Gibraltar Road by Philip McCutchan Page A

“Well, there we are, lad. She’s working fine now, she is. Keep your eye on ’er, though.”
    “Okay, Mr Ackroyd.”
    The physicist took a last look round. “I’ll be back in the morning as usual,” he said, “and if you want me before, ring me.” There was a phone to the Dockyard Exchange in the power-house. “Ring me at once if she doesn’t seem to be going right, eh, lad? She’ll have to be stopped if she over-’eats again, and we may ’ave to strip ’er down.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Good night, then lad.”
    Mr Ackroyd, enjoying as usual—even now—the sensation he always got when he was called ‘sir,’ picked up a towel and a bathing-costume, the sort that covered him completely, and walked out of the almost airless compartment which drummed with heat and AFPU ONE’s reverberating dum-da . The technician watched him go, a slight smile on his lips. He thought: Poor little beggar, he’s dead nuts about this machine, and he’s so full of brain he doesn’t know how to relax properly. . ..
    Mr Ackroyd, handing in the film badge which he had pinned to his shirt, and which when developed would show up any radiation, turned to the right out of the side-passage into Dockyard Tunnel proper, walked down towards the Sandy Bay end, came out along the narrow-gauge railway track under the stars, took in draughts of cool, fresh air gratefully. Making to his left, he called good-night to the dockyard policeman on the gates and went out into the roadway strictly according to his unchanging nightly routine. After a day’s work in the close confines and stuffiness of the tunnel power-house, Mr Ackroyd looked forward immensely to his nice swim in the dark from Sandy Bay. A swim, and then a noggin in the Bristol or the Yacht Club, where he enjoyed the sensation of being regarded as a big-shot even if the nobs didn’t exactly make him feel one of themselves.
    Walking down to the beach, Mr Ackroyd put his little bundle in the same spot as he always put it—in the lee of a nice big rock where any chance passer-by—not that there was likely to be many of these—couldn’t see his skinny frame entering the bathing-costume. He was about to start undressing when with terrifying suddenness a man appeared from the darkness behind the rock and pinioned his arms behind his back. Mr Ackroyd felt his heart thudding away. He was about to utter a frightened scream when a second man pressed a hand tightly over his mouth; while a third thrust a knife into his ribs just hard enough for the tip to penetrate the shirt and draw blood. Mr Ackroyd felt the warm trickle of his own gore down his skimpy chest and quivered for an instant.
    Then he fainted.
    The man with the knife withdrew his weapon, the hand came away from Mr Ackroyd’s mouth, and the little physicist was tightly gagged with a dirty strip of cloth. Then he was picked up and carried down towards the sea and pushed into a rowing-boat which had grounded on the sand. This boat took him and the three men out to a felucca which was lying off to seaward. All the men were transferred to the felucca, which, when the rowing-boat had been made fast astern, hoisted sail and made to the northward for the fishing quarter of La Linea, to the east of the town.
CHAPTER SEVEN
    Shaw’s statement about the possibility of the Rock going up had, not surprisingly, shaken Staunton rigid. The Defence Security Officer stared at Shaw and demanded, “What in hell d’you mean by that?”
    Shaw tried to explain, to put across what he’d been told by Carberry; and all the time he was talking he was conscious of the pain in his guts like a small, red-hot pill. For Debonnair was coming out to Gibraltar; admitted, Carberry had warned him of AFPU ONE’s defective performance, but it had never been imagined that they might not be able to switch off, so of course he hadn’t thought anything of it when he’d got that cable from the girl. Though presumably the danger was not immediate, he wanted to get