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 – kayaks 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.’
Without waiting for her to answer he moved behind the tall rock, taking off his shirt as he did so.
‘Oh, well,’ said Gala, relieved to have the decision taken out of her hands. She went behind her rock and slowly unbuttoned her skirt.
When she peered nervously out, Bond was already halfway down the strip of coarse brown sand that led out among the pools to where the incoming tide eddied through the green and black moraine of the rocks. He looked lithe and brown. The blue pants were reassuring.
Gingerly she followed him, and then suddenly she was in the water. At once nothing else mattered but the velvet ice of the sea and the beauty of the patches of sand between the waving hair of the seaweed that she could see in the clear green depths below her as she buried her head and swam along parallel with the shore in a fast crawl.
When she was level with the jetty she stopped for a moment to get her breath. There was no sign of Bond whom she had last seen streaking along a hundred yards ahead of her. She trod water hard to keep up her circulation and then started back again, unwillingly thinking of him, thinking of the hard brown body that must be somewhere near her, among the rocks, perhaps, or diving to the sand to gauge the depth of water that would be available to an enemy.
