Vengeance 10 (6 page)

Bethwig and von Braun shared that dream, had done so since the early days of the Verein fur Raumschiffahrt (Society for Space Travel), a small group of dedicated amateurs with a common goal: the realisation of space travel. The VfR was formed in 1929, and in the ensuing months he and von Braun had forged an uneasy alliance - this despite his own shyness and von Braun’s unconscious arrogance - as they were two of the very few members with sufficient private resources to allow them to devote endless hours to society projects.

Their friendship had grown, and when the Gestapo disbanded the society in 1932 and the army seduced von Braun in return for a university degree and a well-paying job building rockets, it was Bethwig he had hired first. Franz still remembered the excited telephone call, could still hear von Braun shouting over the static: ‘I tell you, they will actually pay us to build rockets!’

Bethwig broke the silence. ‘I talked with an army officer this morning. He told me that troops are gathering along the Polish border and have been doing so for weeks now. He thinks we’ll attack Poland before summer is out. If that’s true, we could be at war with England and France within a few months. And if that happens, the Reich will need war rockets, as many as we can build, and the fatherland will not be able to afford the cost of building a moon rocket. At least not for a good many years.’

Von Braun went on a few more steps. The night was growing cool, and they both shivered when a vagrant wind slid landward.

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t know. How can you believe anything they tell us? You would think we were surrounded by bloodthirsty enemies just waiting to destroy Germany for ever. First it was the Czechs and now the Poles. Who’ll be next? The French, the Russians, the British?’

‘But, they are waiting to destroy us,’ Bethwig protested. ‘Didn’t they try in 1919 and almost succeed? We were sold out then, but there were still enough loyal Germans to resist total destruction. Then they tried to destroy our economy by insisting on unjust war reparations. And now the Jewish merchants and bankers have joined with the capitalists to urge the Slavic nations to attack our blood-German people held prisoner within their borders. Only, we will fool them. The Führerhas seen to it that Germany is much stronger than they expect. I tell you, Wernher, the coming war means the life or death of Germany, and to win it we will need war rockets.’

‘Damn it, Franz, you sound like one of those radio propagandists.’ Von Braun turned away, plainly anxious not to be drawn into another political argument. ‘I... of course, you’re right’ - he relented ‘but still, it seems such a waste of time and energy.’

‘Not really.’ Franz grabbed his arm and brought him to a stop. ‘If we go about it correctly, we can turn it to our advantage.’

‘Is that so? How?’ Von Braun was teasing now, but Franz remained serious.

‘If war comes, it is certain that England and France will be drawn in by virtue of their alliance with Poland. Unless we can defeat them immediately, the war will go on, and ultimately the United States must be drawn in. Her sympathies have always lain with England and against us. Everyone in Berlin says that Hitler is frightened of the United States becoming involved again and is determined the mistakes of the last war will not be repeated. But even so, it is almost certain the Americans ...’

‘Franz, get to the point. Politics give me a headache.’

‘Just a moment, Wernher, it is important to follow the reasoning. War has become a matter of who can produce the most and best weapons and maintain adequate supply lines. English and French industries are exposed to our bomber aircraft, American factories are not. If we are to fight America, we must destroy her industrial capacity - you’ve heard Dornberger and others say that a hundred times. Now, if our rockets had a transatlantic capacity ...’ He let the thought trail off.

Von Braun shook his head. ‘A range of up to six thousand miles would be needed. The guidance problem alone is almost insurmountable. You know we are a long way from there.’

Bethwig knelt and drew two circles in the sand, one large, the other a metre away and smaller. The moonlight was so bright that von Braun had no trouble seeing as Bethwig wrote their Latin names beneath each circle: terra, luna. He then drew a curving line to connect the two.

‘This is the ballistic trajectory of a rocket flying to the moon. We are agreed there is no way to carry sufficient fuel for powered flight the entire distance, so the rocket will coast under its own momentum once it enters space.’ He drew a deep breath.

‘The main difficulty will be in climbing out of Earth’s gravity well. Once out, as long as sufficient velocity is achieved - on the order of eleven point two kilometres per second - the rocket will be pulled by the moon’s gravitational attraction towards itself.’ He reinforced the curving line with a finger. ‘In short, as long as proper velocity is achieved, there is no way the rocket can miss the moon. Agreed?’

‘Of course. Why ...?’

Bethwig held up a hand for patience. ‘Reverse the process.’ And he described another, flatter curve from moon to Earth. ‘The same laws of physics hold true. The flight will be faster, as Earth’s gravitational pull is much stronger than the moon’s. But the result is the same.’

‘True, within reason ...’ von Braun began, but again Bethwig shushed him.

‘You and I once calculated that a lunar rocket must carry at least a five-thousand-kilogram payload and have a total thrust equal to three million kilograms. Now, when you come right down to it, there is no need to separate the military and civilian aspects of space travel. The oldest military axiom in the world requires that you always hold the high ground. Therefore the objective is the same: to transport a human being to the moon.

‘A speed of eleven point two kilometres per second is required to overcome Earth’s gravity in order to reach the moon. But to escape from the moon requires only two point four kilometres per second. In short, we need only double the speed attained by the A-Five. Tonight Dornberger described that rocket to Speer - the A-Four.’

Von Braun studied Bethwig’s smug expression. ‘I’ll be damned,’ he said slowly. ‘Are you suggesting we fire rockets from the moon to Earth?’ The thought took hold, and he exclaimed, ‘Good God, Franz, that would be an invincible weapon, wouldn’t it!’

‘Exactly!’ Bethwig shouted in triumph. ‘Only the simplest of guidance controls would be required. The speed of such rockets could vary between two point four and eleven point two kilometres an hour, and we could still shower them on to an enemy nation. There would be no way to stop them. And in two years, if all goes well, the A-Four will be perfected. We need only build a more powerful version of the A-Four to take us there to begin with.’ He hesitated only a moment. ‘I’ve already assigned it a project code, A-Ten. Are you game?’

Von Braun shot his hands above his head and roared with delight. ‘Of course. My God, think of it. The moon. We really can do it, Franz!’ He wrapped his friend in a bear hug. ‘You have the rationale for the moon landing programme. A weapon to end all weapons, perhaps even to end war! Think of it. Whoever controls the moon controls the Earth! Why, with our A-Ten the Reich could enforce a veritable Pax Germana!’

Bethwig untangled himself and brought von Braun’s Indian dance to a halt. ‘We will need someone to sponsor us,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘Someone with stronger political connections than anyone in the army possesses.’

‘Speer?’

‘Perhaps. But we have to know more about him first. Does he have access to the Führer? Is he sufficiently high in the party? Such a project will be damned expensive and we will need someone very high up to back us.’

Von Braun grinned at that. ‘Franz, for a chance like this I’d make a pact with the Devil.’

The ruined citadel frowned over Liege. SS guards, rifles slung muzzle downwards to keep out the insistent rain, eyed the line shuffling towards the dirty brick building. Barbed wire was strung to a height of three metres, and red signs warned in Flemish, French and German that it was electrified. A young officer watched, his expression one of ill-disguised contempt. In spite of the cold wind and the rain, he appeared comfortable enough in his black leather overcoat and uniform cap.

Jan Memling had ridden his decrepit bicycle to the first checkpoint at the intersection of the rue Saint-Leonard and rue Marengo to join the throng moving towards the factory gates. The rain slanted down without respite, splattering cobbled streets, soaking threadbare coats and trousers, shoes and boots.

The officer looked his way, spoke to an aide, and Memling cursed silently. An SS officer’s interest almost always led to deportation and labour service - slave labour. Deportation was the terror of Memling’s life. Once he got to Germany, it would only be a matter of time before his identity was uncovered.

The aide went to the sergeant supervising the checkpoint guards and spoke to him, again glancing in Memling’s direction. Jan clutched the bicycle as his fear grew; he was helpless, there was absolutely nothing to do but play it to the end with as much dignity as he could muster. It would be useless to run.

The sergeant shouted, and three soldiers vaulted the barricade and grabbed the man ahead of him. The officer watched, his expression bored, and, after a moment, lit a cigarette and resumed his scrutiny of the line as the unfortunate worker was dragged away.

There was not even a mutter of protest. Memling shuffled forward and the line followed. The man had ceased to exist.

This was Jan Memling’s first field assignment since February 1938. He had been sent to Belgium in early May to investigate rumours of German troop movements along the Belgian border. But von Reichenau’s sudden panzer attack on the tenth of that month had come as a complete surprise. The following day Fort Eben Emael was captured by glider troops, and the city of Liege occupied, cutting off any possibility of escape. It was not until late June that a courier had found him, issued a set of ambiguous instructions from London, and arranged an emergency contact with the fledgling Belgian underground. Since then he had lived in a nightmare of constant terror. There was no foreseeable way that he could get out of Belgium, and if Great Britain surrendered, as was rumoured likely ... he did not want to think about that.

Those elderly Belgians who remembered the relatively benign German occupation of 1914-18 expected much the same in 1940. But with the conclusion of the French armistice on 22 June at Compiegne, army troops had been replaced by SS units and the occupation stiffened. Stern reprisals were meted out for the most absurd infractions of the stringent rules. Curfew violators were executed on the spot. A priest who had received an urgent call to attend a dying man had not waited to telephone the occupation authorities for permission. An SS patrol had stopped his bicycle, pushed him against a wall, and shot him. His body had been left as an example.

Memling had found his position in the quality control department of the Manufacture d’Armes in mid-May, before the occupation forces had established themselves. He had been lucky to find it, but the army officer running the factory was desperate for trained technical personnel and not overly inclined to ask questions. Jan had given his birthplace as Barchoa, a small town east of the Meuse destroyed by German artillery. As long as he gave the Germans no reason to investigate his background, he felt safe enough.

In the meantime the factory was run efficiently, and some consideration was even given to the workers. In contrast with their counterparts in other German-run factories, they were provided a bowl of hot if watery soup at midday to supplement their rations, were released from work at mid-afternoon on Saturdays, and, if lucky enough to work in an office, enjoyed a measure of heat in the winter. Memling’s current task was to prepare quality control inspection procedures for two new German machine-gun designs, the MP40 and MG42.

‘Ah, Memling, here you are. Good. I must have you go down to the director of production’s office and bring back the latest MG-Forty-two estimates for the coming year.’

Hans Belden, his superior, was a fat, timorous, and self-pitying German civilian who enjoyed the rank and privileges of his position as director of quality control in a factory of great importance to the Third Reich. He was not inclined to pamper his Belgian subordinates - except for Memling. For some reason he had taken a liking to Jan, even to the extent of occasionally inviting him into his own office, which had an electric fire, and offering him coffee and cigarettes. He like to pat Memling on the shoulder or put an arm about his waist. Belden was Nazi to the core, and Memling did not trust him for an instant. Instead, he treated his boss with a deference - verging on sycophancy - to which Belden responded with privileges now and then.

Memling showed his pass to the sentry and went out on to the vast production floor. A dirty, nearly opaque skylight allowed only the palest version of daylight to filter through. The Manufacture d’Armes, or the Gun Factory, as it was known locally, was the largest in the world. Beneath the endless glass roof, in carefully-guarded areas, were manufactured and assembled a wide variety of weapons ranging from the Browning nine-millimetre automatic pistol to the panzer tank. Hundreds of lathes, milling machines, and polishers ran twenty-four hours a day to feed the insatiable maw of the German war machine.

The German production director occupied a spacious suite with a carpeted reception area. His amply endowed Belgian secretary attracted German officers like flies. When Memling entered, an oberleutnant in the dark blue of a Luftwaffe dress uniform was leaning on the counter above her desk staring into the front of her blouse as she reached for a folder. He said something that Memling could not hear, and the girl hesitated, half-twisting to smile at him so that her blouse opened a bit more. Memling walked to the desk and, ignoring the German officer, handed over the requisition.

‘What do you want?’ the officer snapped in annoyance.