Alistair MacLEAN: The Dark Crusader

‘Giving the condemned boys their last few hours of sunshine, eh?’ I asked Hewell.

‘Yeah. Everything buttoned up?’

‘All fixed.’ I nodded towards the group. ‘Mind if I join them? I could do with some fresh air and sunshine myself.’

‘You wouldn’t be thinking of starting something?’

‘What the hell could I start?’ I demanded wearily. ‘Do I look fit to start anything?’

‘It’s God’s truth you don’t,’ he admitted. ‘You can go. You two–’ this to Hargreaves and Williams ‘–the boss wants to compare your notes.’

I made my own way down to the shore. Some of the Chinese were manhandling the metal casing for the rocket on to a couple of bogies, with about a dozen sailors helping them under gunpoint. Fleck was just tying up at the end of the pier, his schooner looked even more filthy than I had remembered it. On the sands, Captain Griffiths was sitting some little way apart from the others. I lay on the sand not six feet away from him, face down in the sand, my head pillowed on my right forearm. I felt awful.

Griffiths was the first to speak.

‘Well, Bentall, I suppose you’ve just wired up the other rocket for them?’ He wouldn’t win many friends talking to people in that tone of voice.

‘Yes, Captain Griffiths. I’ve wired it up. I’ve booby-trapped it so that the first man to open the door of the Dark Crusader will blow the rocket out of existence. That’s why I did so good a job on the other rocket, this is now the only one left. They were also going to shoot you and every other sailor on the base through the back of the head and torture Miss Hopeman. I was too late to stop them from getting at Miss Hopeman.’

There was a long pause. I wondered if he had managed to understand my slurred speech, then he said quietly: ‘I’m so damnably sorry, my boy. I’ll never forgive myself.’

‘Put a couple of your own men on watch.’ I said. ‘Tell them to warn us if LeClerc or Hewell or any of the guards approach. Then you just sit there, staring out at sea. Speak to me as little as possible. No one will see me speaking in this position.’

Five minutes later I’d finished telling Griffiths exactly what LeClerc had told me he planned to do after they had the Dark Crusader in production. When I was finished he was quiet for almost a minute.

‘Well?’ I asked.

‘Fantastic,’ he murmured. ‘It’s utterly unbelievable!’

‘Isn’t it? It’s fantastic. But is it feasible, Captain Griffiths?’

‘It’s feasible,’ he said heavily. ‘Dear God, it’s feasible.’

‘That’s what I thought. So you think booby-trapping this rocket – well, it’s justifiable, you think?’

‘How do you mean, Bentall?’

‘When they get the Dark Crusader to wherever it’s going,’ I said, still talking to the sand, ‘they’re not going to take it out to any remote launching field. They’re going to take it to some factory, almost certainly in some heavily populated industrial area, to strip it down for examination. If this solid fuel goes up with the T.N.T. I don’t like to think how many hundreds of people, mainly innocent people, will get killed.’

‘I don’t like to think how many millions would be killed in a nuclear war.’ Griffiths said quietly. ‘The question of justification doesn’t enter into it. The only question is – will the batteries powering the suicide circuit last?’

‘Nickel cadmium nife cells. They’re good for six months, maybe even a year. Look, Captain Griffiths, I’m not telling you all this just to put you in the picture or to hear myself talking. It hurts me even to open my mouth. I’m telling you because I want you to tell it all to Captain Fleck. He should be coming ashore any minute now.’

‘Captain Fleck! That damned renegade?’

‘Keep your voice down, for heaven’s sake. Tell me, Captain, do you know what’s going to happen to you and me and all your men when our friend LeClerc departs?’

‘I don’t have to tell you.’

‘Fleck’s our only hope.’

‘You’re out of your mind, man!’

‘Listen carefully, Captain. Fleck’s a crook, a scoundrel and an accomplished rogue, but he’s no megalomaniac monster. Fleck would do anything for money – except one thing. He wouldn’t kill. He’s not the type, he’s told me so and I believe him. Fleck’s our only hope.’

I waited for comment, but there was none, so I went on: ‘He’ll be coming ashore any moment now. Speak to him. Shout and wave your arms and curse him for the damned renegade you say he is, the way you would be expected to do, nobody will pay any attention except LeClerc and Hewell and all they’ll do is laugh, they’ll think it highly amusing. Tell him what I’ve told you. Tell him he hasn’t long to live, that LeClerc will leave no one behind to talk. You’ll find that LeClerc has spun him some cock-and-bull yarn about what he intended to do here. One thing you can be certain of is LeClerc never told him of the rocket or what he intended to do with the rocket, he would never have dared with Fleck and his crew calling so often at Suva and other Fijian harbours where one careless word in a bar would have ruined everything. Do you think LeClerc would have told him the truth, Captain?’

‘He wouldn’t. You’re right, he couldn’t have afforded to.’

‘Has Fleck seen the rockets before?’

‘Of course not. Hangar doors were always closed when he called and he was allowed to speak only to the officers and the petty officers who supervised the unloading of the boat. He knew, of course, that it was something big, the Neckar was often anchored in the lagoon here.’

‘So. But he’ll see the Dark Crusader now, he can’t help seeing it from where he’s berthed at the end of the pier. He’ll have every justification for asking LeClerc questions about it and I’m much mistaken if LeClerc will be reluctant to talk about it. It’s the dream of his life and he knows that Fleck won’t live to talk about it. Fleck might even then still have some doubts left as to what’s in store for him, so just that he can understand exactly what kind of man he’s dealing with, tell him to go – no, better tell him to send Henry, his mate, he himself better not be seen to be missing to see what LeClerc really is capable of.’ I told Griffiths exactly how to find the spot where Hewell and his men had broken through the hillside, told him where to find the cave with all the dead men. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if there are two more dead men there now, Fijian boys. And ask him to find out if the radio in LeClerc’s cabin is still there. After Henry comes back Fleck will have no more doubts.’

Griffiths said nothing. I only hoped I’d convinced him, if I had I couldn’t leave it in better hands, he was a wily old bird and sharp as they came. By and by I heard a movement as he got to his feet. I peered out of the corner of one eye and saw him walking slowly away. I twisted round till I saw the pier. Fleck and Henry, dressed in their best off-whites, were just leaving the schooner. I closed my eyes. Incredibly, I went to sleep. Or perhaps not so incredibly, I was exhausted beyond belief, the aches in my head and face and shoulder and body merging into one vast gulf of pain. I slept.

When I woke up I’d yet another ache to add to my list. Someone was kicking me in the lower ribs and he wasn’t trying to tickle me either. I twisted my head. LeClerc. Too late in the day for LeClerc to learn the more rudimentary rules of courtesy. Blinking against the sun, I turned round till I was propped up on my good elbow, then blinked again as something soft struck me in the face and fell on my chest. I looked down. A hank of cord – window cord – neatly rolled up and tied.

‘We thought you might like to have it back, Bentall. We’ve no further use for it.’ No fury in that face, not the vindictive anger I would have expected, but something approaching satisfaction. He looked at me consideringly. ‘Tell me, Bentall, did you really think that I’d overlook so obvious a possibility, the possibility – to me the certainty, rather – that you wouldn’t hesitate to jinx the second Crusader when you knew there would be no further danger to yourself? You sadly underrate me, which is why you find yourself where you are now.’