Redcap

by Philip McCutchan

  When he had heard Shaw’s story, Sir Donald, looking grim, poured out two stiff whiskies. He said abruptly, “We both need that. Well, now. You have made an exhibition of yourself—what?”

  Shaw looked up, saw the faint twinkle in the Captain’s eye. He said, “I suppose I have, but I know he came to do me in. There wasn’t anything else I could do.”

  “That may be, but the problem is, what am I going to do about you? I can’t appear to let this go altogether.” The Captain rubbed his jaw. “Damned unfortunate you didn’t wait till he’d actually got inside the cabin, and then you could have nailed him for good and all.”

  “I meant to, but he heard me go for my gun.”

  Sir Donald said, “Well, Shaw, I’ll get the doctor to have a look at you. He knows a certain amount about all this now. He can say you were wandering—in the head, I mean, sudden breakdown, anything you and he can work out together. You needn’t be charged with anything then—it’ll be my job to see to that, anyway. So don’t worry.” He gave a short laugh. “We’ll have to persuade O’Hara not to prescribe hospitalization and landing you at Fremantle!”

  Shaw sat back thoughtfully in his armchair. He said slowly, “You know . . . I believe you’ve got something there, sir. Talking about Fremantle, I mean. I’ve been thinking. . . ."

  “Well?”'

  “I’d better explain fully, hadn’t I?” Shaw told the Captain what the Radio Officer had said about transmissions from the tanker, adding that he himself was satisfied that the Tungtai’s wireless room had been unmanned all the time he had been aboard. Since she was, according to the Radio Officer, unlikely to have a secondary transmitting position— a supposition with which the Captain agreed—Shaw’s deduction was the obvious one: that there may have been in fact another transmitter somewhere in the vessel, but that it may not necessarily have been a ship’s set.

  He went on, “That set, whatever it was, was apparently sending out those three-letter groups—and REDCAP operates on three-letter groups. Do you see, sir?”

  Sir Donald stared. “You mean they were trying to interfere with REDCAP?”

  “Yes, I do. I don’t quite see how, or what they meant to do, unless they can jam REDCAP somehow or other, say by making identical signals from outside. Or something far worse . . . actually operating REDCAP by remote control, as it were, and not just using it as a blackmailing tool.”

  “Good heavens!” Sir Donald’s ruddy face paled. “You can’t mean——"

  “It’s all right, sir, nothing’ll have happened yet. You’ll remember Gresham’s signals, the fake set. Let’s assume they were copied. Well, they’ll have been the ones in use aboard the tanker—Andersson could have handed them over to a contact in Port Said—so they’d have been getting negative results. They could even have arranged that as a test, just to make sure. And I think that may have been what Andersson was after to-night—thought I might have the genuine article in my safe, quite apart from the fact that he’d be wanting to get rid of me anyway.”

  “But how would he know the fake set had been rumbled? He wouldn’t even have known it was a fake.”

  “There was that cable you sent down, sir. It was Greek to me—had to do with his supposed job as a salesman. But that could have given him the tip.”

  “That’s possible. Well, who d’you think was using the transmitter aboard the Tungtai, Shaw?”

  “Lubin himself.”

  Sir Donald nodded rather whitely. “That’s what I was afraid you’d say. And we let him get away.” He pulled at his bushy eyebrows. “My God, Shaw, it rather looks as though we’ve messed things up, doesn’t it!”

  “I have, sir. Not you.” Shaw’s face was grey and drawn with worry now, and he sat forward earnestly. “Time’s running out now and something else is going to happen pretty soon. They’ve failed so far, just as much as I have, but they’re bound to have other arrangements which they’ll put into effect if the Tungtai’s not intercepted. Well—they’ve got from now until REDCAP gets to Bandagong. It would be just as well to cut that time to a minimum, or at least let ’em

  think it’s cut. And I’ve got an idea which I believe could work.”

  “Go on.”

  Shaw explained: “If your carpenters could make a crate exactly the same as the one REDCAP’s in, and fill it with anything they can find that’s heavy enough to correspond exactly with the weight, we could land that at Fremantle. I can arrange with my contact in Sydney to have the arrangements switched—ostensibly, that is—to Fremantle. Meanwhile, the ship goes on, takes the real crate round to Sydney, and discharges it as planned. That’ll draw the trail off REDCAP proper, and also draw attention away from the ship, of course.”

  Sir Donald said, “Yes, but why not land the real job at Fremantle, and take the fake on to Sydney as a blind?”

  “Well, sir, because I’ve a hunch the one landed at Fremantle’s going to come in for a spot of attention. And anyway it’s a little late in the day now to switch full, genuine security precautions. There’s a hell of a lot of route preparation to be done, you see.”

  “How’s the word going to reach the other side, Lubin’s people?”

  Shaw said, “It won’t take Andersson long to tick over when he sees that crate going ashore in Fremantle. My man in Sydney can arrange a nice little calculated leak too. Well, sir?”

  Sir Donald laughed. “It’s certainly all right with me! Only too glad to draw attention away from the ship.” He got up. “I’ll see to it that the crate’s made, as quickly and as secretly as possible.”

  “We can assume that the hands concerned are perfectly trustworthy, I take it?”

  “Yes, they’ll be all right, Shaw. I’ll have the best men on it, old Company’s trusties. And the job can be done entirely in the hold—no one not directly concerned need know anything about it. Nothing to worry about there. You can leave that side of it to me—I’ll see no one talks!”

  “Right, sir.” Shaw hesitated. “I think the ship’ll be in the clear after this, and I could hand over responsibility for REDCAP to the senior MAPIACCIND man, he’s reliable enough, but I’d like to leave the keys with you, sir, if I may—”

  “What d’you mean—are you leaving the ship?”

  “Yes, sir, I think I’ll go along with that fake job myself. As I said, I’ve a feeling I’ll see something interesting—and that it’ll include Andersson. He’s disembarking at Fremantle anyway, remember. I believe this is where we really bowl him out, once he’s seen the crate going ashore.”

  “Well, I hope you’re right. There’s just one other thing, though. It’s time we made sure there’s no danger to the ship —I mean, that bomb business we were worried about earlier. There could be something planted near Number One hold, and whether REDCAP’s there or not, I’m not risking my ship any further, Shaw.”

  “I don’t think that’ll be the case, sir. Not now. They’re after something more lethal than that.”

  “All the same,” Sir Donald insisted, “I’m going to make sure. It’s not practicable to make an exhaustive search and get everybody wondering, but I’ll pass the word quietly to all Heads of Departments to keep a careful watch in their own sections for anything that looks—well—out of place. That’ll be just as effective.”

  When Shaw left the Captain’s quarters he drafted and despatched a long signal to Captain James in Sydney, and soon after that the naval and military commands in various parts of the Commonwealth got busy; there was much telephoning between Canberra, Sydney, Bandagong and Fremantle. Arrangements were made for a military convoy to pass from Fremantle to Bandagong and certain information to this effect was duly leaked by the various senior officers concerned.

  During the afternoon, aboard the New South Wales, Siggings, in white but grease-stained overalls and carrying a bulky canvas bag of tools and other equipment, made his way towards the manhole into the double bottoms. Just before he got there he was intercepted by the Chief Engineer.

  The Chief said, “Oh—Siggings. Goin
g down the D.B.’s?”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “Well, see, take a good look round.” The Chief tilted his cap and scratched his head. “There’s something up, I don’t know what. Captain’s passed the word that we’re to look out for anything that looks as though it oughtn’t to be where it is. He sounded a bit mysterious . . . anyone’d think we were going to blow up!” He smiled, put a hand on Siggings’s shoulder. “I don’t think any suspicious character’d ever get into the D.B.’s . . . but anyway, lad, if you see anything funny-peculiar, just let me know, eh?”

  “Righto, Chief.”

  Siggings, whistling between his teeth, went on towards the manhole and wormed his way down. Flat on his stomach in that long, shallow, fetid compartment at the very bottom of the ship, he crawled and dragged himself along to Number Five tank immediately below the vessel’s reactor, where he stopped and fumbled with his canvas bag. He brought out the square metal box. Rolling on to his back, he pressed the base of the box against the steel deckhead, ramming it home hard. The watertight, heat-resistant suckers gripped almost magnetically, and when Siggings gave the box a pull it remained perfectly firm, just as though it had always been there.

  He crawled backwards along the tunnel-like space, and soon afterwards he reported to the Chief Engineer that everything was normal in the double bottoms.

  At about the same time as Siggings reported all correct, the small thin man was going ashore in a motor-boat from the Tungtai, now lying off the north Australian coast. He was going ashore together with a bulky, encased object, a very heavy object which was being handled with great care, to land in a remote spot inshore of Melville Island.

  Here, in due course, he was met by two men and escorted to an aircraft which took off immediately. A few hours after this the Tungtai, now steaming fast away from the coast, and—genuinely this time—bound once again for the Persian Gulf, was intercepted by a frigate of the Royal Australian -Navy out of Darwin and was searched from truck to keelson.

  But by this time it really was too late, and there was absolutely no excuse for holding the tanker.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Early next morning the New South Wales made her first Australian landfall and slid into Gage Roads outside Fremantle.

  Here she anchored to await the routine immigration and medical inspections by the Commonwealth authorities. These completed, she weighed and proceeded inwards, moving majestically up harbour along the breakwater to edge in to the jetty where she was greeted by a big, cheering crowd. The gangways were sent across. Soon after, Judith was leaning over the fore end of the veranda deck and watching as a big crane moved along rails on the jetty and got into position alongside Number One hold. Shortly after that, the hatch covers came off; a huge container was lifted carefully up and lowered gently on to an army vehicle waiting on the dockside. Shirt-sleeved soldiers in bush hats, big, rangy, sunburned men, started to lash the crate down with heavy rope.

  Soon afterwards Judith contacted Shaw.

  She said, “He’s seen it all right.”

  “Did he see you?”

  She shook her head. “No, not where I was watching. I only saw him coming down from the sports deck, but he couldn’t possibly have missed seeing the crate.”

  “Good!” Shaw hesitated a moment, then he took her hand. He smiled down at her. “Look after yourself, Judith,” he said. “And don’t worry. I believe it’s going to be all right now. If . . . if you find yourself at a loose end in Sydney, or want any help, get in touch with a friend of mine at the Garden Island naval yard. His name’s Tommy Foster, and he’s a good chap. Promise?”

  Puzzled, she said: “Why—yes. But I’ll see you in Sydney, won’t I?”

  “Well, that’s the idea. But you know as well as I do, things don’t always work out according to plan in this game. It’s as well to be ready for that.” Rather uncomfortably he added: “Anyway, Judith, we’ve got to part company soon.”

  She reached out, not looking at him but twisting her fingers round a button of his jacket. She said quietly, “Yes, I know that. But I’ll be thinking of you just the same, Esmonde. So you take care too.”

  “I always do that.” He took her shoulders in a hard grip, bent down and kissed her lightly. Then he turned and strode away.

  Sir Donald Mackinnon was talking to Shaw in his day-cabin when there was a tap at the door and the Staff Commander came in.

  Stanford stood aside, said: “Major Francis, sir.”

  “Ah—good morning, Major.” Sir Donald got up, shook hands with a tall, stringy, bronzed Australian in uniform. He asked genially, “I suppose you’re in charge of the road convoy?”

  The Australian grinned widely, hitched at his drill trousers and the holster at his waist. “That’s about it, Captain.”

  “Well—she’s all yours now, thank the Lord!” Sir Donald smiled. “Damn glad I am to be shot of it, I can tell you.

  Now, this is Commander Shaw—”

  “Glad to meet you, Commander.” Francis took Shaw’s hand and wrung it hard. “I was told you’d be coming along with me.” He added warningly, “It’s going to be a rough trip. Not the kind of country you’re used to back home, I reckon!”

  “Oh, that’s all right—do me good after so much soft living aboard.” Shaw looked searchingly at Francis; he had already taken to what he saw. He went on quietly, “Major, I suppose you do know the set-up—I mean, what’s in the load?”

  “Too right I do.” The Major’s face was serious now. “Something we don’t give a name to. Right?”

  Shaw said, “Right.” He wished he could take this man into his confidence, tell him the real score, but it was just as well not to say anything to anyone unnecessarily until the genuine article was safely in Bandagong from Sydney. He went on, “I’m expecting some attempt to be made to get at the crate en route—that’s why I asked. You’ve got a full security guard, I take it?”

  “My word, yes. M.P.s in a truck behind, all armed. The load’ll be O.K. But look—wby’d anyone want to do that?”

  Shaw hesitated. “Perhaps it’s just that I’ve got a suspicious mind. After all, I’ve been sent to keep an eye on the thing from a security point of view. I’m bound to assume the worst, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, I reckon . . . yes.” Francis looked at him sideways, narrowing his eyes. “I s’pose that’s right, can’t be too careful. Nothing more in it than that, eh?”

  “I hope not, Major. I’m sorry, I can’t go into any more details just now, if you don’t mind. By the way, when do you expect to arrive in Bandagong?”

  Francis said, “It’s going to take us all of three days; that’s allowing for stops for grub an’ so on. The track—well, it’s real crook up from here. We’ll drive all night, in relays.” He added, “Bandagong’s nearly a thousand miles by road from here, and three days’ll be good going.”

  Shaw nodded. “And the ship—she’s due in Sydney in six days, allowing for three days in Melbourne—right, sir?” he added to the Captain. “No alterations?”

  “No. We’ve made up time pretty well. There’s bad weather reported in the Bight, but we should make the Sydney pilot dead on time if all goes well—and keep up the A. and P. reputation for spot-on punctuality! If necessary, I’ll cut the stay in Melbourne to make it so.”

  “That’s all right, then. I can get down to Sydney by that time. Now, there’s just one more thing, sir—I’d better take those signals, the genuine ones that Gresham gave you. I’ll hand them over to the Commandant at Bandagong myself.”

  “Very well. I was going to ask you about them.” Sir Donald went over to his safe, twirled the combination, opened the door and brought out the sealed envelope. He handed it to Shaw, who pushed it into the inside breast pocket of his jacket. Sir Donald said, “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you, Shaw.”

  “You do that, sir! And I hope you’ll have no more trouble now.”

  Soon after, Shaw and Major Francis left the ship, went down the gangway on to Australian soil und
er that burning sun, the sun which was going to make the journey to Bandagong pretty unpleasant, Shaw thought. He chucked a suitcase into the truck and then climbed into the high cab of the loaded vehicle with Francis. On the Major’s order the army driver, already sweating into his khaki shirt, slipped in his clutch and they were off, kicking up the dust along the jetty as they rolled heavily, with the truck and its armed detachment of Military Police behind, out of the port and headed on the long haul to Bandagong.

  As they passed along the road outside the docks Sigurd Andersson watched from behind the windows of a seedy cafe; and when the convoy had rumbled away he finished his coffee and strolled out to a telephone. Asking for long distance, he was connected with a number in the Sydney suburb of Clontarf.

  The convoy pulled out of Fremantle, headed through Midland Junction and Mundaring. They would pass on to Northam, Merredin, Southern Cross, Coolgardie. After Collgardie they would turn a little to the south between Kalgoorlie and Zanthus before heading north on the Bandagong track.

  They passed on the long haul through the little township of Kurragin and after that they were clear of habitation except for the isolated homesteads near the track. They were out in the bush now, the real Australian outback, a sunbaked land of dust and heat and desolation, hot by day and sometimes bitterly cold by night; they were a self-contained little unit striking into the very heart of the Central Australian desert towards its northern fringe.

  They rode on, on and on and on . . . they were hot and parched for much of the time, dirty and weary and sweaty as the two vehicles pressed along, swinging badly on the rough track and sending up clouds of dust and grit which seeped into everything, into the engines and men’s throats, into the food and water when they stopped for meals, into the bedding in the back of the light truck where tired men slept in shifts. During the halts, while engines cooled and men eased weary bodies shaken up by the day’s run—times when Shaw longed to press on—Major Francis and his second-in-command, a lieutenant who was travelling in the truck with the armed party, shared the vigils. No chances were being taken even though Francis was heard on one occasion to mutter about panicky bastards who wanted their heads read; and armed sentries patrolled round the vehicle carrying the big, heavy, junk-filled crate.