Vengeance 10

For the next half-hour they quizzed each other on their new identities. Memling’s new name was Walden Forst. Born twenty-eight years before in Herent, a small village near Louvain, he was an experienced quality control technician and had served in the Belgian army. His unit had surrendered at Namur in early May 1940. He had been released from a prison camp near Aachen a few months later, after having volunteered for labour service, and had been sent to work in a chemical factory near Bremen. A few weeks ago he had been selected for a highly technical position at Peenemunde and had accepted in return for a promise that his new wife could accompany him and a sizable increase in salary. He was now reporting for work after a two-week walking holiday-honeymoon.

Because of her distinct Pomeranian accent, Francine’s history had not been altered. She assured Memling that should anyone check, they would find that she had worked in the same chemical factory in Bremen and that they had married two weeks before in Wiescek, a fishing and farming village on the Greifswalder Boden. They were both Catholic, and the marriage had been performed in the parish church and duly recorded and witnessed. ‘You see,’ she said, laughing, ‘we really are married, even if you did not have a chance to say I do and promise to love, honour and obey me for ever.’

There was a shaded but concealed clearing in the fragrant trees, and it was mid-afternoon before the two of them reached Peenemunde village, hand in hand.

* * *

Jan Memling reported for work the following morning. They had registered the previous day with the elderly local constable at the Peenemunde village hall, and the man had assured him that, considering their long walk, tomorrow would be soon enough to visit the research centre’s security staff. He leered at Francine and plucked a pine needle from her hair. They had wandered through the small fishing village then, finding it much like other such villages along the Baltic coast — a single road fronting an old wooden quay, now quite dilapidated as the war made increasing demands on local labour.

The Zinns, a middle-aged couple of sour disposition, expected an outrageous rent, for which they would get an unfinished space in the attic, a rickety double bed, and two meagre meals per day. Memling wondered who had recruited these two grasping misers into the resistance.

It was obvious from the beginning that only greed had induced the Zinns to house them. The husband whined all the first evening about their losses, as they were now unable to rent the very desirable space in the attic to one of the wealthy scientists at the research centre. Finally, Francine could take no more and railed at the man and his wife in country German, threatening to report them both to the resistance. The two whispered together for the rest of the evening, clearly frightened.

Francine wakened Memling the following morning and went off to the kitchen to make certain that Frau Zinn had prepared a proper breakfast. As he sat on the edge of the lumpy bed, it occurred to him that his unexpected holiday was over and that it was time he returned to work. It took him a while to adjust to that fact.

Herr Zinn provided directions to the research centre, Frau Zinn handed him a tin pail containing lunch, and Francine kissed him goodbye. The good husband going off to work, Memling thought to himself.

As he trudged along the road in company with others converging on the installation he was surprised at the extent of the facility. Barbed wire seemed to run for ever, and through the pines he caught glimpses of the most modern buildings, lined up one after another. Security was thorough, if relaxed. His papers were examined at the main gate where the Luftwaffe guard gave him instructions and showed him on the map where to find the personnel offices.

By nine that morning he had been processed, fingerprinted, photographed, and assigned to a job as quality control technician in the Preproduction Works Building. The research centre, or what he could see of it, looked more like the American college campuses that he had seen in photographs. There were parklands and even a sports ground that would have done credit to any town in Europe. People — many in white laboratory coats and all, it seemed, with briefcases or clipboards — walked quickly, intently, from one building to another. Small special-purpose vehicles hauled canvas-shrouded equipment. There were bicycles everywhere but few guards.