V2 A Novel of World War II - Robert Harris Page 0,7
‘It’s fine, he’s with me.’ Schenk hauled the SS man up and slammed the door after them.
Biwack said, ‘Aren’t you forgetting something, Sergeant?’
Schenk looked him up and down, puzzled and then amused. He slowly raised his arm. ‘Heil Hitler.’
The half-track suddenly reversed off the road, then lurched forwards, knocking them off balance. Graf grabbed one of the two fixed swivel seats. Schenk caught the other. With a mocking display of courtesy, like a maître d’ in a smart restaurant, he offered it to Biwack. They bounced over the undergrowth and rejoined the road.
The seats were arranged for the firing control officer and his second in command to observe the launch. Above the panel of instruments, through the narrow slits at the back of the half-track, the road receded behind them. Biwack was examining the dials and switches. He seemed to want another tutorial, but Graf’s mind was too full of misgivings to answer any more questions. There’s an emergency. How many times in the last month had he heard those words?
Jolting around in the stuffy compartment, he started to feel sick. He clung to the sides of the seat. After a couple of minutes, they slowed to pass a column of tankers parked at the side of the road. The soldiers stood sheltering under the trees with their hands in their pockets, forbidden to smoke so close to the fuel. The armoured car stopped and the sergeant opened the door. With relief, Graf jumped out into the cool wet air.
Lieutenant Seidel was waiting for him. There were three batteries in the regiment, each with three launching platoons of thirty-two men. Seidel commanded the second battery. He was about Graf’s age, a fellow Berliner. Sometimes in the evenings, in the mess, if they weren’t too exhausted, they played chess. They never talked politics. Seidel looked grim. ‘We’ve got a fire in the control compartment.’
‘A fire? You’ve shut off the power?’
‘Completely. Come and look.’
They walked around to the front of the armoured car. Two hundred metres down the road, the rocket stood alone and unsupported, ready to launch. Seidel handed him a pair of binoculars. Graf trained them on the V2. Smoke was issuing silently from just beneath the warhead and was being whipped away by the wind.
‘Is she fuelled?’
‘Fully. That’s why we’ve evacuated the site. Apparently they only noticed it a minute before launch.’
Graf lowered the field glasses. He stroked his chin and tugged at his nose with his thumb and forefinger. There was no alternative. ‘I suppose I’d better take a look.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m the one who built the damned thing.’ He tried to make a joke of it. ‘Frankly, it’s not the thought of an explosion that scares me – it’s climbing that damned Magirus ladder.’ It was not far off the truth. He detested heights.
Seidel clapped him on the arm. ‘Right, I need two volunteers.’ He winked at Graf and glanced around. He pointed to a pair of soldiers standing nearby. ‘You and you. Take the ladder over to the missile.’
They came to attention, faces suddenly grey. ‘Yes, Lieutenant!’
Graf called after them, ‘I’ll need a pair of gloves, and tools for the compartment.’ For the first time, he was aware of Biwack, listening to their conversation. He turned back to Seidel. ‘By the way, this is Sturmscharführer Biwack. He’s joining the regiment as our new National Socialist Leadership Officer.’
Seidel laughed again, as if this were a continuation of their joke, but then Biwack clicked his heels and saluted – ‘Heil Hitler!’ – and his smile shrank. He returned the salute. ‘And what exactly will your role be in the regiment, Sturmscharführer?’
‘To raise morale. To remind the men what we’re fighting for.’
Seidel’s mouth turned down. He nodded. ‘Useful.’
Graf had gone back to studying the rocket through the binoculars. Was it his imagination, or had the smoke got thicker? It wasn’t the proximity of the heat to the warhead that worried him – until the fuses were armed, the amatol was no more dangerous than a one-ton lump of yellow clay. But the closeness of the fuel was a different matter. He had witnessed fuel tanks explode before. He had once seen three men blown to pieces directly in front of him. And that was by a small experimental tank, whereas the V2 contained eight and a half tons of alcohol and liquid oxygen. He tried to put the images out of his mind. ‘We’re wasting time,’ he said. ‘Tell them to hurry up with that ladder.’