him about the reqs, sir. He’s the only one that understands them.’
‘No, there’s a chair there if I want one, really, umm.’
‘Distinctly: where he usually meets you. That’s what he said.’
‘I’ll go through all the results with you, if you like. You’ll be impressed, I know. Cracked it wide open.’
‘No, sober as a judge.’
‘Shall I hang on, sir? It’s almost five-thirty.’
‘Me, sir. No, sir. You know I almost never tipple, sir.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘I like you, Chico. Phone in this time tomorrow. I’ll be finished doing your damned requisition by then if I start now.’
The reputation of the department needed another crack-pot scheme from Carswell like it needed more film requisitions. But my little phone conversation with Chico left me too weak to argue. I gave him the OK in the hope that Murray was intelligent enough to keep him out of harm’s way. He shuffled out with his big brown file of statistics. That was Wednesday. I finished the reqs by ten-thirty, had a drink at the Fitzroy and then went back to the office to phone for a car. We had a lot of taxis in the car pool. They were the least noticeable car and the blue glass was great for observation. As I crossed the road there was one of our cabs there already. It seemed unbelievable that Jean or Alice had predicted to a few minutes how long the reqs would take. I looked in the cab but it was empty. As I got to the top floor I saw the light was on under the door of my office. I hadn’t left it on. I moved near. Inside there was someone moving the paper work about on my desk. I could hear two voices having a row in the street below. Near to my head the office clock was ticking gently. I reached for the big metal ruler from Alice’s desk and found myself rubbing the scar tissue from my descent into the gaming room. I turned the brass door handle as silently and as slowly as I could. Then I kicked the door and dropped in the doorway on my knees, the steel ruler poised behind my head.
Dalby said, ‘Hello,’ and poured me a drink.
Dalby’s clothes were tweedy and shabby. Silhouetted grey in the red neon-lit sky were Jean’s big armful of daisies. Dalby sat heavily at the desk on which the Anglepoise light splashed across the large piles of non-secret office work that I never seemed to complete. The low place light emphasized his dark deep-set eyes, and his quick nervous movements belied his slow reactions. I realized that he hadn’t out-thought me when I rocketed in the door. He just hadn’t begun to react.
There seemed so much I wanted to ask him. I wondered whether I’d have to go right back to Ross with my cap in my hand and tell him that we’d be very happy to have the Gumhuria stuff. He poured me a large Teacher’s whisky and by now I needed it – I had the shivers. I held the glass in both hands and sipped it gratefully. Dalby’s eyes came slowly back into focus on his surroundings as from a long, long journey. We looked at each other for perhaps two minutes, then he spoke in that careful deep voice of his, ‘Did you ever see a bomb explode?’ he asked. I wanted him to explain things to me and here he was adding to the confusion by asking me questions. I shook my head.
‘You’re going to now,’ he said. ‘The Minister has particularly asked for us to be at the next American test. The American Defense Department say they’ve got a way to jam seismographs; they are going to try to double the Russian readings. I told him that we had a file on some of the British scientists who are there.’
‘Some of them,’ I said. ‘If we are prepared to think that Carswell has got anything on the ball at all, then we’ve got a file of eighteen out of a British total of fifty, that total including eleven lab assistants.’
‘Yes,’ Dalby came alive for a moment. ‘Alice told me about what you and Carswell have been up to. You can drop it and get Carswell and his sergeant out of this department; we are overcrowded now.’
A load of help Dalby was being; he stays away a couple of months, then when he does come back it’s unannounced in the middle of the night and all he does is criticize.
‘This bomb test, it’s Tuesday. I’ll be going along. You can bring an assistant if you want to.’
I wondered if he knew about Jean and if I’d still be entitled to an assistant if Dalby was back to take over.
‘Will you want Chico to go with us?’
‘Yes, get him on the phone. He can arrange the tickets and passes.’
‘It’s eleven-fifteen,’ I said. ‘Do you know where I can get him?’
‘Do I know? Who’s been in charge here the last few weeks? You’ve got his number, haven’t you? I haven’t seen him for weeks.’
‘He’s in Grantham,’ I said weakly.
‘Who sent him there and what for?’
I didn’t know why Dalby was playing close like this, but I decided to cover up. ‘We had a file to be moved and there was no courier with high enough clearance. He’ll be back in a day or so.’
‘Oh, leave him be. Alice can arrange things.’
I nodded but for the first time I began to suspect that something odd was going on; from now on I was keeping my head down.
The next morning I completed a little private task that took an hour of my time once every two months. I collected a heavy manilla envelope from an address near Leciester Square, inspected the contents and mailed it back to the address from which I’d got it.
[Aquarius (Jan 20–Feb 19) You will have a chance to follow new interests, but old friendships should not be forgotten. For those in love a thrilling development lies ahead.]
Tokwe Atoll was a handful of breakfast crumbs on a blue coverlet. Each island had its little green bays that resisted the blueness of the vast Pacific which struck the reefs in hammers of fury and shattered into a swirl of enveloping whiteness around wrecked craft sunk along the shore line since 1944. The open mouths of the tank landing craft gaped toothless at the barbed-wire-strewn beach. Here and there were bright red rusting tanks and tracked vehicles, broken, split and open to the timeless sky. As we came lower we could pick out painted ammunition boxes and broken crates. The huge Vertol helicopter that had lifted us from the aircraft carrier in which only an hour ago we had been enjoying icy orange-juice, cornflakes and waffles with maple syrup, swooped across the water on to the concrete of ‘Laboratory Field’, an air strip that didn’t exist ten weeks ago. As we dismounted, a jeep, painted white, sped towards us. The four air police inside wore shorts (shorts always look wrong on Americans), khaki shirts open at the neck, with white side-arms and cross-belt. On the right chest of the shirt they carried their names on leather strips.
‘Laboratory Field’, or ‘Lay Field’ as the Americans had rather perversely shortened it, comprised the whole of this island, which was one of the hundred that made up the whole atoll. In ninety days they had equipped the islands with an airfield, suitable for dealing with both piloted and non-piloted aircraft; two athletic fields, two movie theatres, a chapel, a clothing store, beach clubs for officers and enlisted men, a library, hobby shops, vast quarters for the Commanding General, a maintenance hangar, personnel landing pier, mess hall, dispensary,
