Bethwig looked at him in surprise. ‘How do you know this?’
‘My brother, Magnus, has a friend at OKW. A few days ago he was sent to General Buhle’s office to take notes on a meeting between Buhle and Kammler. Kammler described Walter as a public danger and told Buhle he ought to be court-martialled. Buhle refused, of course, but not strenuously.’
‘Degenkolb won’t stand for it,’ Bethwig protested. ‘Peenemunde is a private concern. That makes it immune to military takeover.’
‘Damn it, Franz, can’t you understand? This is not a military takeover. This is the SS. Himmler can do just about anything he pleases these days. It is said that even the Führer dare not oppose him now. My God, his personal bodyguard are SS troops. As for Degenkolb, when was the last time you saw him here? At least Kammler made one correct assessment when he described that man as a hopeless alcoholic.’
Bethwig shrugged.
Their walks had become much less frequent of late, and the conversation usually concerned political matters affecting their work. Rarely did they discuss technical or speculative matters related to science as they had done in years past.
Von Braun followed a pace or two behind, studying his friend with concern. Since the death of that strange woman and the arrest of his father, Bethwig had subsided into a world of his own, one in which he continued to function as effectively as ever, directing the final development of the A-10 transatlantic bomber rocket with skill but no personal interest. The drive that had so characterised him had disappeared. For weeks now Franz had taken little interest in staff debates concerning technical problems, preferring instead to issue directives from his office. How did that madman gain such control, von Braun wondered, that even Franz’s father, among the party’s earliest and most ardent supporters, could be thrown into a concentration camp like a communist or a Jew to keep Franz in line?
They turned inland after a while and strolled through the nearly deserted production buildings, which were quickly falling to ruin. No repairs had been made since the bombing a year ago. Windows remained broken, and sliding doors hung at odd angles. Rubbish littered the area, and weeds grew between the concrete slabs. The actual production facilities had all been moved into Germany proper, to an underground factory near Nordhausen where most of the work was performed by prisoners from the local concentration camps under, it was rumoured, appalling conditions. Von Braun had no reason to doubt that. Since the SS had assumed control of Peenemunde’s security, the quality of work obtained from both foreign contract workers and POWs had fallen well below standard; and he was certain that Dornberger’s imminent arrest stemmed in good part from his repeated protests against the starvation and brutality to which they were subjected.
Von Braun caught up with Bethwig as they approached the middle of the complex. Massive buildings frowned at them from the mist, and huge puddles were forming wherever stopped-up drains acted as miniature dams.
‘Franz, tomorrow ‘I’m returning to Poland for more test firings. They may keep me there for several weeks, and you know this is the critical phase. One more A-Ten test launch is all Kammler will allow. Unless it is a complete success, he will close the project down and we will lose for ever any hope of a lunar flight.’
‘But if he does,’ Bethwig answered in a bitter voice ‘at least my father might live. There would be no reason for Himmler to continue to hold him.’
Von Braun uttered an obscenity. ‘Perhaps. And perhaps the opposite. The man is mad; you cannot expect him to act rationally. What if he takes it into that stupid head of his that further failure is due to sabotage on your part? You know as well as I that he is capable of that kind of thinking. You only have to see what he is doing to Walter Dornberger. He has no scientific background and no conception of how such research is conducted.’
Bethwig looked at von Braun, his face a mask of anguish. ‘Wernher, how can I? How much longer can my father survive? The best information I have is that he is at Ravensbruck, which is supposed to be a special camp for important political prisoners. As long as I do exactly as I am told he has a chance. You saw what they did to... Inge.’ Bethwig had to force himself to say her name. ‘I just cannot go on, Wernher ...’
Bethwig started to walk away, but von Braun called to him to wait. Something in his tone stopped Bethwig, and his shoulders slumped. He waited, apprehension growing, as von Braun came up and slipped an arm about his shoulder.
‘Franz’ - his voice was soft - ‘I wanted to spare you this, but too much is at stake and you should know. I am certain that Himmler has taken steps to see that you do not find out. As I told you, Magnus has a friend, a clerk at OKW.’ Wernher’s arm tightened and Bethwig knew then what he was about to say.
‘Your father died of congestive heart failure on September eighth. Franz, I can’t tell you how sorry ...’
Bethwig nodded, then straightened his shoulders and walked off. His mind was clear now, icy and calm. He remembered von Braun after a moment and turned to see his friend looking after him, coat clutched about his neck against the rain and hair plastered about his face.
He nodded. ‘I’ll be ready, Wernher.’
Jan Memling trudged across the wet tarmac to the operations office where RAF Flight Lieutenant Stan Culliford was just finishing the weather summary. Jan leaned against the warped door and waited, hands jammed in the pocket of the Yank bomber jacket he had won in last night’s card game.
‘Looks like we might go tonight, old boy,’ Culliford grunted when he turned away from the board. ‘Weather’s clearing over the landing site until shortly after dawn, the Met boys think. Word is the ground’s firm enough to support the wheels.’
‘Whose Met boys?’ Memling asked sceptically.
Culliford grinned. ‘The Poles’ of course.’
‘Do we know where we’re going yet?’
Culliford nodded and pursed his lips, his expression pessimistic. ‘Place called Motyl, near the village of Zabrow. It’s an old landing field. The AK will provide the security.’
The Polish home army, the Armia Krajowa, operated under impossible circumstances, yet according to Simon-Benet’s assessment, they were the best in the business. The AK was a duplicate of the pre-war Polish army and perhaps the best organised of all resistance groups in Europe.
The two men walked outside. Culliford, noticing that they had glanced at the dawn sky together, chuckled. ‘Won’t do us any good to be looking around up here. We have six hundred miles to go and then some.’
Memling nodded, staring at the flaming Italian sky. Over the hills to the east, the sun was edging above the horizon in splendours of reds and blues, and the high cirrus glowed and danced in the growing light.
‘It’s your decision, Stan,’ he said after a moment. ‘You have to fly that thing.’ He gestured towards the waiting Douglas Dakota. In its coat of dead black paint, the aircraft was barely visible on the tarmac.
The New Zealander glanced again at the sky, then at the yellow flimsy in his hand, scratched his jaw, and nodded. ‘Let’s go. We probably won’t have a better chance for another couple of weeks and I sure as hell don’t want to hang around here any longer. You might lose that jacket and then I’d never get a chance to own it.’
They took off at 20.00 hours, with four officers and nineteen suitcases of equipment aboard. Three of the officers had flown in with Memling two weeks before but had remained segregated in separate quarters. He heard them speaking Polish among themselves and surmised that they were couriers or Special Operations Executive agents. The fourth, who had arrived the previous week from London, was a Captain Leslie Reynolds whom Memling knew vaguely from his work with R. V. Jones’s group the year before. The man had been a physics professor at Leeds University before the war and was an admirer of Viscount Cherwell’s.
The last few lights were disappearing below as they droned into the Adriatic. Memling climbed forward to the cockpit. The navigator gave him coffee from a Thermos, and Culliford pointed out a dark mass against the horizon.
‘Yugoslavia. I’ve flown across her several times. A few night fighters about but nothing serious as long as you keep below their radar. Our bombers work their coastal stations over quite regularly, and in case of serious trouble, the partisans will be glad to see us, or so ‘I’m told.’
‘By the way, we’ve lost our escort, ‘I’m not sorry to say. Bloody great lumbering beasts. Attract Jerries like flies to sugar.’
‘Lost them?’
‘One had engine trouble. Never left the runway. We’ve simply outflown the other. Not to worry, though. In case of trouble, we’ll just turn around. That second Liberator is about fifteen miles behind. Anyway, he’ll be leaving as soon as we cross the coast again, on a mission of his own.’
Brindisi had been chosen as the jump-off point for the flight into southern Poland. Memling gathered that SOE had been making good use of the Italian fields to insert agents all over occupied Europe. While it was nearly twelve hundred miles from Britain to southern Poland by the most direct route, the existence of Allied airfields in central and southern Italy enabled them to shorten the flight by half. The route took them up the Adriatic to cross the Yugoslav coast south-east of Split, then on across the Dinaric Alps to skirt the Hungarian-Rumanian border, across eastern Czechoslovakia and into southern Poland.
The Polish co-pilot, Kazimierz Szrajer, was saying something to Culliford which drew a laugh, but the noise of the engines prevented Memling from hearing. The flight settled into routine, and Memling left the cramped cockpit after a while. One of the Polish agents looked up from the Sten gun he was cleaning and smiled, happy to be on his way.
The Dakota had been stripped of all non-essential equipment to open up as much room as possible for the cargo they would be bringing back. The only seats, as a result, were unpadded benches bolted to the wall, and the curving side of the fuselage forced one to sit hunched forward. The accommodations, he remarked, were only slightly better than those of the Mosquito in which he had been flown into Germany the year before.
After much soul-searching Memling had visited the psychiatrist recommended by the brigadier.
‘He did telephone you were coming, and we discussed your case to some extent.’ The doctor smiled and offered a cigarette which Memling declined.
‘From what you have told me, I see nothing to suggest that his diagnosis was incorrect. If you will pardon my bluntness, your problems were created by ignorance. There is nothing to be ashamed of in that unless, of course, you persist in that ignorance. As to the treatment - unfortunately there are no magic cures: only patience and the determination to face up to the situation as it exists. Do you love your wife?’
The question had come as a complete surprise, and Memling’s reaction was automatic:
‘Of course I do. It’s ...’
The doctor held up a hand. ‘No need to go into the matter now. If you want my advice, you will listen to Dr Simon-Benet. He seems to like you very much, and he has your best interests at heart. He tells me that you have a decision to make, one that may place you in a stressful situation similar to the one that appeared to be your undoing last autumn. I can only advise you to be certain you are physically strong enough to undertake the activity. If you are not, you cannot expect to deal successfully with the mental and emotional aspects of the problem. Other than that, I can only repeat what the brigadier has already told you. You must face the situation resolved to be the master of your own body. Fear is a powerful weapon, one you can use against an enemy or against yourself. Think it over carefully.’
Hunched uncomfortably in the old Dakota, Memling felt the familiar fear renewing itself. He thought he had mastered it before, after four separate commando raids, only to discover that the excitement of battle was far different from the corrosive agony of illicit activity behind enemy lines.
Captain Reynolds had fallen asleep and Memling was grateful for small favours. The captain had spent the last hour pointing out the errors in Memling’s A-4 rocket analysis with all the smug assurance of an academic whose closest contact with the industrial world had been polite discussions in immaculate conference rooms with executives who hadn’t been near a production floor in years. He had been quick to point out that as science and technology were systems of logic, their application in research, development and manufacturing were bound to follow logical procedures. One had only to list the steps to be taken, isolate those requiring the longest time to complete and arrange the remaining tasks within those parameters. The project would then be completed in the shortest possible time - the sum total of the longest tasks. He was, he admitted modestly, one of Britain’s leading experts in the new discipline called operations research.
‘I am certain, Major’ - Reynolds’s voice dripped superiority - ‘that it must have been difficult to obtain accurate measurements when you were at Peenemunde, but those measurements were, after all, the basis for your subsequent calculations, were they not? Now, if you were out as much as a foot, your estimates would be all skewed towards the minimum, would they not?’
Memling restrained the urge to swear.
‘I understand that you were not graduated from your technical course, so even though you did your best, one must be careful of over reaching oneself, what?’
‘You bloody bastard,’ Memling muttered, but Reynolds did not hear over the engine noise.
‘I do not mean to dwell on your shortcomings, Major Memling, but it is essential that you understand your mistakes so that the divisive debate of the past months can be ended. The payload of the rocket you term A-Four is inconsistent with the measurements you reported. A simple mistake in measuring has apparently led you to conclude that this rocket is incapable of carrying more than a ton, while your mistake with the other, the A-Ten, is of the same magnitude, only in the opposite direction. Why, the very size is ...’ He started to say ‘preposterous’, then thought better of it: ‘... extraordinary. A rocket of that size could lift more than thirty metric tons.’