Redcap

by Philip McCutchan

  He slipped in the gears and started to back slowly out of the yard.

  He’d got about a dozen feet when he saw the long black car, its bonnet nosing into the gateway. There was the blare of a siren and then the men in the car must have ticked over. Shaw aimed Karstad’s revolver, heard the phut-phut of silenced guns and a stream of bullets zipped past the cab, smashed the mirror, smashed the gun out of his hand. He jammed on the brakes as he felt an impact at the rear, knew it was no good now. A car door slammed. Two men came up, guns smoking in their hands. One of them was an elderly Chinese, from his appearance a man of education and standing.

  The other was small and thin, almost puny—and not a Chinese. He handled his gun awkwardly, looked nervous of using it. With a start, Shaw knew he had seen this man’s photograph. . . .

  The Chinese bowed formally, graciously, as Shaw looked down from the cab into the muzzles of the two guns. He said, “Commander Shaw, I believe? Allow me to introduce . . . Comrade Lubin.” After that the suave politeness vanished. He said viciously, “Out. Into the warehouse. Soon we have a journey to make, so that you can see the New South Wales for the last time. But before that—some answers to some questions, Commander Shaw.”

  Shaw sat on in the cab, looking down at Lubin. This insignificant little man, so close to him now, was the cause of all the trouble. Here, within three feet of him, was the key—the key to peace and security. What had got into that little round grey head to make Lubin take the wrong turning? He looked as though he wouldn’t kill a fly—but he still had that gun in his hand.

  It didn’t make sense.

  Shaw got out stiffly, almost literally feeling the hair at the nape of his neck rise as he walked past the contradiction that was Lubin—the man he had been sent to get.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Back in the Garden Island base not so very far from that yard, Captain James, who had been on the line to the Navy Board in Melbourne and to Canberra direct more than once that day, slammed down the telephone and gave a sigh of exasperation.

  Mary Harris looked up through her spectacles. “No luck?”

  He said angrily, “No luck at all. They won’t budge, Mary, they just won’t budge.”

  “Well, gee . . . don’t they know where the flaming stockpiles are in this country, let alone all the other countries?”

  “We’ll come off better’n most, Mary. There’s no stockpiles anywhere near the cities.”

  She snorted. “Sure, we’ll come off better—until the invasion gets here! I reckon that’ll be the next step. Hasn’t Canberra cottoned on to that?”

  “I don’t know, Mary, they don’t exactly open their hearts to me, you know. . . James broke off, looked at his watch. He said, “Shaw’s late. That mortuary appointment’s fixed for three.”

  “Uh-huh . . . he’s quarter of an hour adrift.” She caught James’s eye. “All right to keep the mortuary waiting?”

  “I don’t mind that. Question is, what’s happened to Shaw?”

  Miss Harris said primly, “I told you. He was going to Ling’s.”

  “Well, all right! So what? He’d have done lunch by now.”

  She said meaningly, “Commander Shaw, he’s never been to Australia before, has he? Queer he should be interested in a small place like Ling’s, isn’t it?”

  James looked at her, drummed his fingers on his desk. He said slowly, “Well, maybe it is, Mary. Maybe it is. Now why should he do that, then?”

  She pushed things straight on her desk, pursed up her lips. “He told us about that note, remember? And it should have occurred to us earlier, I reckon. This threat’s Chinese backed, Ling’s is a Chinese place. Might be a natural rendezvous.”

  James said, “Yes, but look. You’re only being wise after the event. Ling is a right enough bloke. Come to that, his place isn’t the only Chinese dive in the Cross.”

  “No, of course it isn’t, Captain James. But it’s the only one Commander Shaw seemed interested in, and we do know he went there and now he’s overdue. He may have even got a lead in Tommy’s flat in the end, though he didn’t say so when he rang. And look, it’s better to be wise after the event than never at all, isn’t it?” The spectacles gleamed at him. “Well?”

  “You could be dead right. Could be. But there’s nothing in the world we can use as an excuse for interfering with Ling.”

  “Well,” she said, “I’ll tell you something. None of the bigwigs seem to want to act. I reckon it’s up to us. And things are getting just a bit too close, to worry about excuses. Or aren’t they?”

  He said quietly after a moment, “Yes, Mary, you’re dead right they are. Perhaps it’s worth a chance. We’ll give him a little longer yet, though.”

  It was 3.45 when James reached out for the phone and asked for a number within the base.

  He snapped, “James here. Get hold of Jackson and Hathaway. Send ’em along here with a car. At once.” Putting down the receiver, he got up and went to the safe. Opening it, he brought out an automatic and, slipping in some cartridges, he put the gun in his pocket.

  Fifteen minutes later the naval car pulled up outside Ling’s restaurant.

  The men in the yard took Shaw down to a cellar and then the questioning started. Knowing Shaw would have reported all he had learned at Bandagong, they wanted to know exactly what action the authorities intended taking and what the line-up of the security precautions would be.

  The questioning went on and on until Shaw’s mind reeled, his whole body ached with Karstad’s blows and kicks; but he said nothing at all and at last they gave it up and left him alone in the darkness. There was, indeed, little he could have told them even if he had wished to do so—except the negative news that the MAPIACCIND powers were as yet taking no direct, overall action.

  All the time the questioning had been going on he had sensed the men’s nervous tension, their anxiety to be away; but it was after nightfall before they came down again and brought him up from the cellar and forced him into the back of the long black car, which was to be driven by the Chinese who had been with Karstad in the van earlier. Lubin got into the front, and Karstad, his face still swollen and scarred, got into the back with Shaw and the distinguished-looking Dr Tien.

  They drove in silence out of Sydney, through almost deserted streets—it was close on midnight now—going fast after they had cleared the suburbs, rocketing down into Victoria. Shaw studied the back of Lubin’s head, feeling almost a sense of awe that one man should be holding so much terrible power. Lubin hadn’t taken much part in the questioning and beating-up earlier, had seemed to hold himself aloof as though the scientific brain preferred to leave such crudities to others. And yet the crudity which he was preparing to inflict on the world was the supreme one of all. No death, Shaw felt, could be bad enough for this man.

  After a while Shaw asked, “Where are we going?”

  Dr Tien looked at him out of the corner of his eye. He said, “To a place called Wilson’s Promontory.”

  Shaw bit his lip. So—James had been right. And thank God for that. Forcing himself not to show any feelings, Shaw hoped silently that James would have his men at the Promontory in time. But even so Wilson’s Promontory, that big headland, Australia’s southernmost tip as he had seen on the map, jutting out into the Bass Strait to the eastward of Cape Liptrap, right where the Southern Ocean met the Pacific, would take a lot of covering. Tien went on smoothly, “The ship will pass within a mile or two of Wilson’ Promontory. We shall arrive in the vicinity at about noon. That gives us plenty of time. The New South Wales is due to pass between there and Flinders Island at four in the afternoon, and she will keep quite close enough in to the mainland even though the weather forecast is bad. That is when Lubin uses his transmitter, which has been in its position for a day or so now . . . and my nation is fully ready to follow up as soon as he transmits. To-morrow, when the liner passes Wilson’s Promontory, instruments will tell my country that the big Powers have vanished, and then the armies and the air forces will get
the executive signal to move closer to the devastated lands.”

  Shaw kept cool. He asked conversationally, “Dr Tien, as a civilized man, don’t you think at all about the bloodshed— doesn’t it worry you, all this killing of innocent people?”

  Tien laughed again. “No. It is done, you see, in the sacred name of our nation. We are a very old civilization, after all, as you must be aware. Our land was great, very great, greater than yours is now, centuries before you English had ceased being savages.”

  “And that doesn’t give you any feeling of—of responsibility, any regard for human values?”

  Tien’s voice was harsh now as he said, “Commander, you have a saying your country—Charity begins at home. I also have a saying, which runs: Responsibility and regard for human values begins at home too. It is not good for a whole people to have suffered for so long, as we did until our leader delivered us, under the heel of the foreigner. And remember, your Western armies marched against innocent people in their day, and hit them with weapons which were then considered advanced, cruel, wicked. You cannot deny that.” He made a gesture with his hand. “But why should I discuss all this with you? Very soon our plan will be an accomplished fact.”

  Shaw snapped, “Don’t be so certain. Suppose those signals of Lubin’s don’t work? Suppose the MAPIACCIND Powers have immobilized their stockpiles—which they’re sure to have done by now. What happens then, Dr Tien?”

  Tien laughed softly. “They will not have done that at all. My country has friends in very high places, men of influence who have used the weight of their prestige to make the nations dither as Westerners always dither in times of crisis, insidiously to lull the MAPIACCIND countries into a false sense of security, men who have told the Powers that we are only bluffing, that we intend nothing that can harm them.” He half turned and looked hard at Shaw. “Come, my friend, is that not so—do they not even now refuse to believe?”

  Shaw’s mouth tightened. This was much too close to the sorry truth. But he said, “I wouldn’t bank on that. Our Intelligence Services haven’t been quite asleep.”

  Tien seemed amused. He said, “Commander, you are very simple! Naturally, we have taken pains to provide against pitfalls. It could hardly have failed to occur to us that the MAPIACCIND countries might conceivably have taken precautions notwithstanding the assurances of our friends—particularly after you got away from Bandagong, and that is why we had to question you. We had indeed provided against such a possibility from the start—we left nothing to chance. Our information is that so far no precautions have been taken by the MAPIACCIND Directorate—but let us concede for a moment that, before four o’clock in the afternoon, they do. Well?” Tien smiled almost benevolently. “Then the alternative comes into operation. It will not be quite so immediately effective as a simultaneous world-wide detonation of all the nuclear devices, but it will suffice . . . yes, it will suffice . . . and it will have precisely the same effect in the end. My friend, whatever happens it will be over for you, you and the liner and the rest. You cannot win.”

  After that Tien, evidently feeling he had said too much already and bearing in mind that Shaw had recently made one unexpected escape, had refused positively to say anything further. The car rushed on in the night, through wind and rain which increased as they went farther south, heading out fast through Picton and Goulburn, skirting Canberra itself, crossing the Snowy River, flying down for Gippsland.

  As they went Shaw, sunk now in his nightmare thoughts, sat there silently, filled with bitter anxieties, wondering what it was that Tien had in mind. The car passed on, and it was when they came into Gippsland that the bad weather really hit them and what had been merely a strong wind became a gale lashing in from the sea, a gale which ripped along and tore at the speeding car; rain soaked down blindingly, brought their pace down as it flooded the windscreen and splashed up on either side. The windows rattled, the wind screamed eerily at them, and it grew cold. Dirty weather out at sea, Shaw thought. Maybe the New South Wales would stand well clear of the Promontory after all. That seemed the only hope now; but a glance at his companions showed that they were not unduly worried—and Tien had said, of course, that the weather wouldn’t stop them.

  The farther south they got, the worse the weather seemed to become. They saw scores of telegraph poles down along the route, and one or two big trees, and floods were starting too as the rain sliced into the earth and swelled the streams and rivers.

  It was a little after noon that the car turned off the main road from Fish Creek to Darby where it ran along Corner Inlet behind the Promontory. After going along a rough track leading to a small cove off the inlet, the car pulled into some scrub and stopped.

  Dr Tien ordered Shaw out of the car. The place was deserted; there was no sign of James’s security people, and Shaw’s heart sank, though he knew it would have been a phenomenal piece of luck if they’d fetched up at this particular spot. Karstad rammed a gun into Shaw’s back as he got out, and kept it there. Dr Tien took a length of thin rope from the boot and tied his hands tightly behind his back. He was told to march and, leaving the Chinese driver

  in the car, the party went ahead down a pathway running right to the water. The wind was blowing very strongly, whipping up in the cove. Spray came up along the wind, drenched them. It was heavy going across that rough ground and in the teeth of the gale; but they moved as fast as possible and soon afterwards they came to a makeshift jetty built along the shores of a tiny creek. Even here in the creek the water was surging up the shoreline and almost over the planks of the jetty at times as the sea rode in, piled up by the distant waves lashing past Snake Island.

  Passing farther along from the jetty they came to a group of boathouses, shacks built of wood and corrugated iron, and Shaw was marched towards one of them. Tien unlocked a door and Shaw was prodded forward. In the boathouse, rising and falling to the surging sea, lay a powerful-looking, high-speed motor-boat, a big, roomy job with a cabin amidships. It seemed a pretty modern craft and in good trim but Shaw, realizing now that they meant actually to meet the New South Wales at sea and that Lubin’s set must be aboard this boat, asked:

  “Surely you’re not intending to take this thing out into deep water on a day like this, are you?”

  Karstad said tensely, “The boat’s all right, perfectly seaworthy. We’ll be safe enough.” The man’s tone, Shaw thought, didn’t bear out the confidence of his words; Karstad was white and shaky now; he was obviously scared. Shaw himself was fearful—until, with a sickening lurch of his heart, it came back to him that it wouldn’t make any difference now. But he said, “You’re mad!”

  They took no notice; Lubin pushed past almost apologetically—so far he hadn’t opened his mouth once since leaving Sydney—and jumped down into the cockpit aft in the sternsheets, ducked down a short ladder into the cabin, and disappeared. Karstad pushed Shaw with the gun, ramming it hard into his kidneys; he hadn’t forgotten what Shaw had done to him the day before. He snapped, “Get in.”

  Shaw stepped into the boat as it rose on a surge of water; Dr Tien and Karstad got in behind him. Karstad made his way for’ard along the narrow walkway beside the cabin ports, jumped down into the midship cockpit. Lubin, going through the for’ard door of the cabin, also climbed into the midship cockpit and went to the wheel. Karstad started the motor. There was a roar, and a cloud of blue smoke came from the exhaust, kicking up a spray of water. The engine-sound was sweet enough, Shaw noticed. She was in first-class condition all right.

  The craft edged out from the boathouse, with Tien and Lubin bearing off as she cannoned into the sides of the structure, and then Lubin went back to the wheel and Tien ordered Shaw into the cabin. Keeping a small automatic levelled, the Chinese followed him in, slipped another rope round his bound hands and hitched the end to a stanchion near a settee, telling Shaw to sit down.

  The boat went slow down the creek into the wider waters of the main cove, and then into Corner Inlet proper. Faster then, and on into th
e broad sweep of water behind Snake Island. Here the weather really met her and she rolled and pitched violently, the wind tearing across her cabin and the cockpits, shrieking horribly. Shaw began to feel seasick. Dr Tien seemed unmoved, taking the weather in his stride. It became worse as the boat headed eastwards and met the gale funnelling up the Franklin Channel. For a time the wind and sea were on her beam, and she corkscrewed madly, seemed about to turn right over. Lubin, fighting the wheel, brought her round the Mount Hunter end of the Promontory to head into the wind, steering her along the channel for the open sea beyond. When she was headed into the wind and sea Lubin opened her up a little, cautiously. She forged on, banging and jerking and heaving, sending up great spouts of solid water over her head, water which tore backward into the open cockpits and flooded up against the cabin doors. All the time Tien kept Shaw covered with his automatic.

  As a trickle of water came under the after door, Tien got up and found a thick towel which he wedged in the crack. Then he opened a panel in the deck, slid it aside and examined something beneath. He looked satisfied, slid the panel into place again. But just before he did so, Shaw, craning forward, had seen what was beneath it.

  A large instrument, all dials and knobs. A radio? He asked, “Is that the transmitter?”

  “Yes.”

  If only he could get that out of action before they met the New South Wales, heading up from Port Phillip . . . all it would need would be a boot or a good dollop of seawater . . . Tien laughed aloud, and moved towards him, said: “I know what is in your mind, my dear Shaw.” He unhitched the rope from the stanchion. “Get up, please.”

  Shaw obeyed, steadying himself against the for’ard bulkhead. Tien’s gun was aimed at his ribs and the hand was firm. Tien said, “Move straight backwards.” As he spoke he pressed a button in the bulkhead beside him and a panel slid open in the woodwork right behind Shaw, on the port side of the entry into the midship cockpit. “Inside, please.”