In a level voice he said, “My dear, of course they must come. They’d be terribly disappointed.” After that he couldn’t go on. Coughing, he fiddled with his pipe. Then he added abruptly, “No change, my dear. No change in the plans.”
“Francis, there’s no danger of war — of a sudden attack on Gibraltar?”
Safe ground, that. He laughed. “No.”
“You’re quite sure it’s all right?”
He couldn’t look at her. “Quite sure.”
Lady Hammersley gave a little sigh and got up. She hesitated a moment, looking across at her husband’s back, then she left the office. Hammersley came away from the window, walked back across the room to his desk, and stood there with his heart thudding and a nasty tight feeling in his throat. The flowers which his wife had placed there were buoyant with life and colour in the sunlight, and they did nothing but bring terrible reproach to him. His hand shook uncontrollably. The boys would be packing at this moment, he supposed, looking forward to their trip by air. He puffed hard at his pipe. He knew that beside his own two boys, the blood of countless other children would be on his hands now, if Shaw should fail or if he should misjudge the moment to give that signal to Whitehall. Perhaps he ought at least to have stopped the children coming in — all of them — and yet, how could he? This damned security. Perhaps he could find some foolproof excuse — but what? There was no epidemic on the Rock, there wasn’t even a water-shortage — nothing. Any faked-up excuse like that would be seen through at once, would have precisely the same effect as a direct order of cancellation. And he’d entirely agreed with Shaw about the need to avoid that in the case of incoming tourists. In the last resort, to a man in his position, the defence of the western world had to come first.
After his wife had left him Hammersley’s lips moved in a short, silent prayer and his hands gripped the sides of his desk. Then, he rang through to the Rear-Admiral at The Mount. He asked, “Forbes, any news — from the power plant?”
There was a short pause. Then: “Nothing that’s good, sir, I’m afraid. Those fellers the Admiralty sent out haven’t been able to find the fault yet.”
“I see. Forbes, honestly — d’you think they will?”
This time there was no pause. “No, I don’t.”
“The bloody blue-prints are no better than bumf. The wet little bastard’s been making unauthorized mods of his own — you can see that." Alan Parker, one of the Admiralty people who’d been working on the fuel unit unremittingly for some twenty-four hours, and who’d stripped down the starting mechanism so far as they dared without touching off a premature explosion, slammed the drawings down on the high desk in the power-house and went over to the side of AFPU ONE, stared at it bitterly through red rims. Parker, a youngish fellow with a family of three small children playing happily at that moment in the lounge of a little home- in Walworth, felt worn to his nerve-endings already. The trouble was that no one really knew, and that inhibited their efforts, made them cautious and hesitant. For all they knew for sure, one slip with a screwdriver could start off something under that lead casing which would mean the end. And those mucked-up bloody blue-prints! Parker felt his nails digging into his palms.
The control panel showed that electric light glowing brightly, showed the hand on the dial running down towards the red line. It might have been imagination, but to the sweating, scared men it seemed as though they could almost see it move now, almost see the hand and the light clicking up to the final act. The atmosphere in the subterranean power-house seemed to grow more and more close and hot and confining, and harder on the ears too, as AFPU ONE thudded out its low, horrifying song: Dum-da, dum-da, dum-da…
Parker abruptly asked for a stop-watch. When he’d got it in his hand he pressed the knob at the top, and for a long time he checked that maddening note.
Then, white-faced and shaking, he said, “It’s barely noticeable yet, I s’pose, but she’s running faster for all that.”
He clenched his fists and swore. The others stared back at him, caught each other’s glances sidelong. Parker wiped a sweat-rag over his face, shrugged. Then he picked up a screwdriver and moved back to the starting-panel.
It had taken Don Jaime no more than ten minutes and a wad of high-denomination peseta notes to get the man ‘Pedro Gomez’ out of the La Linea casilla. And, speeding north-east to Torremolinos in the limousine, Shaw began to feel better. Don Jaime had produced a flask of brandy from a recess in the upholstery, and a couple of good pulls at this had worked wonders. The Spaniard promised food the moment they got back to the villa.
As they drove fast along the road which led down into the valley, across the Guadiaro river’s cantilever bridge, and then along the high coast road past Buller’s Beach, with the blue-hazed mountains to the westward, Shaw tried to thank Don Jaime, but the Spaniard wouldn’t permit it.
“But it is nothing,” he protested from the corner where he lay back, cool and large, looking like the millionaire he was. He waved his cigar airily, the rich, heavy smoke drifting across Shaw’s nostrils. Shaw liked the smell of other people’s cigars, but had never cultivated such tastes himself. Don Jaime went on, “Your country has been good to me, and your Mr Latymer is a personal friend of mine, Commander Shaw.”
He glanced sideways at Shaw as he said this. Shaw smiled back at him and told him that he already knew that. Don Jaime said, “Now, I understand, but perfectly, that you cannot tell me what it is you have come to Spain to do. But, on the other hand, if you should decide to take me just a little way into your confidence, Commander, I may — who knows? — be able to help. Again, I shall understand if you do not wish this. But I am not without influence — and like the donkey, I have large ears. Unlike the donkey, however, I have many of them — and they are all to the ground.” His brown eyes looked shrewdly into Shaw’s. “Do you understand?”
Shaw smiled and rubbed the side of his nose. “Perfectly, Señor de Castro.”
After that Don Jaime transferred his attention pointedly to the cigar. He wasn’t going to probe and pry. It would be entirely up to Shaw.
For some miles they travelled, as though by mutual consent, in silence. Shaw lay back against the luxurious, fabulously expensive upholstery of the speeding car, whose engine-sounds came to him faintly as a whisper in the wind. He thought swiftly. Of course Don Jaime would understand, as he had said, if Shaw chose to keep quiet. There would be no question of giving him a snub, giving the brush-off to a man who had proved invaluable in time of need. On the other hand, Shaw knew he could use his discretion because the Old Man himself trusted Don Jaime. And the Spaniard, with his vast business interests and his wealth and his importance — the importance of which Shaw had seen a demonstration so recently — might well find things out much more quickly than he, working so largely in the dark. Karina might be anywhere by this time — so might Ackroyd. No progress had been made at all, and Shaw, who was now extremely worried, would in effect have to start again from scratch; the ensuing delay could have fatal results for Gibraltar. And Debonnair. Debonnair! Shaw felt the nagging pain entering his guts again at the thought of what might happen to her.