V2

by Robert Harris

  He picked himself up. A shroud of black smoke was rising above the woods on the opposite side of the lake. Some of the thin pines close to the shore were on fire from top to bottom, like burning brands.

  Was it really over? At Peenemünde the bombing had gone on for the best part of an hour, wave after wave of it. He squinted at the sky, but there was nothing to see except a few dirty wisps of brown smoke, the residue of exploded shells, already fading.

  He set off up the road. As he rounded the curve, several dozen men in grey overalls began emerging from the side lane that led to the technical troop’s tents. They crossed the street and gathered to stare across the lake. A Kübelwagen appeared behind them, sounding its horn to clear a path. Colonel Huber climbed out of the front seat, followed by Lieutenant Klein from the driver’s side. Biwack jumped out of the back seat. Obersturmbannführer Drexler emerged after him, twisting his body to lever himself through the narrow gap. Huber lifted a pair of binoculars and scanned the fire. Graf was debating whether or not to join them when Drexler noticed him and beckoned him over.

  ‘Dr Graf – are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. Was anyone hurt?’

  ‘That is what we are trying to determine.’

  Huber was still peering through his binoculars. ‘Half a kilometre closer and they would have wiped us out.’ He turned to Klein. ‘Do we have any stores in that area?’

  Klein said, ‘Not that I recall, Colonel.’

  Huber resumed his inspection of the fire. ‘There’s no one over there that I can see.’ He gave the binoculars to Drexler. ‘We should go and make sure.’ He spotted Graf. ‘You should come too.’

  They clambered back into the Kübelwagen. Graf squeezed into the rear seat next to Biwack. Perhaps it was his imagination, but the National Socialist Leadership Officer seemed to be ignoring him. Klein, who had been a mechanic before the war, drove skilfully but quickly, throwing them around. Graf hung onto the door. Just before the SS checkpoint, the lieutenant swung the wheel hard over to the right. They left the main road and descended the grassy slope towards the lake. From here, they got a much better view of the fire. Spurts of orange flame stood out brilliantly in the grey morning. As they drove around the water’s edge, they could hear it crackling, devouring the vegetation. Smoke and ash drifted on the wind across the water. The bombs had fallen on the little island as well as on the opposite shore.

  Klein said, ‘It looks as though they may have dropped some incendiaries, Colonel.’

  ‘No point in trying to put that out,’ said Huber. ‘Safer to let it burn. Stop here.’

  They got out and stood on the shore, surveying the fire from a distance of a hundred metres. Graf had a turn with the binoculars. One of the bombs had left a deep crater, as if a giant thumb had gouged out the earth. When the wind shifted in their direction, he could feel the heat.

  Klein said, ‘I don’t think we can have had anything stored there, Colonel. If we had, it would have exploded by now.’

  Huber nodded. ‘We were lucky.’

  Biwack said, ‘Has this happened before?’

  ‘It never happens,’ said Huber. ‘The Jabos hit our old launch site at Rijsterbos about six weeks ago, but only after we’d pulled out of the area to come here.’

  Biwack frowned. ‘Then why has it happened today, I wonder?

  ‘Who can say?’

  Klein said, ‘Perhaps an RAF patrol spotted something.’

  ‘What is there to spot?’ said Huber. ‘The missiles are only moved from the railhead when it’s dark. The Luftwaffe have checked our camouflage security from the air. It’s first-rate. We’re undetectable.’

  Biwack had taken out his notebook. ‘Except during a launch, presumably.’

  ‘True.’ Huber eyed the notebook irritably. ‘But we never launch if there are reports of enemy aircraft within fifty kilometres.’

  ‘Then perhaps our location was betrayed by someone on the ground?’ He looked at Drexler.

  ‘Impossible,’ said the SS commander. ‘We have the entire area sealed off. The local population are long gone. There are no Dutch civilians within at least four kilometres.’

  ‘Dr Graf?’ said Biwack. ‘What do you make of it?’

  ‘Me?’ Graf looked at him in surprise. He had been thinking of the girl in the brothel. ‘Why would I have an opinion? I only know about the engineering. Security is nothing to do with me.’

  ‘It could have been a coincidence,’ suggested Klein. ‘A routine patrol decided to dump their bombs before turning for home.’

  ‘It didn’t look much of a coincidence to me,’ said Biwack. ‘It looked very precise, in fact.’

  ‘Let’s not over-think it, gentlemen!’ said Huber sharply. ‘It’s hardly a disaster. Look! All they hit were trees!’ He folded his arms and stared at the column of smoke. ‘Let’s treat it as a wake-up call. Perhaps we have become complacent. We should tighten up the launch procedures, make sure we evacuate the sites within ten minutes of firing. Why don’t we—’

  The wail of the air raid siren stopped him in mid-sentence. For a moment, nobody spoke. They looked from one to another.

  Biwack said pointedly, ‘Another coincidence?’

  ‘They can’t be coming back,’ said Drexler. ‘They already dropped their bombs. It must be a second wave.’

  ‘Or a false alarm,’ added Klein.

  Huber said, ‘Whatever it is, we should take cover. They might use the fire as an aiming point.’ He glanced around. They were out in the open. There was nowhere to shelter. ‘Let’s get back to the technical troop. And we’d best be quick about it.’

  They crammed back into the Kübelwagen. Klein threw it into reverse before Graf even had time to close the door. They shot backwards, braked and lurched forward in a spurt of mud as he spun the car round. By the time they had bounced back up the slope to the road, they could already hear the rapid boom of anti-aircraft fire.

  ‘Stop!’ ordered Huber. He cocked his ear, listening – the old artilleryman. ‘That’s coming from the coastal battery at Rijnsoever. Forget the technical troop. Let’s go back to HQ.’

  Klein turned right. When they reached the SS checkpoint, he struck the horn with the heel of his hand and left it there until the guard climbed out of his slit trench and lifted the barrier. The main road into town was deserted, abandoned vehicles parked up haphazardly on the kerbside as their occupants sought shelter. They drove at speed past the empty guest houses and hotels towards the seafront. Outside the Hotel Schmitt, Klein braked sharply and they all pitched forward. Huber was the first one out. He stood on the pavement and studied the sky through his binoculars. ‘Looks like they’re hitting Wassenaar. Where’s the damned Luftwaffe?’ He adjusted the focus. ‘Ah yes, here they come!’

  Away to the south, above the rooftops, Graf could see the British planes – four of them again – coming in from the sea, plunging in line almost vertically. The howl of the high-performance engines cut through every other sound. Glittering lines of tracer fire waved against the clouds. He noticed that a couple of other planes had appeared in the sky above the Jabos. It was curiously remote and unthreatening, like watching flies buzzing around. The heavy thud of exploding bombs carried over the pounding of ack-ack fire. The hotel windows rattled. Again Graf found himself counting the detonations – eight in all.

  Biwack said, ‘Shouldn’t we get to the shelter?’

  ‘No need,’ said Huber. ‘They’ve dropped their bombs.’

  ‘How do you know there won’t be more?’

  ‘Because they hunt in packs of four and it’s obviously the launch sites they’re after. They have no interest in the town, or they’d have bombed it by now. But do go down to the cellar if you wish, my dear Sturmscharführer. I’m going to my office.’

  The colonel turned and strode into the hotel, followed by Drexler and a smirking Kl
ein. After a brief hesitation, Biwack went with them. Graf lingered on the pavement for a moment, reluctant to tear himself away. He could still hear the drone of the planes even though they were no longer visible. The flak and the anti-aircraft from the batteries continued to pound away, but only sporadically. Once again his mind went back to Femke and her meagre collection of debris. It seemed unlikely she had a direct connection to any of this. But what did he know? Perhaps it was the resistance, passing intelligence to the British? He felt suddenly uneasy, complicit.

  The colonel’s office was on the ground floor at the back of the hotel, and by the time Graf reached it, Huber was already seated at his desk, talking on the telephone. Behind him was a framed photograph of the Führer in a grey tunic with his arms folded, staring moodily off-camera. Graf couldn’t remember seeing it before. He wondered if it had been hung for Biwack’s benefit. Drexler was also on the telephone, at a corner desk. A couple of junior officers had come up from the shelter. Biwack was studying a large-scale map of The Hague that showed the positions of the regiment’s launch sites – with the locations they had used in the past marked with green pins and those in current use marked with red – from the Hook of Holland and Loosduinen in the west, all the way along the coast to Scheveningen, the Haagse Bos and Wassenaar, a strip of more than twenty kilometres.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Huber was saying. ‘Good. Understood. Call me when you have more information.’ He hung up and went over to the map. ‘Well, it seems we were lucky again. Seidel says the bombs hit the woods here, at Duinrell.’ He tapped his finger on the map. ‘That’s about a kilometre from our launch positions. What the devil are they playing at?’

  Biwack said, ‘Isn’t it obvious? They must be receiving intelligence from the local population.’

  ‘Well, if they are, it’s not very good intelligence! We’ve never launched from Duinrell.’

  Drexler put down his receiver. ‘One of our SS patrols has picked up a kid in the woods nearby. Claims to be the son of a farmer. They’re bringing him in for questioning.’

  Huber grunted. ‘You think he’s responsible? A farmer’s son? It doesn’t seem likely.’

  ‘He was in the restricted zone.’

  The colonel’s telephone rang. One of the staff officers moved quickly to answer it. He listened for a moment, then came to attention. ‘Yes, Herr Gruppenführer. I’ll put him on at once.’ He held out the phone to Huber. ‘It’s Gruppenführer Kammler, Colonel.’

  The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. Huber regarded the receiver as if he were being offered a hand grenade with the pin removed. He tugged down on the hem of his tunic to straighten it, walked over to his desk and sat. He took the receiver and covered the mouthpiece.

  ‘Will you all leave the room, please?’ He waited until they had filed out. From the passage, Graf heard him say, ‘Yes, my Gruppenführer, it’s Huber here,’ and then the staff officer pulled the door shut after them. Klein gave Graf a grim look and passed his finger across his throat.

  They wandered into the lobby. Klein flung himself down into an armchair and lit a cigarette. Graf took the chair next to him. He wasn’t sure what he was doing there. The two SS men went into the corner and stood in quiet conversation.

  Graf said, ‘What does this all mean, do you think?’ He didn’t know Klein as well as he did the others, although he recognised his type – the mechanic, more at home with engines than people. He was said to be popular with his men.

  ‘Nothing good.’ Klein contemplated the end of his cigarette. ‘You know Kammler?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then you know that anything is possible. Did you ever hear the story of what happened to the regiment at Rijs?’

  ‘No.’

  Klein switched his gaze from the cigarette tip to Graf, and took a moment before he spoke. ‘We were stationed there for about three weeks, while the fighting was going on at Arnhem. Kammler had pulled us out of The Hague, in case the Allies took it, which meant the rockets couldn’t reach London any more, so he told us to fire at eastern England instead. When he decided it was safe for us to come back, he said he was worried our security had been compromised in Rijs, because the local people had seen what we were doing.’ He stopped, frowned. ‘You’re sure you haven’t heard this before? I thought everybody knew it.’

  Graf shook his head.

  Klein glanced over at Biwack and Drexler, then he leaned forward, and said quietly, ‘Kammler ordered the colonel to round up every civilian in the area – that’s about five hundred people – and shoot them. His exact words were “Your men must finally learn to see blood flowing.” ’

  ‘Good God! What did Huber do?’

  ‘He ignored the order. We pulled out that night and came here under cover of darkness. The following day, the RAF hit the woods at Rijs. So maybe we were betrayed by the locals – who knows?’

  ‘Did Kammler ever say anything?’

  ‘Not a word, as far as I know. He probably just forgot all about it – you know how he is, leaping from one crazy impulse to another. But anyway, that’s why the colonel gets a bit jumpy around the SS, and our friend from the NSFO in particular.’

  Graf looked over at Biwack. He was still conferring with Drexler, wagging his finger to make a point. Klein suddenly stubbed out his cigarette and gestured with his head. Huber had appeared in the passage. They both got to their feet.

  Huber was rubbing his hands uneasily. ‘Drexler and Biwack – the Gruppenführer wants to speak with you. He’s still on the line in my office.’ The two men hurried away. Huber watched them go, waited until they were out of sight and the door had closed. ‘So, gentlemen, it turns out the Gruppenführer is in Holland. He’s at Hellendoorn, inspecting the SS 500.’

  ‘Ah,’ grunted Klein, with some contempt, ‘his favourites!’

  SS Werfer Battery 500 had been set up as a rival to the Wehrmacht’s V2 regiments – ‘to show the army how it should be done’ – but had so far failed to fire as many rockets, much to Kammler’s irritation.

  Huber continued, ‘He’s decided to pay us a visit and assess the situation for himself. He intends to address the men at the funeral tomorrow, to raise their morale, he says – that was Biwack’s idea, apparently. And this will interest you in particular, Doctor, bearing in mind our conversation over dinner the other night. He has Professor von Braun with him.’

  14

  IN THE BANK VAULT IN Mechelen, it had been quiet for several hours.

  Wing Commander Knowsley had left his desk and gone upstairs. Flight Officer Sitwell was writing up a report on the morning’s activities for the Air Ministry. The WAAF sergeants and the corporal from the Signals Corps were staring into space. Barbara’s head was nodding forward. Occasionally she raised it and looked around to check if anyone had noticed, then almost at once it drooped again. She had completed the last calculation in six and a half minutes, just ahead of Kay, and when it had checked out she had clasped her hands above her head like a boxing champ.

  Kay sharpened her pencil and studied Barbara’s thick blonde hair. The colour was natural, as far as she could tell. What she wouldn’t give for hair like that! She gathered the pencil shavings into the palm of her hand, trickled them into the ashtray and went back to doodling circles and chequer boards around the edges of her notepad.

  At Medmenham there had always been something to do. On the days when bad weather grounded the reconnaissance flights, the interpreters went back over the earlier coverage to see what they might have missed. It was like being stuck indoors on a rainy day in a country house filled with hundreds of uncompleted jigsaw puzzles, and it was during those lulls that some of the most significant breakthroughs had been made in the analysis of Peenemünde. But in this job, if the V2s didn’t launch, one could only sit idle. She wondered who it was who had first said that war was long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer
terror. People were always repeating it. Someone must have said it first.

  She heard footsteps behind her descending the stairs. Louie, the short-haired, mannish WAAF officer, and the Scottish girl, Flora, appeared.

  Sitwell looked up at the noise and frowned.

  ‘Ma’am.’ They saluted.

  ‘Is is two o’clock already?’ Sitwell swung round in her seat and peered up at the clock. ‘All right, ladies – shift change.’

  Kay leaned across and touched Barbara on the shoulder. ‘Barbara? We’ve finished.’

  Her eyes half opened. ‘Was I asleep?’

  ‘You could sleep standing up,’ said Louie.

  Flora took off her coat and cap. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Two launches,’ said Kay. ‘I think we finished the plots in time. It’s hard to tell. What are your digs like?’

  ‘Would you keep the chit-chat down?’ called Sitwell. ‘We are still on alert, you know.’

  Kay retrieved her coat from the back of the chair and Flora slid into her place. ‘Ooh, lovely and warm,’ she whispered.

  ‘Wait a minute, ladies!’

  Knowsley trotted down the steps and strode to the front of the room. ‘Before you go, I have some news I’d like to share with you. Everybody!’ He clapped his hands to get their attention. ‘None of what I’m about to say is to be repeated. This is strictly classified – I hope that’s clear.’ He tried to look stern, but he couldn’t help breaking into a smile. ‘I just got off the phone to Stanmore. As a result of our efforts this morning, two attacks were mounted on the launch sites in Holland. All our planes returned safely, and Fighter Command is reporting that both targets were destroyed!’

  A murmur of excitement went round the room. Kay looked over at Barbara and mouthed, ‘Well done!’ She gave her a thumbs-up.

  ‘And well done you!’

  Knowsley beamed at them. ‘Yes, jolly good show, the pair of you. You’re both off duty now, so why don’t you go over to the mess bar and have a drink on my tab?’