Vengeance 10

by Joe Poyer

  ‘But then, you two gentlemen do not wish to hear about my administrative problems. I am certain that you have sufficient of your own.’

  Bethwig sat down, glancing cautiously at von Braun, who was staring at Himmler with a look that Bethwig could not quite describe. There was a bandage on his forehead and several bruises about his chin. When he moved his head, he did so as if his neck were stiff. The image of Inge’s battered body flashed across his mind.

  ‘I suggest, then, Herr Himmler,’ von Braun rasped, ‘that we stop all needless conversation and get right to the point.’

  Himmler raised an eyebrow at him but only murmured, ‘As you wish.’

  Von Braun turned by twisting his upper body so that he was looking at Bethwig. ‘Herr Himmler has made an interesting proposition. I refused to give him an answer until you could hear it as well.’ Himmler nodded in agreement. ‘Basically he is offering to allow work on the A-Ten to continue, but under his sponsorship and direction. Herr Himmler is convinced that Reichsprotektor Heydrich was doing the correct thing when he instituted the project.’ Von Braun’s voice had a sarcastic tone that Bethwig had never heard before. ‘We are to meet the time schedule laid down by Heydrich.’

  ‘That’s all?’ Bethwig glanced at Himmler, thinking that Heydrich had won after all and that this had all been a charade... to a point.

  ‘All? What more would you expect?’

  ‘The charges, Herr Reichsführer. What about them? Does Doktor von Braun remain under - what is your fancy legal term? Schutzhaft, protective custody?’

  Himmler waved a hand. ‘Ah, the charges. Probably nonsense as you suggested the other day. In due course the investigation will be completed and, if warranted, the charges dismissed. In the meantime I see no reason why an eminent scientist such as Doktor von Braun should not, with the proper security supervision, of course, continue work that best serves the Reich.’

  ‘With the proper security supervision? I understand that political prisoners and Jews are allowed to function under those conditions. Not eminent scientists.’

  ‘Well, young man, you must keep in mind that Doktor von Braun has been charged with a serious crime. I would be derelict in my duty if I neglected to order such supervision, particularly when the person in question is engaged on a project of the highest importance to the Reich.’

  ‘Of course,’ Bethwig murmured. ‘Derelict.’ He turned to von Braun who was staring down at his hands. ‘What do you think, Wernher?’

  Von Braun nodded without looking up, and Bethwig noticed that a bruise on his cheek was fresh enough to show a crust of blood. ‘Was that necessary?’ He swung back to Himmler, who seemed to know exactly what he meant. The Reichsführer shrugged.

  ‘You must understand that the SD deals with the worst sort of animal, the traitor. Because they are exposed to this filth so often, they tend to become overzealous.’ There was no hint of apology in his voice.

  Bethwig restrained a comment. ‘As I understand it, then, the project will be allowed to continue as before. Will the army not have something to say about such interference?’

  Himmler smiled. ‘The OKW has agreed with my assessment and stand ready to co-operate. As Doktor von Braun remarked, I believe that my good friend Reinhard made a wise choice. Yes, the project must continue, on the schedule as modified by the Reichsprotektor’s planning staff.’

  That was too much for Bethwig and he started to protest, but von Braun held up a hand. ‘Never mind, Franz, we will do our best.’

  Himmler bounced to his feet then as the door opened and the ubiquitous aide stepped in.

  ‘I apologise for my haste, but I do have to leave. An officer will be assigned to act as co-ordinator. Webel here will provide the details.’ Himmler stopped half-way across the room and turned once more to face them.

  ‘Gentlemen, I will expect your complete and personal loyalty in this matter. Complete and personal.’

  The aide drew the door closed as Himmler vanished.

  The aircraft left Tempelhof in advance of a thunderstorm, and for a while the violence of the flight precluded conversation; but by the time they passed over Stettin, the storm had abated and the aircraft had broken out into clear air below the clouds. As Bethwig stared through the window at the limpid, watery sky and landscape he felt for a moment as if they were giant fish gliding above an aquarium landscape.

  Von Braun was silent, brooding, eyes fixed on his window. Bethwig was already regretting that he had left his car behind in Berlin for a complete overhaul. The long drive north would probably have benefited his friend.

  ‘What happened, Wernher?’

  For a while von Braun did not answer. Finally, he glanced across the aisle.

  ‘They thought I had something to do with Heydrich’s murder.’ Bethwig had to strain to hear him above the noise of the engines. They accused me of all sorts of stupid things that first day, even as far back as those asinine charges levelled against Willy Ley in 1931. I was accused of helping him sell VfR petrol on the black market. But the most serious charge, besides murder, was that I was wasting government money and manpower on personal projects.’

  The A-Ten?’

  Von Braun nodded, it’s a political game, Franz,’ he said with no sign of emotion. ‘All of them - Heydrich, Himmler, and the people they control - would throw this war away to line their own pockets. They care nothing at all for Germany. I spent an hour with Himmler before you arrived.’

  Bethwig glanced sharply at his friend but kept quiet.

  ‘Do you know what this was all about? Why they arrested me and threw me in that hole that passes for a jail cell?’ He took a deep breath. ‘When Heydrich was killed, Himmler saw it as his chance to find out what Heydrich had been involved in. People were sent to Prague for his files, just as that SS officer friend of yours predicted. Himmler discovered just enough to whet his appetite. He had me arrested then. At first they suggested that I co-operate. The interrogator was a nice man, about fifty and very pleasant. Of course, I was too dense to realise what they were after, and told him no. So they taught me. God, how they taught me. It is amazing what a rubber hose can do in the hands of someone who knows how to use it.’

  He twisted in his seat to face Bethwig. ‘Franz, you cannot help yourself. They do things to you that you would not believe one human being could do to another. It is more than just the pain, it ... it’s... the indignity.’ Von Braun fell silent and turned back to the window.

  The plane shuddered in the thick air, and Bethwig’s ears popped. The aircraft was losing altitude for the descent into the Luftwaffe airfield on Peenemunde. Suddenly Bethwig was no longer so certain that people like his father could deal with this new element in the party. Wernher von Braun was a famous scientist, an army employee, the son of a wealthy and influential father, yet they had done this to him with impunity. Even the army had been helpless to stop it; and for the first time the vast power of the SS was borne in upon him. The SS had become a state unto itself. All the normal constitutional and legal guarantees did not apply to their victims. What was it that Himmler had said? ‘We do not need the courts to remind us of our duty.’ Nor did they want them to interfere. It was so much easier to conduct business by tribunal.

  The rain had begun again as the Junkers aircraft lined up for its approach. Staring at the long streamers pouring down on the scrub and pine forest of the island, von Braun murmured just above the engine noise:

  ‘We thought Heydrich was the Devil? We were wrong, Franz. He was merely the Devil’s cub.’

  Retrenchment

  England-Germany July 1942-March 1943

  Jan Memling turned the jeep into the narrow street and slowed to examine the buildings on either side, particularly the upper-storey windows. His sergeant was doing likewise from behind a fifty-calibre machine-gun mount. Narrow two-and three-storey buildings with decaying fronts lined each side of the road before debouching several hundred feet further on into a sort of village square. He could even see the remains of a foun
tain that probably had not worked even before the war.

  The jeep idled along, its engine rough. It was badly in need of an overhaul, but he knew there was little likelihood of its getting one any time soon. Memling nursed the pedal to keep the revs up. The silence was unnerving. Both men knew the enemy was there.

  ‘There,’ he muttered, not moving his lips. ‘Third-storey window, on the right, grey-brick building, two ahead.’ The familiar excitement began to build, and he found himself smiling.

  ‘Right, sir.’ The sergeant shifted his stance. Memling knew they would wait until the jeep was directly beneath, then lob grenades, supplemented by MG fire from one of the other buildings. It was a classic street ambush and a difficult one to survive. The hard choice was which to hit first - providing you spotted them: the bomb throwers or the machine-gunner?

  Memling eased the clutch out until the jeep bucked and threatened to stall. He bent forward as if adjusting the throttle and made a quick survey of the buildings on the left. Just along the road and two opposite he had caught a glimpse of movement in an upper-storey window. He described it to the sergeant and pushed the clutch in.

  ‘Hang on tight. I’ll dash for the left side of the street. Put a burst through that window. I’ll take the bombers. When I shout, you duck. Understood?’

  ‘Right you are, sir.’ The sergeant was a combat veteran with two years in the desert, and he did not like street fighting one bit. He wanted to be able to see his enemy, and Memling was well aware of the man’s shortcomings in that regard.

  ‘Just do as I tell you sergeant and you’ll be all right.’ Memling dared not risk a glance behind. ‘Get ready. On three. One ... two ... three!’

  He yanked the wheel hard left, jammed the accelerator down, and the jeep stalled. The MG exploded into action and Memling was out in an instant, crouching beside the jeep, Sten gun poking over the bonnet; but a figure was already in the window, and the stick grenade flew at them before he could open fire.

  ‘Duck!’ The sergeant landed on the cobbles beside him as the grenade hit the gun mount and bounced to the road. It rolled under the jeep and went off in a plume of choking red smoke.

  A whistle blew, and Memling got up, swearing, as the referee strolled from the doorway behind. ‘Afraid you chaps have bought it. Grenade exploded right under your petrol tank.’ He waved his stick at the window where a grinning commando was leaning out. ‘Good pitch, lad. Good pitch.’

  ‘South Maling will be wanting him after the war.’ The instructor, a reed-thin colonel with an artificial leg, offered Memling and the sergeant a cigarette. ‘American, ‘I’m afraid. All I could get at the NAAFI.’ The sergeant accepted the light, then saluted and went off” to return the jeep. Memling and the colonel walked along the street which was now full of enlisted men in fatigues setting up for the next practice.

  ‘Weren’t quite quick enough, were you? Next time, Jerry will be using live bombs,’ the colonel observed. ‘Not like you to mess up that way.’

  Memling gave him a quirky smile and thought about the jeep’s stalling. Excuses were never acceptable. He should have foreseen that possibility. ‘If we were perfect every time, there wouldn’t be any sense to having a war. No one would get killed. Then where would we be?’

  ‘Sounds a bit Bolshie to me,’ the colonel chuckled. ‘I understand you go off on leave today.’

  Memling nodded. ‘That probably accounts for my lack of quickness back there. Hard to keep your mind on playing soldier when that nonsense is coming up afterwards.’

  The colonel lurched to a stop, then with a mutter lifted his left leg and shook the knee joint back into position. ‘Yes, there is that. Still I suppose it can’t be avoided.’

  Memling gave him an anxious glance. ‘What do you think, sir? Have we much of a chance?’

  The colonel flicked his cigarette away. ‘Why do you ask me questions like that? You know how I must answer.’

  Memling shook his head. ‘Not with me, sir.’

  The wind off the loch caught at his thick, fair hair, and whipped it about his head as he sighed. ‘You stand damned little chance, Memling. Damned little. Your Canadians are keen enough and, I don’t doubt, will give a good account of themselves. But they haven’t got the training, and we haven’t the equipment to support them properly. I dare say the objective is important; but in all fairness, you should remember that the real objective is a practice for the big one. London is expecting mistakes, quite a few in fact.’ The older man tapped his cane against his tin leg and studied the surrounding hills, it’s going to be hard, boy. Damned hard. In spite of our precautions, Jerry will be waiting, and that’s only one aspect. The other is lack of training. London thinks that troops can be trained in less than a month for this sort of invasion. Well they’re wrong, but they won’t believe it until they have their faces rubbed in the casualty lists. The problem is training a vast number of men, possibly upwards of a million or more, to invade a continent that has had four years to prepare. This dress rehearsal is designed to find out. Do you understand what I’m telling you?’

  Memling nodded. ‘I could be shot for hiding in a hole, sir.’

  The colonel gave him a sad smile, then clapped him on the arm. ‘That you could, lad. That you could. A sacrificial lamb in either case. Just like we were in the last war at Ypres.’ Somewhat absently he tapped his leg. ‘Didn’t get this there. Happened in a car smash near Brighton twelve years ago. Had absolutely nothing to do with any war.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to make any difference, then, does it, sir?’

  The colonel gave his leg a last swat and limped on. ‘No, I suppose it doesn’t. Just remember,’ he continued, almost as an afterthought, ‘what you’re about over there. No sense inviting trouble. Think about that.’

  Memling did think about it as the train lumbered south from Scotland. The raid against the still-unnamed French coastal town had other objectives which they were not being told about yet. They had given him less than a month to bring his Canadians up to shape. The problem was that with very few exceptions they were fresh from training camps in Ontario. They simply were not ready - by his standards. They needed blooding, a few easy raids into Norway, nothing more than a lightning-fast hit-and-run operation to get them used to the confusion, the mistakes, and the fact that nothing ever went as planned; in short, to teach them what individual initiative really meant. But there was damned all he could do about it now.

  Janet was waiting for his train even though it was six hours overdue into Euston. He saw her at the barrier, and she waved and pushed across the crowded concourse until they met under the great clock. Taking his hand, she gave him a soft kiss on the cheek and, as they drew back in mutual embarrassment, leaned forward again and kissed him soundly on the lips.

  There were no taxis to be had, naturally, and they walked slowly along Woburn Place, which was thick with pedestrians. As overcast as it was, there was little chance of the Luftwaffe appearing tonight. The Bofors anti-aircraft battery they passed in Tavistock Square was manned, but the crew were relaxing on the park benches with cups of tea and laughing with the NAAFI girls.

  Janet had written to thank him for his note a week after he had left in February, and he had replied, thus beginning a correspondence that had become a regular part of their lives.

  He had almost ignored her first letter, as he was still haunted by Margot’s death. But Memling was an intensely lonely man, had been most of his life, and the few months he and Margot had had together had worked a permanent change in him. In addition, he was intelligent enough to realise that the more time passed, the more pristine his memories of those brief months became until they had taken on an air of unreality.

  Memling was surprised at the rush of excitement he had felt when spotting Janet at the barrier, a slim, pretty, dark-haired girl in a slightly shabby coat and a short victory skirt. He glanced at her now in the glow of a blackout lantern, but the blue light gave her complexion a sickly cast. She felt him looking at her and glanced
up and smiled, and his heart turned over.

  He struggled for something to say, but the best he could come up with was ‘Did you have much trouble finding me a place in an officers’ club?’

  ‘Yes. Quite a bit of trouble, in fact.’ She gave him an impish grin. ‘I could not find a room in all of London.’

  ‘Really?’ was all he could think of to say.

  Janet squeezed his hand. ‘Really. You might think me a bit forward, but I am going to have to put you up at my flat again.’

  Memling’s breath caught in his throat, and Janet took the moment’s silence for disapproval. ‘Oh, I know what you’re thinking... I mean, perhaps it is too soon...’ She stopped, and as she was still holding his hand, her weight had swung him about to face her. Her expression was somewhere between apprehension and defiance, and Memling stopped fumbling for words.

  Janet had arranged to have the following day off, but Memling came wide awake at 4.30 a.m., a hopeless victim of years of discipline. He was standing beside the bed before he was fully awake, reaching for his trousers, at the same time blinking at the darkened room, trying to remember where he was and wondering why his Fairbairn knife was not strapped to his leg - his usual storage place when asleep. Janet turned on the bed lamp, gave him an exasperated look, and ordered him back to bed.

  ‘Whatever in the world possessed you?’ she demanded sleepily. ‘Why, it’s not even five o’clock and I can sleep as late as I want this morning.’

  Memling stretched under the warm blankets, feeling the softness of her back and thighs, and gathered her into his arms. ‘I just wanted to have your full attention,’ he muttered, and began stroking the soft smooth skin that was a wonder to him. She half turned so that her nipples caressed his chest, and his breathing nearly doubled.