Vengeance 10

‘You must realise that what I say comes only from studying photographs and relating it to what I learned while on the ground. Briefly, the raid, while it appears to have been pressed home with great skill, missed damaging the vital installations on the island only because they were skilfully camouflaged, a fact I did not realise until I saw the aerial photographs. My assessment, then, after two weeks of study, is that development has probably been slowed only three to four months at best.’

Memling gave Viscount Cherwell a long steady look. ‘I recommend, therefore, that three projects be put in motion as soon as possible. First, organise an effective tactical fighter bomber force to seek out and destroy the rockets before they can be launched. Second, warn the Americans and Canadians about the A-Ten. And third, bomb Peenemunde again and again until it is utterly destroyed. To fail in any of these three will subject — ‘

‘Preposterous!’ The air vice-marshal snorted. ‘CIU assures us that incalculable damage was done and that the work will have been thrown back by at least a year if not more. Our own Air Intelligence assessment concurs.’

‘Were any of your people on the ground at Peenemunde, Air Vice-Marshal?’ Simon-Benet murmured.

‘You know damned well they were not, sir. However, they are trained in the assessment of bomb damage from photographs and have had a great deal of experience at the job. With all due respect to Major Memling, even though he has been there he does not have the skills required to interpret after-raid photographs. My people do.’

‘Is that why Bomber Command’s raids on aircraft plants have resulted in increased production of German fighter aircraft?’ As he made the remark the brigadier got to his feet, expression angry. ‘I would suggest, gentlemen, that we stop trying to protect our own backsides in this matter. Time is running out. Soon those damnable rockets will be raining down on Britain and God knows where else. How are we to explain to the British people that we were not prepared? Since 1938 we have had warning after warning, and all have been ignored. MI-Six, of which you speak so highly, Air Vice-Marshal, buried Major Memling’s reports because they sounded too far-fetched to be believed by his superior — who, I might add, read classics at Exeter College. This in spite of the fact that MI-Six received copies of a document delivered to our embassy in Oslo in September 1939 which outlined the entire Nazi military research programme. In addition, both Polish and Czech resistance groups have sent reams of wireless data bearing out what Major Memling has learned. And just this past spring MI-Six distributed the transcript of a conversation between Generals Thoma and Cruewell in the London Cage in which Thoma expressed surprise that London was not yet in ruins from rocket bombardment. He even described to General Cruewell the rocket launchings he had witnessed at a firing range in Germany!’

Simon-Benet glared around the table. ‘This man has risked his life twice now — no, three times — to bring us information concerning Germany’s rocket work, and so far his only thanks have been a questioning of his motives.’

* * *

Afterwards it seemed to Memling that no one’s mind had been changed even the slightest. All three proposals had been rejected completely, and he felt the meeting, like his mission in Germany, had been a waste of time and effort.

Sandys asked both him and Simon-Benet to remain after the others left, then disappeared with the brigadier, leaving Jan in the library. He was exhausted, but the tension engendered by the meeting would not leave him and he paced the room as the shadows deepened.