Heroes

by David Hagberg

  Schey climbed up from the beach on the other side of the rock outcropping and quickly scrambled above where the man had been standing. But he was gone. Schey held his breath, listening, and he could hear someone farther up on the rocks, back toward the highway.

  If the man got to a telephone, the U-boat wouldn’t have a chance. At first light the Navy’s spotter planes would be up, and every boat in the area would converge at the mouth of the bay.

  Schey headed up toward the road, dropping all attempts at stealth, his powerful legs like hydraulic rams propelling him upwards, and recklessly he leaped from one rock to the next, mindless now of the cold and the blowing snow.

  The coastal spotter, frightened that he had actually spotted the enemy, here in Maine, was puffing like an old steam engine by the time he made it to the side of the road, so he had no idea that anyone was behind him, until something leaped out of the darkness on his back, and he thought it was some sort of wild animal.

  Schey jammed his knee in the man’s back, then sharply pulled his head back, breaking his neck.

  It was over in a split second, although the man’s legs jerked spasmodically for several minutes afterwards.

  Schey didn’t like this at all. He looked down into the man’s open eyes. He’d been nothing more than a coastal watcher. An amateur. Almost. certainly a family man, too old for active service, so he had chosen this. Just doing his bit for the war effort.

  “Verdammt,” Schey swore out loud, his stomach churning.

  But it was war—total war. The Fiihrer had ordered it. ‘

  Just down the highway was the spotter’s old, beat-up pickup truck. Without having to think it out, Schey carried the man’s body over to a spot a few yards behind the rear of the truck and laid it half in and half out of the ditch. He lined the head and neck up with the inside rear wheel.

  The man looked to be in his early to middle fifties, and Schey : . wondered what men like him would do after the war … whichever way it went. Would they fit in? He sincerely hoped so.

  There had been enough suffering now; more was not needed. Back at the front of the truck, he released the parking brake, put the gear shift in neutral, and gave the truck a shove. It started back slowly at first, but then, as it angled over to the ditch, it ‘ picked up speed, the rear wheel bumping up over the dead man’s ‘ face and neck with a sickening crunch. Schey hurried off the side of the road and scrambled down the ) rocks toward the beach even before the truck had come to a halt in the ditch.

  They’d find the man in the morning, run over by his own truck. A freak accident.

  Catherine’s body was warm and soft beneath her flannel night gown when Schey climbed into the small bed in the front bedroom. She moaned softly, and automatically turned to him. |

  “Hmmm?” she said, starting to wake up. Schey’s stomach was still churning. He kept seeing the dead man’s eyes looking up at him. “Go back to sleep, Katy,” he whispered.

  But she was awake. There was a small amount of flickering light in the room from the glass window in the oil burner in the living room, just enough for him to see her face. She was smiling.

  “Did you go outside?” she asked. “You’re cold.” ‘ | “I went out for a smoke.”

  “Are you worried about your job?” She was always concerned about him. She was certain that she loved him more than he did her, and it frightened her at times.

  “A little bit,” he said softly.

  She kissed his nose and his cheeks. “Maybe we should go back. Our little house in Oak Ridge is nice.”

  Schey smiled. Their little house was, besides the baby Robert, Junior, her source of intense pride. Damned few of the other women she knew had houses. But they had come to Oak Ridge much too late, after houses had become all but impossible to find.

  “We’ll think about it in the morning,” Schey said, and he drew her closer, pulling her nightgown up so that he could feel her legs and stomach and breasts against his body.

  Neither of them heard the baby coughing in the other room.

  It was snowing in northern Germany, too, as Lieutenant Robert David Deland, alias Edmund Dorfman, stepped out of the mathematics center at Versuchs-Kommando Nord and hesitated a moment to pull up his coat collar.

  For the first time since the OSS had sent him to Germany, he was seriously considering running. It was getting to be too much for him. Major Preuser had been at him again this afternoon, and this time it was serious. ‘.

  Deland had been hired nearly nine incredible months ago, for < his expertise in trajectory mathematics. A background out of , Gottingen had been prepared for him, and so far it had stood up.

  But now he wasn’t so sure. ?

  Preuser had been on him about his snooping around. He had tried to explain to the major, who was chief of security for the M-Section at Test-Command North, that in order to come up with acceptable trajectory mathematics, systems that would work, he needed to know specifics about the mammoth rocket—the V2, they called the earlier models. That’s when the trouble began; Preuser had accused him of being a spy, rhetorically of course, . but it was creating too much attention. -, The frigid wind whipped across the island of Usedom from the ‘ Baltic, and Deland had to turn his face away from it as he hurried toward the S-Bahn terminal before the rush started. He looked more like a farm boy than a mathematician. At just under six feet, he was big-boned and dark-haired with a ruddy outdoors complexion. In actuality, he had attended the University of Heidelberg, then Gottingen, where he had studied mathematics from ‘32 to ‘36. There were times when he’d admit to himself that those were the very best years of his life. The camaraderie. The student pubs. The hard work with Dr. Alois Reichert. God, it had been grand. But now he mostly hated Germans and what they stood for. He had heard of Auschwitz.

  He could not believe it, and yet he knew it was true.

  There was a lot of activity in the compound this afternoon, despite the nasty weather. Deland supposed they would be firing another V2 sometime tomorrow. Before long there’d be others, though: V3’s, V4’s. He had been doing a lot of work lately on intercontinental trajectories: Ireland to the U.S. east coast.

  Farfetched, Dulles had called it; nevertheless, it was frightening, because if the Germans could hold out for another couple of years, they’d have the V9 or even the V10; with enough power to span the Atlantic.

  He noticed all that and more, including the truck coming from the liquid oxygen plant toward the Preufstande where the rockets were fired.

  Also, there had been a lot of big wigs coming on base all day, including an SS General who had been in the mess hall at the VIP table with Von Braun himself.

  Something definitely big was set for tomorrow if the weather and the Allies cooperated.

  The little five-car electric train rattled under the canopy across the main road; Deland rushed across to it and took a seat in the last car. There were only a couple of dozen people, some of them officers, but most of them civilian engineers and technicians. No one Deland knew, which was just as well. He wanted to keep to his own thoughts long enough to calm down.

  It was just after four in the afternoon. The main rush wouldn’t begin for another hour, when most of the four thousand employees here at Peenemunde would head home to Koserow farther down the island or to Swinemiinde and Wolgast on the mainland.

  The S-Bahn rattled out of the terminal, picking up speed as they crossed the base to Werk Siid, where they stopped for another dozen passengers, then headed down to the main highway for the first checkpoint this side of Zinnowitz.

  The others on the train were in a good mood this afternoon.

  Laughing and joking. “They may be bombing Berlin, but they haven’t been at this little nest lately,” was the consensus.

  “Besides, it’s Wednesday, already the halfway point. Can Sunday be far behind?”

  Except for the big concrete buildings like Werk Siid, the base looked more like a small town than a rocket research and testing facility. Most of the bu
ildings were neat two-story structures nestled in and amongst thick stands of pine. In fact, he had been told, Peenemunde had once been a very fashionable resort area.

  He believed it. In the summer the place was lovely.

  They came down the long, open southern stretch, the sea to their left, and Deland’s stomach tightened as it did each time he got to this point.

  A large sign moved slowly past them, and he did not have to look up to read it. The words were burned indelibly into his mind. He even dreamed about them.

  WHAT YOU SEE WHAT YOU HEAR WHEN YOU LEAVE LEAVE IT HERE

  Just beyond the sign the S-Bahn made a wide loop, coming around to the main gate and to the transfer point for the regular train and for the parking area where Deland kept his bicycle.

  Barbed wire and tall fences surrounded the entire area. A dozen SS guards were waiting as the S-Bahn came to a halt at the platform, while other SS guards patrolled outside the fences with their German shepherds.

  It was nothing more than routine, Deland told himself, as he told himself every day at this time. He was taking nothing out with him, nothing other than what he had catalogued in his mind.

  He had no need to take anything with him; he had total recall—a photographic memory.

  His instructors in Virginia had been delighted with him, and Wild Bill Donovan himself had come out to the school one afternoon to meet with the whiz kid, as he was then called.

  Six lines were formed, each passing through a turnstile manned by a pair of guards who checked papers, retrieved passes, and searched parcels, lunch boxes, and even pockets.

  “If they were really sharp, they’d understand that none of us is interested in rocket parts; all we want is bread,” someone behind Deland quipped.

  Someone else laughed. “A little meat wouldn’t be so bad either.”

  “Meat … what’s that?” the first one shot back.

  It was Deland’s turn. He handed over the badge which he wore clipped to his lapel, his identity card, his work permit, and his military classification card, which exempted him from service as long as he worked on a priority project such as Peenemunde.

  One guard looked at his papers while the other quickly and efficiently frisked him. He carried nothing but his wallet, a package of cigarettes, a lighter, and fifty or sixty marks—yesterday, the first, had been payday. The bicycle lock key he kept on a string around his neck. The guards never searched there.

  He was allowed through the turnstile; his papers were returned to him, all but the security badge which would be kept here at the gate, and he hurried across the entry area to where he had parked his bicycle.

  It would be a long, cold ride into Wolgast, 10.5 kilometers to be exact, but he never really minded the ride. He got to see more of the comings and goings from Peenemunde (many of the VIP’s visiting the station came on the ferry from Wolgast), and it gave him the time to settle his nerves, which by the end of the workday were usually frayed. Today he was really jumpy, and it took him several minutes to thaw out his lock so that the key would work.

  “Dorfman,” someone called from behind, and Deland nearly jumped out of his skin.

  “Wollen She mil mir gehen?”

  Deland had tried to be a loner, but with Rudy Schlechter, a mathematician in fuel management systems, it was nearly impossible. The man had an infectious grin and manner. Even when his superiors were chastising him for one thing or another (he was also a practical joker), they’d be doing it with a grin.

  He was a tall man, somewhat on the thin side, with graying temples that would have made him look distinguished except for the fact he always seemed to be dressed in crumpled suits, his tie dirty and his shirt stained. He stood by the open door of his Volkswagen—one of the new Hitler cars—grinning. How he managed to get the car in the first place was a mystery, matched only by the mystery of how he managed to get gasoline ration coupons.

  “Come on, Dorfman, we’ll tie your bicycle on the roof. You can ride up there on it, if you wish.”

  Deland laughed, forcing himself to sound natural. He walked his bike across the roadway. “I suppose you have some wine and cheese in there. Perhaps a fat sausage.”

  “And dancing girls. Don’t forget the dancing girls,” Schlechter laughed, helping Deland raise his bicycle onto the roof of the tiny car. He got some twine out of the trunk, and they tied the bicycle frame to the front and rear bumpers.

  Ordinarily, Deland would have refused such an offer, but he had been very carefully cultivating the other man. Schlechter had an enormous intelligence potential. As the fuel flows, so does the rocket. In another time, Deland thought, he and Schlechter could have been friends. It was saddening.

  “It will be among your more difficult problems over there,” one of his instructors had told him. “There will be no safe haven. Unlike here at home, where you can make friends freely, without worry, in Nazi Germany you will be watched twenty-four hours a day. Never forget it. Your life may depend upon your remembering it.”

  They pulled away from the parking lot and headed west on the main island highway that led to the ferry to Wolgast. A half dozen heavy Army trucks passed them on their way to the station. Schlechter glanced in the rearview mirror after them.

  “We’re supposed to have a storm tonight. I don’t think they’ll be able to fire the rocket tomorrow.”

  Deland looked sharply at the man. Was it some sort of a test, or was the man being a fool? “I don’t think we should talk about that sort of thing, Rudy,” he said.

  Schlechter glanced at him and laughed. “You’re right, of course. They’d probably hang me by the thumbs.” Careful, Deland told himself. “Are you fellows having problems over in C-Hut?”

  This time Schlechter laughed out loud. “Problems! It’s not the word for the mess we’re in. No one knows what’s going on. Von Braun himself was in today, ranting and raving about what incompetent fools we were.” He chuckled. “When he left, he forgot his hat and gloves.”

  “They have us working on the Irish thing.”

  “What’s that?” Schlechter asked casually. Too casually.

  “Oh, you know, trajectories for the V9 and V10.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Forget it,” Deland mumbled, his stomach churning. He wished he had ridden his bicycle.

  “No, I’m serious. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I have my own questions.” Deland said nothing.

  “They took us off the alcohol problem, and we’re supposed to be designing pumps for corrosive liquids. But they never tell us exactly what sort of liquids we’d be working with. Have you any idea what the hell they mean?”

  “They are working on new fuels; I did hear that. Supposedly much more powerful than alcohol. But they’d still need liquid oxygen. I can’t see any way “around that.”

  “There’re ways,” Schlechter said. “But we’ve not been asked to do away with the Lox pumps, just to design a pump to move corrosive liquids at very high speeds.” Schlechter shook his head.

  “It’s crazy, you know, Dorfman, but we’re probably losing the war, so none of this will matter much in the end.”

  “Don’t talk that way, Rudy,” Deland said sharply.

  “Sorry.” Schlechter shook his head again.

  They passed through the tiny village of Bannemin, then a few kilometers later crossed the Peene River into Wolgast, the wind kicking up whitecaps on the water.

  Before the war, Wolgast had been a commercial fishing center of about ten thousand people. But the work at Peenemunde had swollen its population by nearly half. Deland lived in a rooming house on the far north side of the city, and he was about to direct Schlechter that way when the man pulled up and parked in the square downtown.

  “What’s this?” Deland asked.

  “Just hold on there, Dorfman; I’ve got a little surprise for you.”

  “I really …”

  Schlechter turned off the ignition, opened the door, and jumped out of the ca
r. “You can stay here and freeze in the car, if you’d like, but I really need a big favor from you. It won’t take much of your time. But it’ll be worth it. You’ll see.”

  Deland laughed after a moment, his earlier dark mood deepening.

  His gut was killing him and his heart was hammering, but there was no way of refusing this man without arousing suspicion. He had only known Schlechter for a few months, since the man had transferred in from the research station at Bleicherode. Before that, he said, he had been at Kummersdorf West, near Berlin.

  Until today, Deland had liked the man, so far as a Nazi could be liked. But he was getting a bad feeling about him now. Something was not quite right.

  He got out of the car, nevertheless, a grin on his face. He was either going to stay and do the job he had been sent to do, or he was going to turn tail and get the hell out. He wasn’t going to sit on the fence any longer.

  “My supper is waiting for me,” he said weakly.

  “I’ll buy you supper. And a beer, too,” Schlechter said. He started across the square, and Deland hurried to catch up.

  “What’s going on, Rudy? Why the mystery?”

  “Just wait and see, my boy. Just wait and see.”

  They had to wait for an Army jeep to pass; then they crossed the cobbled street and entered the Hansa Haus. It was early, yet the Bierstube was already crowded and noisy. A pall of smoke hung just below the wood-beamed ceiling, curled around the wild boar and deer heads on the walls, and completely wreathed the heads of the old men at the long Stammtisch. Deland had never been in this place, although he had heard it was popular with the young office workers of Wolgast. Many of the routine administrative functions for the research station were carried on here in town.

  Schlechter seemed to be well known in the place; they stopped a half a dozen times to shake hands and say hello. But finally they reached a small table around, the corner from the long mahogany bar. Two women were seated there. One of them was older, with a thin, angular face and a self-assured expression, while the other was much younger, much prettier, with long blonde hair up in a bun, a tiny round face, and lovely hands folded in front of her on the table. The swell of her bosom rose and fell beneath her white blouse. She seemed nervous. They both had been drinking wine.