" 'combo ridex london'-the telegraphic address of the chief of your service, wasn't it, Bentall?" he asked. It seemed unlikely that I could convince him that all I had been doing was sending a birthday message to my Aunt Myrtle in Putney, so I nodded. "I guessed so. And I thought it might be rather useful if I sent a message myself. While Hewell-who bad now discovered you were missing-and his men were already pickaxeing away 'what was left of the tunnel, I composed a second message. I had no idea, of course, what your coded message had been, but the one I sent to 'combo ridex london' should meet the case. I sent: 'please disregard PREVIOUS MESSAGE EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL ESSENTIAL YOU DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CONTACT ME FORTY EIGHT hours no time code', and took the liberty of adding your name. Do you think that will meet the case, Bentall?"
I said nothing. There was nothing I could say. I looked round the faces at the table, but no one was looking at me any more, they were almost all staring down at their hands. I glanced in Marie's direction, but even she wasn't looking at me. I'd been born in the wrong time and place, I should have been in Rome two thousand years ago and toppling slowly forward on to my sword. I thought of the nasty big hole a sword would make and then, by association of ideas, of the nasty big holes in my upper left arm, so I said to Wither-spoon: "Would you permit Surgeon-Lieutenant Brookman to fix up my arm now?"
He looked at me long and consideringly, then said quietly: "I could almost regret that life has placed us on opposite sides of the fence. I can well understand why your chief sent you on this mission: you are a highly dangerous man."
"I'm better than that," I said. "I'm a lucky man. I'll carry your coffin yet."
He looked at me for a brief moment, then turned to Brookman. "Fix this man's arm."
"Thank you, Professor Witherspoon," I said politely.
"LeClerc," he said indifferently. "Not Witherspoon. That babbling old idiot has served his purpose."
Brookman made a good job. He opened and cleaned the wounds with something that felt like a wire brush, stitched them up neatly, covered them all with aluminium foil and bandage, fed me a variety of pills then, for good measure, jabbed me a couple of times with a hypodermic syringe. Had I been alone I'd have put any dancing dervish to shame but I felt I'd done damage enough to future Secret Service recruitment so I kept reasonably still. By the time he was finished the room itself was beginning to go into a dancing dervish routine, so I thanked Brookman and without a by-your-leave made shakily for the table and sat down heavily opposite Captain Griffiths. Witherspoon-or LeClerc, as I had to think of him now-sat beside me.
"You feel better, Bentall?"
"I couldn't feel worse. If there's a hell for dogs I hope that damned hound of yours is roasting."
"Quite. Who is the senior scientist among those present, Captain Griffiths?"
"What damnable evil are you up to now?" the grey-haired man demanded.
"I won't repeat the question, Captain Griffiths," LeClerc said mildly. His misted white eyes flickered for a moment in the direction of the dead man collapsed on the table.
"Hargreaves," Griffiths said wearily. He glanced in the direction of the sound of the voices behind the closed doors of the P.O.'s mess. "Must you, LeClerc? He's only just met his wife for the first time in many months. He won't be fit to answer anything. There's not much going on that I don't know. I'm the man in overall charge, you understand, not Hargreaves."
LeClerc considered, then said: "Very well. In what state of readiness is the Black Shrike?"
"Is that all you want to know?"
"That's all."
"The Black Shrike is completely ready in every respect except for the wiring up and fusing of the firing circuitry."
"Why wasn't this done?"
"Because of the disappearance of Dr. Fairfield…" I tried to focus on Captain Griffith's face among the kaleidoscopic whirl of people and furniture and dimly realised that it was only now that Griffiths was beginning to understand why Fairfield had disappeared. He stared at LeClerc for long moments, then whispered huskily: "My God! Of course, of course."
"Yes, of course," LeClerc snapped. "But I didn't mean that. Why was the circuitry and fusing not finished earlier. I understand that the loading of the propellant charge was completed over a month ago."
"How-how in heaven's name do you know that?"
"Answer my question."
"Fairfield feared that the propellant mixture might show inherent instability in very hot weather and regarded that as sufficient risk in itself without the additional risk of fusing it." Griffiths rubbed a sun-tanned hand across his damp and bleeding face. "You should know that no projectile or missile, from a two-pounder to a hydrogen bomb, is ever fused until the last possible moment."
"How long did Fairfield say the fusing would take?"
"I once heard him mention a period of forty minutes."
LeClerc said softly: "You're lying, Captain. I know the great virtue of the Shrike is that it can be fired instantaneously."
"That is so. In time of war or tension it would be permanently fused. But we are as yet not quite certain as to the inherent stability of the propellant."
"Forty minutes?"
"Forty minutes."
LeClerc turned to me. "You heard. Forty minutes."
"I heard bits of it," I mumbled. "I'm not hearing very well."
"You are feeling sick?"
"Sick?" I tried to stare at him in vast surprise, but I couldn't find his face anywhere. "Why should I be feeling sick?"
"You could fuse this, Bentall?"
"I'm a specialist in liquid fuel," I said with difficulty.
"I know differently." I could see his face now, because he'd stuck it within three inches of mine. "You were Fairfield's assistant at the Hepworth Ordnance Branch. You worked on solid fuel. I know."
"You know an awful lot."
"Can you fuse this?" he persisted quietly.
"Whisky," I said. "I need a drink of whisky."
"Oh, my God!" He followed this up with some more language, most of which I fortunately couldn't catch, then called to one of his men. I suppose lie Chinese must have gone to the officers' mess, for a few moments later someone was putting a glass in my hand. I gazed blearily at it, a hefty three fingers in a tumbler, and put it all away in a couple of gulps. When I'd stopped coughing and wiped the tears away from my eyes, I found I could see almost as good as ever. LeClerc touched my arm.
"Well, what's the answer? Can you fuse up the Shrike?"
"I wouldn't even know how to start."
"You're ill," LeClerc said kindly. "You don't know what you're saying. What you need is some sleep."
CHAPTER TEN
I slept for two hours. When I awoke the sun was high in the sky and Dr. Hargreaves, the hypersonics specialist, was shaking me gently by the shoulder. At least he thought he was shaking me gently, it was probably the fact that I had a blanket drawn over me that caused him to forget that he shouldn't have been shaking me by the left shoulder. I told him to be more careful, he looked hurt, maybe it was the way I said it, and then I pushed back the blanket and sat up. I felt stiff and sore practically everywhere, my shoulder and arm throbbed savagely, but much of the tiredness was gone and my head was clear again. Which, of course, was what LeClerc had wanted, you can't have a man fusing and wiring up the complicated circuitry on a propellant with the disruptive potential of a hundred tons of high explosive if he's peering, fumbling and staggering around with exhaustion like a drunken man. From time to time I have cherished my share of illusions but one which I didn't cherish was that LeClerc had finished with me.
Hargreaves looked pale and distressed and unhappy. I didn't wonder. His re-union with his wife couldn't have been a very happy one, the circumstances hadn't been very favourable and the immediate prospects even less so. I wondered what they had done with Marie, whether they had put her in with the other women, and when I asked him he said they had.