Gibraltar Road

by Philip McCutchan

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  In Gibraltar very few knew the truth. Very few knew, but a good many heard vague rumours of untoward things, and they sniffed the air and were not happy. Very few knew, but many put two and two together; none of their guesses made four, but a few intelligent persons in official circles made very good shots indeed—but because they were intelligent people they kept these guesses to themselves, and did not start to spread the half-truths which would undoubtedly have led to a panic.

  All the same, vague, half-defined whispers did go round the town and the garrison, and a general atmosphere of unrest soon became apparent, a nasty wordless feeling that all was not well, and that something rather dreadful might be going to happen. The comings and goings at the Governor’s residence at The Convent, at The Mount, where the Flag Officer lived, at the Tower in the dockyard, and in the City Council chambers and the Legislative Council building— this all helped the rumour-mongering. It was, of course, inevitable. The Yacht Club buzzed; officers and men of visiting ships felt the difference in the atmosphere of the Rock from last time they’d been in. In the Garrison Library members tended to talk in whispers—whispers which died away as newcomers joined the little groups, and then started up again. It was the same in the hotels.

  H.M.S. Cambridge was moved and berthed beneath the Tower; that for a cruiser was sufficiently unusual in itself, in all the circumstances, to give fresh life to the rumours.

  The brass was alarmed about something, that was clear enough. A few voices, loud ones, were raised against ‘all this secrecy’; but, except for these few voices, Gibraltar’s 24,000 odd inhabitants—Service, civilian, and local—trusted their Governor and Commander-in-Chief.

  Which trust Sir Francis Hammersley found very sustaining—but at the same time worrying, and very humbling.

  General Hammersley had had barely four hours sleep since Shaw had crossed into Spain, and that was now more than thirty-six hours ago. During that time no word of Shaw, or of any progress, had reached Gibraltar.

  Tired, Hammersley tapped out his pipe in a gleaming copper ash-tray on the polished leather top of his desk. His eyes were red-rimmed, his uniform crumpled and clammy. He seemed to have aged quite a lot in these last two days of supreme (and supremely lonely) responsibility. It weighed very heavily upon him that so many men, women, and children depended for their lives upon his handling of a unique situation, depended upon his accurate, or otherwise, assessment of the chances. For, of course, there would come a time when he would no longer be justified in waiting for Shaw to achieve something: there would come a moment when catastrophe would be certain to occur within a short time after, and there would then be no further point in maintaining secrecy. The explosion which would send the Rock hurtling down on the town to crush its inhabitants to a frightful death would also end Project Sinker and everything connected with it. And when that moment came it would be up to Hammersley to recognize it, and to order the immediate evacuation of Gibraltar in an attempt to get as many people off the Rock as possible before the end came.

  Hammersley drew a hand heavily across his forehead, found a sticky cold sweat there.

  It seemed to him at times that the scramble line to London hadn’t been idle for a minute since the first word of Ackroyd’s disappearance had been flashed to Whitehall. Counter-proposal followed proposal, and refusal followed counter-proposal; and the tense voices of Whitehall and Downing Street drummed into General Hammersley’s ears, and those of other high-ranking officers holding responsible positions; and in the end something of a scheme had been thrashed out.

  When and if that moment, that point, as it were, of no return, should appear to be in sight—and it was left entirely to Hammersley to say when that was; the action signal was his alone to give—all entries to Gibraltar would at once be prohibited, and a number of complicated movements would be set in motion under the collective code-name of Exercise Convoy, which, when the evacuation actually started, would be stepped up to Operation Convoy. In the first place, upon the Gibraltar Governor’s Most Immediate call to London, the liner Queen Elizabeth—at this moment, as Hammersley refilled his pipe in his office, leaving New York for Southampton via Le Havre—would increase to her maximum emergency speed, land her passengers and all excess catering staff at Plymouth, and steam flat out for Gibraltar, where she would anchor in the Bay and immediately take off evacuees from tenders. The Queen Mary was unfortunately undergoing refit, and was therefore not available; but the Queen Elizabeth could be backed up if necessary by the Orient liner Orsova, which, homeward bound from Sydney, was already well into the Mediterranean, and might be ordered to disembark her passengers at Naples and proceed at full speed into Algeciras Bay; while the P. and O. Company’s Stratheden, also inward bound from Sydney, was due to enter the Mediterranean shortly—though at the moment she was awaiting Canal entry at Port Tewfik, and would therefore probably be too late. A host of small shipping, all that happened to be near at hand when the signals went out, could be given diversionary orders as necessary; the big troop-carriers of R.A.F. Transport Command, backed up by B.O.A.C. and B.E.A., would be alerted to start a continuous shuttle-service from Gibraltar’s airport; the British Mediterranean Fleet in Malta had sealed orders, dispatched by air to the Commander-in-Chief, which would be opened on a signal from the Admiralty if necessary. Meanwhile the warships—an aircraft-carrier, two cruisers, and smaller vessels—were being held at immediate notice for steam, the official reason being that they might be required to take part in the big exercise in Royal Navy and Merchant Service co-operation to be known as Exercise Convoy; so that, if Shaw should bring his mission to a successful conclusion in the meantime, secrecy would not have been needlessly jeopardized.

  Hammersley had been instructed that the situation vis-à-vis Spain was to be handled with the greatest care; as a last resort, and only if something went badly adrift with those all-embracing evacuation arrangements, or if the fuel unit should look like going up before the ships could get to Gibraltar, he was ordered to request permission from the Military Governor in Algeciras for an exodus into Spanish territory. That contingency apart, only when the sea-air evacuation actually began was he (on the grounds of common humanity) to break what was left of security and warn the Spanish Military Governor that he should clear La Linea, San Roque, and Algeciras and represent to Madrid that contamination and blast might well extend as far as Malaga, Cadiz, and Ronda. Tangier would of course be alerted at the same time, and shipping, apart from that required to form the evacuation fleet, would be given a general broadcast warning to keep clear of the Straits.

  All this awaited the word of General Hammersley. If he must not make that signal too late, he must certainly not make it too soon either. A somewhat strongly worded pronouncement to this latter effect had come to him personally from a very high source indeed.

  He had in addition another very heavy responsibility: that of working out, in consultation with Gibraltar’s civic and Legislative Council authorities, the details of that act of evacuation as it would affect those being uprooted from homes which they would never see again. That—and the priorities. After much heart-searching, the Governor had come to the conclusion that this was no time for a policy of ‘women and children first.’ It was, he thought, no time to split families, to leave the breadwinner behind to face certain death. They must, he had said—and he’d insisted in the face of opposition—live or die together as whole families. So families would be moved as units. Top priority would go to those with the largest number of children, the lowest to old people, childless couples, and single men and women. British Service personnel would go last of all, and then only if there was space available—and time; for Hammersley would not hold the ships in danger to await his troops. The Governor and his staff, and other senior officers of the Services, would, of course, be the very last to leave the by then nearly deserted fortress—Hammersley himself didn’t really expect to get away at all. This removal operation, of which the populace would know no
thing (beyond the fact that Exercise Convoy was going on) until it became inevitable, would be conducted by British infantry who would rouse out the people in their homes after a last-minute broadcast by the Governor over the Rediffusion Service and Radio Gibraltar, and escort them on foot and in Service transport and in buses and commandeered private cars with the absolute minimum of essential personal effects, to the airport and to the tenders waiting at the dockyard and Waterport quays to go out to the ships in the Bay. Staff officers, working with the civic authorities in the City Hall, were now drawing up the lists of population in the due order of their priorities.

  In his office Hammersley slowly, but with fingers that shook a little, stuffed the tobacco down into the bowl of his pipe. While he was doing this there was a light tap at the door, and his wife came in carrying a bunch of flowers, bougainvillaea and zinnias and pelargoniums. Dark and petite, smiling now but smiling anxiously, she came towards him.

  “Hullo, m’dear.” Hammersley did his best to match the smile. He thought: I wish to Heaven I could talk to her about this, but there’s at least one reason why I mustn’t. And I know she suspects something—how could she not?— and she’s worried about the boys coming out for their leave. . . .

  Lady Hammersley came up to him, kissed his cheek. Then, standing back a pace, she looked at him critically. She said, “Francis, you do look so worn out. How much longer is the worry going to last for you?”

  He still smiled at her, gently, but he felt his nerves on edge. “Not much longer, my dear.” How much did she know? All he’d said was that he was going to be pretty busy on an exercise for the next few days, and she’d better carry on with her various women’s committees and what-have-you and forget about him, because he wouldn’t see much of her anyway. Of course, he knew that if he’d told her the truth she’d have been useful to him and the staff in helping to organize some of the more domestic aspects of the evacuation arrangements, but he’d preferred to forgo that for a certain reason, and that reason had to do with their sons. Once she knew what was going on the mother-instinct would, quite naturally, have taken precedence of her position as the Governor’s Lady, and that was something which for both their sakes, and for the sake of security, he didn’t want to happen.

  She put out a hand, lightly touched his face. Her eyes were very anxious; her half-Spanish blood had given to her manner—though not to her emotions in times of stress—a kind of Victorian reserve, a reserve which had attracted Hammersley to her in the first place, and she was still unsure how far she ought to go in drawing out her husband on matters of duty. But now, seeing her evident anxiety, Hammersley took her hands in his and led her to a chair by his desk.

  Standing over her, he said gently, “Don’t worry, my dear. We’ll come through this.”

  She was puzzled. “Francis, I don’t understand you—come through what?” Her nose crinkled up, her eyes puckered, and suddenly she looked very Spanish, with the dark hair laid rather close to the narrow head. “All this—gossip, Francis. Is it really true that there is something very bad going to happen?”

  Hammersley swore a little under his breath. He’d been indiscreet—he was so damn tired—he must watch himself every minute of the day. Turning away to the window, he said rather harshly, “I told you not to worry. It’s only that—I’ve had a lot of work lately, and I’m not so young as I was. Forget it.”

  “All right.” After a long look at her husband’s back, Lady Hammersley shrugged slightly. “I wanted to talk to you, Francis.”

  He looked at his watch. The Mayor was due in fifteen minutes. “Go ahead,” he said.

  “It’s about the boys.”

  Hammersley stiffened. Well, of course, this had to be faced, the actual decision put into words some time. “Go on.”

  “You’ve been looking forward to them coming out, Francis.”

  “Of course.” Hammersley’s teeth came together with a snap, over by the window where he was looking out unseeingly towards the cool green of the trees. Naturally he’d been looking forward to seeing his sons—one on holiday from his public school, the elder on leave from Sandhurst. But not any more. He turned to face his wife. “What about it?”

  “What about it?” she repeated. “Francis, I have heard the gossip, the talk, the rumours. I don’t know if it is right to bring them out to Gibraltar just now.”

  And, thought Hammersley furiously, as he bit hard on his lip. I know damn well that it’s wickedly wrong from any human standpoint. But dammit to hell, for good or ill I’m a red-tabbed general—and what’s more I’m the Governor. It’s not as though I’m Tom, Dick, or Harry—some junior officer or N.C.O. or private who might quite legitimately decide off his own bat for a variety of reasons to stop his family coming out. This is the kind of responsibility I’ve been paid to be ready for ever since I stopped being a regimental officer years ago. And I hope I’ve never to bear it again—after this, the Equality Boys can take over and let the rank-and-file have all the privileges of command, which perhaps will give the generals and the admirals some excuse for behaving like private soldiers and ordinary seamen when it comes to this kind of thing. But meanwhile here I am, the Governor of Gibraltar. I’ve got the full knowledge, and I must be strong enough not to take private advantage of it . . . and not only that—there’s so much more to it than that. Some fathers have, already stopped their children— they’ve heard the rumours, I suppose—and of course I haven’t interfered. But if I stop my boys coming in the rumours’ll run like wildfire (‘Haven’t you heard? H.E.’s stopped his sons leaving U.K. for Gib—you can’t tell me there’s nothing up!’) and there’ll be complete cancellation of the school planes. That’ll blow security nicely! A lance-corporal can save his children but I mustn’t save mine . . . anyway, that’s how I see it, though I know she won’t, and that’s why she mustn’t know—the decision’s got to be mine alone.

  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.�
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  “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. . . .