V2 A Novel of World War II - Robert Harris Page 0,69
target in twenty-five minutes.
Sitwell moved to the large-scale map of The Hague, carefully rechecked the bearings, and pressed a pin into the corkboard. Kay rose from her seat and went around the desk to examine it. The red bead – like a drop of blood, she thought – was positioned precisely in the centre of the Scheveningen Wood.
On the corporal’s desk, the telephone rang. All eyes turned to watch him as he reached to answer it. He listened, nodded, covered the mouthpiece.
‘They’ve launched again.’
13
AS FAR AS GRAF WAS concerned, the first missile of the day had gone off without a hitch. A minute after it had disappeared into the clouds, the crew had emerged from their slit trench and started rolling up the electrical cables. The firing control vehicle had lumbered out of its burrow and reversed up to the launch table. Afterwards, when he looked back on it, he would concede that perhaps there hadn’t been quite the sense of urgency there should have been. But it was so long since the men had seen an enemy aircraft – Jabos they called them, from Jagdbomber: fighter-bomber – that a certain laxity was understandable.
A sergeant leaned out of the half-track’s window. ‘Do you want a lift?’
‘Thanks, but I’ve got to check on Schenk’s platoon.’
Like a doctor making house calls, Graf moved on from one rocket to another. About five hundred metres to the west of the first launch site, a second V2 was standing on its platform, ready to take off. Yet again there had been a fault in the transformer, and the launch had been delayed for two hours while a replacement was fitted. Sergeant Schenk, the veteran of the Eastern Front who had left his frostbitten ears behind in a field hospital near Leningrad, was standing at the base of the missile. The control compartments were shut. Condensed air was venting from close to the liquid oxygen tank. She was ready to go.
Schenk said, ‘Do you want to stay and watch?’
‘I’ll pass, if it’s all the same to you. I need to get back to the base.’
‘No problem. Your signature’s enough.’ He held out his clipboard for Graf to confirm that the repair had been carried out. ‘I hear they’re burying Lieutenant Stock and the others tomorrow morning. Should be quite an occasion.’
Graf wondered if the remark was meant to convey reproach, but he could see no evidence of it in the sergeant’s battered face. ‘So I understand.’ He signed the chit and handed back the clipboard.
‘That’s war, isn’t it? Some of these kids are so wet, they still have their mothers’ milk on their lips.’
‘Well, nobody knows this war better than you, Sergeant.’ He was keen to avoid one of Schenk’s horror stories about fighting the Russians. ‘I’ll see you around.’
‘That you will.’
He set off down the road.
The morning was quiet, cold, grey. He was on the same stretch of road that he had walked with Biwack on Saturday morning, running east to west across Scheveningen Wood, with its view down to the lake. No one was about. He was glad of the solitude. He slowed his pace so he could enjoy it longer. From behind him came the roar of a rocket motor igniting. He stopped and turned to look. A second later, Schenk’s missile shot clear of the trees. ‘Go on, tilt, you bastard,’ he muttered, and as if on cue, the V2’s trajectory flattened just before it vanished into the ceiling of cloud. Good. There would be no more launches for an hour or two. He noticed a park bench overlooking the lake and decided to take a rest.
He still had a hangover from the previous night. A combination of curaçao and cognac and the memory of his conversation with the girl in the brothel weighed heavily upon him. Had he really told her all that stuff about the rate of misfires and the shortage of liquid oxygen? He took off his hat and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. I must be going crazy. He promised himself he would keep away from the brothel. But her image kept returning. Seidel had said, as they were driving away, ‘She was a funny, skinny little thing. What made you choose her?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe she reminded me of someone I used to know.’
The explanation seemed to satisfy the lieutenant’s curiosity. ‘Fair enough. Each to his own. I always ask for Marta exactly because she doesn’t remind me of anyone.’