V2

by Robert Harris

  She had never been to the Air Ministry before. Usually the top brass came down to Medmenham for briefings. That was how she had met Mike, eighteen months ago. By then, the intelligence people had begun to receive reports that the Germans were testing some kind of long-distance weapon capable of striking England, and the amphitheatres at Peenemünde had assumed a more sinister significance. Fresh reconnaissance flights were ordered, and the new photographs were a shock. She remembered the day they came in. A huge complex, practically a small town, was under construction, with its own power station and a harbour to bring in coal. Later, on a fan-shaped stretch of open foreshore, they observed what they described carefully in their report as ‘a thick vertical column about forty feet high’.

  Air Commodore Templeton was one of half a dozen senior figures who travelled to the Phase Three section to see it for themselves. He pulled up a chair and sat next to her, not all flirtatious and creepy like Starr and one or two of the others; just serious, focused, intelligent, asking a lot of questions. She was acutely aware of his physical presence, a kind of compact power. When someone told her he had been a hero in the Battle of Britain, she wasn’t surprised. He was said to be the youngest commodore in the RAF.

  In June 1943, on the Whit Bank Holiday Monday, Churchill himself came to take a look at what they were now sure was a rocket. He was driven over from Chequers with Mrs Churchill. Their daughter, Sarah, a glamorous red-headed actress, worked in Phase Two. Kay was struck by how small and pink he was, with a complexion like one of the sugar mice she used to buy as a child, and how when he bent forward to look through her viewfinder, he smelled not of cigars but of eau de cologne. Mike was one of the officers in the Prime Minister’s entourage. After the Churchills had driven off back to Chequers late in the afternoon, he hung around and rather shyly asked if she fancied a drink in the pub: ‘It is a holiday, after all.’

  So many pubs after that! The Hare and Hounds. The Dog and Badger. The Old Bell in Hurley. The White Hart at Nettlebed. The Compleat Angler hotel on the Thames at Marlow, where they had stayed in bed the entire weekend and taken their meals in their room in case they were recognised by someone from Medmenham, the swans swimming back and forth directly in front of their window with a newly hatched flotilla of eight fluffy grey cygnets. ‘They mate for life,’ she told him, as he lay with his head in her lap, ‘and sing just before they die.’ ‘You’re such a romantic.’ ‘Well, one of us has to be.’

  He was ten years older than she was, had joined the RAF long before the war, a professional airman. Would he leave his wife? He always said he would. He said they had only married on the spur of the moment in the summer of 1940 when it seemed that every day might be their last. Now she worked all week in intelligence at Bletchley, doing something so secret she wouldn’t tell even him what it was. ‘We hardly knew one another…’ ‘We’ve grown apart…’ ‘This bloody war…’

  The memories drifted through her mind with such a strange and lazy intensity that she didn’t really notice where they were until an hour had passed and they were in the centre of London, driving down Southampton Row towards the corner of Chancery Lane. She sat up with a start of recognition. The road was still cordoned off.

  Starr turned his head to look. ‘That must be where the Holborn rocket landed. Christ, it only just missed the ministry…’

  She’d had no idea how close Mike’s flat was to his office. Five hundred yards further on, the massive grey-stone edifice of Adastral House occupied the entire eastern corner of Aldwych. Damaged by a flying bomb in the summer, it looked grimy and battered, like a government building that had survived a siege by a revolutionary mob, its entrance protected by a rampart of sandbags and guarded by soldiers, its high windows criss-crossed by tape, an array of wireless antennae rising from its roof.

  Starr leaned forward. ‘Don’t speak unless I tell you to, all right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Inside, the ministry on a Sunday afternoon was quiet. Starr went over to talk to the airman at the reception desk. Kay looked around the gloomy marble hall. In the centre was a display of propaganda posters: Lancasters, picked out by searchlights, bombing a city. The Attack Begins in the Factory. The big raids on Germany continue. British war plants share with the RAF credit for these giant operations. She heard a noise and glanced over her shoulder. A WAAF had come in and was holding the heavy door open for a man on crutches, his right leg in plaster, a bandage around his head. It took her a moment to recognise him. She jerked her gaze back to the posters in shock. Never was so much owed by so many to so few.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir.’ Starr’s voice.

  ‘Hello, Les.’ Mike’s reply sounded hollow in the deserted stone mausoleum of the reception.

  ‘You look as though you’ve been in the wars, sir.’

  ‘Bit of a close one. Nothing serious.’

  ‘Nothing serious?’ The woman’s voice cut in: clipped, confident, exasperated. ‘It’s a miracle he’s still alive, sir. Our flat’s completely destroyed.’

  Kay could hear her own pulse, her blood rushing in her ears.

  ‘My God, sir, when was this?’

  ‘Yesterday morning.’

  ‘Not the V2 on Holborn?’

  ‘That’s the bastard.’

  ‘Are you here for the meeting?’

  ‘Of course I’m here for the bloody meeting. It’s my show. I’m chairing it.’

  ‘If you don’t mind my saying, sir – shouldn’t you be in hospital?’

  The woman’s voice again: ‘That’s what I told him, Wing Commander, but he discharged himself.’

  ‘Well, he’s the boss, I suppose. I’ve brought along one of our interpreters, sir, if it’s all right with you. Section Officer! Come and say hello to the air commodore.’

  Kay made an effort to compose her face, then turned, and walked the few paces to where they were standing. She saluted. ‘Sir.’

  Not a flicker of recognition on his gaunt white face. He nodded, smiled vaguely then peered at her as if he were trying to place her. For a moment she wondered if he might be concussed. He said, ‘Haven’t we met at Medmenham?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘This is my wife, Mary. Mary, this is…?’ He cocked his head enquiringly. Was it really necessary to introduce her? She felt unnerved – humiliated even – that he should force her to play along. Besides, the act was all a bit too obvious. She sensed his wife had noticed it as well: in her suspicious glance could be read a whole volume of their marital history.

  ‘Kay Caton-Walsh, sir.’

  ‘Hello.’ Mary Templeton put out her hand.

  Kay took it. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ Looking at her was like facing a mirror: the same uniform, the same rank, the same thick auburn hair pinned up under the same cap, the same height and trim figure, the same age, more or less.

  Starr said, ‘I take it you weren’t in the flat at the time, Mrs Templeton?’

  ‘No,’ she replied. She was still staring at Kay. ‘Luckily for me, I was supposed to be on duty in the Midlands all weekend.’ And now she was looking directly at the cut on Kay’s forehead. ‘But here’s the oddest thing: I noticed at the hospital that I’m listed on the casualty sheet as “walking wounded”. Apparently I was treated at the scene for a head injury.’

  It was Starr who broke the silence. ‘They must have confused you with someone else. Same thing happened to an aunt of mine.’

  Mary Templeton’s smile was bright and brittle. ‘Yes, in the chaos, I suppose it must be easy to get wives muddled up.’

  There was another pause. The air commodore said smoothly, ‘Les, why don’t you and the section officer go on up? I’ll follow at my own speed. Second-floor conference room, next to my office.’

  Kay was conscious of the click of her heels on the patterned marble floor, of the other woman’s eyes drilling into her back. For some reason she h
ad always pictured her as older. Clearly he had a type. How many more of us are there? She felt as if her knees would give way. When she reached the staircase, she had to grab onto the handrail to make sure she didn’t fall. She hauled herself up after Starr, who was striding ahead, taking the stairs two at a time. On the second-floor landing, he didn’t stop to wait for her.

  Halfway along the corridor, a door was open. She could hear men’s voices. He paused on the threshold and gave her a look. ‘A car accident? Really?’

  ‘What do you mean, sir?’

  ‘Oh dear.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘You’re not the first and I’m afraid you won’t be the last.’ He put his hand around her waist and steered her into the room. ‘Ladies first.’

  Everything was a blur to her now. A large wood-panelled room with a carpet and a fireplace at one end. Half a dozen airmen in uniform around a table, most of them smoking, faces turning to stare as she came in. A large map of south-east England and the Low Countries mounted on an easel beside the fireplace, Greater London dotted with red pins. She took a seat in the corner, as far away from the rest as she could, and placed the file of photographs in front of her. Everyone knew Starr. There was a lot of ‘Hello, Les’, ‘How are you, old chap?’ and handshakes as he went round the table. He didn’t introduce her. After a couple of minutes, the tap of crutches could be heard getting louder along the passage, and Air Commodore Templeton swung himself into the room, followed by a young flight lieutenant carrying a folder. Everyone stood.

  ‘Thank you. Sit.’ He handed the crutches to his aide, took the folder, and lowered himself, wincing with the effort, into his chair at the head of the table. ‘And before we go any further: yes, I was caught by the rocket round the corner yesterday morning; no, I’m not badly hurt; and yes, this has suddenly got bloody personal.’

  There was a release of nervous laughter.

  ‘So,’ he opened the folder, ‘the Secretary of State has been telephoned this afternoon by the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary, and he has in turn telephoned me to ask me to give him something he can tell the Cabinet tomorrow in the light of the increase in V2 activity over the past couple of days. I need some facts, and above all I need some recommendations for action. This is an informal meeting: no minutes, no names, nothing for the record, therefore no need to protect any backs, yours or anyone else’s – got it? Good. Jim, why don’t you bring us up to date?’

  He sat back stiffly in his chair and lit a cigarette. Through the screen of smoke, he stared down the table at Kay. She caught his eye briefly and he looked away. One of the officers rose and stood in front of the map.

  ‘Right, sir, I think it’s fair to say we were all rather lulled into a false sense of security in October, when the parachute landings at Arnhem forced the Germans to pull the V2 launchers temporarily out of the area around The Hague. That put London out of range of the rockets, and all they could do was fire missiles at Norfolk, to little or no effect. Unfortunately, when Operation Market Garden failed, they were able to reoccupy the coastal strip here’ – he gestured to the map – ‘at the end of October, and as a result November has been the worst month by far.’ He opened his file. ‘We recorded a total of twelve V2s hitting Greater London in the first week of November, rising to thirty-five in the second week, twenty-seven in the third week, and so far we’re looking at about forty for this week.

  ‘Just to give you some idea of casualties over the past seven days: we had nine killed in East Ham in one incident on Monday; twenty dead on Tuesday in Walthamstow, Erith and Battersea; twenty-four dead in Bethnal Green on Wednesday, plus another six in Chislehurst about fifty minutes later; two dead on Thursday; nineteen dead on Friday; and then, unfortunately, yesterday – the worst incident so far – a hundred and sixty dead in Deptford, and another seven elsewhere. We’re still getting information about today, but so far it’s more than a dozen killed.’

  A square-faced officer with thick black eyebrows raised his hand. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Jim, but if we’re speaking frankly, and at the risk of sounding like a brute, at Bomber Command we’re probably killing ten times as many Germans as all of that in a single night. In strictly military terms the rockets are a bloody nuisance, but they’re not going to be a decisive factor in the war.’

  Templeton said, ‘That may be true. But any day now, one of those things could hit the Houses of Parliament or Buckingham Palace or Number Ten Downing Street and we’re powerless to stop them. We can’t just tell people to grin and put up with it. They’ve had enough.’

  ‘Yes,’ continued the officer at the map, ‘we did have an airburst above the Houses of Parliament on Sunday evening two weeks ago – that caused a panic at Victoria station. And the other side to this, sir, apart from the casualties, is homelessness. Because the missiles hit so fast, they create craters up to thirty feet deep and the blast damage can be pretty devastating for an entire neighbourhood.’

  ‘How many buildings have been damaged so far, do we have any idea?’

  ‘About five thousand houses have either been destroyed or will have to be demolished, sir. In total, about a hundred and fifty thousand buildings have been damaged.’

  A murmur went round the table. He returned to his seat.

  Templeton said, ‘Have we really not been able to lay a finger on these bastards at all? How many sorties have we flown in the last couple of days?’

  ‘The weather’s kept us grounded for forty-eight hours, sir,’ said one of the other officers. ‘We did put up four Spitfires from Coltishall this morning.’ He stood in front of the map. ‘They crossed the coast here, at Egmond, turned south and flew down the Dutch coast to the Hook of Holland. Unfortunately, the cloud base was three thousand feet. Even when they dropped to two and a half thousand, there was still too much mist to see anything. As soon as they went back up to twenty thousand – sod’s law – they saw a V2 rising straight up through the clouds, but of course’ – he gestured helplessly – ‘they had no idea where exactly it had come from.’

  Jim said, ‘What time was that, do you know?’

  ‘Around ten thirty.’

  He consulted his papers. ‘Must have been the one that hit Rainham.’

  ‘If they’re firing forty a week, surely we should be able to locate at least one of these damned launch sites? Les?’

  Starr said, ‘It’s not for want of trying, sir. I’ve brought along some of the coverage of the area, just to give you an idea of what we’re up against.’

  He nodded to Kay. She stood and went around the table, distributing the photographs. Mike took his without even glancing at her. She resumed her place, watched him studying the image, frowning, irritated, turning it this way and that. He ought to wear his glasses but he would never put them on. He hated to be reminded of the poor eyesight that had ended his flying career.

  Starr said, ‘It’s very difficult, sir.’

  ‘Sure, I can see it’s difficult. Everything’s difficult. Even so, this has to rank as one of the greatest failures of photographic intelligence of the entire war.’

  Starr flushed. His mouth flapped open. ‘I can assure you we’re working on it day and night, sir.’ He looked around in desperation. ‘Section Officer Caton-Walsh has been going back over the coverage to see if anything was missed. Kay, you can confirm that this presents us with unique difficulty?’

  She was aware of all the men turning to look at her. She was so surprised to be asked to speak, she didn’t have time to feel nervous. ‘Yes, sir. I believe it wasn’t until late September, when the V2 testing range at Blizna in Poland was liberated by the Russians, that we discovered the rocket requires an area of only twenty square feet to launch from. That’s about half the size of this table. It’s impossible for us to find something that small if it’s hidden in trees.’

  Mike said sarcastically – looking at the photograph rather than her, as if he couldn’t bear to address
her directly – ‘Yes, but they have to get the missiles into the trees in the first place, I assume?’

  ‘They do, sir, but they must be bringing them in by rail at night. By the time it’s light enough to fly a reconnaissance sortie, they’ve already transferred them into the woods.’

  Now at last he looked at her. He gave a slight slow shake of his head, which seemed to her to convey several layers of meaning all at once – reluctant admiration for the ingenuity of the enemy, irritation at the uselessness of Medmenham, and underlying that a certain rueful amusement, meant for her alone, that they should find themselves having such an exchange. He turned to the man from Bomber Command. ‘Can’t we just flatten the woods?’

  ‘Obviously we’ve looked at that, sir. Two big drawbacks. One, we’d probably have to go in daylight, and there are heavy flak defences in that area: our losses would be unacceptable. Two, it’s very close to The Hague. If we bomb from eighteen thousand feet, which is as low as we dare go, there’s a grave risk of heavy civilian casualties, and no guarantee at the end of it that we would have knocked out all the launchers.’

  The air commodore sank back in his chair and put his hand to his bandaged forehead. He looked paler than at the start of the meeting. Even from her place at the end of the table, Kay could see that he was sweating. A silence ensued. And then a small man sitting opposite her raised his hand. He was in his fifties, a wing commander according to his insignia, but most unmilitary-looking, with thick spectacles, a toothbrush moustache and a snowfall of dandruff on his collar. He might have been a bank manager in civilian life. ‘May I make a suggestion, sir?’

  Templeton squinted at him. ‘Yes, please do. I’m sorry – I don’t think I know you.’

  ‘Knowsley, sir. Clarence Knowsley. Home Defence, Fighter Command. The Filter Room? We have met.’