The Doomsday Decree

by Peter MacAlan

‘Pilot was so excited that he gave it out over the r/t. Our transmissions monitor picked up his report to base. Burbling away, the poor man was.’

  ‘Surely the pilot has seen V2s launched before now?’

  ‘The point was, colonel, one of the V2s actually did a somersault and fell back directly on the spot where it was launched. The pilot saw several explosions on the ground and an entire area down there seemed to go up in flames.’

  Roberts leant back and stroked the bridge of his nose thoughtfully. ‘You suspect the site to be Project Wotan?’

  The lieutenant nodded eagerly. ‘It is in exactly the right location, colonel.’

  Roberts thought for a moment and then said, ‘You told me one rocket was reported to have fallen back on the site. Conventional explosion?’

  ‘It seemed so.’

  Roberts kept the lieutenant waiting a few more moments while he reflected. ‘Have you traced the path of the other rocket?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Roberts grimaced. ‘Then do so, laddie! Do so!’

  *

  It was at 3.39 a.m. that the Operations Room of RAF Fighter Command Headquarters in Bentley Priory, Stanmore, Middlesex, was alerted by one of their observation posts.

  A rather bored-looking WAAF corporal glanced across the room to her section officer.

  ‘A V2 rocket on its way in, crossing the coast by the Naze, fifteen thousand feet above Colchester and descending,’ she intoned as if devoid of any feeling about the matter.

  The section officer took a plot and placed a coloured marker on it. Then she pushed it across the tracking board with a long cue.

  ‘Hostile coming in above Colchester. Identified as a V2.’

  The Group Captain in charge of the Operations Room stared down.

  ‘Plot its rate of descent and estimate time and point of landing.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  A moment later: ‘Hostile over Halstead. Uneven course. Started to curve north. Down to ten thousand feet.’

  Then: ‘Hostile descending. Area of impact … Cambridge!’

  The actual area of impact was the village of Brandon in Suffolk, a quiet little place, modestly self-effacing behind its flint-faced buildings, yet those same flints had made it famous throughout the world as the home of the flint knappers. For centuries the flint knapping business had been centred there and the town’s old inn proudly did business under the sign of ‘The Flint Knappers Inn’. Flints made at Brandon had been exported all over the world before the war, mainly to museums for use in flint-lock guns or to places like South Africa where farmers still used such weapons.

  The rocket descended, missing the village and ploughing on another half mile through stunted pine and silver birch into the open fields of the Suffolk countryside. It disintegrated into several pieces on impact, and when the dust and debris settled, was seen to have ploughed a great scar through the fields. In case the locals might approach it, never having seen a V2 in this vicinity, RAF personnel from the nearby station at Mildenhall arrived in trucks and roped off the area.

  The sober Newmarket Journal, the local newspaper, which had been publishing the news ‘frankly and fearlessly’ since its foundation in 1782, offered thanks to Providence that the rocket’s warhead had failed to explode. Had it done so, the newspaper bleakly observed, a good part of a prize herd of Guernsey cattle, grazing in the adjacent field, might have been no more. As it was, the rocket seemed to have helped in the early spring ploughing of the field in which it landed.

  The remnants of the rocket were immediately transported to Mildenhall where they were crated and eventually put on an American transport aircraft, arriving ten days later at a research centre in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. A week later they were transferred to Los Alamos, New Mexico.

  George B. Kistakowsky, one of the scientists on the Los Alamos project, wrote a terse report to the project director, General Groves. ‘It could have worked. It should have worked. Thank God, it didn’t!’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘East?’

  Kendall was staring in bewilderment at Wickham in the gloomy clearing.

  ‘East?’ he repeated. ‘Why that’s further into Nazi-held territory.’

  ‘Congratulations on your geography, old boy,’ drawled Wickham. ‘However, it also means the direction of the Soviet lines.’

  ‘The Russians?’

  ‘Permit me to introduce myself properly at last. I am a colonel of the NKVD.’

  Kendall looked at him blankly while Paul tried to suppress a whistle of surprise.

  ‘I’ll explain it all later, old boy. Not much time now. Moscow badly needs the secret of this super-bomb. It’ll mean a rough ride for a few days, Kendall, but we will soon meet up with Marshal Zhukov or Rokossovsky’s troops. Then you’ll be in Moscow and be able to tell Uncle Joe, as you call him, exactly what is going on down in New Mexico.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Kendall said slowly. ‘You are as English as I am. What do you mean … a colonel in the NKVD?’

  Wickham smiled thinly. ‘Yes, I am as English as you. But I have a special belief. The belief in a new England. There are a lot of us who share that belief. And we are everywhere. In top places in Government, in the security services … everywhere.’

  ‘Traitors!’ snapped Kendall.

  ‘Patriots!’ corrected Wickham. ‘Call us Communists or Marxists if you like, but we are still patriots. And we are going to win the war, not just this war but the ultimate war.’

  Paul had been watching Wickham, scarcely understanding what he was saying except that the man was a Soviet agent who was intent on taking Kendall to the Russians so they could extract the details about the super-bomb from him.

  ‘What do you intend to do with Horder?’ Kendall was asking.

  Wickham grimaced. ‘Exigencies of war, old boy.’

  He was turning to Paul and raising his machine pistol when Paul acted. He had left the medical kit on the mudguard of the half-track. The small bottle of iodine was still open where he had set it down after dressing Kendall’s wound. Paul’s hand had been resting on the mudguard. Now, with an abrupt motion, he flung himself to one side, at the same time seizing the bottle and dashing its contents into Wickham’s eyes.

  Wickham was able to get off a quick burst before the stinging liquid hit. The bullets passed harmlessly overhead as Paul flung himself to the ground and tore his Luger out of its holster. Wickham was struggling to clear his eyes, gasping in agony. Paul fired twice and fired to kill. Wickham took two steps backward and collapsed to the ground.

  Paul rose to his feet and stood looking down at him, saying nothing.

  Without a word he turned and packed the medical kit, climbed behind the wheel of the half-track and started it up.

  ‘Where are we going?’ demanded Kendall, watching Paul’s white, taut face.

  ‘West,’ said Paul tersely.

  Paul drove in silence until they came to the first roadblock. The order and discipline of the previous evening seemed to have cracked as the news of what had happened at the project site had been telephoned to the guard posts. The guard commander, a troubled-looking warrant officer, simply waved their vehicle through without any attempt to examine their passes or check the vehicle identification.

  Once through the security check, away from the vicinity of the project site, Paul increased the speed of the vehicle and began to head slightly north-west in the direction of the Reichswald.

  Perhaps it was because they were now travelling towards the front, rather than away from it, that there were few military checks. Paul kept the vehicle mainly on the minor roads to avoid army convoys and Allied bombing attacks. They had to halt a couple of times, however, in order to avoid the attentions of marauding Allied fighters.

  The third time they were forced to halt, it was late afternoon and they were in a little village close to the Rhine. Paul wanted to drive straight through but Kendall pointed towards a dark descending shadow and the stutter of machine guns came to thei
r ears.

  Paul pulled the vehicle alongside a wall and halted.

  ‘Get under cover!’ yelled a stentorian voice.

  They saw an SS Standartenführer gesticulating at them from the shelter of what had once been a cafe.

  The Allied fighter was going round into a climbing turn. It was ridiculous to attempt any other action but that suggested by the SS officer.

  Paul moved the half-track closely up against the wall to give it shelter from the aircraft’s attack and swung out of the driver’s seat.

  ‘Your German is not good enough, Kendall,’ he whispered, as he helped the wounded man down. ‘I’ll pretend that your wound has put you in shock. Just mumble and nod, but for God’s sake don’t attempt to say anything.’

  He helped Kendall across the rubble-filled road and into the shelter of the cafe.

  The SS Standartenführer greeted them with a cold smile. He was wearing the badge of the Todtenkopf, a death’s head skull and cross bones, on his black uniform.

  ‘That bloody Tommy has been strafing us for the last ten minutes,’ the SS colonel greeted them. ‘He won’t give up, the bastard.’

  Paul helped Kendall to a seat, looking the colonel over quickly as he did so.

  ‘He’s bound to give up sooner or later, sir.’

  There were a couple of dozen other people sheltering in the cafe; an assortment of civilians, SS and Wehrmacht men.

  There was a rattle of machine guns and a cannon shell exploded nearby. ‘Bastard!’ yelled the SS officer, shaking his fist from the safety of the doorway. Then the man turned and stared at Paul. His blue eyes were slightly protuberant and his face fleshy, with a heaviness about the jowls.

  ‘Where are you heading for, Untersturmführer?’

  ‘Wesel,’ Paul said curtly. ‘What’s the road like?’

  ‘If you keep to the side roads you’ll get through. The Tommies have cratered all the main roads.’ The man paused. ‘Why the hell are you going to Wesel? I thought the Das Reich division were in Austria.’

  Paul wondered whether there was suspicion in the man’s eyes.

  ‘That’s right,’ he replied promptly. ‘We are on special secondment to General Blaskowitz’s Army Group H. We are one of General Huebner’s Flying Tribunals.’

  ‘Is that so?’ The Standartenführer’s eyes narrowed slightly with suspicion. ‘I thought all Huebner’s Tribunal officers were Todtenkopf men.’

  Paul shook his head. He had decided not to volunteer any further information, but he was not asked for any. The Standartenführer was turning his attention to Kendall now.

  ‘What’s wrong with that man?’

  ‘Took a bullet. He’s in shock. We were passing the woods back there,’ he waved his hand, ‘when the shot hit him. Maybe it was a deserter or a bandit. He’ll last until we get back to our unit.’

  ‘In Wesel?’

  ‘In Wesel, Herr Standartenführer.’

  The man scratched his fleshy chin.

  ‘Where did you say your man was shot? Ten miles back?’

  Paul nodded an affirmative.

  ‘Strange. My unit and I just passed through there. We thought we’d cleared that area. Like yourself, Herr Untersturmführer, I am in charge of a Flying Tribunal.’

  Paul’s flesh began to feel cold.

  ‘It was certainly about ten miles back,’ he insisted, trying to keep his voice even. ‘Someone shooting from the forest. I drove on for a few miles before stopping to bandage my … my man.’

  The RAF fighter had apparently given up its efforts to flush out the group and was receding into the distance. The people in the cafe began to stir.

  The Standartenführer brushed the dust off his uniform and stared round. His eyes swept across the people emerging from the shadowy recesses of the cafe.

  ‘You! Come here!’

  He was pointing at a young man in the crowd at the back of the cafe. The man hesitated. One of the colonel’s black-uniformed men standing nearby prodded the young man forward, none too gently.

  Paul had turned and was helping Kendall to rise. The Standartenführer touched him lightly on the arm, smiling.

  ‘Wait a moment before you go, Herr Untersturmführer. I am sure you will find this amusing.’

  Paul glanced at Kendall with a frown. Kendall half-closed his eyes and gave an imperceptible shake of his head, having read in Paul’s eyes that he was about to attempt some excuse, to say he was in a hurry and push on.

  Paul stood where he was. The Standartenführer was grinning at the young man, from whom the crowd in the cafe was now shrinking back as if he had some terrible contagious disease. The eyes of the young man flicked from side to side as if seeking a chance to flee.

  Paul saw that the man wore an army greatcoat, but the left sleeve was empty and pinned up on his breast.

  ‘What is your name?’ demanded the Standartenführer.

  The young man brought himself to attention. ‘Burgdorf, sir. Sepp Burgdorf.’

  ‘You have been in the forces, haven’t you, Burgdorf?’

  The young man licked his lips nervously. ‘Indeed, sir. Rank of Oberschitze, One Hundred and First Artillery.’

  ‘And you have been wounded?’ The Standartenführer’s voice was almost a croon.

  The young man glanced down at his sleeveless arm. ‘I got this at Kiev, sir. September of ‘41.’

  ‘Is that so? Your papers, please.’ The young man hesitated, looking trapped.

  ‘I … I don’t have them. My home was in Cleve. I had to leave in a hurry when the Tommies came in a week ago.’

  The Standartenführer turned to Paul with a broad wink.

  ‘An obvious case, eh, Herr Untersturmführer? A man with one arm has no need to prove that he is useless for combat duties?’

  Paul was thinking the same thing. Yet the young man was clearly worried. What was the Standartenführer playing at?

  ‘Turn round!’ snapped the SS officer, suddenly wheeling back toward the hapless young man.

  The young man hesitated, his lower jaw beginning to tremble visibly, and then obeyed reluctantly.

  ‘Remove his coat!’

  Two Todtenkopf men came forward and, as they reached out, the young man began to struggle. The greatcoat and then his jacket was torn from him. His left arm, still intact, was bent up behind his back.

  The Standartenführer was chuckling broadly.

  ‘Lost your arm at Kiev, eh?’

  The young man was shaking in helpless fear now, only held upright by the two SS men.

  The Standartenführer turned and walked from the cafe into the street. He was looking about him. He saw what he was looking for and called to his men to bring the young man outside.

  They did so with gratuitous roughness. In a daze, the people followed and stood around, silently watching. The Standartenführer merely gestured to the iron pole, standing out from the cafe wall, on which a signboard hung. One of the SS men, had taken a chair and a length of light flex from the cafe and was busily twisting the flex around the pole. The young man was heaved up onto the chair and the cord knotted around his neck.

  The SS officer glanced around and suddenly bent down to pick up an old discarded piece of cardboard. He tore it into a rectangular shape, then extracted a stick of burnt wood from the smouldering ruins nearby. Carefully, he etched onto the card the word ‘Deserter’. Then he went to the young man and pinned it on his breast. Pausing, he smiled up at his victim. Then he stood back and kicked at the chair with his boot. It toppled over. The young man gave one agonized shriek and started to twist and gyrate at the end of the cord. The sight made Paul blanch.

  The Standartenführer turned to the people watching and said with a grim smile, ‘Let this be a lesson to all deserters and defeatists!’

  Paul was helping Kendall into the half-track when the Standartenführer caught up with him.

  ‘About that bandit who shot your Rottenführer … ’

  ‘Yes?’ Paul said, struggling to keep his voice emotionless, as h
e climbed into the driver’s seat and glanced down at the SS officer.

  ‘I’m sorry. Good luck,’ the officer muttered, raising his hand in salute.

  Trying to suppress a cold shiver, Paul started the halftrack and drove past the body of the young deserter, which was still twitching at the end of the electric light cord.

  There were no further aerial attacks along the road and only once more did they have to pull over and halt; this was when a convoy of Tiger tanks swept out of a side road and crossed in front of them.

  Eventually darkness fell as they came to the broad stretch of the Rhine where the town of Wesel stretched along the river’s east bank. There had just been an air raid but, thank God, the newly repaired bridge was still standing intact and open to military traffic crossing the river. The fires from the numerous blazing buildings in the town cast a curious crimson glow into the twilight sky. There was devastation everywhere. Burning vehicles and a number of bodies lay in the streets, including the vile-smelling carcass of a horse still between the shafts of an overturned cart. A pack of wild dogs were already attacking the decaying meat.

  Paul drove warily, but the caution proved unnecessary. People were too busy rescuing belongings or trying to bring order out of the prevailing chaos to take any notice of their vehicles. They passed over the heavily-guarded bridge without opposition; the guards were there to prevent people crossing from west to east rather than east to west. On the west side of the river were artillery emplacements and trenches.

  ‘How near are the Allies?’ Paul inquired of a soldier after driving off the western end of the bridge.

  The soldier gestured obscenely into the darkness.

  ‘Yell out “Hello, Tommy!” and you’ll get a grenade down your throat,’ he replied laconically.

  Paul drove on. Everywhere in the gloom of the night shadows he saw Tiger tanks and columns of men resting. The front had to be fairly close, he thought.

  ‘Still going to try to pass through the front lines?’ Kendall wanted to know.

  He had been growing weaker from his wound. He needed rest, Paul knew.

  ‘That was never my intention,’ Paul said shortly.

  He had already decided his destination as he drove along side roads around the north of Xanten. He was heading for the Kelter farm. He had also decided that he must not risk driving the half-track directly to the farm. Instead he found a small wood which he estimated must be about five miles away and drove the vehicle as far as he could into it.