‘A real beauty,’ Higgins exclaimed.
Swan waded out of the water and laid the fish down onto a canvas sheet, allowing it to expire naturally.
For the next ten minutes, as he set up his line for another cast, he watched its mouth as it took the last desperate gasps of breath, then waded back into the water to join Higgins, who was eagerly trying to catch one for himself.
‘I see you have changed your swim,’ Swan observed.
Higgins smiled. ‘Yes, I thought I might have some of your luck over by the trees. Twenty-two minutes later, Higgins’s intuition proved correct, as he too had snared and landed a good-sized Brown trout.
‘That’s one apiece, Alex. Now, let’s see if we can get enough for a good lunch.’
Both men whipped their lines for the next hour and a half, resulting in two more Browns being caught by Higgins, and Swan taking a reasonably sized rainbow trout, which he decided to consign back to the lake.
Contented with their session, the two men walked back to the bank and surveyed their catch.
‘Not bad for a morning, eh Alex?’ commented Higgins.
‘Indeed, Sir Alistair. Let’s quickly get them to the chef.’
They lifted their tackle, and with their catch safely rolled up in the canvas sheet, walked back up to the Game Hut.
Swan suddenly had another thought. ‘By the way, Sir Alistair, I was wondering if Karl Ruger was the only wartime German engineer, working on our own rocket programme?’
Chapter 7
Deputy Chief Engineer, Kevin Powell walked down the service road with an entourage of engineers and technicians towards Gantry 2. This was the Blockhouse team, and all were dressed in oversized white fire suits, making them resemble a group of walking snowmen, as they paced down the road to the launch area.
Ahead of them, standing proud within the tower structure, was Black Arrow R-0. The bottom of the rocket, had a heat deflecting metallic base with most of the remainder having been painted white, to be visible in the southern Australian sky. R-0, was intending to be launched without payload, so a practice cone would be attached.
It was an exciting day all round for the dedicated team, as the time had finally come for the first static test of the Black Arrow’s main engines. Powell was acting as the Head of Operations, following Hallett being called to a weekend meeting at the Ministry of Science. Born on the channel island of Jersey, as a young boy, he had experienced first-hand the German occupation of the island, by witnessing his father, a local postman, being brutally beaten, after refusing to deliver the soldiers’ mail. After the war, Powell had graduated with an engineering degree, being handpicked by Hallett, to join the British Rocket team. At first, with the memories of his birthplace still very much in his thoughts, he had found working alongside German engineers, hard to deal with, but as the years progressed, began to enjoy their war stories and their friendly hospitality, especially in The Red Lion, a public house in the nearby village of Freshwater. He had also learnt a lot from Karl Ruger, taking his sudden tragic death rather badly.
Powell caught up with one of the technicians, a German engineer called, Heinz Gruber. ‘An exciting day for us, Heinz. Poor Karl, he was looking forward to this moment. God rest his soul.’
Gruber nodded. ‘Yes, it is indeed a tragedy, Karl is no longer with us. He would have been most excited with this event today.’
Powell shook his head. ‘I still can’t believe it though, Heinz. What the hell was he doing in that part of London? The place is notorious for gangland crime.’
Gruber sighed. ‘Perhaps, only Karl knew why, he went there, a secret that will now be with him forever.’ He put on the hood of his protective suit.
At the foot of the gantry tower, Powell stood on the spot and looked up at the Black Arrow, inspecting its sleek lines and compound structure. The other engineers walked down the flight of stairs that led to the efflux chamber. They needed to inspect the specially treated thick black rubber hoses, that the High-Test Peroxide (HTP) and Kerosene mixture would pass through, prior to ignition.
Powell then walked into the chamber and checked off the work on his clipboard, then looked up and inspected the securing couplings that clamped around the golf ball-like fairing, holding the rocket firmly in place during the ground tests. Satisfied, he then moved to the entrance and followed the hooded figures leaving the chamber. At the next level, he leant on the side wall and checked off other areas, then decided to do a quick headcount. There was one missing.
He went back down to the efflux chamber, finding something he did not expect to see. His missing man, was turning the lever to uncouple the clamps to the base of the rocket.
Oblivious to his site supervisor behind him, the hooded figure continued with his work, moving the lever in an anti-clockwise direction and checking, as one of the steel jaws slowly began to move away from the steel ball, beneath the booster stage.
Suddenly, a siren sounded, indicating that a test was imminent. On the gantry above him, the other men, their protective hoods also over their heads, began to leave the area, and make their way to the observation bunker.
Powell stood at the entrance shouting to the figure. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Shocked by this sudden intrusion, the man turned and stared into the eyes of his supervisor. Powell looked for the name label on the suit; it had been taken off. He tried to see through the man’s visor, but the pre-exhaust gases from the rocket, prevented him from doing so.
The siren ceased, as Powell looked at him. ‘Why are you releasing the coupling, when we’re about to start the test?’
The other man stood motionless, and as Powell could feel the steely, strong-willed stare, boring into him behind the fogged mask, a revelation suddenly hit him causing a cold chill to run down his spine. My god, he’s doing it on purpose!
In one panicking swift movement, Powell stepped forward and grabbed the lever handle, but despite this abrupt show of force, his assailant held on to it tightly, looking at each other, as they both grappled with the lever. Powell clearly saw, who it was behind the steamed-up mask, and gasped in surprise.
The shock of this, had given his opponent the advantage, but as the saboteur tugged at the lever, he pulled it out of the wall socket. Powell still held on as the penultimate siren before the test, rang out around them. Suddenly, steam had cleared enough for him to view his opponent’s raging eyes, eyes that had in other times smiled at his jokes in The Red Lion. In disbelief, he released his strong grip on the lever, enabling the other man to pull it easily from his fingers.
Powell lurched forward, losing momentum putting out his hands to break his fall, and as he did so, his red protective hard hat dropped off his head and rolled onto the concrete floor. Quickly sidestepping him, the saboteur seized the moment. He was now towering over Powell and with both hands firmly gripped around the long handle, he raised the lever above him, then with one powerful swing, brought it down onto Powell’s exposed cranium. The Deputy Chief Engineer, hit the ground with force, the top of his head now a mass of blood matted hair and tissue.
The fire-suited figure dropped the lever and, shaking with fear, bent down beside the lifeless body. He pulled at the hood of Powell’s protective suit to cover the blood-soaked black curly hair, then looked around, desperate to hide the motionless figure, lying on the concrete. He noticed a green canvas tarpaulin, used to cover the generator during heavy rainfall, and picking it up, shrouded the body. Then, gripping the arms, he dragged Powell into the well of the efflux chamber. The body was now directly beneath the flume leading up to the exhaust boosters of the Black Arrow.