Remember Karina?”

  The words, the tone, were almost casual; but they made Shaw sit up sharply, startled, wondering if that dream last night had been a premonition. . . . He said, “Karina Czercov?”

  Latymer sat back with a peculiar smile, nodded.

  Shaw said slowly, “I haven’t heard of her for a good many years now—but I’ll say I remember Karina, sir!”

  Latymer brought up a hard brown hand and touched the livid scars which crossed his face, pointing up the pink, mask-like effect of the grafts. “So do I,” he murmured. “Rather too well, really. Now, there’s the other reason why I want you on this job—you’re the only man I’ve got left apart from Carberry—and I must keep him here for the ‘backroom’ side—the only man who’s had personal experience of Karina . . . and she’s back in operation, so I hear.”

  “Same old game?”

  Gently Latymer nodded. “Same old game, but I expect she plays it with a difference now—she’s a few years older than the Eaton Square days, though at a guess I’d say she hasn’t let anno domini worry her all that much!” He gave his sly grin.

  Shaw shifted his feet, flushed. Events and physical proximity had aroused plenty of passion between Karina and himself, but that was past, and anyway in those earlier, pre-Eaton Square, days Karina had lent her talents to the Allied side. It had only been later, when hostilities and the uneasy East-West wartime alliance were over, and when Central Europe had been swallowed into the iron stomach of Russia, that she’d gone over to where her sympathies had always lain—the Communist bloc to which she had in fact always belonged, and where her family still lived; it had been a year or so after the war before the British Intelligence services had tumbled to it that Karina was finding out all she could about Western defence projects. Few people knew more about Karina than did Shaw himself; but even he didn’t know for certain what her nationality was. His guess was Hungarian—though by now, he thought, she’d be fairly certain to have taken out Russian papers.

  Latymer was continuing, “I hear from various roundabout routes that she’s in Spain, and she’s been seen near Gibraltar—around La Linea way—and I don’t like it.”

  Shaw said, “Nor me, sir—as a matter of general policy! But what’s she up to?”

  “She’s after a man called Ackroyd.” There was a pause, and then Latymer added, “I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Project Sinker, have you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I thought not. Now just bear with me while I give you what’s, for me, rather a long yam.” He drew on his cigarette. “Very few people have heard of Project Sinker, Shaw. I dare say a lot of intelligent guesses may have been made by the people on the spot—but be that as it may, there’s a very heavy security umbrella over this—in fact, the heaviest I’ve known for years—and we’re pretty confident that nothing’s leaked out. So far.” His gaze held Shaw. “Now then. Project Sinker—and I don’t need to remind you that this is Top Secret—is the code name for a scheme to make Gibraltar into the first link in a world-embracing chain of bases for atom-powered submarines, which will be armed with homing torpedoes until the super -Dreadnoughts capable of mounting the new American nuclear missile are ready. The idea is to have them well dispersed out of the home ports, so that any war can be carried on if England goes under in an H-bomb attack—as she could very easily do. As a matter of fact, Shaw, between you and me, the experts’ view is that the country would be right out of the battle within a week of the first H-bomb being dropped.” He waved a large sinewy hand. “London, the ports, naval and commercial, the military bases and the airfields, all power and industrial production capacity . . . the lot.”

  Slowly Shaw nodded. “Sounds only too logical, sir.”

  “It not only sounds it, it is so logical that it’s what the overall defence system’s going to be based on in future. The general plan involves a gradual dispersal out of England—high mobility of the forces and so on—with the centre of government shifting when war seems imminent to some part of the Commonwealth so that the fight can be carried on. And,” Latymer added, “if I sound melodramatic, just remember what Hiroshima was like, and then multiply by ten thousand or so—and also remember that an atomic war is very much more likely than a conventional one, and it can come so fast that a bit of ahead planning is the only thing that’ll stop us being caught with our pants round our ankles. Right! Now then. You’ll realize that submarine bases can’t be built at the last minute, so the Project Sinker part of the general plan is going right ahead now. Gib’s going to be one of the most important, and certainly the most attack-proof, since the base there will be under the Rock itself— the entry channel being cut through the seaward caverns on the east face. It’s also the only one that’s been started yet. Now, one of the essentials in this scheme is to have a nuclear fuel-production unit on the spot—no good relying on a supply from home if England’s knocked out in round one, that’s obvious, and even America’s going to have troubles enough of her own when the inter-continental ballistic missiles start hitting her, and her own power’s likely to fail.”

  Shaw nodded, intent.

  “Well, now, something brand-new has been devised in that line,” went on Latymer carefully. “A machine, a power-production unit with a heavy security screen round it, which produces an absolutely virgin fuel—it’s called AGL Six, and basi
cally it’s a new product named algalesium. Well, this fuel can be produced more cheaply and efficiently and very much more easily than anything that’s yet been thought up—for one thing, it doesn’t need a unit as big as a power-station—and it’s for use in a special type of boil-ing-water reactor developed by the Admiralty for use in atom-powered submarines. And there’s something else.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  Latymer tapped the desk-top. “It’s perhaps the most important and revolutionary point. This fuel unit needs no outside power-supply to keep it running once it’s started up. It can keep it up almost indefinitely—thanks to the Americans.”

  “Oh?”

  “You may have read in the papers some time ago—the States have developed a ‘Buy-your-own-H-bomb’ racket. It’s a power unit, just about the equivalent of an H-bomb . . . it costs a hell of a lot of money, they started off at about £350,000 each, but they’re a damn’ sight more now because they’re bigger, and it’s devilish efficient. Well, they’ve given us a supply of these H-bomb power units, and our backroom boys have got to work on them and carried out some modifications so that they can be used in this fuel-production machine thing. In effect, it’s powered, by the built-in equivalent of a very large H-bomb, so it needs nothing from outside. And if all sources of power-supply fail in an attack this unit not only keeps going but could also supply power to the whole of Gibraltar if necessary.”

  Shaw said, “It’s a sort of . . . perpetual motion?”

  “The nearest we’re likely to see. And there’s only the one man who really understands it, Shaw, and that’s its inventor and developer—this fellow Ackroyd I spoke of. He thought the whole thing up, and the unit’s been built in Dockyard Tunnel from prefabricated parts, under his personal supervision. He’s an Admiralty civilian, and he’s working with a team of technicians who are no more than just that—technicians. Ackroyd is the only physicist on the job at present. This machine’s still in its hit-or-miss stage, I gather—it’s not perfected yet.” Latymer leaned forward again in that bull-like posture, emphatic, earnest. “If anything happens to Ackroyd the chances are that the whole scheme’ll be bitched right up.” He stubbed out his cigarette, hard. “And as I’ve said, Karina’s after our Mr Ackroyd. She’s got orders to contact and remove him.”