But then, to discount this excellent beginning, a little group of face-blackened paratroopers came in. Their team had included their Brigade Major and it was he who was to lead the way down. He was a big man and had got stuck in the hatch; they could not push him through or pull him out. The pilot had taken the aircraft out to sea and ran it up and down the coast for half an hour, but the Major’s men could not get him either in or out. At length he had lost consciousness, so it had been decided that the only thing to do was to return to England. Only after the aircraft had landed had they succeeded in getting him free. The pilot pleaded desperately to be allowed to make a second run so that at least the others might join in the battle, but Surplice would not let him. The air over the whole Channel was now alive with aircraft on exactly timed and carefully planned routes; so for a lone ’plane to attempt to pass through them would have been much too dangerous.
Worse was to come. A pale-faced young pilot entered the room and came up to his Station Commander. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he reported. ‘I don’t know what to say, but my string broke. We lost our glider about three miles from the French coast.’
Surplice laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t your fault. Tell me what happened.’
‘Well, sir, it was those bloody Met. men who let us down. Our orders were to drop the gliders off at sixteen hundred feet. But there was cloud down to eight hundred and no moon coming through. It was as black as pitch. I went down as low as I dared to try to get in the clear but in the darkness the glider must have lost my tail light and have become unmanageable. With him trailing wild, the strain snapped the tow-rope. There was nothing we could do about it.’
It was estimated that the glider might have had enough height to make the beach or, at least, shallow water. But it was certain that the load of stores it carried would never reach the leading paratroops for their urgent operations.
A few minutes later a second tug pilot came in. The same sad story. Low cloud several miles before he had reached the French coast, the following glider suddenly losing control and its tow-rope snapping. The third and fourth pilots arrived, white-faced and shaken. They, too, had lost their gliders out over the sea.
The Briefing Room was now crowded with returned air crews drinking tea and munching hot scones while waiting to make their detailed reports to the Intelligence Officers. But they spoke in low voices. Whispered word of the bad news had gone round and the atmosphere was one of gloom.
It was now about a quarter to three in the morning, and the next two hours were grim. Gregory, having no duties to perform, had accepted the many drinks pressed upon him during the long evening. It had turned cold and misty and he felt stale from the amount of liquor he had consumed. He would have given a lot to go back to the mess and brace himself up a little with a brandy and soda; but he did not like to suggest it.
With Surplice, Squadron Leader Pound, the little Welsh doctor and a few others, he stood miserably about waiting fearfully for news. If all four of the first flight of gliders had gone into the ‘drink’ what chance had General Gale and his string of twenty-five and all the other flights that had headed for the same area with the rest of the Airborne Division from other stations in the Group?
Dozens of those young daredevils who had been drinking so cheerfully in the mess only a few hours before were now almost certainly dead, and others, weighed down by their heavy equipment, must be swimming desperately for their lives in the cold waters of the Channel. Hundreds more might be crashing and drowning while Gregory and his companions stood miserably waiting for news.
If the General and a large part of the Airborne Division were lost their task would remain unaccomplished and the left flank of the British Army would then be left open to attack. There were hours to go yet before the first seaborne troops were due to splash their way ashore, and the Germans must now have known for over three hours that the invasion had really started. If the airborne operation failed the enemy would counter-attack the open beaches in the morning and quite possibly hurl our troops back into the sea, rendering the whole vast plan for liberating Europe a complete failure. The strain of waiting for news was appalling, and for Gregory, so used to action, so unused to patient vigil, it was a positive agony.
At last, soon after half past four, they heard the drone of aircraft. The tugs of the second wave were returning. At a quarter to five the first air crew came in. The Briefing Room was now still with a breathless silence. Scores of anxious eyes searched the faces of the newcomers for a verdict. They looked about them in surprise at this tense reception. Then they reported. The cloud had lifted and they had cast off their gliders dead on the mark.
Crew after crew appeared with the same glad tidings. When Macnamara came in there was a rush towards him. He was smiling, laughing. He had put General Gale down at half past two exactly at the place where he had planned to land. Soon afterward it was known that not a single glider in the second wave had been lost.
Douglas Warth, an official war reporter, had gone over with the first wave of paratroops. Since his return he had been waiting only to learn what had happened to General Gale and the others. Three days ago, that now seemed like a week, he had come down in a jeep, and he offered to take Gregory back to London in it.
Gregory gladly accepted. As he was saying good-bye to Surplice and thanking him for his kindness, the Chief Intelligence Officer came up with a message from the Control Room; he said, ‘All aircraft safely landed, sir, and no casualties.’
Beaming with delight, Gregory congratulated the Station Commander and shook hands with several other new friends he had made during those never-to-be-forgotten days. He then collected his kit and accompanied Warth to the jeep. No longer tired but filled with elation they drove through the summer dawn, with birds singing in the hedgerows, back to London.
By seven o’clock he was in the Cabinet Offices War Room and got the broader picture. Of the two hundred and eighty-six aircraft despatched to land the Airborne Division only eight had failed to return and the glider losses had been far fewer than anticipated. A few hours later he learned that General Gale had landed without accident and, achieving complete surprise, had secured the two bridges that were his principal objective. That night Gregory listened with Sir Pellinore to one of the finest broadcasts delivered in the war. It was given by the King and in well-informed circles it was known that His Majesty had written every word of it himself. Then they drank a health to George VI and Richard the First.
D-Day and its terrible hazards were, at last, over; but the war was still a long way from being won, and a week later it entered a new phase. On the night of June 12th/13th the first pilotless aircraft descended on London. As had been anticipated its warhead was no bigger than an average-sized bomb; so, after the first excitement, the public proceeded to settle down and grin and bear this new affliction; although they proved to be disconcerting things, as they had a nasty habit of suddenly turning round and coming down in a place where they were not expected. But a high proportion of them were prevented from reaching London by fighter aircraft, Ack-ack and the balloon barrages. The foremost thought in most people’s minds was still joy that the invasion had at last taken place, and that ‘Monty’ was now safely established in Normandy with a bridgehead deep enough for there to be little fear that our men would be driven back into the sea. So the general feeling was that the buzz-bombs were only a temporary annoyance which might soon be brought to an end by the Germans throwing in their hand.
Throughout June Malacou’s communications to Gregory continued, and he soon became aware that the occultist’s thoughts were now mainly engaged by a new interest. The Polish engineer was a member of the Underground and the cottage in which they were living was on the new experimental range being used to test the giant rockets. The firing point for the rockets was a good twenty miles away from the cottage so most of them sailed high overhead, but now and again one came down prematurely and fell in the marshes.
The Pole was the le
ader of a group spread widely over the countryside and its members spent some of their time making notes of the number of rockets fired, how many of them were duds and where those duds fell. But the group had no wireless or any other means of communicating their information to London, as they had started up independently and were not in touch with the main Polish Underground. In addition to charting the rockets they went out at night and committed various acts of sabotage, such as tearing up sections of railway line and destroying small bridges. To aid these exploits Malacou was again busy with his astrological studies in order to be able to predict for his new friends the most favourable nights for them to undertake their clandestine activities.
Sir Pellinore had now come to the conclusion that as Gregory was obviously sane there must be a genuine foundation for the telepathic communication he was receiving; and when Gregory told him about the Pole’s plotting of the rockets he was greatly interested. The anxiety about them in high quarters, far from dying down, had considerably increased. Thousands of tents were being manufactured to house the refugees who would be driven out of London and great dumps of medical stores and tinned food were being accumulated secretly at various places in the Home Counties. Plans were being made to deceive the public who were not in the immediate area of the first mighty explosion as to its cause, so that they should not panic, and arrangements were being made for the immediate evacuation of hospitals, children and pregnant mothers in the Metropolitan area.
By early July public morale was beginning to decline again. The V.1’s were starting to get on people’s nerves and the destruction caused by them had become considerable. Moreover, matters were not going anything like as well in France as had been expected. Most fortunately, the Deception Plans were continuing to function admirably. By the creation of a mock army in Kent, and other measures, Hitler continued to be convinced that the Normandy landings were only a feint, and that the main assault against his Fortress Europa was due to be launched at any moment across the narrows into the Pas de Calais. In consequence, he flatly refused the pleas of his Generals to allow the Armoured Divisions there to be brought south against the Normandy beach-head.
Yet, in spite of this, Montgomery was making no progress. He had informed the Chiefs of Staff that his object was to draw the Germans down on the positions he held and then destroy them. But it had been expected that a month after their landing the Allies would be well into France and, possibly, across the Seine. So far he had not even captured Caen; and to those who had originally planned it, the Second Front was proving a grievous disappointment.
On July 16th Gregory was on day duty, so he went to bed in his flat at his normal hour, which was about eleven o’clock. But he found that he could neither concentrate on his book nor, when he put out the light, get to sleep, because Malacou was in a great state of excitement and his thoughts were coming through with exceptional clarity.
In addition to keeping a careful record of the performance of the rockets, the Polish Resistance leader had been seeking to get at and examine one of them. To do so was far from easy; because, whenever there were firing trials, the Germans stationed little squads of their men over many square miles of the marshland and when a rocket came down prematurely their job was to locate and dismantle it as soon as possible.
Two days ago a rocket had gone wild and fallen miles away from the marshes, on the bank of the river Bug. No German patrol had been anywhere near and some Poles had rolled the rocket down the bank into the river; so that when the Germans reached the locality they had failed to find it. The previous night the Poles had retrieved the rocket from the river and hidden it among the reeds, then sent word to the engineer who was living with Malacou. That night he had gone off to join them and they were now working like demons to dismantle the tail of the rocket, which contained its mechanism. Malacou meanwhile was still in his cottage and a prey to fearful anxiety lest the Germans should catch the Pole and his companions either while working on it or, still worse, when they brought the pieces they secured to his dwelling, where they intended to hide them in the woodshed.
Eventually Gregory dropped off to sleep, but he woke next morning with the knowledge that the job had been completed without mishap and that the Polish engineer was now in possession of a complete set of the parts that made the rocket work.
After lunch that day Gregory walked across the Horse Guards and looked in on Sir Pellinore. When he retailed what he believed to have happened the elderly Baronet’s blue eyes popped. Jerking forward in his chair he slapped a long leg encased in a pin-striped trouser with a mighty thud and cried:
‘By Jove! If only we could get hold of those bits and pieces! Might be the savin’ of London! I was talkin’ to Lindemann the other day. Seems we’re working on a device now that’ll explode shells and bombs in mid-air. What these science wizards will get up to next, God knows. Still, the Prof. says it’s perfectly possible. Got to make one box of tricks to set off the other, though. But if the boffins knew how these rockets worked we might blow ’em up while they were still sailin’ over mid-Channel.’
‘If that’s so,’ Gregory said, ‘we ought to do our utmost to collect the mechanism that this Polish engineer has secured. And, of course, to let us have it is the reason he risked his neck to get it. But how we could set about that I don’t see.’
‘I do,’ replied Sir Pellinore promptly. ‘Our bombers haven’t the range to reach Poland. But lighter aircraft fitted with extra fuel tanks can. S.O.E. are sending one or two in every week now to drop supplies for the Polish Underground. I’ll have a talk with Gubbie about this.’
‘By all means do. But I doubt if that will get us anywhere. Even if General Gubbins can be persuaded that I am in telepathic communication with a man hundreds of miles from England, and is willing to send an aircraft to collect this stuff, I couldn’t tell him where to send it. I’ve only the vaguest idea where this place is. It can’t be many miles from Ostroleka, where Malacou had his house; I’m sure of that. And the cottage is situated near a stretch of broad very winding river from which tributaries make forks some miles on either side of the cottage. But there are any number of rivers in that part of Poland and I couldn’t possibly describe it well enough for a pilot to identify.’
‘But you … No.’ Sir Pellinore hastily hauled himself to his feet. ‘Forget it, Gregory. Odds are it’s all moonshine.’
‘It’s not moonshine,’ Gregory replied uneasily. ‘And I’ll not be allowed to forget it. I’m certain of that. As sure as God made little apples Malacou will be coming through to me again and urging me to think of some way of getting those bits of mechanism to England.’
His prediction proved right. That night Malacou ceaselessly bombarded Gregory with his thoughts. He declared that the prize the Poles had secured was invaluable. His friend the engineer had managed to get away with the whole works and now knew how the rockets functioned. It was imperative that an aircraft be sent to pick him up and fly him with the mechanism to England. Then the rockets could also be made in Britain and Hitler would derive no overwhelming advantage by having sole possession of his secret weapon. The nearest village to the cottage was Rózan, and westward from it there ran a long stretch of good straight road along which there was never any traffic at night; so an aircraft could land on it. Gregory had only to let him know the night the aircraft would come in and they would be waiting for it. Three-quarters of an hour would be enough to load the stuff on to the ‘plane. In that desolate area the risk of the Germans arriving on the scene while they were doing so was negligible. The aircraft could then take off again for England.
In the morning, still tired after his restless night and far from happy, Gregory telephoned the War Room to say he had an urgent matter to deal with so would not be in till midday. Then he went to Sir Pellinore. They had a lengthy talk, at the end of which with a heavy sigh the elderly Baronet rang up General Gubbins. Half an hour later, in Sir Pellinore’s Rolls, they drove to Baker Street.
The little General, dapper
as ever in the Bedford Cord riding breeches and well-polished field boots he affected, listened noncommittally to what they had to say, then he said:
‘Of course telepathy has been scientifically proved, so it’s pointless to argue about that; although I find it very difficult to believe that it could be maintained between two people continuously and over such a great distance. Frankly, I’d turn this proposition down flat had it to do with anything other than the rocket. But to find means of protecting ourselves from that is now an all-time high priority.
‘It’s not only London we have to think of; though God knows the results it may have here are too ghastly to contemplate. It’s the invasion ports as well. Monty is blazing off thousands of rounds every day. If the ports that are supplying him with shells and hundreds of other items could be rendered unusable, even for a week, he would be a dead duck. The beach-head he is holding is still narrow enough in all conscience and deprived of ammunition he could not possibly stop the Boche from driving his whole Army back into the Channel.
‘In view of all that is at stake I’d be prepared to send an aircraft on a sortie to the moon if there were the least chance of its bringing back information which might scotch these hellish rockets. The devil of it is, though, that we have no down-to-earth means of communicating with these people. Since we can’t arrange with them to put out recognition signals and be ready to receive our aircraft on a certain night, there can be no hope of such an operation succeeding. No pilot could even find the place.’
‘No,’ Gregory agreed heavily, ‘but given moonlight I’m certain I could tell the pilot where to land; and it happens to be my bad luck that I am the only person capable of making the necessary arrangements with Malacou. I swore I’d never again set foot on German-held territory until the war was over, but on those two counts I see no alternative. I’ll have to guide the pilot in and pick up the mechanism of the rocket myself.’
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