must respond.’
Huber said, ‘If I might make a proposal, Gruppenführer? The simplest solution would be for us to switch all our launches to night-time, and take care to vary our locations. That way, even if the enemy does get a fix on our positions and attacks them the following day, the intelligence will be too late to be operationally useful.’
Kammler shook his head. He was still brooding. ‘Too passive. We need to meet aggression with aggression.’
‘What alternative do we have? Are you suggesting we should ask the Luftwaffe to bomb Mechelen?’
‘There is no Luftwaffe left to speak of; certainly not a force capable of bombing a town in Belgium.’ He looked up, suddenly inspired. ‘But who needs them? We have the weapon in our own hands, surely?’ He glanced around the room. ‘Isn’t it obvious, gentlemen? We should strike them with a rocket!’
Seidel’s eyes opened wide in surprise. Klein looked at the floor. Huber said, ‘With respect, Gruppenführer, the V2 is not designed for use as a tactical weapon. It lacks the accuracy.’
‘We’re speaking of a town, Colonel, not a bridge! Look at it!’ He pointed at the map. ‘Are you telling me you can’t hit a target the size of a town?’
Huber hesitated. ‘We may be able to hit the town, but the chances of us knocking out the radar units are tiny.’
‘Then we will fire two missiles, and double our chances!’ The Dust Cloud was whirling now, unstoppable. ‘When are we next due to launch?’
‘We were planning to wait until after the funeral ceremony.’
‘Which is when?’
‘Eleven.’
‘But that’s not for two and a half hours! I want this done immediately! What better way to honour our dead than to strike a blow against the enemy?’
Graf said quietly, ‘It wasn’t the enemy who killed them.’
Kammler turned on him. ‘You people make me sick! You’ve bled the Reich dry to build your damned rockets, and now you tell us you can’t even hit a town two hours’ drive away! I want this done at once, is that understood?’
Huber came to attention. ‘Yes, Gruppenführer!’
Kammler gave him a curt nod. ‘The name of the target should be kept secret from the men. We need to protect our source. You may go.’
The three Wehrmacht officers trooped out of the office. Graf followed them. In the passage, Huber said wearily, ‘Well, you have your orders. Seidel, get your platoon ready to launch. Graf, you had better oversee the re-targeting of the missile.’ His shoulders slouched. He looked crushed. He will be sacked by nightfall, Graf thought.
They crossed the lobby and went out into the morning.
Graf hunched over a map in the technical troop tent, measuring the distance with a pair of dividers. He calculated the flight path from Scheveningen to Mechelen as 121 kilometres. The protractor showed him that instead of a compass bearing of 260 degrees, the rocket would need to fly on a southerly course of 183. The engine cut-off time would need to be reduced from 65 to 26 seconds to flatten the trajectory. That would mean bypassing the onboard accelerometer and instead turning off the motor by radio signal from the ground. The arithmetic was all very crude, but it was the best he could do. Beneath his breath, he cursed Kammler.
He pulled back the tent flap. The missile lay in its wheeled cradle beneath the trees, hooked up to a tractor. The number 3 control panel was open. He used a screwdriver and a pair of pliers to rewire the accelerometer, nodded to the corporal and stood aside as the panels were fixed back in place. The corporal banged his hand on the side of the tractor cab, the engine started and the rocket was slowly moved forward to the warhead mounting section, where the nose cone with its one-ton charge of amatol hung suspended, still housed in its metal shipping drum. It took five men to lower it by block and tackle and guide it into place. Once it was screwed to the end of the fuselage, the container was lifted away. Five minutes later, the fuses were installed and she was ready to go.
Graf walked beside the rocket at a steady pace, like an undertaker beside a hearse, as the missile was moved along the forest road. In the clearing ahead, beneath the wide gantry of the mobile crane, the Meillerwagen was already waiting. The transporter halted alongside it, the V2 was hoisted up and swung across, her nose cone nodding judiciously in the wind. Three men strained