“I picked up another pair of binoculars,” von Braun said. He passed them over. “For you, Professor Esau.”
General Dornberger stood beside the heavy sand wall. “Yes, we’ll be able to see just fine from here.”
Esau looked across to Test Stand X. A dune covered with skeletal pine trees rose from a wide sandy plain beyond which lay the choppy Baltic Sea. The trees themselves had been stripped and scarred from the repeated blasts, and the dune lay under a dark blanket of cinders. Fresh concrete aprons, wooden test stands, and cleared patches of dirt dotted the dune surface. Meillerwagens— long metal rigs for hauling the rockets—waited in their positions.
But the sight that gripped Esau was the towering rocket poised on Test Stand X. Strings of fuel lines, steaming white with residual liquid air, sprawled on the ground. A small service car spun at a reckless speed away from the stand.
The rocket itself looked surreal, painted in alternating sections of black and white for proper heat distribution during reentry. Like a giant javelin it waited on the test stand, ready to leap into the air, with external aerial vanes like the feathers on a gigantic arrow.
“We call it the A-4, for Aggregate Rocket Model Four,” General Dornberger said, “though the Fuhrer wants us to change the name to V-2, for Victory Weapon Two. A different rocket concept, launched more like a “catapult projectile, is called the V-1, but that was developed by a second team. We have one V-1 catapult on the northern tip of Peenemunde. But this… “He sighed and looked at the shining rocket swathed in white vapor tendrils on the test stand. “This is where our real interest lies.”
“It’s got alcohol and liquid oxygen for fuel within the cylindrical center section, along with a hydrogen peroxide tank,” von Braun said. “The fuse and the warhead are on top. We will load the rockets with explosives during actual attacks. Right now we are still trying to perfect the rocket flight itself.”
An announcement rumbled over the intercom system linked around the buildings throughout the site. “X minus three minutes.”
“We have a different way of measuring time here,” General Dornberger mused. “We call them ‘Peeneiminde minutes’—the clock measures them as sixty seconds long, but they seem so much more interminable than that.”
Esau kept his eyes on the rocket towering alone and dangerous on its concrete pad. The general tapped his shoulder. “Those big buildings over there under the camouflage netting are our Development Works and the oxygen-generating plant. We hung the camouflage only on the north side, where planes would see it coming in. On the other side are the hangars for the Luftwaffe section, then the chimneys for the harbor power station.”
“X minus two minutes,” the voice on the loudspeaker said.
“How much do you know of our work here, Herr Professor?” von Braun asked after a brief silence.
“Very little. I don’t even know what this is all about.”
General Dornberger frowned. Von Braun straightened his overcoat to hide a disappointed expression. “Then why exactly did Reichminister Speer send you here to observe this test?”
“He didn’t send me to observe the test! I am here to confer with you about the deployment of another weapon my team of researchers has developed.”
Dornberger’s smile became suddenly forced. “And what type of weapon is this?”
“I’ve been trying to show you this letter—”
The white steam curls vanished from the sides of the rocket, like gusts of breath from a sleeping dragon. Von Braun pointed at it. “Venting valves have closed. Oxygen pressure will start building up.”
The loudspeaker blared again, “X minus one minute. Regular counting will progress.”
The general and von Braun turned back to observe the test stand. “Tell us afterward.”
Esau settled down to watch.
“Forty-five seconds.”
Unable to squelch his tour-guide tendencies, Dornberger spoke over his shoulder at Esau. “The steering gyroscopes are now running inside the rocket. Only a few seconds more.”
A small shell hissed into the air, sending a streamer of green marker smoke across the sky. Esau couldn’t figure out what it was for. To test wind direction?
“X minus fifteen seconds.”
Esau realized he was holding his breath. So, he could tell, were General Dornberger and Wernher von Braun. Even the wind seemed to have dropped away in the overcast winter sky.
“Ignition!”
Clouds gushed from the nozzle at the bottom of the rocket. A rain of sparks built from the nozzle, splashing off the blast deflector and bouncing along the concrete launch platform. A sound like a gigantic blowtorch burned through the air as the sparks gathered into an arm of flame, pushing beneath the black-and-white rocket.
“Preliminary stage!” von Braun shouted.
Smoke billowed up from around the rocket’s bottom, obscuring the view. Esau squinted through his binoculars. Debris, wood chips, sand, and blasted chunks of cable flew through the air. Diagnostic wires fell from the sides of the rocket. Esau could feel the tension building.
“How much more is it going to take?” he shouted.
Then the rocket heaved itself from the ground. Casting-off cables dropped from the smooth white sides. The flame suddenly redoubled in strength as the main stage ignited. The rocket rose and picked up speed, climbing into the sky. Esau followed it with his binoculars. Behind on the test stand only a whirling dust cloud remained.
He flicked a glance sideways to see General Dornberger grinning like a child. Von Braun continued to stare through the binoculars with one fist clenched at his side. His face carried an expression of intense seriousness.
The jet of flame extended yellow and orange, longer than the rocket itself. The black-and-white patterns did not change as Esau watched, meaning the rocket was not rotating.
“Plus five seconds,” the loudspeaker announced. Esau found that incredible. Surely more time had passed than that! He remembered what the general had said about Peenemunde minutes.
“It’s beginning to tilt,” von Braun reported without taking his eyes from the binoculars.
The rocket flew out in a graceful arc over the Peenemunde estuary, toward the small green hook of another island.
“Sixteen… seventeen… eighteen… ” the loudspeaker continued.
“At twenty-five seconds the rocket will go faster than sound,” von Braun said. Dornberger concurred.
A “boom” startled the watchers. The loudspeaker voice said, “Sonic velocity!”
The rocket grew smaller and smaller as it sailed on. Esau thrilled at the power and grace of this weapon. He could understand Speer’s excitement. “Brennschluss approaching. Five seconds,” von Braun said.
“What?” Esau grabbed the general’s sleeve.
“The end point of combustion. The primary flame will go out.”
Von Braun shouted. Esau flicked up his binoculars and searched for the rocket in the field of view. He found white mist spewing from the side of the rocket.
“Did it happen again?” Dornberger demanded. “No, that’s just the oxygen vent opening! It has to be.”
Suddenly an explosion split the rocket, silent over the great distance. In a flash the metal javelin had vanished into a cloud of debris, flame, and steam.
General Dornberger muttered to himself. The loudspeaker made one last announcement, “Forty-three seconds. Forty-three seconds total flight time,” then fell silent. Von Braun brooded down at the ground.
“This is terrible. We must try again and again and again. We must learn to make it work properly!” The general kneaded his hands together.