Gibraltar Road

by Philip McCutchan

  Shaw forced his mind away from that, concentrated on the road ahead again. But every now and then that magnificent sight would come up before him. And then it was quite dark, and he crashed on behind the twin probing beams of the headlights, never dipping, challenging anyone to stray into his path that night.

  The pursuing car was on his tail all the way, its big headlights beaming into his rear window and lighting up the Citroen’s interior like day, sending odd shadows chasing across the windscreen and the roof, vague spears of light which came and went as the following headlights flickered up and down with the sway of the two headlong-rushing vehicles. That car, Don Jaime’s car, seemed neither to gain nor to lose. Shaw wondered what those men intended to do. There were good reasons now why they couldn’t open fire, but they must have something up their sleeves.

  Karina sat in a corner, her face quite blank; Debonnair had quietly ripped up some of her own clothing to provide a bandage and tourniquet for Karina’s flesh-wound, which had bled a lot. After that Debonnair kept her revolver pointed at the woman; Karina’s own little jewelled one, together with a knife, had gone out of the window somewhere back by the Palmones river crossing, and some lucky hombre scavenging there one day was going to come into a small fortune. . . . Now and again, as Shaw glanced into his driving-mirror, he saw the odd, appraising looks which Debonnair kept giving Karina sidelong fashion. Shaw smiled rather bitterly to himself; he felt troubled. He knew just what Debonnair must be thinking—after all, whatever she might say to the contrary, it couldn’t be particularly pleasant for her to be sitting alongside a woman who’d been his mistress, and with whom he’d been associated so closely in business and danger as well as pleasure for so long.

  His attention went back to those so-near headlights which were still weaving shadows round him—should he get Debonnair to put a shot astern into their tyres? Not yet, anyway—he didn’t want to risk the attention which a running gun-battle would focus on him, not until he’d reached the point he’d already decided on as his bolt-hole out of Spain.

  And then things fell into place and he realized what the driver behind him meant to do: wait for him to be stopped at the San Roque control post. When that happened the men would run from their car, guns nicely concealed, and protest to the carabinero that Shaw had abducted Karina—a story which Karina would naturally be only too happy to substantiate—or some such yam equally difficult to discredit. And then Ackroyd and Debonnair and he would be arrested. That would be the end.

  Very well, then!

  They were nearly at the control post now. Shaw called back to Debonnair, “Keep your eyes on Karina, darling. See there’s no funny business as we come up to the post.”

  “Okay. What’re you going to do?”

  “You’ll see.”

  The road from Algeciras took a right-incline towards the busy junction where the control post was situated, where that road and the roads from Malaga and from La Linea converged. After the right-incline, and just before the post itself was reached, the route swung hard right for La Linea and the frontier. Approaching the incline, Shaw put the wheel over gently, and then his foot slammed the accelerator viciously, almost sending it through the boards, and held it there. His teeth clenched tight as the Citroen seemed to take off from the surface, zipping forward, the extra spurt jolting its passengers hard back into the seats. Shaw’s hands gripped the wheel like vices, clenched down hard on the siren, taking the car skilfully and coolly through the traffic.

  The big car tore for the control post at the roadside beyond the turn, blaring out in a continuous signal which sent other vehicles scurrying into the sides of the roads as it drew their attention to the hurtling headlights lancing into the night. Then, easing a little for the turn itself, Shaw put the wheel over. The Citroen banked, tilted, reared up on two wheels but took the turn. They held their breath as the wind rushed past them and the car rocked with a horrible light feeling as though it had no substance; and then it bounced back, rocking on its springs now, settling on to the four wheels again. Once more Shaw accelerated, shot past the stream of traffic coming down from the Malaga road, saw the terrified carabinero leap for his life, heard the crack of revolvers.

  And then he was past, pounding down the road to La Linea and the British lines, the traffic in a mad tangle behind him. Twenty-four thousand lives depended on his using his advantage, and using it well and truly and in time.

  The traffic was thicker along the La Linea road, and they couldn’t see for certain whether or not the following car had been stopped at the control post. It seemed rather as though it had at least got bogged down in the melee behind them. Debonnair asked, “How are you going to get through the Customs control at La Linea, darling?”

  He grinned almost savagely along the beams of his headlights. “I’m not!” Even if the aduana wasn’t already being alerted from San Roque, the queue of waiting cars—waiting for the routine search and check of documents before passing into the neutral ground, and so to the last point before British territory—would be far too long, and so would the consequent and inevitable delay. He couldn’t risk that, and neither, of course, could he hope to crash that barrier, to drive fast through a pile-up of cars and people at the bottleneck of that narrow stone archway. It wasn’t like the open control of San Roque. However, this was precisely what Shaw had anticipated all the way along, and he’d planned for it.

  With no slackening of his onrush, he belted through the speed-trap, overtaking dangerously, headed into the outskirts of La Linea. Very soon he was running along the road which bordered the water, the beach where the fishermen drew up their boats along the northern shores of Algeciras Bay. Standing blackly out in the seascape to his right, Shaw could see the big oiling-hulks—old British tankers now moored out in the Bay and used for fuelling shipping, tiny oases of Britain, outposts of Gibraltar in an alien sea; and, away beyond them, that towering Rock, close now, the lights of the town glimmering below the craggy heights, and the lion-like eminence of the North Front behind the airstrip. And in the Bay and the inner harbour—ships. The evacuation fleet, assembling still.

  Shaw was just about half-way along this sector of the road when he yelled, above the engine and the rushing air, “Debbie—hold on tight, and stand by to get out fast!”

  Then, as he reached the La Linea end of the beach road, he applied the foot-brake and pushed out the clutch; the car screamed on the road, almost going into a dry skid, tyres protesting, sending up a stink of burning rubber. Shaw released the brake, swung the wheel, swerved violently right, sent the car off the macadam roadway down a narrow stone ramp to grind and flounder over the shingly beach.

  His door was open, and his gun was ready, before the car had grated to a stop.

  Jumping out, he swung the rear door open. “Out!” he snapped. “Fast as you can, Debbie—no time to waste. Don’t worry about Karina.”

  As he spoke his gun was covering Karina; Debonnair bundled out, went round to give Ackroyd a hand. Shaw snapped, “Down to the water—get one of those small boats, push it into the sea, and get Ackroyd aboard. I’ll be down in a tick, but if those blokes catch up meanwhile and anything starts happening you’re not to wait for me, nor try and help —that’s an order.” He looked at her kindly. “The whole of Gibraltar expects you to carry it out, Debbie.” He saw the fearfulness and the hurt in her face, but he went on resolutely, “You’ll row for the nearest hulk, board it, and get the watchman to send a signal to the Tower asking for a powerboat—send the signal as from me. After that you’ll be told what to do and you’ll only have to do it. Got that piece of metal, Deb?”

  She nodded. She couldn’t speak.

  “Whatever you do, don’t lose it.”

  The girl stood there, tears pricking at her eyelids. Shaw heard the sound of the passing cars. It couldn’t be long now. He put a hand on Debonnair’s shoulders. “Get going now, Debbie.”

  “All right, darling.” She put out a hand; he took it, pressed it. Hesitated, wanting to take
her in his arms once more. Then he gently pushed her and turned away. Debonnair bit on her lip, got hold of Ackroyd, turned, and hurried him down to the edge of the Bay.

  Shaw put his head inside the Citroen then. Karina smiled at him bitterly, sardonically. She said, “I suppose you couldn’t tear yourself away without saying good-bye, whatever you have done to me.”

  Shaw disregarded the irony. “Know what I’m going to do with you?”

  Her eyes were angry, hard. She said coolly, “I imagine you will shoot me—or take me to Gibraltar.”

  “Neither, my dear.” There was an almost wistful look on Shaw’s face just then. “I’m going to leave you here, that’s all. You can’t do any more damage now—and I think the Civil Guard will be pleased to see you somehow—after those deaths on the Ronda road—”

  “They can’t prove that was me, Esmonde.”

  "—and at the moment you’re sitting in what amounts to a stolen car.” He grinned. “Maybe they can’t prove you killed those two guardias, but I wouldn’t bank on it. Also, don’t forget last night.” Shaw knew there was no point in taking Karina back to Gibraltar—she’d only be an embarrassment. All they could do would be to deport her again —since all her business had been conducted on Spanish soil, there was really nothing to hold her on—one could scarcely force an agent into British territory and then have her on an espionage charge, while to charge her with abducting Ackroyd, a British subject, would probably be to defeat the ends of security anyway. There was, though Shaw hardly admitted it to himself, another reason: a sense of chivalry towards a woman he had physically loved. But he knew she couldn’t give anything away because she didn’t know anything more than her Government already knew—and they wouldn’t thank her for spilling any beans to Spain.

  As Shaw backed from the car he heard the roar of a fast-moving vehicle pulling out from the stream of traffic, and he thought he recognized Don Jaime’s car. A crowd was starting to gather as it flashed past, then checked, carried on for some way under its own impetus, and then screamed to a stop a few hundred yards farther along towards La Linea.

  Karina glanced back through the rear window of the Citroen. When she faced in Shaw’s direction again she seemed to be smiling and composed. She called from the side window, “You won’t get away, my Esmonde.”

  “Won’t I!” He was already moving down the beach.

  “Even if you do, for now, we shall meet again, of that I am sure.”

  “No, Karina, never again.” Keeping low, Shaw ran fast for the water’s edge. As he got there, in time to give Debonnair a hand with shoving out a boat from among the many lining the shingle, he caught a backward glimpse of Karina running up the beach towards the road. The men were coming down to meet her, and with them were two Civil Guards, probably alerted from San Roque.

  She’d still try and bluff it out even now.

  “All right now, Debbie.”

  Shaw, who’d remained in the water to give the boat an initial thrust out, dragged himself over the gunwale and took up the oars, putting his back into the job, his whole soul and every ounce of his effort. The boat shot out fast from the shore, and as he strained away, pulling skilfully, with his seaman’s training helping him and with Debonnair at the tiller, a broad streak of wake widened back towards the beach, standing out clearly under the moon which hung above Algeciras Bay. Looking along that wake, Shaw noticed that Karina was talking frantically to the two Civil Guards, seemed to be arguing; then two more uniformed men came down on to the beach from the roadway and, after a word with the first two, ran along to man and launch a boat.

  Shaw cursed.

  He didn’t want to fire on the Civil Guard, whose men were only doing their duty; it had been bad enough that he’d been morally responsible for the death of that guardia back at Tarifa last night. Speed was the only defence open to him, and he strained harder at the heavy oars, his chest heaving, breath coming in great gulps. But he had got a good start, and by the time he was within hailing distance of the oil-hulk’s high decks the guardias’ boat was a good cable’s-length astern of him—and not pulling very expertly.

  “Debbie,” he gasped. “Give ’em a shout. The hulk.”

  She cupped her hands, stood up.

  “Sit down! You’ll upset the boat.”

  She sat; yelled up at the decks, which looked quite deserted. Shaw, looking anxiously over his shoulder and lying on his oars as his boat swept up dead astern, could see no ladders down. He made round for the starboard side, where he could see the long shape of the accommodation-ladder, high up and horizontal in its stowed position—they’d be able to lower that quickly from up top if there was anyone about. Surely there was a watchman of some sort?

  If there was one he’d better be awake.

  Debonnair yelled again, urgently.

  Up above their heads a figure slouched to the ship’s side from the lee of an after deck-house. The watchman—a Gibraltarian by the sound of him—called down, “Who’s there, please?” Debonnair called back, “Commander Shaw of the British Navy.”

  A chuckle floated down, a gob of spit plumped into the sea near by. Shaw didn’t wait for the inevitable back-chat.

  He roared: “I’ll have you bloody well chucked in gaol if you don’t get a ladder down immediately. It’s a matter of high priority, and I’ve got to see His Excellency. Lower the starboard ladder, and lower it now.”

  Shaw’s voice carried authority when he wanted it to.

  “Yes, at once, sir, excuse me,” the Gibraltarian said. He disappeared, re-emerged a moment later alongside the starboard ladder.

  As Shaw heard the dismal, rusty creaking sound above his head, the sound which indicated that the man was starting to wind the ladder down to them, the first bullets came whining in from the Civil Guards. Shaw pulled in close to the ship’s side. Some bullets zipped through the boat’s sides, smashing the planking, and she began to fill. As the level of the water rose the guardias’ boat swept round the stem of the tanker, collided with the sinking craft. The shock tumbled the men together into the bottom of their boat; Shaw, braced back against the tanker’s wall-like plates, kept his balance. He had an oar in his hand, and as the Civil Guards struggled up and then tried to stand so as to bring their carbines to bear, Shaw swept the heavy blade towards them. It got one man on the hip, hard, laid him flat, sending him smashing into the other, who fell over the gunwale into the water, his carbine going in after him. Taken completely by surprise, he hadn’t even time to cry out.

  Shaw panted.

  The ladder was coming down now, its bottom platform was nearly in the water. And just about in time. As the heavy platform dipped in just ahead of them Shaw’s boat filled to the rubbing-strake and lay awash. Grabbing Ackroyd, Shaw yelled to Debonnair, “Swim for the ladder!” As soon as he saw her on the way he pushed Ackroyd ahead of him. Debonnair climbed up and gave him a hand to get the little man on to the platform and then Shaw struggled up after them. The other boat had drifted away now, and the ditched guardia was swimming after it, having difficulty because of his heavy clinging uniform.

  The small British party went up the steps of the ladder, and when they made the deck Shaw ordered the watchman to hoist away. As the ladder came up Shaw cut short the watchman’s agitated demands for an explanation. “That can wait,” he said tersely. He asked: “Got a signal lamp on the bridge?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Right.” Shaw dashed for the bridge ladder, ran up. He found the lamp and switched on the power. He trained the reflectors of the big signalling projector towards the harbour, and banged down the key at the side. A moment later the great white beam lanced into the night, up and down, urgently, stabbing across to the inner harbour of Gibraltar, sending its vital message to the Tower, from Commander Shaw to Rear-Admiral Forbes.

  When he’d done Shaw lit a cigarette, the first for a hell of a long time; and he drew deeply on it. Then within minutes he heard the wonderful, lovely sound of a British naval power-boat speeding out into the
Bay from the gap between the Detached and South Moles.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The telephone rang in the Rear-Admiral’s office. Harrison, the A.D.C., was on the line, his voice tense.

  He said, “From H.E., sir, he’s going to broadcast in fifteen minutes—”

  The voice went on, “—and the executive order to start the evacuation will be passed to all concerned as soon as he’s finished speaking, and Spain, Tangier, and general Mediterranean shipping will also be informed of the situation. I’m ringing the Brigadier and the A.O.C.—”

  Energetically, Forbes broke in. “The situation’s changed somewhat, my lad—if you’ll get off the line, I’m just about to ring H.E. myself.” He added, “Shaw’s back.”

  There was an exclamation at the other end, and then Forbes rang off and called The Convent.

  The urgent summons of the telephone rasped at Hammersley’s nerves, the sudden noise making him start. The Governor, at this late stage—this almost final stage, as it seemed it must be—of Gibraltar’s life, was just about at his limit. He had been content, after Shaw’s report that morning to take Staunton’s advice and hold up the evacuation, due to start at noon, for a few hours more; that call from Algeciras had been a shot in the arm to the Command and the Staff, but now that those hours had dragged slowly, sickeningly, out until late evening he knew he had no right to go on delaying further. That moment of action had come.

  Shaw might be in Algeciras, but Algeciras wasn’t Gibraltar, and most of the ships and the aircraft were waiting now— and so in ten minutes the Governor of Gibraltar would speak to the people for the last time.