‘And the laboratory can be rented to Dr Shallope or anyone else?’
‘Well, not anyone. Certainly not anyone, Mr Johns. But I have known Shallope for many years. We are members of the same club. You must not think I have any liking for London. To my way of thinking it is a detestable hell-hole of conspicuous and unnecessary consumption, taking the lies of advertising agents as its Bible and worshipping one febrile fashion after another. The permissive society should be destroyed like Sodom, not for its permissiveness which is nothing new, but for its gullibility which is. However, one cannot lose touch with one’s society, as Lot may well have said. I am no hermit and I visit my club every second Wednesday.
‘But where was I? Ah yes, Shallope! I must admit I do not like all his secrecy and special locks on the door. If he went away and left something on which ought to be off he might blow us all up. But the terms he offered were most generous and we shall be sorry to lose him. He leaves us tomorrow. The prototype is already packed for transport.’
When he said goodbye to me he showed me the entrance to the basement. I wished that it had been out in the courtyard, but even if it had been and I could break in I would not know how to put this heat engine – and what heat! – out of action. That’s a job on which one would hesitate to use explosives.
The Action Committee has briefed Shallope most ingeniously. My guess is that he was in actual fact known to be working on a revolutionary engine and that he may have been backed by some endorsement from the Ministry of Defence. Forged? Or do we have a civil servant of the necessary standing?
I had a meal of sorts at a safe distance and then slept a few hours under the stars and out of the wind. Before dawn I was in position on the open hillside with a perfect view of the road. My camouflage is worth remembering. These dry-stone walls all over the uplands can stand for years without repair, but once storm or the horses of an enthusiastic hunt have loosened the cap stones it does not take long for sheep to do the rest. When looking for Clotilde I had noticed such a gap. In the half light I scooped out a hollow for my body and reached out for earth and the lighter stones to cover me. It was a deal less comfortable than a similar job with brushwood or bamboo but even more effective. Anyone patrolling the bare country could see at a glance that not another soul was there.
I watched the Groads’ Construction Company truck that we had driven to Blackmoor Gate going down to Roke’s Tining. It returned in an hour with an unremarkable load which can be seen on any highway. It carried two short lengths of drainpipe lightly cased in wood and straw, with innocent ends blocked by wooden plugs just visible. The pipes might be unloaded in a builder’s yard or on any site where drains were being laid. Alternatively, would anyone take special notice if a party of workmen had access to a main sewer, lowered a length of pipe and pushed it into a disused outlet?
When the truck had driven away towards Northleach and London, Herbert Johnson shook out his clothes in the breeze, picked up his car, paid his bill at Witney and returned home. Enough of this action in the field. I have now to think of action within the bleak uplands and tangled undergrowth of my own mind.
August 9th
I am about to kill a man. My conscience is uneasy. It now belongs to me, not to an ideal, and has become a dialogue with the self. I use this diary to reveal to me whether one side or the other is lying.
How curious that I, trained to show no mercy for the sake of man’s future happiness, should be hesitant when I decide to wipe out an individual! I would not have shrunk from killing, for example, in the course of hijacking a plane to rescue a comrade.
The explosion of this bomb would infallibly bring established society to its knees, spreading such panic and horror followed by the suppression of all civil liberties that the New Revolution becomes acceptable as an alternative. Terrorism is like a painful operation to bring society back to health. Is that why I shrink from assassinating Shallope?
But the health of society is not of universal value. What is? As I try to answer that, the switchboard of the brain at once connects me to Paxos. From youth on I have experienced similar unforgettable communions when I have known a passing ecstasy which has nothing to do with human society and is, I think, common to all animals. I am only able to describe it as surrender to a purpose though I do not know what purpose there can be except to force me to surrender. What I receive from the switchboard is only a vivid memory of shape and colour, containing neither prohibition nor encouragement nor any undertone of morality. All it conveys is: you are a part of this. There’s a deduction to be drawn, I suppose, from that simple axiom. If I am a part, then what I carry with me into the whole affects the whole.
To hell with religion, if that can be called religion! Neutrons are what I ought to be thinking about. I am a traitor. I have made up my mind that there must be a limit to terrorism. Therefore I am bound to question whether any terrorism at all is justifiable. I shrink from killing Shallope merely because I take on myself the responsibility for coldblooded murder. I can claim, like a hanging judge, that this is an unpleasant duty, but there is no family or club to which I can return for a glass of port and absolution.
The Roke’s Tining bomb is Shallope’s own baby, not a standard production; so it will be fairly primitive – not amateur of course but of basic simplicity and made to fit into an outer container, the drain pipe, which we have specified. It must be as difficult to ensure the separation of the two charges of U235 as to drive them together. The foolproof, radiation proof tamping – what happens to that? Obviously it has to vanish instantaneously so that there is no risk of scattering the fissile material before it goes critical. That means that the explosive must be special stuff, producing a very high temperature and perhaps of little value as a propellant or for demolition.
So I cannot see anybody but Shallope himself with the knowledge to place explosive and detonators precisely, wire up and prevent recoil. Meanwhile it must be possible without the slightest risk to crash down the drain pipe on a pile of others or force it into a disused sewer outlet. The final preparation therefore must be done on the final site, sliding the bomb out of its pipe, arming it and sliding it back again.
No Shallope, no bomb. I think I can lay that down with certainty.
There is an obvious alternative to killing him; but I cannot bring myself as yet to communicate, even anonymously, with the police and give them the facts so far as I know them. Illogical? Possibly. I could never face myself after such a betrayal. I must act alone. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? But hypocrisy again! The truth is that if the police arrest Shallope, Clotilde and the few persons he can identify they will at once be forced to let them go and still will be without any clue to the present site of the bomb. As for me, I go back to gaol.
August 12th
The day before yesterday Herbert Johnson made a business trip to Bristol, sold a few books in the morning and in the afternoon explored Clifton Down on foot. It turned out to be a square mile or more of open country, too clown-like and natural to be called a park, stretching between the Avon Gorge and the streets of Clifton and Bristol and on the far side falling away into farmland and suburbs. In places it vaguely reminded me of savannah country with trees and bushes of hawthorn sometimes isolated, sometimes in clumps, scattered over the grassland. Plenty of people were strolling about or playing games but the Down held them easily and I was sure that in the early morning not a tenth of them would be there.
Provided that I could make some friendly contact with Shallope and provided the bushes gave sure cover for an instant the thing could be done. An instant was all I needed, for I intended to use the knife silently and decisively as I had been taught in Uruguay so that he would be dead when I lowered him to the ground.
His flat was close to the Down. Next morning I watched him leave the house and got ahead of him once I was sure of his route. He walked briskly north over the grass, his hair ruffled by the damp wind which blew up from the muddy Avon far below at the bottom of its gorge. He was wearing a he
avy yellow sweater which enabled me to keep him in sight whenever bushes intervened between us.
When he had walked nearly a mile he turned and came back across the open where I had not a hope of attack, so I decided to meet him face to face. He would certainly recognise me, giving me a chance to enter into conversation and walk off with him into cover. It was, I must admit, an impatient, early-morning decision, for if anything went wrong he could describe me. But so he could anyway if I failed to kill him.
He behaved oddly. When he was a few yards from me he turned away towards the gorge. A slight beckoning movement at the end of the swinging arm appeared to mean that I was to follow. I suspected a trap, but it was more likely that he wished to tell me something.
I kept him in sight on a parallel course well out in the open. The patch of yellow vanished into some bushes at the edge of the gorge and did not reappear. As soon as I was sure that no one was following me or showing any interest I strolled casually over to a point where I could see behind the cover he had chosen and at a safe distance from it.
I found that I was on the edge of a valley with a steep slope, rough and partly covered by scrub, which fell down to a road running up from the Avon to Clifton. The slope was topped by a low face of rock, eroded and easy to climb down. On the strip of turf at the bottom one was completely hidden unless somebody looked over the edge of the little cliff.
At first Shallope was nowhere to be seen: but when I peeped round a buttress of rock, there he was sitting on a ledge with a narrow terrace of turf at his feet calmly lighting a pipe and quite obviously waiting for me. I was very willing to oblige. If he expected conversation it could end whenever I wished in a perfect spot where his body might not be found until some pair of lovers slid down to that private and inviting terrace.
I joined him, standing well below him. Where he himself sat, comfortable as in a chair, he could be seen from a bend in the road quarter of a mile below. He said good morning cheerfully, without any of that jumpiness which Elise and I had noticed. Now that his job was done he was much more at ease. That offended me. He was very near to ease for ever. But at his next remark I drew back my hand from the sheathed knife hanging under my left shoulder.
‘It’s fortunate we met at Blackmoor Gate,’ he said. ‘I would not have led you here otherwise.’
‘We reckoned on that,’ I replied, giving nothing away.
He left his perch and sat on the strip of turf, I followed his example. To judge by cigarette ends, a couple of paper bags and a used french letter this idyllic spot was known to a few connoisseurs who appreciated its privacy.
‘Is this method to continue?’ he asked.
‘You mean meeting on the Down?’
‘Yes, I do.’
He sounded a shade suspicious. Evidently there was something I ought to explain.
Playing for time, I said that one must always change the approach; and then, wondering what our usual method of contacting him was and how I would do it myself, I arrived at the solution. Shallope sat down on his rocky throne at a set time and anyone who wanted to talk to him had only to walk along the road below to see him.
‘The yellow sweater and the same person often on the road at the same hour could attract attention, you see,’ I explained.
‘You think there is any danger?’
‘There is always danger.’
‘You know, I doubt if up to the present we have committed any crime.’
He made that astonishing remark with such an air of worried innocence that he had another reprieve. He must at least be given time to talk.
‘And when it goes off?’
‘Perhaps you can tell me. You’ve all assured me that I needn’t fuss, but I still do not see how you can keep the shipping lanes clear. A warning goes out giving the exact time and position. That can be done and I accept it. Shipping will have an hour or more to sheer off. I accept that too. But suppose a destroyer or speed boat tried to reach the spot in time? It might be practically melted.’
I began to see where all this was leading.
‘There’s still some doubt whether the bomb will be on a raft or buoy,’ I said.
‘Oh, a buoy! I thought that was settled. It will be broadcasting: Keep Off. Keep Off.’
His academic voice had taken on a higher pitch in correcting me. His ‘Keep Off’ sounded very like the seagull which might be sitting on the buoy.
I asked him if it would have the desired effect, whatever that was supposed to be. I meant the explosive effect but he took my question in a different sense.
‘I know it will. It must. People have forgotten. We nuclear physicists have made it all look so safe with our underground explosions and Pacific tests and Siberian tests. What does this generation know of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Just a horror of war, they say. Not much worse than the firestorm in Dresden, they say. I tell you, it has to be seen. The effect of that damnable weapon has to be seen. And it will be – from the French coast, from the south-west and from Ireland. That will show them how easily fissile material can be acquired and how appalling is the result. Just imagine a gang of anarchists getting hold of such a bomb! Once we can exhibit its power our anti-nuclear forces will gain strength all over the world, even in Russia.’
‘The material was not very easily acquired, Dr Shallope. It was an extremely expensive operation which cost a man’s life.’
‘Did it indeed? I am sorry. I am very sorry. But what is a man’s life when our demonstration may save millions?’
I pointed out to him that his doubts about this Atlantic operation were fully justified and that if he worked out the details for himself instead of accepting authority he would see it. The people who had studied his strong feelings and his conscience, inventing this improbable story to fit them, were not a secret anti-nuclear society at all, and the bomb which he had made at Roke’s Tining – I threw in the name to show him how much I knew – was in fact for the use of what he called a gang of anarchists.
‘Who are you? Why should I believe you?’ he shouted.
I then had the difficult and unexpected task of persuading him to believe what he didn’t want to believe, for I needed all the information he could give me.
The fictitious scheme of an exemplary Atlantic explosion was impressive though I can see no way of avoiding a disastrous effect on shipping. Shallope knew that but would not admit it. I have no doubt that he had been brain-washed for months and Rex or the bearded tiger or some foreigner of their calibre eventually produced a dozen foolscap pages of operational analysis which finally blinded our technician with unfamiliar, paramilitary techniques.
‘Do you read the papers, Dr Shallope?’
‘Not every day, I am afraid.’
‘You remember the attempted bombing of a Telephone Exchange when three persons were caught and the case against them dismissed on the ground of mistaken identity?’
‘Indeed I do. A scandal! The police are getting most careless in preparing prosecutions.’
‘Has it occurred to you that the Government could have been afraid of retaliation if the three were found guilty?’
‘Unthinkable! The Government would not be afraid of a few bombs. They have shown that very often.’
‘But they might be afraid of one single bomb.’
‘I don’t believe what you are suggesting,’ he replied in great agitation.
‘Where did your suppliers get the U235 from?’
‘Somewhere on the Continent. There are several possible sources which have caused us anxiety.’
‘Another item of news, Dr Shallope! Do you remember all the excitement about a theft of arms in Libya shipped out by a motor cruiser which subsequently disappeared?’
‘Shortage of front page drivel! One of those sensations they never follow up!’
‘Why should the Libyans have publicised a theft so insignificant that it could be carried in a motor cruiser? That was your graphite, your U235. It was brought on by ship from the Mediterranean and then, as you know, smug
gled in by helicopter.’
‘I dare say! I dare say! But that does not mean it is in the hands of anarchists.’
‘The people you have met – do they strike you as belonging to a woolly, anti-nuclear society? This cunning arrangement of meetings with you? The deadly young woman with the fuzzy beard of whom I think you have been a little afraid? The brilliant organisation all the way from Libya to Roke’s Tining? Doesn’t it all suggest ruthlessness and long experience?’
‘I admit you have me very worried, Mr er …’
‘The name would be false anyway, Dr Shallope, so I shan’t bother to give you one. Can that nuclear device be set off without you?’
I was sure it could not, but I gave him this last chance for his life.
‘Yes. Yes, of course. No trouble whatever. One has only to insert detonators and a timing device.’
But then Clotilde or I or any trained partisan could do it. A man like Mick could talk some bog-hopping yobbo of the IRA into exploding the thing with no notion of what he was really setting off – a perfect example of the commensal stooging for Magma.
‘I prepared it all for them,’ he went on. ‘But as they appeared so ignorant of explosives, I expected that I myself would have to make the final arrangements.’
Then what was the use of killing him? I was silent for a little. I came to the conclusion, rather misty so far, that he was doomed in any case.
‘Can you find out where your bomb is now?’
‘I don’t see how. I don’t see how at all. I might tell them that I made a mistake which I wish to rectify. But I don’t know how to find any of them. They come to me.’
‘Who are they?’
‘An international circle. When I was first invited to meet them I was comforted by the fact that anxiety is not confined to this country. Very responsible people! I was most glad that protest would no longer be left to what you rightly called some woolly, anti-nuclear society. They explained to me that pseudonyms must be used. I agreed that it was essential. I feared at first that they might want me to supply the material but they assured me that the last thing they desired was to involve me in theft. In any case I could not have obtained U235 and to prepare an H bomb single-handed is quite impossible.’
Hostage Page 6