They’d had a little current with them, and it was still full night when they rounded Carnero; Shaw decided to land on the beach at Getares. They made in for the shore a little farther on, cold and wet and played out. Ackroyd had lapsed into a sort of delirium again, and Shaw hadn’t been able to get any more sense out of him at all. They came in slowly, inched in towards Getares beach just beyond the dim outline of the whale-oil factory which lay to the southward. There was no one about in that wild spot so far as they could see — Shaw thought it unlikely that the authorities would be worrying about them, considering that those Civil Guards back near Tarifa hadn’t appeared to have noticed their boat, and had succeeded in scaring off the visible intruder — the fishing-vessel; much more likely, they’d be concentrating any remaining efforts on trying to find that car, with Karina in it, which had started up so suddenly behind them on the Jerez road and had roared off so fast towards Algeciras. They couldn’t help finding some significance, some linking between that and the fishing-boat, obviously. Nevertheless, Shaw had to remember that his party could be picked up if they were seen before they were clear of the rowing-boat, or before they had managed to lose themselves in less suspicious surroundings, and he felt for the assurance of his revolver— the water wouldn’t have hurt it, nor would the self-sealed ammunition be damaged.
Shaw was ready to quell Ackroyd if he made any undue noise on the way in; but in the event he didn’t need to— the little man was in a bad way now, he thought; probably his efforts at speech had tired him.
The boat ran smoothly, silently except for a slight sough of wood on sand, up Getares beach; and as they got out Shaw gave it a shove. It drifted out to sea again. It was safer that way.
They made their way up the beach.
Shaw was shivering with fatigue by this time, felt that he’d never be able to think this thing out properly, plan the next move. Desperately he wanted sleep. The going was rough — wild and open — and his stumbling feet caught the upthrust tussocks of grass and the small buried rocks, nearly sending him headlong a score of times. When they reached the lee of a large building on the beach — which Shaw remembered as a restaurant which he had patronized under somewhat easier circumstances when duty and pleasure had brought him this way before — he called a halt.
Thankfully he eased Ackroyd to the ground.
Debonnair, he saw, was cold and tired but bearing up well. He took her arm, and they sat down together on the soft, fine sand of the higher part of the beach. It still seemed to retain some of the day’s warmth. He said:
“Look, Debbie. There’s a lot to do yet. We’ve got to find Karina. Don’t ask me how yet.” He sighed, rubbed the side of his nose. “I suppose all we can do is to keep our eyes skinned for her and Don Jaime’s car. She’s sure to be around, with her hooks out for Ackroyd.”
“Poor Don Jaime!” She snuggled up to Shaw’s body. “I doubt if he’ll see that car again somehow, and he was so good to us.” She had a sudden idea. “I suppose you couldn’t contact him again, by phone?”
“Too risky, and it wouldn’t help much now.” Shaw drew her closer, giving her what little warmth there was in him. “I’m sorry about the car too — lucky he’s a rich man — bat the British Government’ll find a way of footing the bill if anything drastic happens to it.” He paused. “It’s Domingo Felipe I’d like to contact, but that’s impossible now. What I’ll have to do is to get in touch with the British Consul here, if Karina doesn’t pick us up first — actually, that’d probably be the best way of contacting her, really. Just let her find us.”
“And then outsmart her?”
He nodded, gave a huge yawn. He was silent for a while, dribbling sand through his fingers, thinking. “Seriously, I believe it might be best to make ourselves fairly conspicuous in the hopes that she shows herself.” He shivered, starting to yawn again as though he would never stop. Then he added, “There used to be good contacts here once, but I’d rather find out from the Consul if they’re still operative before I stick my neck out.”
“Think they mightn’t be operative any more?”
He brooded, looking out to sea where the Rock stood out beneath the bright moon, bathed in silver. “Times change, you know, and so do loyalties, Debbie.” He squinted thoughtfully into the night. “Though it’s largely a matter of pesetas, of course.”
She nodded, then looked critically at Shaw, noticed again the tired lines under his eyes. As though reading her thoughts, Shaw said, “You’re going to get some sleep. No one’ll look for us here now, I’m pretty sure of that, but we’ll have to keep a watch out all the same — and keep Ackroyd quiet too, if he starts up again.”
She grinned up at him. “Sounds as though he’s a gramophone,” she said. “Anyway, I’m taking the first watch. Darling, you’re dead on your feet and you know it,” she added, as he started to talk her down.
He still protested. “You should never have come, really. And if you hadn’t I’d have had to manage.”
“Look, you obstinate man.” The girl reached up, took the thin, sensitive face in her hands, kissed it passionately as though her lips could eradicate the lines of worry and exhaustion. “It so happens I am here and I’m going to be some use. Get it? I’m taking the first watch — say two hours? — and after that you can stay awake as long as you like. You’ve got the thinking to do — I’m only dogsbody. You can’t think on no sleep for two nights, poppet.”
She’d said two hours because she knew he’d never agree to longer, but she meant to leave him to have his sleep out if she could. Actually he was practically asleep already; he had the greatest difficulty in keeping his eyes open at all. Debonnair made him lie down on the sand, rolled Mr Ackroyd over so that the two lay side by side, keeping each other warm. In ten seconds, still wet through, Shaw was fiat out.
Debonnair looked down at him fondly, feeling almost maternal. Then, rocking her neck a little and shaking out her hair, she stared out to sea, listening to the sounds of the night and the gentle slop-slop of the waters of Algeciras Bay down the beach. After a moment her glance went back to Shaw and Ackroyd, lying together almost like lovers, and she felt a silly little pang; Esmonde was a dear, but, Heavens, he was such a stick. She felt the desire run through her body like fire, a passionate flame. And that wasn’t for the first time. Esmonde Shaw, she sometimes felt, was oddly like a woman in that one particular: in regard to her, it was marriage he wanted and nothing less. Too damn silly, really, but awfully sweet of course… it wasn’t as though he didn’t feel the same as other men, hadn’t had a woman before… suddenly, impulsively, the girl’s eyes misted over and her hand reached out softly to touch his cheek in the dimness. She felt she was going to give in one of these days, marry him whatever his work was; or make him surrender to his desires and leave the Service, and go and live in some stinking little suburban villa in Hounslow — would it be? — or Walton-on-Thames… or Esher… that was what the boy seemed to want to do, didn’t he?
Damn it, she told herself suddenly, I can’t do that to him, however much he thinks he’d like it. She found then that her cheeks were wet with tears.