Redcap (23 page)

Soon afterwards Judith contacted Shaw.

She said, “He’s seen it all right.”

“Did he see you?”

She shook her head. “No, not where I was watching. I only saw him coming down from the sports deck, but he couldn’t possibly have missed seeing the crate.”

“Good!” Shaw hesitated a moment, then he took her hand. He smiled down at her. “Look after yourself, Judith,” he said. “And don’t worry. I believe it’s going to be all right now. If . . . if you find yourself at a loose end in Sydney, or want any help, get in touch with a friend of mine at the Garden Island naval yard. His name’s Tommy Foster, and he’s a good chap. Promise?”

Puzzled, she said: “Why—yes. But I’ll see you in Sydney, won’t I?”

“Well, that’s the idea. But you know as well as I do, things don’t always work out according to plan in this game. It’s as well to be ready for that.” Rather uncomfortably he added: “Anyway, Judith, we’ve got to part company soon.”

She reached out, not looking at him but twisting her fingers round a button of his jacket. She said quietly, “Yes, I know that. But I’ll be thinking of you just the same, Esmonde. So you take care too.”

“I always do that.” He took her shoulders in a hard grip, bent down and kissed her lightly. Then he turned and strode away.

Sir Donald Mackinnon was talking to Shaw in his day-cabin when there was a tap at the door and the Staff Commander came in.

Stanford stood aside, said: “Major Francis, sir.”

“Ah—good morning, Major.” Sir Donald got up, shook hands with a tall, stringy, bronzed Australian in uniform. He asked genially, “I suppose you’re in charge of the road convoy?”

The Australian grinned widely, hitched at his drill trousers and the holster at his waist. “That’s about it, Captain.”

“Well—she’s all yours now, thank the Lord!” Sir Donald smiled. “Damn glad I am to be shot of it, I can tell you.

Now, this is Commander Shaw—”

“Glad to meet you, Commander.” Francis took Shaw’s hand and wrung it hard. “I was told you’d be coming along with me.” He added warningly, “It’s going to be a rough trip. Not the kind of country you’re used to back home, I reckon!”

“Oh, that’s all right—do me good after so much soft living aboard.” Shaw looked searchingly at Francis; he had already taken to what he saw. He went on quietly, “Major, I suppose you do know the set-up—I mean, what’s in the load?”

“Too right I do.” The Major’s face was serious now. “Something we don’t give a name to. Right?”

Shaw said, “Right.” He wished he could take this man into his confidence, tell him the real score, but it was just as well not to say anything to anyone unnecessarily until the genuine article was safely in Bandagong from Sydney. He went on, “I’m expecting some attempt to be made to get at the crate en route—that’s why I asked. You’ve got a full security guard, I take it?”

“My word, yes. M.P.s in a truck behind, all armed. The load’ll be O.K. But look—wby’d anyone want to do that?”

Shaw hesitated. “Perhaps it’s just that I’ve got a suspicious mind. After all, I’ve been sent to keep an eye on the thing from a security point of view. I’m bound to assume the worst, aren’t I?”

“Yes, I reckon . . . yes.” Francis looked at him sideways, narrowing his eyes. “I s’pose that’s right, can’t be too careful. Nothing more in it than that, eh?”

“I hope not, Major. I’m sorry, I can’t go into any more details just now, if you don’t mind. By the way, when do you expect to arrive in Bandagong?”

Francis said, “It’s going to take us all of three days; that’s allowing for stops for grub an’ so on. The track—well, it’s real crook up from here. We’ll drive all night, in relays.” He added, “Bandagong’s nearly a thousand miles by road from here, and three days’ll be good going.”

Shaw nodded. “And the ship—she’s due in Sydney in six days, allowing for three days in Melbourne—right, sir?” he added to the Captain. “No alterations?”

“No. We’ve made up time pretty well. There’s bad weather reported in the Bight, but we should make the Sydney pilot dead on time if all goes well—and keep up the A. and P. reputation for spot-on punctuality! If necessary, I’ll cut the stay in Melbourne to make it so.”

“That’s all right, then. I can get down to Sydney by that time. Now, there’s just one more thing, sir—I’d better take those signals, the genuine ones that Gresham gave you. I’ll hand them over to the Commandant at Bandagong myself.”

“Very well. I was going to ask you about them.” Sir Donald went over to his safe, twirled the combination, opened the door and brought out the sealed envelope. He handed it to Shaw, who pushed it into the inside breast pocket of his jacket. Sir Donald said, “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you, Shaw.”

“You do that, sir! And I hope you’ll have no more trouble now.”

Soon after, Shaw and Major Francis left the ship, went down the gangway on to Australian soil under that burning sun, the sun which was going to make the journey to Bandagong pretty unpleasant, Shaw thought. He chucked a suitcase into the truck and then climbed into the high cab of the loaded vehicle with Francis. On the Major’s order the army driver, already sweating into his khaki shirt, slipped in his clutch and they were off, kicking up the dust along the jetty as they rolled heavily, with the truck and its armed detachment of Military Police behind, out of the port and headed on the long haul to Bandagong.

As they passed along the road outside the docks Sigurd Andersson watched from behind the windows of a seedy cafe; and when the convoy had rumbled away he finished his coffee and strolled out to a telephone. Asking for long distance, he was connected with a number in the Sydney suburb of Clontarf.

The convoy pulled out of Fremantle, headed through Midland Junction and Mundaring. They would pass on to Northam, Merredin, Southern Cross, Coolgardie. After Collgardie they would turn a little to the south between Kalgoorlie and Zanthus before heading north on the Bandagong track.

They passed on the long haul through the little township of Kurragin and after that they were clear of habitation except for the isolated homesteads near the track. They were out in the bush now, the real Australian outback, a sunbaked land of dust and heat and desolation, hot by day and sometimes bitterly cold by night; they were a self-contained little unit striking into the very heart of the Central Australian desert towards its northern fringe.

They rode on, on and on and on . . . they were hot and parched for much of the time, dirty and weary and sweaty as the two vehicles pressed along, swinging badly on the rough track and sending up clouds of dust and grit which seeped into everything, into the engines and men’s throats, into the food and water when they stopped for meals, into the bedding in the back of the light truck where tired men slept in shifts. During the halts, while engines cooled and men eased weary bodies shaken up by the day’s run—times when Shaw longed to press on—Major Francis and his second-in-command, a lieutenant who was travelling in the truck with the armed party, shared the vigils. No chances were being taken even though Francis was heard on one occasion to mutter about panicky bastards who wanted their heads read; and armed sentries patrolled round the vehicle carrying the big, heavy, junk-filled crate.

And they were something like seven hundred miles out from Fremantle when the trouble came.

It was just before a stop for a late supper, and it was dusking, and the drivers were tired, looking forward to a spell. The sun was a red and hazy blob low down behind them and men’s voices, the voices of men determined to keep their spirits up, were droning out the latest hit tune. They were travelling through a deep cutting and going downhill between high rock faces in some of the most barren, desolate country that Shaw had yet seen. They were going a little too fast, maybe, for the kind of terrain—sheer weariness had taken the edge off their carefulness somewhat. They had just rounded a corner when all three men in the cab of the leading vehicle saw the deep crater ahead.

Shaw and Francis shouted a simultaneous warning.

The driver snarled, “Jeez, you think I haven’t seen, eh?” Already thick tattooed brown wrists were swinging at the wheel, a foot had rammed the brakes hard on. But the lorry had struck a patch of loose surface, and she slid forward on locked wheels, rasping and slithering over grit and fine dust, unable to get a hold.

The driver hauled the wheel over harder, swearing between his teeth, sweat starting out all over him. The vehicle swerved across to the right, almost skirted the hole, and then the left hand wheels slid over the edge. The lorry lurched heavily; Shaw and Francis went flying in a heap, sprawling across the cab with the driver’s heavy body on top of them. They heard an ominous snapping twang from behind, and then a crash, and splintering woodwork. The Major unlatched his door and it dropped open. Cursing luridly, he fell out into the crater. As he scrambled to his feet and climbed up to the roadway, Shaw got out as well, gave the driver a hand. They were only just in time. Almost as soon as they were clear the lorry slid deeper into the hole and nearly fell on to its back. The crate crashed off, cannoned into the rock face and split wide open. Its ballast poured into the road . . . sand, pig-iron, straw packing, odds and ends of chucked-out ship’s gear.

Francis looked in amazement, jerked a hand towards the wreckage. “You see that?” he asked.

Shaw nodded grimly. “I know. I’ll explain later. There’s . . ."

Just then the shooting started from the top of the cutting. Dust kicked up around them. One of the M.P.s gave a yell, and blood streamed from his head. A bullet zipped through the sleeve of Shaw’s shirt, went on to take the driver in the neck as he emerged from the crater. He tried to pull himself up, failed, gave a groan and slithered back, fingers scrabbling at the dirt, and then lay still, his mouth falling open. Shaw ran for cover behind the broken lorry and fired back almost blindly, into the sunset, at black shapes. The soldiers from the truck behind had also opened fire by this time and the figures outlined on the top of the cutting vanished after a further volley.

A few shouts floated down.

Shaw ran out, called to Francis. “We can get up there—ahead there.” He pointed along the track. “It looks as though it slopes down to meet the road.”

Francis gave a quick glance, shouted an order. The troops streamed along the road for about a hundred yards with Shaw and the Major leading, then climbed the slope lifting to the high ground which formed a kind of plateau through which the cutting ran. Ahead of them four men were beating it, flat out, not stopping now to use their guns.

They were running towards a helicopter.

Francis roared out an order and automatic fire stuttered out, ripped across towards the running men. One of them dropped and stayed there; a burst of fire came from the helicopter, lead pumped into the body—presumably to ensure that the man wouldn’t talk. The machine was already off the ground and hovering low as they raced for it, and immediately they were aboard it was up, up and away quickly, rising high. As the Military Police hopefully maintained a now useless fire, the helicopter reared above them, turned, and flew off in the direction of Sydney, well out of range all the while.

Shaw felt sick at heart; after all his wonderful ideas about this fake crate, he’d gone and mucked it and now the game was given away. As he came to the man they’d hit, he knelt and turned him over. There was a pool of blood soaking into the ground beneath the man and he was quite dead. Shaw, noting that he was a European, ran through his clothing, looking for papers. But there was no identification, nothing beyond the usual, purely personal, stuff—stamps, a little money, a newspaper cutting of a girl in a bikini, another cut-out, this time from a colour magazine, also of a near-naked girl. Shaw examined everything carefully. On the back of the colour cut-out he found a scrawl which read:
Ling’s
4.30.

He looked up, asked: “Ling’s. Could that mean anything special, I wonder?”

Francis frowned, scratched his head. “Doesn’t mean anything to me, that’s certain.”

“Uh-huh. . . .” Shaw rubbed his nose with a forefinger. “Could be a Chinese name, couldn’t it?”

“Yes,” Francis agreed, wonderingly. “So what?”

“Oh—nothing.” Shaw stuffed the papers back and stood up. The dead man had the appearance of a hobo, was probably just a strong-arm tough who didn’t amount to much, and the chances of identification would be about nil.

Francis said, “Hey, wait a minute, though.” He snapped his fingers. “It’s come back—only Ling’s I know, it’s a restaurant in King’s Cross, in Sydney. If you don’t know the Cross, well, it’s kind of the Soho of Sydney. And Ling’s is Chinese.”

“I see.” Shaw’s heart quickened. “This could be a clue, in that case.”

Francis stared, pushed his bush hat to the back of his head. He asked, “Clue to what? Why, it looks just like a note of a date, doesn’t it? Could be meeting a girl-friend there.”

The dead man didn’t look the sort who met girl-friends at restaurants of the kind Ling’s sounded like, but Shaw said, “Yes, could be. Perhaps that’s all it is.”

“Look, what really goes on?”

“Sorry, I can’t go into details. I dare say you’ll find out before long. Don’t ask me any more, there’s a good chap.” He clapped Francis on the shoulder. “Anyway, I was right about the attack! And now there’s only one thing to do— I’ve got to get to Sydney fast.” He nodded towards the spot where the helicopter had been. “That lot’ll have seen the crate—if they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have gone so fast, you can take my word for that. So now they know—and so do you—"

“Know what, for Pete’s sake?”

Shaw snapped, “That REDCAP’s due for discharge in Sydney after all! So far no one else knows that, except the people immediately concerned of course. Now, can you get a message through to Bandagong with the truck’s wireless? I’ll have to warn them at once that we’re back where we started."

Francis said, “Sure. And I reckon Bandagong’ll give you a plane into Sydney if it’s that urgent, Commander. So we’d better just carry on for there in the truck.”

“Right. Let’s go, then.”

They ran back, down into the cutting, took a look at the wreckage. The lorry was obviously incapable of being righted without mechanical equipment and would have to be abandoned for the time being. Francis decided to get the crater filled in—there would be just room to squeeze the command truck through between the lorry and the side of the cutting. While the men got busy with shovels and bare hands, tearing down earth and stones to fill the hole and give the truck clear passage, Shaw got a wireless message passed to Bandagong asking the authorities to advise Sydney that any fresh attack would now either be switched back to the liner or would take place when the genuine REDCAP was en route from Sydney. There was no point now in keeping up the pretence and so, in the absence of any common code, the carefully-worded message went en clair.