Moonraker Read online

Page 21

 

  The peace was broken by two blasts on the siren from the house and they turned to gaze back at the ugly concrete world that had been cleaned out of their minds. As they watched, a red flag was broken out above the dome of the launching site and two RAF crash-wagons with red crosses on their sides rolled out of the trees to the edge of the blast-wall and pulled up.

  “Fuelling’s going to begin,” said Bond. “Let’s get on with our walk. There’ll be nothing to see and if there happened to be something we probably wouldn’t survive it at this range. ”

  She smiled at him. “Yes,” she said. “And I’m sick of the sight of all this concrete. ”

  They walked on down the gentle slope and were soon out of sight of the firing point and the high wire fence.

  The ice of Gala’s reserve melted quickly in the sunshine.

  The exotic gaiety of her clothes, a black and white striped cotton shirt tucked into a wide hand-stitched black leather belt above a medium length skirt in shocking pink, seemed to have infected her, and it was impossible for Bond to recognize the chill woman of the night before in the girl who now walked beside him and laughed happily at his ignorance of the names of the wildflowers, the samphire, Viper’s bug-loss, and fumitory round their feet.

  Triumphantly she found a bee orchis and picked it.

  “You wouldn’t do that if you knew that flowers scream when they are picked,” said Bond.

  Gala looked at him. “What do you mean?” she asked, suspecting a joke.

  “Didn’t you know?” He smiled at her reaction. “There’s an Indian called Professor Bhose, who’s written a treatise on the nervous system of flowers. He measured their reaction to pain. He even recorded the scream of a rose being picked. It must be one of the most heartrending sounds in the world. I heard something like it as you picked that flower. ”

  “I don’t believe it,” she said, looking suspiciously at the torn root. “Anyway,” she said maliciously, “I wouldn’t have thought you were a person to get sentimental. Don’t people in your section of the Service make a business of killing? And not just flowers either. People. ”

  “Flowers can’t shoot back,” said Bond.

  She looked at the orchis. “Now you’ve made me feel like a murderer. It’s very unkind of you. But,” she admitted reluctantly, “I shall have to find out about this Indian and if you’re right I shall never pick a flower again as long as I live. What am I to going to do with this one? You make me feel it’s bleeding all over my hands. ”

  “Give it to me,” said Bond. “According to you, my hands are dripping with blood already. A little more won’t hurt. ”

  She handed it to him and their hands touched. “You can stick it in the muzzle of your revolver,” she said to cover the flash of contact.

  Bond laughed. “So the eyes aren’t only for decoration,” he said. “Anyway it’s an automatic and I left it in my room. ” He drew the stalk of the flower through one of the button holes in his blue cotton shirt. “I thought a shoulder-holster would look a bit conspicuous without a coat to cover it. And I don’t think anyone will be going over my room this afternoon. ”

  By tacit agreement they edged away from the moment of warmth. Bond told her of his discovery of Krebs and of the scene in his bedroom.

  “Serves him right,” she said. “I’ve never trusted him. But what did Sir Hugo say?”

  “I had a word with him before lunch,” said Bond. “Gave him Krebs’s knife and keys as proof. He was furious and went straight off to see the man, muttering with rage. When he came back he said that Krebs seemed to be in a pretty bad way and was I satisfied that he’d been punished enough? All that business about not wanting to upset the team at the last moment and so forth. So I agreed that he’d be sent back to Germany next week and that meanwhile he would consider himself under open arrest-only allowed out of his room under surveillance. ”

  They scrambled down a steep cliff-path to the beach and turned to the right beside the deserted small-arms range of the Royal Marine Garrison at Deal. They walked along in silence until they came to the two-mile stretch of shingle that runs at low tide beneath the towering white cliffs to St Margaret’s Bay.

  As they trudged slowly through the deep smooth pebbles Bond told her of all that had gone through his mind since the previous day. He held nothing back and he showed each false hare as it had been started and finally run to earth, leaving nothing but a thin scent of ill-founded suspicions and a muddle of clues that all ended in the same question mark… where was a pattern? Where was a plan into which the clues would fit? And always the same answer, that nothing Bond knew or suspected seemed to have any conceivable bearing on the security from sabotage of the Moonraker. And that, when all was said and done, was the only matter with which he and the girl were concerned. Not with the death of Tallon and Bartsch, not with the egregious Krebs, but only with the protection of the whole Moonraker project from its possible enemies.

  “Isn’t that so?” Bond concluded.

  Gala stopped and stood for a moment looking out across the tumbled rocks and seaweed towards the quiet glimmering swell of the sea. She was hot and out of breath from the hard going through the shingle and she thought how wonderful it would be to bathe-to step back for a moment into those childish days beside the sea before her life had been caught up in this strange cold profession with its tensions and hollow thrills. She glanced at the ruthless brown face of the man beside her. Did he have moments of longing for the peaceful simple things of life? Of course not. He liked Paris and Berlin and New York and trains and aeroplanes and expensive food, and, yes certainly, expensive women.

  “Well?” said Bond, wondering if she was going to come out with some piece of evidence that he had overlooked. “What do you think?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Gala. “I was dreaming. No,” she answered his question. “I think you’re right. I’ve been down here since the beginning and although there’ve been odd little things from time to time, and of course the shooting, I’ve seen absolutely nothing wrong. Every one of the team, from Sir Hugo down, is heart and soul behind the rocket. It’s all they live for and it’s been wonderful to see the whole thing grow. The Germans are terrific workers-and I can quite believe that Bartsch broke under the strain-and they love being driven by Sir Hugo and he loves driving them. They worship him. And as for security, the place is solid with it and I’m sure that anyone who tried to get near the Moonraker would be torn to pieces. I agree with you about Krebs and that he was probably working under Drax’s orders. It was because I believed that, that I didn’t bother to report him when he went through my things. There was nothing for him to find, of course. Just private letters and so on. It would be typical of Sir Hugo to make absolutely sure. And I must say,” she said candidly, “that I admire him for it. He’s a ruthless man with deplorable manners and not a very nice face under all that red hair, but I love working for him and I’m longing for the Moonraker to be a success. Living with it for so long has made me feel just like his men do about it. ”

  She looked up to see his reactions.

  He nodded. “After only a day I can understand that,” he said. “And I suppose I agree with you. There’s nothing to go on except my intuition and that will have to look after itself. The main thing is that the Moonraker looks as safe as the Crown Jewels, and probably safer. ” He shrugged his shoulders impatiently, dissatisfied with himself for disowning the intuitions that were so much of his trade. “Come on,” he said, almost roughly. “We’re wasting time. ”

  Understanding, she smiled to herself and followed.

  Round the next bend of the cliff they came up with the base of the hoist, encrusted with seaweed and barnacles. Fifty yards further on they reached the jetty, a strong tubular iron frame paved with latticed iron strips that ran out over the rocks and beyond.

  Between the two, and perhaps twenty feet up the cliff face, yawned the wide black mouth of the exhaust tunnel which slanted up inside the
cliff to the steel floor beneath the stern of the rocket. From the under-lip of the cave melted chalk drooled like lava and there were splashes of the stuff all over the pebbles and rocks below. In his mind’s eye Bond could see the blazing white shaft of flame come howling out of the face of the cliff and he could hear the sea hiss and bubble as the liquid chalk poured into the water.

  He looked up at the narrow section of the launching dome that showed above the edge of the cliff two hundred feet up in the sky, and imagined the four men in their gas-masks and asbestos suits watching the gauges as the terrible liquid explosive pulsed down the black rubber tube into the stomach of the rocket. He suddenly realized that they were in range if anything went wrong with the fuelling.

  “Let’s get away from here,” he said to the girl.

  When they had put a hundred yards between themselves and the cave Bond stopped and looked back. He imagined himself with six tough men and all the right gear, and he wondered how he would set about attacking the site from the sea-kyaks to the jetty at low tide; a ladder to the lip of the cave? and then what? Impossible to climb the polished steel walls of the exhaust tunnel. It would be a question of firing an anti-tank weapon through the steel floor beneath the rocket, following up with some phosphorus shells and hoping that something would catch fire. Untidy business, but it might be effective. Getting away afterwards would be nasty. Sitting targets from the top of the cliff. But that wouldn’t worry a Russian suicide squad. It was all quite feasible.

  Gala had been standing beside him watching the eyes that measured and speculated. “It’s not as easy as you might think,” she said, seeing the frown on his face. “Even when it’s high tide and very rough they have guards along the top of the cliff at night. And they’ve got searchlights and Brens and grenades. Their orders are to shoot and ask questions afterwards. Of course it would be better to floodlight the cliff at night. But that would only pinpoint the site. I really believe they’ve thought of everything. ”

  Bond was still frowning. “If they had covering fire from a submarine or an X-craft, a good team could still do it,” he said. “It’ll be hell, but I’m going for a swim. The Admiralty chart says there’s a twelve-fathom channel out there, but I’d like to have a look. There must be plenty of water at the end of the jetty but I’ll be happier when I’ve seen for myself. ” He smiled at her. “Why don’t you have a bathe too? It’s going to be dam’ cold, but it would do you good after stewing inside that concrete dome all the morning. ”

  Gala’s eyes lit up. “Do you think I could?” she asked doubtfully. “I’m frightfully hot. But what are we going to wear?” She blushed at the thought of her brief and almost transparent nylon pants and brassiere.

  “To hell with that,” said Bond airily. “You must have got some bits and pieces on underneath and I’ve got pants on. We shall be perfectly respectable and there’s no one to see, and I promise not to look,” he lied cheerfully, leading the way round the next bend in the cliff. “You undress behind that rock and I’ll use this one,” he said. “Come on. Don’t be a goose. It’s all in the line of duty. ”