‘Francine, what were you told about this assignment?’
The girl avoided his glance, and he grabbed her shoulder and shook her hard. ‘Answer me, damn it.’
‘They… they told me I was to go with you, as your wife, until you were finished with me. Then we would return to Wiescek until the war was over. I have an uncle who will hide us on his farm. I thought…’
‘God damn it to hell.’ Memling leapt off the bed. ‘What in the name of God are they thinking of? We can’t go to Wiescek. How long do you think it would take the Gestapo to find us?’ Francine stared at him, eyes brimming. ‘I can’t leave,’ she whispered. ‘My family, my friends, what would I do…? I…’ Memling shook her hard. ‘Listen to me, you silly little fool. This isn’t a game.’ He remembered Paul’s angry voice describing their methods that last night in Belgium. ‘Do you know what the Gestapo does to pretty little girls accused of treason? You like sex, don’t you? But how would you like to have twenty or thirty men rape you, one right after another? How would you like to be hung from wires? Or have electrical shocks to your nipples? Or be given enemas and douches with sulphuric acid? And they won’t stop after you’ve told them everything you know because those people like the job they do. Traitorous little girls are a treat for them, a reward, like candy. They can do what they want. Do you know the Gestapo uses women to torture other women because they know how to hurt you best? You’ll pray for death, scream for death,’ he hammered away at her, ‘do anything they want on their promise to kill you and end the pain.’
Memling found that he was shouting, and shoved her away, fighting for control. Everything he had said was true; it was also a reflection of his own fears and he knew it. He turned back to the girl who was crouched in the corner sobbing. He took her into his arms, murmuring to calm her.
After a while Memling lifted her on to the bed and turned out the single bulb over the table. He undressed her slowly, caressing her smooth skin until her sobs subsided. ‘Believe me, Francine,’ he whispered, ‘we have no other choice. Perhaps when the war is over we can return, but we cannot stay now. Do you understand?’ After a moment she nodded against his shoulder, then turned her back and lay quietly until her breathing evened and she was asleep.
Memling forced himself to lie quietly until dawn, struggling to find a way out of the situation, while at the same time avoiding any thought of what he would do with her if they ever reached Great Britain. He got up as the sky was beginning to pale, and went down to the quay to watch the fishing boats leave. He had a nasty premonition that the resistance had done little or nothing to get him out of Germany. Looking back on the days of hiking across the countryside, he realised now that it was because the resistance had not known what to do with him. It was only a matter of luck that they had not met a security patrol or been stopped by the police in all that time. And that in turn suggested that the identity furnished him was worthless.
All during the day, as he revised specifications for a change in the oxidiser valving system, Memling worried over the problem of leaving the island. Their best chance appeared to be in resuming their walking tour. If their luck held and they stayed to the back roads, they might elude the search certain to result when he disappeared. The question was, where in this rural corner of Germany could they go? Neutral Sweden was across the Baltic, and the only other possibility, Denmark, with its well-organised and active resistance organisation, meant a walk of three hundred miles. The weather was good and they were both healthy enough; food would be their biggest problem, but once they got into Denmark it would be easy enough to make contact with the underground who could then smuggle them to Sweden.
As a plan it was next to useless. But he had no faith left in the German resistance and he dared not stretch his luck beyond another week.
The day, a Friday, was hot, and even with the doors open the interior of the building was stifling. The dependable sea breeze had disappeared, and by noon a heat haze hung over the entire island. He had fallen into the habit of eating lunch with Ernst Mundt who was working on a temporary basis in pre-production to resolve the high failure rate during flight testing. A few days earlier, Memling had been unable to conceal his reaction when Mundt mentioned that he worked for Dr Wernher von Braun, the director of HVP. Mundt noticed his surprise, and Memling covered hastily by mentioning that he had met von Braun some years before.
Today Mundt waited for him in the shade of an immense fir that occupied a knoll facing the Baltic. The heat was oppressive, and both men had removed their shirts.
‘I’m for a swim after lunch,’ Mundt remarked. ‘How about you?’
‘No bathing suit,’ Memling shrugged.
Mundt laughed. ‘The hell with that. I know a small cove on the river side. When it’s hot like this the land service girls go there. No one worries about bathing suits.’
Memling grinned but shook his head. ‘I’m married, remember. And besides, those specifications have to be done today.’
‘I want to talk to you about that,’ Mundt said. ‘You’re a conscientious worker and a good engineer. Is there anything in your background that you would not want the SD to uncover?’
Memling choked on his bread ration, and Mundt thumped him on the back.
‘That’s always the reaction when you talk about the SD.’ He laughed. ‘Look here, I mentioned you to Doktor von Braun and described the work you had done. He was most impressed. We have another project going here,’ he went on, not noticing how Memling paled, ‘much more important than I can even begin to tell you. If we had our way, the A-Four would be scrapped. If we could begin again, with what we know now the missile would be entirely redesigned. Its reliability might reach as high as ninety-two per cent rather than seventy-two point four per cent. However, enough of that. This other project concerns space travel.’
He said this last without inflection and sat back to watch Memling’s reaction. He wasn’t disappointed.
‘Space travel! What the devil are you talking about? I thought this was a military installation?’
‘It is, but some of us are looking far beyond the war. We all agree the future of the human race lies in space travel. You said as much yourself, and we need good engineers for that project. Our staffing problem is horrible, especially for non-military projects. Whenever we find someone who shows promise, we try to recruit him. So, once those specifications are finished, you will be transferred to this other project, which is being directed by Herr Doktor Franz Bethwig. I don’t suppose you know him?’
My God, who next, Memling thought, just managing to shake his head.
‘Franz has been with us since the VfR days. He’s a damned good sort and you’ll like working for him. When I go back to my laboratory tomorrow, you are to go with me. Now, this project is secret, so keep your mouth shut about what I tell you. We are developing a rocket engine that will produce one hundred and fifty-nine thousand kilograms of thrust. That’s nearly six and a half times more powerful than the A-Four. The engine is simpler and a hell of a lot more reliable. The idea is to cluster enough into a single booster rocket’ – Mundt glanced around quickly – ‘to produce a total thrust of three and a half million kilos. Now where do you think we can go with that?’
Memling stared at him in disbelief. ‘Three and a half million…’ His voice trailed away in astonishment. ‘You can’t be serious?’
‘But I am. We’ve already launched three test vehicles.’
‘Three…!’ The idea was almost more than Memling could grasp. The strides the Germans had made in the past decade were astounding. They had gone from firecrackers shot across a deserted World War I army camp near Berlin, to a rocket with six and a half million pounds of thrust.