Memling could only nod in bitterness.
No one was at Croydon to meet him; but then, Memling hadn’t expected it. He found the military transport office and, after an argument over the priority accorded him by his diplomatic passport, gave up and bought a ticket on the London-Brighton Line for London Bridge. He still had to wait an hour on the dripping platform. At London Bridge Station the crowds streaming down the tube platform deterred him, and he walked north across the bridge and past Saint Paul’s towards Holborn.
The bomb damage was appalling. Whole blocks had been destroyed and cleared away to leave gaping holes in the line of buildings. For some reason he had not noticed before how ragged the city had become. Shops, however, were open, and the streets crowded, particularly with children, who seemed to have filtered back in spite of the government’s efforts to keep them in the countryside. It rained steadily, but the air was warm and he didn’t mind. No one paid attention to his shabby clothing and run-down shoes; he looked more or less like the majority of Londoners around him, except that most men his age were in uniform.
As he started up Gray’s Inn Road a teenage girl darted up, thrust a white feather at him, and disappeared, giggling, into the crowd. An elderly woman clucked and turned away as he stared after the girl, too outraged even to swear. Suddenly all the frustration, all the fear and misery he had endured for so long, crashed upon him. People stared with mixed expressions at the tall no-longer-young man dressed in shabby civilian clothing swaying on the kerb; most thought him drunk.
The block of flats on Montague Street seemed unchanged; the unpleasant image of an earlier homecoming had been in his mind the past few days. The flat was locked and, as he expected, Janet was out, probably still at work. Memling considered going across to Red Lion Square and reporting in, then decided against it. Tomorrow was soon enough, and he was exhausted. He sat down on the top step and leaned against the banister. It was four-thirty, and Janet wouldn’t be home until after six. He closed his eyes, seeing the foolish little girl with her bunch of white feathers and no idea in her silly head except to… to… To what? he wondered. They were about the same age, that silly girl and Francine. The futility angered him all over again before he realised that he was canonising her. Francine was no different from that girl with the feathers. She too had considered it all a great game, until it had killed her.
So much had happened since he left that it might have been someone else who lived here. The memory of his terror was rapidly being sublimated as events of the past month receded. He did not understand them and doubted he ever would. Nor did he understand himself or the fear which infected him, and of which he was ashamed. He knew he would never be able to discuss it with anyone, not even Janet.
He forced his mind away from that line of introspection as he had done so many times in the past, and thought about the strides the Germans were making in rocketry. My God, he breathed, as the wonder of it struck him again. A rocket powerful enough to reach the moon! It was incredible, but the thrill died abruptly when he remembered that a rocket that powerful could also deliver thirty metric tons of explosive on London in one blow.
Any sympathy, any understanding, any liking for the Peenemunde personnel, had evaporated with the girl’s murder. The scientists may have had nothing to do with her killing, but they had acquiesced in it by tolerating the sadists infesting the SS and the Gestapo. And he knew with fierce pleasure that even though there had already been one bombing raid, there would be many more when he made his report. The fact that massive enemy rockets existed could no longer be ignored.
Janet found him two hours later when she came up the steps searching her handbag for her keys. He was sound asleep against the banister. In the dark she took him for someone who had wandered in out of the rain in search of shelter. But after turning on the hall light, she sat down abruptly, confused and conflicting thoughts swirling through her mind. She studied his face, wondering at the deep lines carved in the forehead and cheeks and the streaks of grey above the temples. He is too young, she protested silently. Too young! She knew then that she would neither give him up nor let him go again.
Peenemunde
August-October 1943
Franz Bethwig stared at the yellow telegram sheet.
REGRET STANDARTENFÜHRER EDGAR ULLMAN, NO. 3254678, KILLED IN ACTION, EASTERN FRONT.
He crumpled the flimsy sheet, dropped it in the wastebasket, and left the administration building. The day was exceptionally hot and still. A storm was brewing, but Bethwig was oblivious to his surroundings. He went along the paths leading to the beach, wanting only to be by himself. People scurried past, so many that their faces did not even register. Once he had known everyone on the island, including the military guards.
He found a deserted stretch of beach and threw himself down on the sand. The sun blazed down, and after a while he removed his shirt. With Ullman dead, his last link to Inge was broken. A great emptiness surged from his chest to encompass his entire body. He was aware of sullen wavelets lapping the shore, the iron sun burning his skin, the gritty sand, all at the same time that the knowledge he might never see Inge again struggled to blot everything from his mind. Why? he thought suddenly. She was a prostitute, and a half-wit into the bargain. But none of that mattered. Heydrich had understood, perhaps even arranged it; certainly he had tried to use it against him and had nearly succeeded.
And now Himmler. Did Ullman die in combat, as a matter of course, or was he the pawn in this perverted game? Himmler had twice now tried to force him to replace von Braun, and twice he had refused.
Yet Bethwig could not bring himself to believe that something as petty as this would be important enough to occupy the attention of a man in Himmler’s position. Could he not understand that Bethwig did not have to be blackmailed into doing his best to make the A-10 project a complete success? There was nothing more important in this world to him than landing a human on the moon. The thought struck chill as it came unbidden into his mind. Was Inge?
A messenger found him an hour later, and he trudged back to the administration building to settle a jurisdictional dispute over the use of four automated lathes in the experimental machine shop.
The staff meeting began at two o’clock even though Wernher von Braun had not yet arrived. The department heads, most of them members of the original Kummersdorf or Greifswalder Oie teams, sat in a semicircle, listening intently.
Since that strange meeting with Hitler at Rastenburg in July most of the bottlenecks had disappeared. They had shown the Führer movies of the A-4 in flight and had briefed him on the capabilities of other projects such as the Wasserfall anti-aircraft missile and the A-10 multi-stage rocket. Hitler’s sudden enthusiasm for the new weapons was in striking contrast with his previous lack of interest. He had declaimed for more than an hour on the effect such weapons would have on the course of the war, promised to make von Braun a full professor as a reward, and ordered Minister Speer to see that top priority was afforded the army’s rocket projects. In spite of Dornberger’s dire predictions that priority at this late date could not make up for the years of neglect, work had been pushed ahead at Peenemunde with renewed zest.
There had been no overt reaction from Himmler, but word had reached Bethwig through the grapevine that the Reichsführer was furious that von Braun had discussed the A-10’s capabilities with the Führer. A series of petty annoyances had begun, including the seemingly endless addition of SS security forces to the research centre. Apparently Hitler had queried Himmler about the extent of his interest and had issued a mild warning about overreaching one’s position. According to his father, the Führer was more than a little disturbed by the actions of his Reichsführer lately. Bethwig suspected, therefore, that von Braun’s demotion would come swiftly and that he would have no choice but to accept the position. Brooding, he listened with half an ear to the engineering department’s report on the new liquid oxygen valve servos.