And it wasn’t my fault that LeClerc had insisted that I work on both rockets at once, or that I was hindered by the fact that he had appointed Hargreaves and another scientist by the name of Williams to check on every move and write it down in their notebooks. One on either side of me on the narrow gantry platforms, they got in my way with nearly every move I made.
I could see the logic of LeClerc’s insistence on the simultaneous wiring. He’d certainly warned Hargreaves and Williams that if they as much as spoke to each other they would be shot and probably warned that the same thing would happen to their wives if their notes did not compare exactly at the end of the day. Thus, if the first firing of the Shrike was a success and the compared notes for the wiring up of both rockets were absolutely the same, then he would have a guarantee that the second rocket would also be perfectly wired.
The simultaneous wiring, of course, also served notice of sentence of death on me. Had he been intending to take me with him along with the others, he would hardly have had me wire up both rockets at once, especially in view of the urgency: the most recent message from the Neckar spoke of seas so high that there was a possibility of having to abandon the test. Not that I needed any notice of this sentence. I wondered when I was slated to die. Immediately after I had finished the wiring or later, along with Captain Griffiths and his men, after the scientists and their wives had been embarked? Later, I thought, even LeClerc wasn’t likely to embark on a blood bath with so many witnesses watching. But I wouldn’t have spent a penny to gamble on it.
A few minutes before two o’clock I said to Hewell: “Where are the keys for the destruct box?”
“Are you all ready to go?” he asked. The last move before the rockets were in final firing order was to make the switches in both the propellant and destruction systems, but the switch for the latter that completed the circuit to the 60 Ib. T.N.T. charge couldn’t be made without a key which operated a safety lock on the handle of the switch.
“Not quite. The switch in the suicide box is sticking. I want to have a look at it.”
“Wait I’ll get LeClerc.” He left, leaving a watchful Chinese in charge, and was back with LeClerc inside a minute.
“What’s the hold-up now?” LeClerc demanded impatiently.
“Two minutes. Have you the key?”
He signalled for the lift to be lowered, told the two scientists with their notebooks to get off, then climbed up beside me. When we regained working height he said suspiciously: “What’s the trouble? Thinking of pulling the last minute fast one of a desperate man?”
“Try the switch yourself,” I snapped. “It won’t move across.”
“It’s not supposed to move more than halfway before the key is turned,” he said angrily.
“It won’t even move at all. Try it for yourself and see.”
He tried it, moved it less than a quarter inch, nodded and handed me the key. I unlocked the switch, undid the four butterfly nuts that held the switch-cover in position and as I eased the switch-cover off over the switch I managed to dislodge with the tip of my screwdriver the copper core of a piece of flex which I’d forced in between switch and cover to make the former stick. The switch itself was of the common type with the spring-loaded rocker arm where, when the switch handle was pushed over to the right the two copper lugs jumped over from the two dead terminals on the right to the live terminals on the left. As quickly as my blurred vision and shaky right hand would permit I unscrewed the central rocker arm, lifted out the switch, pretended to straighten out the copper lugs and then screwed the switch back in place.
“Fault in design,” I said briefly. “Probably the same in the other.” LeClerc nodded, said nothing, just watched carefully as I replaced the cover and nicked the switch from side to side several times to demonstrate how easily it worked.
“All finished?” LeClerc asked.
“Not yet. I’ve got to set the timing clock on the other one.”
“That can wait, I want this one on its way-now.” He looked up to where Farley and an assistant were fussing around with the automatic guidance and target location systems. “What the hell’s keeping him?”
“Nothing’s keeping him,” I said. Farley and I made a pair, both of us with great red and purple welts down the left hand sides of our faces: his was even more angry-looking and rainbow hued than mine, but that was only because it had had more time to develop: give me twenty-four hours and nobody would even notice his. Twenty-four hours. I wondered who would give me twenty-four hours. “He finished days ago,” I went on. “He’s just a last minute fusser, wondering if he turned all the taps off before he left home.”
If I pushed LeClerc hard enough, I mused, he might break his neck on the concrete floor ten feet beneath: on the other hand he might not, and then I wouldn’t have twenty-four seconds left me, far less twenty-four hours. Besides, Hewell had his cannon pointing at me.
“Good. Then we are ready to go.” LeClerc turned the key in the switch cover, pushed the switch to the ‘Armed’ position, withdrew the key and closed and locked the door of the rocket. The lift sunk down to the ground and LeClerc beckoned to one of the guards. “Go tell the wireless operator to send a message. Firing in twenty minutes.”
“So where now, LeClerc?” I asked. “The blockhouse?”
He looked at me coldly.
“So that you can hide there in safety while the rocket blows itself up because of some fix you made on it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you, Bentall. I have no illusions. You are a highly dangerous man.” Sure I was dangerous, but only to my friends and myself. “You have the ability to jinx the firing mechanism so that only you would know. Surely you were not so naive as to imagine that I would overlook the possibility? You, the scientists and naval men will remain out here in the open while the rocket is being fired. They are already assembled. We shall go to the blockhouse.”
I swore at him, violently and viciously. He smiled.
“So you had overlooked the possibility that I would take precaution?”
“Leave men out in the open, you damned murderer. You can’t do that, LeClerc!”
“Can’t I now?” The slaty milky eyes stared into mine, as he went on softly: “Perhaps you have jinxed it, Bentall?”
“I’ve done damn all of the kind,” I shouted. “It’s just that this solid fuel is inherently unstable. Read Dr. Fairfield’s notes and you’ll see that. No one really knows what’s going to happen. The fuel has never been tried before on this scale. Damn you to hell. LeClerc, if that thing goes up not a single man within half a mile has the ghost of a chance of survival.”
“Exactly,” he smiled. He smiled, but I became gradually aware that he wasn’t feeling like smiling. His hands were out of sight in his pockets, but I could see they were knotted into fists: he had a nervous tic at the corner of his mouth and he was sweating more than the heat of the sun justified. This, for LeClerc, was the most crucial moment of all, the moment when all could be won or all could be lost. He didn’t know just how ruthless I could be, he suspected I’d go to the limit and stick at nothing, that I’d even sacrifice innocent lives to stop him, after all I’d already told him that he could shoot every officer and seaman on the base as far as I was concerned. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t be so willing to sacrifice my own life, but he wouldn’t lay too much stress on that, he knew that I knew that I was going to die anyway. All his staggering plans, his hopes and his fears depended on the next few moments, would the Black Shrike take off or would it blow itself to bits and all his schemes and dreams along with it. He had no means of knowing. He had to gamble, he just had to gamble: but if he gambled and was wrong at least he wasn’t going to let me know the satisfaction of winning.
We walked round the corner of the hangar. A hundred yards away, sitting in two ragged rows on the ground, were the naval and scientific personnel of the base. But no women, I couldn’t see any women. Two Chinese were standing guard with automatic carbines at the ready.