Strobie was saying, ‘If he did see you, and recognised you—’
‘I know. His father’d hear of it and then Robert would. But it’s a very big “if”, Tom, isn’t it?’ We wouldn’t have known each other if we’d been nose to nose. At thirty yards, as it was out there, I could’ve been a bar of soap.’
He added, cracking a smile at the old man’s continuingly worried expression, ‘Which incidentally, with some hot water, wouldn’t do me any harm… But really and truly, five years ago he’d have been — what, fourteen? You think he’d know me now — and with this beard and the fancy dress?’
‘You might be surprised.’ But he’d shrugged, turning away… ‘Took ’em to where they wanted, did you?’
‘Yup. No bother.’
‘Good blokes, those. Breath of fresh air.’
‘Right… Tom, what would Paco be doing here?’
‘Chasing skirt. Daughter of one of my families. I don’t like him hanging around, but it wouldn’t be diplomatic to send him packing, seeing the girl’s father doesn’t object. Which he wouldn’t — with Juan Huyez a bigshot now, in their eyes, running your place pretty well as if it was his own… But you see’ — coming back to the argument now — ‘to you, Paco was just one of a lot of scruffy kids. To him, though — God’s sake, you’re a MacEwan, brother of his papa’s patrón – he’d know your looks like you know Mrs Thatcher’s!’
‘But five years, Tom—’
‘One way you haven’t changed.’ Strobie growled. ‘You’re just as bloody obstinate.’
‘Did you say I am?’
Later, after a large breakfast, they sat by the fire, Strobie sucking at a pipe. He waged a finger: ‘You’ve got that wrong, boy. Diaz turned political because Elaine gave up on him, not the other way about. I’ll grant you the process may have started before she actually took off, but it was all part and parcel of one progression — she’d had a fling or two, and from that I heard—’
‘From Francisca?’
‘Possibly… According to what I was told, she was only waiting for the right man — meaning some guy who could afford her. So Diaz had to show her what a big man she was running out on — show the rest of us too, to make up for it. That’d be the mainspring — how his neighbours and brother officers might see it. The Latin temperament, all the macho nonsense — not that you’d need to be a Latin, necessarily—’
‘Right.’
‘A lot of decent folk got locked up and God knows what else, you might say, to compensate for that lovely lady’s departure.’
‘Does Francisca see that angle?’
‘Francisca sees what she wants to see. She’s in total sympathy with her father. You can’t talk politics with her — I can’t, anyway. It’s more than a month since she walked in that door, and that‘s political, of course.’
‘How?’
‘There’s a war on, and she knows where I stand. I’m an ancient Brit, and I’ll never be acriollado. OK, I’m so old, lame and ugly I can be tolerated, but while it’s going on I very much doubt she’d come near me.’
‘Yes. I thought you rather indicated that, yesterday.’
‘She might, though.’ Strobie shrugged his heavy shoulders. Fact is, since the war started she hasn’t. Political caution, entirely due to her father’s position, a feeling she mustn’t let him down — and she’d know I’d understand this, you see. It’s a passing phase, Andy, it doesn’t affect what matters in the long run, the real issue as far as you’re concerned, which is the fact her marriage is a bloody disaster. That’ll still be a fact when this war’s forgotten.’ Strobie’s eyes held Andy’s: ‘If it interests you?’
‘Is it simply that they don’t get on, or—’
‘No idea. Women don’t tell a man that kind of thing. Unless he’s their lover. If I had a wife I’d hear all about it from her, no doubt.’
‘But you’re certain?’
‘That she’s unhappy with him, yes. And she’s asked for news of you, more than once. Not directly, but—’
‘What if she did come to see you while I’m here?’
‘She’s still her father’s daughter.’ Strobie nodded towards the bedroom. ‘In there, sit tight till she’s gone.’
He knew he’d have to stay out of her sight. Because of Cloudsley and the job in hand, and the fact that whatever shape her private life was in she’d always been a patriotic Argentine, more so since the desertion of her mother. And now she’d have to be.
‘I might come back, Tom — from England, after it’s all over. Maybe write her a letter first — care of you?’
‘You’d need to be damn careful. Remember the dog in the manger, Andy. He wouldn’t just sit and watch it happen.’
‘Or she might come to London. Sort it out there, less strain…’ He shut his eyes. ‘Crazy. It’s just daydreaming, isn’t it? She turned me down. The fact she doesn’t hit it off with my wretched brother doesn’t mean that situation’s any different.’
‘You’re talking wet, boy!’ Strobie had slammed a list down on the arm of his chair. ‘Can’t you learn? Christ, you threw away one chance five bloody years ago, and now—’
‘What else could I have done?’
‘Oh, bloody oath, what d’you think?’
Stuck around, he meant, fought for her…
Andy leant forward, forearms on his knees, thinking You don’t know, old man, you weren’t in my skin, hearing her… Strobie was staring at him and looking his age, shaking his head in little jerks like a twitch, an old man’s temper… And it was all pie in the sky. A dream. Francisca had made up her mind five years ago and nothing Andy could have said or done would have changed anything then. The same applied now, despite his own five years of daydreaming and Tom’s wishful thinking…
They went on talking about her for another hour; talking about her, from Andy’s point of view, being the next best thing to talking with her — and about as close as he was likely to come to it. He’d had to be here, almost in reach of her, to appreciate this hard reality. Also to understand the basis of the old man’s hopes and motives past and present, as far as they showed through now or could be guessed at. Tom Strobie loved Francisca with a strong paternal affection which none the less might have had undertones of sexual longing in it, deriving from his own brief marriage half a century ago, a very young wife who’d died when he’d been on the other side of the world and who’d had a look of Francisca; and the same direct manner, he’d told them once — reminiscing after a lot of whisky, talking to him and Francisca in front of the fire in the big house’ where the Torres family now lived.
Andy had asked him, ‘Got a photo of her, Tom?’
‘No–’
Francisca, then: ‘Why, that’s dreadful! Not even a snapshot?’
Strobie had glared at her like some cornered animal; then muttered — softening only because it was Francisca bullying him — ‘No, I never kept any snapshots…’
He was heaving himself up now. He had farm business to attend to, he said.
‘When this Falklands row’s over and done with, Andy, come back here. As you say. You’d have reason enough, business reasons, wouldn’t you? But as you said, write first — here — and I’ll see she gets it. Enclose it in a note to me, huh?’
‘Yes. I’ll do that.’
Going along with it because arguing with the old man provoked this fierce irritation that seemed to exhaust him, left him shaky, old… He was on his feet now, growling, ‘You’d better catch up on some sleep now. Lock that door and pull the curtains. I shan’t be back much before sundown, you can sleep all day.’
*
With only eight hours of daylight at this latitude, sundown came soon enough. But only Beale, in the rear hide on his own, had slept most of the hours away. Now, it was getting dark.
They’d locked the compound gates and a sentry had been posted, the generator was in full roar and the lights were burning. During the day one of the double gates had stood open some of the time, and there’d been comin
gs and goings, but no movements of missiles either in or out. No sight of any civilians either. The implication, Cloudsley thought, was either that there were no French technicians working here or there were no missiles to be worked on.
But then they’d have no reason to guard the place.
In preparation for the night’s excursion he’d taken the magazine out of his Ingram machine-pistol, emptied it of its thirty rounds, inspected it minutely and tested the spring for tension and smooth movement, then refilled it, wiping each 9-mm round before thumbing it in. Checking the pistol itself too. Hosegood had already been through the same maintenance routine with his. An oily rag gave it enough lubrication and protection before he pushed the magazine back into the gun, banging it home with the heel of his hand.
Hosegood had opened a pack of stun grenades and clipped three to his belt. He passed another three to Cloudsley, who was replacing the Ingram in its special holster inside his poncho. The suppressor fitted into a slot on the side of the holster, as did one spare magazine. Two others went into a pocket. Accepting the XFS grenades from Hosegood now. ‘Thanks, Geoff. All mod cons.’
Cam grease now, black face-cream. Then black balaclavas and black gloves. They were skiers’ gloves, made of very hard leather for some degree of protection against barbed wire.
All day, Pucará’s had been taking off, circling the field and landing-on again. Most of it was obviously pilot-training, but two flights of three aircraft each had been bombed-up with the white napalm containers, taken off and returned half an hour later without them. Before take-off the Pucarás had been lined up just over the service road, this side of the control tower, which had a radar dome on it. The bombs had been brought out in tractor-drawn trailers from somewhere at the far end of the complex of buildings, not from the fuel compound.
Hosegood tested the sharpness of his knife on the ball of a thumb, and re-sheathed it. He murmured conversationally, ‘Feels like a hard freeze coming.’
‘There was a hard one last night.’
‘Not this hard, I’d say.’
This would be Geoff’s first action, as distinct from exercise, with the squadron. He’d been a Marine for six years. You had to serve for about three years after the initial thirty-week training before you could go in for a specialist qualification like Special Boat, and then there was the SQ course itself plus a few other interludes. So he wasn’t exactly wet behind the ears.
Dark enough now to bring Tony over, Cloudsley decided. He reached for the string — it was attached to Geoff — and passed the one-letter summons, felt the string jerk in his fingers as Beale acknowledged.
‘Tony’s on his way.’
He’d have been ready and waiting. Cloudsley put his eye to the periscope again.
No sentry in sight. OK, he’d be making his first tour around the compound. It meant you’d have to wait for the start of the next one before you could move. Say five minutes for the completion of this circuit, plus fifteen. He checked the time. But this was no problem, he’d have waited that long anyway for the darkness to thicken. Meanwhile there was no sentry in sight, nothing else stirring either. It was understandable: in these temperatures you wouldn’t hang around outside if you didn’t have to… Beale came slithering in, bulky in the poncho and other padding, and Cloudsley muttered as he squeezed past, ‘If I’m sent on any more larks like this one, I’m asking to have little guys with me.’
‘Wouldn’t help much with that fence, would it?’
‘Oh, I don’t know… You fit, Tony?’
The fence loomed in their minds like Beecher’s, at this stage. With the heavy packs to be taken over it. But at least they’d only have to contend with the worst of that on this first night.
The sentry came into sight now, advancing slowly along the southern perimeter. He walked like a duck, this one…
Cloudsley swung the periscope to the left, where light spilled from the guardhouse doorway — light visible, door invisible, from this angle — making a yellowish stain on the concrete inside the gates. There was a little gate there as well, this side of the big double ones and right beside the guardhouse; you couldn’t see it from here but there had to be one, because individuals had passed through the fence at that point when the main gates had been shut.
‘Move in about eighteen minutes.’ Checking the luminous face of his watch. ‘Goon’s on his travels now, we’ll push off when he starts his next walkabout.’
He’d had the high-speed drill out and checked it over, given it a chamfer with the oily rag, and he’d stowed a number of the drilling bits in his pockets, the long kind in one and short ones in another. Vasectomy wasn’t an easy operation to perform on a patient as sensitive as an AM39. They’d all three done it a few times on dummy missiles in a darkened workshop in the Bristol area, with scientists hovering round to instruct and advise, but even after several practice runs they’d still found it tricky. Not to mention the fact that at the British Aerospace establishment there’d been the comfort of knowing the missile wasn’t likely to explode in your face while you were operating. In the hangar down there, there’d be no such certainty. The senior boffin at Bristol had only gone so far as to say there was no reason it should happen as long as they did it exactly right and were extremely cautious in handling the drill. The most important thing was to drill in precisely the right spot; then with the second, longer bit, stage two on each patient, to be very, very careful not to break through too roughly.
The drill was German made, ultra high speed and silent-running. The bits were knitting-needle thin, and made to a unique prescription by a small private company near Coventry. The drill, well wrapped and cushioned against shock — it was going to be thrown around, before it was put to use — was in the number one pack now, along with batteries and a few other bits and pieces. It was a heavy tool; that first pack was going to be the awkward one.
The sentry was back outside the gates; Cloudsley had been watching, saw him come to a shambling halt. He murmured, ‘Fifteen minutes, gents.’ He could smell the generator’s diesel oil, and guessed the wind might have backed towards the east. The lights looked brighter than they had ten minutes ago, shadows deeper. He took his eye off the lens: ‘Come and refresh your memory, Tony.’
Beale shifted along sideways. Cloudsley edging closer to the exit. Bloody cold… During the early evening he’d done some thinking about the weather, decided it might be worth sending up a prayer for no snow until the job was finished. It was one contingency there’d been no way to prepare for. Beale murmured, ‘Like Christmas in Oxford Street.’
‘Check out the moves, Tony. See it happening.’
Once you slid out of this burrow and ran for the wire, there’d be no seconds to waste, no time for hesitation or looking to see what anyone else was doing. He wanted Beale to do what he himself had been doing — seeing himself and the others down there, superimposing their shadowy figures on that empty stage.
‘OK.’
He’d been at the scope four minutes. Cloudsley said, ‘Your turn, Geoff. If the sentry makes a move I want to know.’ Hosegood and Beale began changing places. ‘Tony, shove the packs along, will you?’ The first one, which he’d be carrying himself, was easy to identify because of the extra items in it. He stacked it on top of the other two. ‘Still at the gates, is he?’
‘Yeah. Poncing up an’ down.’ Hosegood spent a few minutes studying the compound and the approach to it, then grunted, ‘Right.’
‘About six minutes to go.’
Actually more like seven. In six, the sentry should start his walkabout, but you’d have to let him get around the first corner before you moved. Taking over the periscope again he heard Hosegood mutter, ‘Funny to think I joined this lot to paddle a fucking canoe.’
They were all qualified swimmer-canoeists. Cloudsley and Beale both SC1, Hosegood SC3: Hosegood would go in for the SC2 course when he’d done two years in the squadron and could be in line for promotion to corporal. The swimmer-canoeist qualifications included b
oat-handling, underwater swimming, diving in all the different types of gear, and other more esoteric arts. And Hosegood was right, they were a hell of a long way from salt-water now. Cloudsley said, ‘We’ll have some paddling to do before we’re out of it, Geoff.’
He’d just seen the sentry raise his left arm and check the time. He thought, Two minutes yet, señor… Beale muttered, ‘Right — if that fancy outboard reverts to normal.’ Meaning that outboard motors invariably let you down; although that special one had worked well enough on the lake. He added, ‘Canoes might’ve been a better bet.’
‘Not on that pond with all the gear.’
‘No, right.’
The night was an arena of black and yellow drowned in the generator’s noise. Counting out the seconds, Cloudsley was checking all around for any other sign of life. Not finding any… Back on the sentry then; and catching his breath…
‘He’s moving away.’
He made sure of it. Then crabbed to the exit, manoeuvred the first pack on to his shoulders before he poked his head out. Beale close behind, wriggling into his own straps. Hosegood would be at the scope. The sentry was approaching the corner: pacing so slowly he might have been following a hearse. But he was getting there — at last… Rounding the concrete post. Then the light was on him from the next corner as he started south. Six paces; eight… Cloudsley said, ‘Come on’, pushed himself out and began to race down the slope towards the lights.
10
He’d started within a second of the sentry going out of sight, actually launching himself out while he could still see him. Because you had two and a half minutes now — it was a realistic estimate, not a minimum. If the sentry paced faster than usual, you’d have less. But one hundred and fifty seconds, to get in there and out of sight. Cloudsley sprinted; crashing down the slight incline, the noise of it well drowned by the generator: seventy yards through darkness, then about twenty through semi-dark and finally in the glare of the arc-lamp from the left as he pounded across the road and over the rough verge between it and the wire. No shadow, no cover, and the light dazzling after the long wait in pitch dark. The other two behind him would have stopped short of the floodlit area and dropped flat. Seconds ticking by and that sentry pacing southward… Cloudsley dropped his pack at the foot of the wire and flung himself upward, a scrabbling climb on yielding mesh before his gloved hands grasped the barbed strands at the top. Over it, then — and a lot to be said for the thickness of a poncho with a padding of leather and fleece inside it — into a vaulting action that carried him clear in a spectacular boots-first arc of movement, landing on his feet inside the compound. Still in the floodlighting, of course. Tony Beale was at the foot of the fence on the outside, two packs lying there now, Beale taking off like a giant spider-monkey and ending full-length along the spiky top; Hosegood arriving in a slithering rush, slinging the first pack up, Beale receiving it and passing it over his own body — so the pack’s material wouldn’t snag on the wire — all one swift continuous flow of movement (as practised on a specially erected fence, a copy of this one, on the range at Eastney) and the pack briefly in Cloudsley’s embrace on its way earthward. It was on the ground and he was straightening to catch the second one, like a sackful of bricks thumping into his chest and in the back of his mind a snapshot image of the sentry encircled in that little telescope’s lens as he rounded the southeast corner post and started westward… Third pack. He’d at least broken its fall before it hit the ground, and in that stooped position he’d grabbed pack number one and slung it on to his shoulders as he trotted through the shadowed area towards the corner of the hangar. Beale crashed down on the inside, scooped up one of the other packs while Hosegood was doing his flying body-roll over the top, landing in a crouch a foot or two away from pack number three, hoisting it and following Beale who by this time was dumping his load in deep shadow between the generator shed and its fuel-tank, dropping beside it and beginning to dig, using his gloved hands first to clear surface rubble, then the pick end of the shovel and his hands alternately. Hosegood dropped the third pack beside Beale and ran on — at a crouch, the way a baboon runs — to join Cloudsley who was held up at the little half-size door inset in the nearer of the pair of huge sliding ones. The tool that would open this or any other lock had been looped to his wrist, was in his fingers — in the lock… wouldn’t bloody turn…
Special Deliverance Page 16