‘Not at all. We’ll offer to continue the whole programme after the war, and it will be as if nothing has ever happened – you’ll see.’
‘So we’ll build missiles for the Americans?’
‘Missiles to start with’ – the cigarette tip described an expansive arc in the damp gloom – ‘and then we’ll get back to what it’s always been about: spacecraft!’
‘Spacecraft!’ Graf started to laugh. It made his nose hurt like the devil. He was sure it must be broken. Even so, he couldn’t help himself.
‘Do you think I’m joking?’ Von Braun sounded offended. ‘If I could convince Adolf Hitler to spend five billion marks building a rocket, do you think I couldn’t convince an American president to go to the moon?’
Graf looked over his shoulder at the road and wondered if he should walk back to Scheveningen. But it was raining harder now and he felt very tired. He would drift with the current and see where it took him. ‘Whatever you say.’ He threw away his cigarette. ‘Let’s get back in the car.’
22
Tuesday 4 September 1945
‘IT’S ALL A MATTER OF geography,’ said the man from the Ministry of Supply. ‘The Russians got Peenemünde, the Americans got Nordhausen, and I’m afraid we’ve ended up with not very much.’
‘Apart from the craters,’ said the air commodore. Everyone laughed. Kay stared at her hands. It was the first time she’d seen Mike since the previous November. They were back in the same panelled conference room in which the Mechelen operation had been approved, and he was in his element, surrounded by top brass from the army and the RAF.
‘Quite,’ said the Ministry of Supply man, whose name was Sir Marley Rook. ‘We do have the four intact missiles at Cuxhaven, and a few captured technical troops. We’re planning to fire the rockets next month. But it’s all very much crumbs from the big boys’ table. The Americans have got a hundred V2s. So we need to make the most of today.’
‘What time did they get in?’
‘They landed at Northolt from Munich yesterday evening. The War Office put them up overnight at a place they have in Wimbledon. The Americans want them back in Germany tomorrow.’
‘What are they offering them, do we know?’
‘A new life in the States for them and their wives and children – restricted movement at first, but full citizenship in due course.’
‘It’s hard to compete with that.’
‘We know. And of course money will be no object over there.’ Rook’s expression was morose. ‘On the other hand, they’ll have to live in White Sands, New Mexico, at the atom bomb test site, God help them, whereas here at least they’d be closer to home. It’s worth a try, anyway.’
‘Who do we have coming?’
‘Von Braun – he’s the head man; Steinhoff, who was in charge of guidance and control systems; Schilling and Graf, who between them ran rocket propulsion. Von Braun and Graf speak English, apparently, but we’ve got a translator on hand in case it gets too technical.’
‘All right,’ said Mike. He looked at his watch. ‘They’ll be here in a bit. Why don’t we talk to them in here? I’ve arranged for beer and sandwiches to be brought in at half-time. Flight Officer Caton-Walsh?’ He somehow succeeded in looking her directly in the face without actually focusing on her.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Why don’t you wait with your stuff in an office down the corridor, and we’ll get you involved if we have enough time?’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’ She stood and saluted. She had rather dreaded the prospect of meeting him again, but now it came to it, it had not been too bad. She felt nothing for him at all.
* * *
—
The four Germans were all in the same car, an Austin 12, the biggest the Air Ministry could provide. Von Braun was in the front seat next to the driver; the other three were squeezed in the back. A smaller car full of military police followed immediately behind.
The day was thundery, the car stuffy with the smell of warm leather and cigarette smoke. The south London suburbs seemed to drag on forever. Graf said, ‘Does anyone mind if I open the window?’ Nobody replied. They were all staring at the bomb-damaged street. He wound down the window. Where the houses in the middle of the terrace had been demolished, they had left ghostly images of their former selves imprinted on the neighbouring walls – patches of paintwork and fading wallpaper, sheared floors, the ragged saw teeth of vanished staircases.
Van Braun said in English to the driver, ‘What district of London is this, please?’
‘Wandsworth.’
‘Was it hit by V2s?’
‘Yes,’ the man said grimly. ‘Often.’ They halted at a traffic light beside a sudden vista of rubble and weeds. Graf noticed a pram with no wheels lying on its side. ‘That was done by a V2 last November, since you mention it. Nine houses gone. Thirty-four dead.’
November, thought Graf. I might have fired that.
Von Braun craned his head to look. ‘It’s all been cleared up.’ He sounded disappointed. ‘You can’t see how the damage was caused.’
They passed over a bridge and drove beside the Thames. The wide river was grey and choppy, like the North Sea. The Houses of Parliament came into view ahead, with a big Union Jack flying above it, vivid against the yellowish-grey sky. Graf said, ‘I thought Kammler told us that had been destroyed.’ He leaned forward and spoke to the driver. His English had improved after three months of American interrogations. ‘Is it true Piccadilly Circus has gone?’
‘It was still there this morning.’
‘Leicester Square? The Tower of London? Three bridges over the river? Weren’t they all hit?’
The driver looked at him in the mirror. ‘Someone’s been having you on.’
Steinhoff looked professionally affronted by how intact the government district appeared to be. ‘What is that he’s saying?’
‘He seems to be implying we mainly hit houses.’
‘I don’t believe it. We fired more than a thousand rockets at London, all aimed at the centre.’
‘Relax, Steinhoff,’ said von Braun. ‘The war’s over. It’s all for the best. Do you think they’d be so friendly if we’d hit Buckingham Palace and killed the king?’
They pulled up outside a massive building on the corner of a wide curved road. ‘Here you are, gents,’ announced the driver. ‘The Air Ministry.’ Under his breath he added, ‘And now go fuck yourselves.’
* * *
—
Kay was in the corridor when they came up the stairs, escorted by Mike’s aide – four men in slightly shabby civilian suits. Two of them carried their hats and were nervously twisting the brims, looking about them as if they couldn’t quite believe where they were. The Peenemünde scientists had been so much at the centre of her life for the past couple of years, had assumed such an almost mythic status in her mind, that it was odd to see them now, so ordinary. The flight lieutenant knocked, opened the door to the conference room and they filed in. The last man, just before he entered, turned and looked at her – a flash of human connection in the dreary light – and then he was gone. She prowled up and down the corridor a couple of times, listening to the drone of male voices. Occasionally there was laughter. They seemed to be getting on tremendously. She went back into the office and laid out on the desk the photographs, maps and plans, and the stereoscopic viewfinder she had brought up from Medmenham that morning, then sat down to wait.
* * *
—
Von Braun commanded the room. He stood at the blackboard, his left hand hooked over his jacket pocket, his right holding a piece of chalk. He spoke without notes. Occasionally he would turn and write up a chemical formula or sketch a diagram, and the British technical experts would dutifully take notes. The room grew hot. So many perspiring male bodies clad in thick khaki and blue-grey serge, the civil servan
ts in their own uniform of black suit jackets and pinstriped trousers. Towards the end of the morning the windows were opened, letting in the sound of traffic.
Graf studied von Braun dispassionately, without listening to the words. He owed him his life, almost certainly. At the end of February, von Braun had donned his SS uniform yet again and had led them out of Peenemünde in a convoy of cars and lorries, south to Nordhausen, and then south again to the Bavarian Alps, always keeping an eye on the position of the American front line. They had been in a ski hotel on the Austrian border when they learned first of Hitler’s suicide and then of Kammler’s: he had ordered his driver to pull over, walked up the road and shot himself. A week later, the engineers had surrendered to the Americans and von Braun had told their captors where to find the Peenemünde archive, which he had hidden in a mine. The negotiations had gone smoothly. The deal was done. More than a hundred scientists, Graf among them, had been offered a new life in the US. Soon the first contingent would board a ship from Le Havre to New York, en route to New Mexico. This presentation to the British was purely for show, although one would never have guessed it watching von Braun now. He seduced in the manner of a Don Giovanni. He always meant it at the time.
They stopped for lunch. Graf drank warm flat beer and stood in a corner answering technical questions. ‘Speak freely,’ von Braun had instructed them the previous evening, standing in the garden to avoid the British microphones. ‘Tell them everything they want to know – except the fact that we will be going to America. We don’t want to find ourselves detained here on some trumped-up charges of war crimes.’
Twenty thousand people had died at Nordhausen making the V2, four times as many as had been killed by it. The matter was being investigated by the Allied war crimes commission. All the more reason to get to the safety of America as soon as possible, before the facts became too well known.
In the middle of the afternoon, von Braun beckoned Graf over. He was talking to an air commodore, who shifted slightly as Graf approached, to try to block him from interrupting the conversation. ‘It would give His Majesty’s Government great pleasure,’ the officer was saying quietly, ‘if you and your colleagues would consider working with us to develop your technology further, as fellow Europeans.’
‘That is a very appealing concept.’ Von Braun nodded and looked over his shoulder. ‘Ah, Graf. The air commodore would like one of us to answer a few questions about Peenemünde. Would you mind?’
* * *
—
Kay was standing by the window when he came in. She had begun to think her trip up to town was wasted. The flight lieutenant said, ‘This is Dr Graf. Dr Graf, this is Flight Officer Caton-Walsh of our Central Interpretation Unit. Would you like me to stay?’
‘I think we’ll be fine,’ said Kay. ‘It shouldn’t take long.’ After the door was closed, she said, ‘Do you speak English?’ He was staring at the photographs of Peenemünde spread across the desk. ‘I don’t speak much German, I’m afraid.’ He seemed not to have heard her. She gestured towards the door. ‘I could fetch an interpreter…’
‘Yes.’ He looked at her for the first time. He had very clear blue eyes – she had noticed them in the corridor earlier – dark hair, chewed fingernails. ‘I speak English.’
‘As you can see, we have extensive photographic reconnaissance of the Peenemünde facility. But unfortunately the Russians won’t allow us access to the site, and the Americans seem not to be able to lay their hands on the necessary plans. So we wondered if you could fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge.’
‘Of course.’
‘Please, do sit. Have you used a stereoscopic viewer before? It’s perfectly simple.’ She leaned over him. ‘You place one image here. And then the other next to it here.’
‘My God.’ He drew his head back. ‘It comes alive.’
‘Everyone has that reaction.’
He peered into the viewfinder again. ‘This is test stand seven.’
She sat opposite him, making notes. ‘And those huge oval rings around it are blast walls, presumably, made of earth?’
‘Sand mostly.’
‘How long would it take to process a missile through the test stand?’
‘At the beginning? Eight days, minimum.’
‘And the large building next to it? How high is that?’
‘Thirty metres. It had to be high. We stored the rockets upright.’
‘In the centre of the test stand there’s a channel of some sort…’
‘The duct for the exhaust gases. Seven metres wide.’
After ten minutes, she slid another pair of images across the desk towards him. ‘Perhaps we could move on to these.’
* * *
—
They worked for more than an hour, picture after picture. At first he was curious, then nostalgic, and finally haunted. His life was laid out before him as it had been at the point when he could last call himself truly happy. Everything was in perfect perspective. There was the propulsion laboratory, where he worked with Thiel. There was the wind tunnel. There was his apartment block. There was the launch site. There was the old hotel where Karin lived, and the beach where he swam that last evening.
He sat back and rubbed his eyes.
‘Are you getting tired?’ asked the young Englishwoman. ‘Do you want to take a break?’
‘When exactly were these taken?’
She picked up one of the photographs and turned it over. ‘The twenty-first of June 1943. Two o’clock in the afternoon.’
She passed it across to him. He held it to the light. ‘I remember seeing a plane that June – its contrail, anyway – flying very high. Maybe it was the one that took this picture.’
‘It could have been. There were actually three reconnaissance sorties over Peenemünde that week.’
‘This was so that you could bomb us?’
‘It was. Were you there?’
He nodded. ‘If you could magnify this photograph sufficiently, you would be able to find me just here.’ He tapped it. ‘On the road out of the Experimental Works compound, on the edge of the woods, looking up at the sky.’ He returned the photograph, sat back and studied her. She was pretty, with her auburn hair and blue uniform. His recording angel. ‘This was your job, was it? Watching us?’
‘One of my jobs, yes. First in photographic analysis, then in radar.’
‘Radar?’ That caught his attention. ‘Were you one of the women in Mechelen?’
* * *
—
She was not sure how to answer him, or even if she should answer him.
She said briskly, ‘I think we’ve finished now, thank you. You’ve been a great help.’
She began gathering up the photographs. She was conscious of him watching her.
He said casually, ‘I once fired a rocket at Mechelen.’
‘Did you really? You missed me, I’m afraid.’
‘And you missed me, when you bombed Peenemünde.’
‘Well, that’s good for both of us.’ She laughed and shook her head. ‘This is an absurd conversation.’
He helped her collect up the photographs. ‘It was a very clever idea, to try to calculate the curve. We never thought of it. But of course it was quite pointless.’
‘I think you’ll find it wasn’t. I was in Mechelen until the end of March. We destroyed a number of launch sites.’
‘No. I’m sorry to have to tell you, but you never destroyed one.’
He gave her the photographs. She stared at him, searching his eyes to see if he was lying, but it was obvious he was telling the truth. The Germans had gone on firing V2s at London from the Dutch coast until six weeks before the end of the war. The last one had killed 140 people in Whitechapel. So of course she had known they had not hit all the launchers. But not one?
There was a knock and the f
light lieutenant put his head around the door. ‘The others are leaving now.’
‘Thank you. I’m afraid we’ve run out of time, Dr Graf.’ She was surprised by how sorry she felt suddenly to see him go. There was so much more she would have liked to ask him. She put out her hand. ‘Well, then. Goodbye.’
He took it, smiled, looked at her, into her, through her. ‘Auf Wiedersehen.’
At the door, he turned. ‘We were both misled,’ he said.
* * *
—
He walked thoughtfully along the corridor and down the stairs. Von Braun was in front, talking with the air commodore, making a joke. His broad shoulders heaved with laughter at his own good humour. Steinhoff and Schilling trailed behind him.
In the lobby, the air commodore shook their hands.
‘It’s been a fascinating day,’ he said. ‘We have been curious to meet you for a long while. Have a safe flight back to Germany. And please remember our offer.’
Von Braun said, ‘We shall be in contact next week. I hope very much we can work together.’
The air commodore walked away. A military policeman opened the door. Graf hung back. Von Braun stood in the doorway, his tall figure framed in the glare of the late-summer light. He held out his hand. ‘Are you coming, Graf?’
He knew that if he followed him out into the street, he would end up in White Sands, New Mexico, building missiles for the Americans, and there would be no returning. That way the moon, this way the earth.
‘Graf?’
He swung round and contemplated the marble lobby. He wondered if he could remember his way back to the Englishwoman’s office. He thought he could. He was fairly sure he would be able to find her again.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
V2 Page 26
