Vengeance 10 (27 page)
As chief development engineer and project manager, Bethwig had little to do during the launch sequence but supervise. No longer did the project manager design the rocket, then weld, rivet, and install electrical gear, run the cinecameras, and do a hundred other tasks because no one else could be spared. Bethwig had no more idea how to operate a six-channel telemetry bank or the new recording machines that used a plastic magnetised tape to store data, than the operators knew how to design a rocket engine capable of producing three and a half million kilograms of thrust.
‘Well,’ Himmler said, turning to him. ‘What is your estimate of the chance of success, Herr Doktor Bethwig?’ He smirked at Dornberger. ‘After all, if the engineer who designed this monster does not know, who does?’
Dornberger frowned at Bethwig, a warning to guard his words. But Franz ignored him.
‘This is a first trial, Herr Reichsführer,’ he snapped. ‘A rocket is a very complex machine. I will be most surprised if the engines merely fire all together this first time. If it rises away from its table, it will be a miracle. The chance that it will fall to Earth within five hundred kilometres of its intended target is almost non-existent.’
Before the surprised and angered Himmler could reply, the firing control officer’s voice rumbled over the loudspeaker announcing the beginning of the ignition sequence.
Bethwig jumped eagerly to the window. The first tendrils of vapour were already curling about the massive base of the rocket.
‘Minus thirty seconds.’
The half-minute dragged; tension mounted in the bunker until Bethwig thought he must scream to release it. On the launch table the vapour suddenly became a steady mist; cables fell away and gantries swung back, leaving the rocket standing clear against the floodlights. The mist became a hissing pillar of flame shot through with reddish shades at the moment the FCO announced actual ignition. The cloud of burned gases swirled outwards, roiling with streaks of flame and debris. The bunker began to vibrate to the low-frequency rumble of the twenty-one M103.5 rocket engines firing in unison. Even at a kilometre’s distance the rocket could be seen to shudder. The FCO’s voice reading various instrument results was lost in the painful crescendo of sound that struck and hammered at their ears through the metres-thick wall.
The rocket was rising now, lifting out of the inferno of flaming gas and steam. A shaft of flame erupted half a kilometre further on where the exhaust tunnel ended, and the sky caught fire. Bethwig realised he was holding his breath, then forgot as the ungainly rocket cleared the top of the gantries. It was rotating slightly now as the internal guidance system began to prepare for a thunderous flight towards the distant Atlantic. The rocket climbed steadily, passing two hundred metres, and Bethwig had to duck to see upwards through the slit window. The television monitors were useless once the rocket left the floodlit stage; they could show only an intense pinpoint of flame without reference. He became aware that he was gripping his clipboard so hard he had torn half the sheets. My God, he thought, it really is going to make it!
Cursing, he ducked out of the gallery and, defying all regulations, raced down the corridor, shoved the startled guard aside, and dived into the night. Above, the entire sky was lit as if by an artillery barrage. A slender pillar of flame was growing longer and wider as he watched. It moved with all the inexorability of a meteor in slow motion. The magnesium-bright exhaust was visible even through the light cloud that had filtered in from the direction of Rugen. Damn, he thought, it’s going to make it. It’s... The rocket blew up with a flare so brilliant that he was blinded. The sound bellowed about his ears, and he ducked towards the doorway, blinking and cursing the retinal after-image that obscured everything.
‘You have failed me. I do not like my subordinates to fail.’ Himmler’s voice was mild enough, but there was no doubting the threat behind his words. Bethwig, however, was not in the mood for the Reichsführer’s tantrums. It was nearly three in the morning, and they had just come from a post-mortem examination of telemetry data, dragged away at Himmler’s express command. Von Braun had been acting as Himmler’s escort since the launch and now lounged in a corner, smoking a cigarette. Several ranking engineers and department heads were watching the Reichsführer with apprehension. Bethwig turned furiously on Himmler, dashing his clipboard to the floor.
‘We have not failed you, Reichsführer,’ he roared in uncontrollable anger. ‘I expressly recall warning you that it would be a miracle if the rocket even raised off the stand. It did that and more. There are some four hundred thousand parts that must work correctly if the rocket is to complete its flight. Four hundred thousand,’ he repeated. ‘We are battering against the frontiers of science, Herr Reichsführer. Only three weeks ago we launched a rocket that was less than three per cent as powerful, a major accomplishment in itself. Now, we are taking what can only be described as a quantum jump in technology. When you accuse us of failure, Herr Reichsführer, you let us down!’
He distinctly heard several gasps, and Himmler flinched as if he had been struck. In an instant Bethwig realised he had made a mortal enemy but was too tired to care. Himmler signalled his aide and swept out of the lounge. Dornberger hustled the rest of the staff out, and von Braun closed the door and leaned against it.
‘Not wise, Franz. Not wise at all,’ he admonished in a weak voice.
Bethwig shrugged and threw himself on to the sofa. ‘I really don’t give a damn any longer.’ He closed his eyes for a moment, shutting out the light and the world.
Von Braun took a cigarette from his gold case and offered one to Franz, only to discover that he had fallen asleep. He finished the cigarette in silence, then, with a glance at his sleeping friend, closed the door carefully behind him.
Memling found his new working arrangements very curious. In 1939 Dr R. V. Jones had been co-opted from Clarendon Laboratory on the recommendation of Sir Henry Tizard who then headed the Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defence (Great Britain). He had been assigned to keep track of German weapons research but had been granted neither staff nor secretary. Until Simon-Benet ferreted him out in the mysterious and trackless wastes of Whitehall, Jones had plugged along from year to year doing an amazing amount of work to which no one paid the slightest attention. The two men had come to an arrangement: Jones would supply the scientific expertise to evaluate new discoveries, and Simon-Benet would provide the data and, whenever possible, on-site investigation through his extensive connections with the miscellany of intelligence services that infested London.
Several times Dr Jones had tried to move them out of the decrepit building in Red Lion Square, but each time the ministry had turned him down. The walls were bowed with age, the gaps between the floorboards were large enough to hide cockroaches - and did - and the windows opened grudgingly, if at all. The building’s only advantage lay in the fact that it was no more than a brisk walk from Janet’s flat in Montague Street.
Memling also discovered that Simon-Benet had a powerful enemy in Professor Frederick A. Lindemann, Viscount Cherwell, the Prime Minister’s scientific adviser. Viscount Cherwell maintained that Germany lacked the resources to undertake such a massive rocket project as well as to develop and supply the vast volumes of fuel that would be needed. In the first two meetings he attended at which Viscount Cherwell was present, Memling had argued that if Germany was capable of producing synthetic petrol she could certainly produce one of three possible rocket fuels - ethyl alcohol, petrol, or hydrazine - in sufficient quantity. Cherwell disagreed.
Simon-Benet then arranged for Memling to present a paper describing the selection of ethyl alcohol as the likeliest fuel. Memling prepared his notes carefully, fully conscious of the fact that Viscount Cherwell was supremely confident of his own abilities and opinions and would likely dismiss him as an uneducated upstart. It was work he had never liked, and a long succession of beautiful summer afternoons slipped past while he struggled to assemble the required facts in the reading room of the British Museum or in his dingy office. But in the long twilight evenings there was Janet to make it all worthwhile.
The designated day arrived, and Memling, conscious that he was an interloper, presented his data to a silent and, as he expected, resentful committee. Anxious to be finished, he summarised the paper quickly: ‘The characteristics desired in a rocket fuel are: one, availability of raw materials; two, high combustion heat for the greatest combustion chamber pressure; three, low molecular weight of the resulting gas; four, low freezing point for the greatest temperature range of operation; five, high specific gravity; six, low toxicity and corrosiveness to avoid the need for equipment and clothing; and seven, low vapour pressures for long storage life.
‘Given this set of conditions, gentlemen, ethyl alcohol appears the logical answer. The farmlands of East Prussia and Poland are particularly well suited for the cultivation of potatoes, which are easily converted to ethyl alcohol, making an easily renewable resource. Calculations based upon thrust-to-fuel consumption curves, coupled with an analysis of the number of rockets required to make a significant impact upon the course of the war - some twelve hundred per month - require fifty-seven hundred and sixty to sixty-six hundred tons of ethyl alcohol monthly. Ethyl alcohol is also easier and cheaper to produce than petrol or hydrazine, and it possesses the requisite low toxicity and high stability to make it a natural choice. It does have one undesirable characteristic,’ he added, trying desperately to inject some humour into the inquisition; ‘it is drinkable.’ It did not work.
Viscount Cherwell, acting as chairman, thanked him for his presentation, remarked upon its preciseness, disparaged his conclusions with personal opinion, and dismissed him. Simon-Benet nodded as he stood, and as Memling shut the door he heard the brigadier’s voice rising to levels it had probably never reached before.
Memling, who had been up against just such entrenched opinion since the beginning, doubted it would do much good. But the brigadier, returning from the meeting several hours later, was in an excellent mood. He clapped Memling on the shoulder, sank down in the old armchair used for infrequent visitors, and propped his feet on the desk that had been well scarred before the Boer War.
‘Think we made some progress today, damned if I don’t!’
Memling, still sulking, grunted.
‘Cheer up, old man. Things like this take time. Your presentation was masterful. Impressed them all no end.’ He lit a cigarette and inhaled with satisfaction. That’s the trouble with scientists. They are paid to be brilliant. Because of that, they can never admit to mistakes. Who will pay them for wrong answers? So, when you do spot a mistake, don’t back them into a corner. Scientists have flashing teeth, my boy. Make the Hun look like Sunday-school masters. Just let them go on hoping that no one notices their mistakes while you proceed to do what needs doing.
They know you’re right, but scientists are worse than priests. They stick together right to the bitter end - or until their own reputations are put in jeopardy.’
During that endless summer one major setback seemed to spawn another. Mandalay fell to the Japanese in May. Rommel advanced to Sidi Barrani and sent the Eighth Army on the long road through Mersa Matruh into Egypt. Sebastopol collapsed in the face of the seemingly invincible German offensive, and a huge Murmansk-bound convoy, PQ-17, was decimated in the Arctic Ocean. Only the Americans had a stroke of luck at Midway Island, and Britons rushed to their atlases to see where it was.
Memling tried several times to make contact with members of his old command, but they all seemed to have been swallowed up by the war. He was short-tempered with everyone, including the brigadier, as the date for the raid approached.
He heard the name for the first time from a newsboy hawking papers outside the Russell Square tube station. Over his head the hoardings repeated the name Dieppe in huge black letters. He snatched a paper from the pile, dropped tuppence on the counter, and sidestepped through the crowd to a quiet backwater in the constant flow where he could lean against a lamp post and devour the stories. There were photographs that made a mockery of the government’s attempt to put the best possible face on what could only be regarded as the disaster the old colonel had predicted.
Ragged, exhausted men shuffled down gangways, carrying bits and pieces of equipment. Here and there a Canadian unit badge was visible, but he did not see any marking the presence of his old unit. And defeat was there in the stunned, silent faces. For a moment he experienced a curious sense of relief that he had not been on the docks and quays of that insignificant French port town to see his people being decimated. Then the relief was replaced by anger, an intense black anger that he had not been allowed to participate. It was foolish, he knew, even as the disgust and revulsion coursed through him, but if he had been there, perhaps it might have made a difference to his undertrained green troops. And then he asked himself, sneeringly, what one more junior officer could have done.
But from that moment on, his frustration began to grow with each day that he continued to sit, occupying a desk, engaging in gathering useless facts that no one believed.
If it had not been for Janet, he might not have made it. Suspecting the turmoil he was enduring, she put up with nearly all of his moodiness; but when he overstepped, she let him know about it in no uncertain terms.
After one particularly explosive incident during the first week in August, they lay quietly on the bed, not touching but enduring the heat and resenting each other’s presence. He shifted restlessly on the bed, wishing the sun would go down, but it was only a quarter to nine.
‘Look, darling, something has got to change,’ Janet said when he had shifted position for the fourth time in as many minutes. ‘You’re driving yourself into a nervous breakdown and me around the bend. Some people have to fight the war, some have to stay behind and support them. You know how important your job is. And besides, you’ve already done more than your share of fighting.’