The young wing commander moved one of the large charts to the centre of the wall and removed a cover sheet to reveal a map of northern Europe, including the United Kingdom.
‘We’ve discussed this in detail with Bomber Command, and this is essentially their plan, based on our reconnaissance and the intelligence from Agent Laertes.’
‘Hang on, hang on… you say this is Bomber Command’s plan. Is Arthur aware of it?’
‘Yes, Lord Swalcliffe,’ said Hamilton. ‘Not only is Air Marshal Harris aware of it, but he has personally approved it. I was with him at a meeting of the air staff yesterday and he—’
‘Arthur is committed to the campaign of bombing German cities, Hamilton. He and I and Winston all see eye to eye on this – that is our priority. Operations like this are a distraction from what we see as the primary purpose of Bomber Command.’
‘But surely, Lord Swalcliffe, being committed to a campaign of bombing German cities does not preclude us from also having select strategic bombing operations like this one? Carry on, Tim.’
‘This is the plan: the aircraft take off at different times from bases along the east coast. They fly in small groups in an east-north-east direction over the North Sea. There will be three separate attack waves: each will rendezvous at an agreed point over German Bight, off the west coast of Denmark – round about here. They will then fly in a south-easterly direction across Denmark, over the islands of Jutland, Funen and Lolland – some may also fly over Falster, here. They will avoid going anywhere near the island of Zealand – as you know, that is where Copenhagen is and it’s therefore much more heavily defended.
‘Once they’ve cleared Lolland – approximately here – they’ll be over the Baltic. They’ll keep north of Rostock and Stralsund and head for the island of Rügen. Let me turn to this map – you can see the area in more detail here. They’ll aim for a point in the north-east of Rügen, over Cape Arkona. From there they’ll head due south to Peenemünde, which is approximately thirty-five miles from this point.
‘This map here is based on the one supplied by Agent Laertes and also on our own reconnaissance. It shows the various targets within the Peenemünde site. The plan is for the first wave to be over Peenemünde at midnight; their role will be primarily as pathfinders, to drop the markers in the correct positions to enable the second and third waves to hit their allocated targets with more accuracy. That first wave will mainly comprise Halifax and Stirling bombers. The second wave is due over the site at twenty minutes past midnight, by which time the first wave will have cleared the area. The second wave will mainly be Lancasters, and their targets will hopefully have been nicely lit up for them by the pathfinders. Twenty minutes later, at twenty to one, the third wave comes in: more Lancasters and Halifaxes. They should be out of there before one o’clock.
‘If we turn to this chart, gentlemen, you can see their route away from the site. They’ll all drop their bombs while heading south, and when they finish, they’ll turn west-north-west and head back towards the North Sea on a route just south of the one they flew in on – this is to ensure that each wave of aircraft avoids hitting an incoming wave. It’s a more perilous route because it takes them closer to Rostock, which is very well defended, and also of course because by then the Luftwaffe will know what we’re up to and will be out looking for the returning aircraft.’
‘Won’t they be all over us by the time the second wave passes over Denmark?’
‘Possibly, Sir Roland, but we are organising a series of decoy bombing raids to coincide with the one over Peenemünde. Specifically, here and here: Berlin and Hamburg. These raids will start at eleven thirty, so with some luck they’ll have drawn most of the German night fighters away from the Peenemünde area.’
‘When will the raid take place?’ It was a rare question from the normally silent Long from the Ministry.
‘Bomber Command say it should be on the night of a full moon, or as close to it as possible. The next full moon over that area is around the twentieth of February, and for various operational reasons they feel Thursday the eighteenth would be the best day.’
‘So two weeks today, eh?’
‘Indeed, Sir Roland.’
The young wing commander sat down as Air Vice Marshal Hamilton stood up again. ‘The objectives of this operation are threefold: to destroy as many of the identified structures as possible; to cause maximum loss of life in the areas where we believe the Germans are – most importantly their scientists; and to avoid hitting the slave labour accommodation at Trassenheide.’
‘Well that’s vital, obviously,’ said Sir Roland. ‘Can’t have Tom’s agent blown up by his own side, can we? Though presumably we’ll be pulling him out of the area well before Bomber Command go in?’
There was a sudden silence in the room; then gentle coughing as people looked around to see who was going to speak first.
‘I think one has to accept,’ said Tom Gilbey, ‘that Agent Laertes needs to remain in Peenemünde for the duration of the bombing.’
‘The reason being,’ added Hamilton, ‘that we need someone on the ground to evaluate the damage and tell us how accurate our bombing was. Post-operation aerial photo reconnaissance will give us some indication, but that won’t be anything as valuable as an eyewitness.’
‘Once Agent Laertes has done that, we can pull him out. Agent Blackbird will help get him back to Denmark, and then we can bring him home.’
‘Assuming,’ said Lord Swalcliffe, ‘Arthur’s chaps haven’t blown him up.’
* * *
‘What’s this Agent Laertes really like, Tom?’
‘He’s already proven to be pretty resourceful, I’d say, Roly. He’s operated in Denmark and Berlin and managed to get into Peenemünde.’ They were in Pearson’s office after the meeting, the bombing raid now approved and a bottle of sherry on the desk.
‘Once the bombs start falling, that’ll be the real test, eh? So far he’s been in danger, but he’s had plausible enough cover stories. Once the place is destroyed, he’ll be completely exposed. Assuming he survives, that is. What was the name of that chap in the year above me at school? Big bully, captain of his house… you remember, he had three surnames…’
‘Furneaux-something-something-or-other?’
‘That’s right, filthy rich. What was it his father owned?’
‘Northamptonshire, I believe, Roly.’
‘Ah, was it? Well, I’m told he went to pieces on the Western Front. Never in much danger, managed to get himself a sinecure behind the lines, but was close to them one day when a shell exploded nearby. Wept like a baby apparently, had to be sent back to England; hasn’t dared show his face at old boys’ events since. Now for him, that shell was what truly tested him. Let’s hope your chap is made of stronger stuff. How about we open the sherry?’
‘I’ll pass, Roly, but there is something I want to make you aware of that I thought it better not to raise at the meeting.’
‘For Winston’s ears?’
‘Only if he asks.’
‘Pour me a sherry first if you don’t mind, Tom. Sounds as if I’m going to need it.’
Gilbey reached for the bottle. ‘We heard from Weston yesterday…’
‘Remind me, Tom, so many bloody names…’
‘George Weston, our head of station in Stockholm: he runs Agent Osric and is the go-between between her and us.’
‘Of course, carry on. And make it a large one.’
‘He thinks something’s gone wrong in Copenhagen. He hasn’t heard from Agent Osric for over a fortnight and his messages aren’t being collected. He sent another courier in at the weekend to retrieve the messages; didn’t want to risk anything. It’s most uncharacteristic of Osric: no warning signs at any of the dead letter boxes, nothing. As far as he can tell, she’s disappeared. He fears she’s been arrested by the Gestapo. The chap’s only a courier; George doesn’t feel he’s up to looking into it further.’
‘Oh dear. Perhaps a splash more sherry, Tom. Are you
sure you won’t join me?’
‘Maybe a small one then, Roly. I’m afraid it gets worse. George has copies of Politken sent over to Stockholm; it’s one of the more reliable Danish papers. They carried a brief obituary last Thursday for Otto Knudsen: Agent Horatio. According to Politken, he died in police custody.’
There was silence in the room as Pearson sipped his sherry, his hands trembling slightly as he did so. ‘I don’t know, Tom, sometimes I worry we take these agents too much for granted, asking them to do things we know could result in their deaths. The poor woman. One shudders to think what has happened to her.’
* * *
It was a Saturday in the middle of February before Prince – now Pierre Breton – managed to get on a work detail to the beach near Zempin where his dead letter box was. There were three groups of prisoners that day: Ukrainians, Poles and French, and the latter just had the one guard, who as soon as they arrived went to join his comrades for a cigarette. Prince had come to realise that because there was so much security around the camp and on the island, the guards felt able to relax a bit in some of the areas where the men were put to work. It wasn’t as if they could escape anywhere.
While he had the chance, he hurried to the white-painted wooden post with the life belt attached to it. The short walk was up a steep incline, and he quickly found himself out of breath. He was constantly shocked at how easily exhausted he was now, sapped of energy, his body persistently cold, often wet and desperate for food. He used his boot to loosen the shale and sure enough there was a black waterproof pouch. He slipped it down the front of his trousers. He would read the contents later.
* * *
He lay on his bunk that night, staring up at the rotting board above him and unable to sleep. He’d read Sophia’s message a dozen times, memorised it and destroyed it. Now he was going over what it said again and again in his mind. It was hardly ambiguous.
Be prepared for visit 16–20 February: it will be on a night when there’s a full moon.
Essential you remain in the camp.
Trassenheide will be spared.
Afterwards you will gather as much information as possible on impact of visit: regard this as a priority and an instruction!
When this task complete, you may leave the camp.
I will be where I dropped you every Sunday, Tuesday and Friday starting 48 hours after the raid between 2–4 p.m. Meet me there.
There was little to reassure him in the message, not least its lack of subtlety. Peenemünde was to be bombed, which came as no surprise. But he’d somehow assumed he’d be given ample warning and would be able to escape before the raid. That Trassenheide was to be spared was of little consolation. Even if it was, gathering intelligence on what damage had been done was going to be perilous in the extreme – and Sophia’s escape plan sounded more fanciful than anything else.
He wondered whether to mention anything to Émile, but realised it was too risky. Although he’d grown close to the group of French workers in his hut and they knew what he was up to, he couldn’t be sure he’d trust them enough once they became aware of the raid.
The 16th was a Tuesday and it didn’t look like a full moon, so he decided to remain in the hut that night. But on Wednesday, the moon certainly seemed rounder and brighter. He feigned a bad stomach that evening, which was feasible enough given the pitiful food they received: all the prisoners in the hut next to theirs had a type of dysentery, and they’d been told that some of the Russians further up the camp had died from malnutrition. He kept his work clothes on and stayed in the toilet block behind their hut all night. He did the same thing the following night, and it was then that the raid happened.
Many of Prince’s childhood Sundays had been spent on long, bracing walks across fields that went on for ever in the Lincolnshire countryside. Apart from the mud, the silence and the vast skies, his enduring memory was of enormous murmurations of starlings flocking above them, twisting and turning in an intricately choreographed display. They’d bumped into a farmer one day who, like them, was watching the display with awe.
‘Now then, lad, how many birds do you think there are up there?’
‘A thousand… two thousand?’
The farmer shook his head and bent down to let him into a secret no one else should hear. ‘Over one hundred thousand: there’re more starlings above us now than there are people in the whole of Lincoln!’
That was his abiding thought once the raid began: the bombers like a flock of starlings, dark shapes merging as one mass, twisting and turning in the moonlit sky, menacing and fascinating at the same time.
The first planes appeared from the north just after midnight. Once the alarm sounded, he left the toilet block and ran into the woods, where he climbed a tree to get a better view.
He had no idea how many planes there were, but it must have been hundreds. At first there hardly seemed to be any bombs, but the area to the north of them was illuminated by hundreds of lights.
The second wave of bombers came around twenty past midnight. This time the target was further to the north, possibly the V-2 works. As soon as this attack finished, a third wave appeared, bombing targets even further north, maybe the experimental area. The anti-aircraft fire was in full operation now, and Prince spotted at least a dozen aircraft being hit.
Now the Trassenheide camp itself seemed to be the target, and he was terrified that stray bombs could land in the woods, so he jumped down from the tree and ran into the fields beyond, making sure not to get too close to the barbed-wire perimeter. As far as he could tell, the camp was ablaze.
The RAF bombers had been flying low, and as the final wave left, they seemed to descend before their final turn out towards the west, giving him a much clearer view. They appeared to be mostly Lancasters, and he was overcome by emotion. They’d have flown here from the bases in Lincolnshire he knew so well: Scampton, Wickenby, Woodhall Spa and Binbrook.
Just the year before, there’d been the thousand-bomber raids over Germany, and the planes had gathered in the skies above Lincolnshire before forming and heading out across the sea. They’d made so much noise that Henry had woken up, and father and son had stood in front of the blackout curtains watching them, Henry trying to count them.
Would Henry have been watching these aircraft as they’d left their bases earlier that evening? Would he see these same planes when they returned in a few hours’ time? And would he still try to count them?
* * *
His memory of the next twelve hours was a mixture of brutal clarity and blurred confusion. His main problem, as he looked back on it, was to recreate in his mind the correct sequence of events.
He remembered running from the woods towards the perimeter wire fence and then hearing a guard shout and running back to the huts. His own hut had taken a direct hit, as had the ones on either side of it. All three were so well ablaze it was impossible that anyone in them could have survived. A hut housing Ukrainians had also been hit, but there were some survivors there, all badly burnt.
For a while those labourers who had escaped the fires were corralled in their own area by a small number of very nervous guards, but they were then marshalled into groups to go into the main part of the camp to help fight the blazes.
Prince tried to make a note of where they were and what damage he could see, but it was near impossible to make much out in the darkness and the confusion. They’d spend a few minutes fighting one fire before being hurried to another then waiting to be given another task. They spent several hours carrying bodies to a makeshift morgue near the airfield, and as dawn broke, the extent of the damage began to become apparent.
It was hard to know what kind of detail London wanted. The majority of buildings did appear to have been hit, but only a few had been completely destroyed. There was even evidence in the experimental area of work continuing as normal, and he saw a large rocket – apparently unscathed – being mounted on what looked like a railway wagon.
Later that morning, he was al
located to a small work detail in the main barracks area, where the Germans lived. One housing block had taken a direct hit and two others were damaged, but the destruction was not as extensive as he’d hoped. As they were helping to clear a roadway, a young SS officer came over to them. His face was ghostly white and he was trembling as he lit a cigarette. Prince smiled and held the match for him. He was amazed when the officer offered him one.
‘Where are you from?’ He sounded grateful to have someone to pass a few moments with.
‘France, sir.’
The officer nodded, as if to confirm that he’d heard of France.
‘Which part?’
‘Lyon, sir.’
‘My cousin is based there. You speak good German.’
Prince couldn’t quite believe how uncharacteristically placid the SS officer was. This was the perfect opportunity to find out what he knew.
‘How many people were killed last night, sir?’
The German shrugged. ‘How the hell would I know? Hundreds, certainly.’ He nodded in the direction of the destroyed housing block. ‘All of them in there, for a start.’
‘Were there soldiers or scientists in there?’
Now the officer looked a bit more suspicious. ‘Why are you asking?’
‘I was just wondering. The airfield looked intact, but the V-2 works seemed to have taken a few direct hits…’
He’d misjudged the situation: the officer was no longer placid. ‘Why the hell are you asking all these questions?’
‘I know why he’s asking all these questions.’
Prince turned round to see who’d spoken. It was another French prisoner, one from a hut a little way away from theirs. They were a group from Blois whom Émile insisted were not to be trusted: Pétainists.
‘Why’s that then?’ The SS officer had walked over to the man.
‘Because he’s not who he says he is. I don’t even think he’s French. He turned up in the camp a few weeks ago…’
Prince of Spies Page 24