Truman nodded as he listened to him and contemplated his words in silence for a full minute before speaking again. ‘If we were to do that - and of course, gentlemen, I am speaking completely hypothetically, as I’m sure we all have been - if we were to do that, we would be extending this war by how long, would you suppose?’
There were no answers.
‘A month? A year? Several years?’
Wallace watched the military men at the table shuffle uncomfortably. Years, that’s what they’re thinking.
‘In all honesty, this hypothetical debate has run its course. Our people are simply not ready to send their children into the meat grinder for another war. I think I understand the strategic thinking here, and perhaps we need to schedule a briefing to bring me up to date on postwar strategic issues concerning our Russian friends.’ Truman directed a firm look towards the generals grouped together at the far end of the conference table. ‘But right now this nation is tired, Europe is tired, the world is tired. Perhaps . . . perhaps if this atom bomb threat from Germany was a realistic possibility, this might have been an avenue for discussion. But for now I suggest we can treat this communication as nothing more than a futile attempt at a bluff.’
Truman turned to Donovan. ‘Have your man there, Wallace, put together a complete report on the Germans’ efforts to make one of these bombs. They may not have been able to make one, but I’d like to be sure they haven’t left something that the Russians can pick up and use, especially if they are likely to be a worry in the future.’
Donovan nodded and made a note.
Then the meeting was adjourned. Wallace watched as Truman dismissed them all, and they filed out of the conference room in an awkward silence.
Wallace’s eyes focused on Chris as his mind swiftly travelled sixty years back to the present.
‘Are you all right there?’ asked Chris.
Wallace smiled tiredly. ‘I’m just tired.’ He looked back down at the photographs he still held in his liver-spotted hands. ‘A bit of a shock seeing these, and, I’m on some pretty strong medication. It takes it out of you.’
‘So what is this all about?’ Chris asked, frustrated that the old man had yet to reveal anything that he hadn’t already known.
‘Are these all the pictures you have?’ Wallace asked, looking up from them and ignoring Chris’s question. ‘Some of them are not very clear.’
‘It was very muddy down there, but yeah, I’ve got others. I’m going to do another dive down there and see if I can get some better shots. But, of course, it would help if I knew what to get better shots of.’
‘Yes, I understand. But you need to be careful, Chris. Very careful. There could be people watching me, following me. I’ve been very careful, coming down to meet you, and I’m sure, for now, we are alone. But we do need to be discreet.’
‘What people?’ asked Chris.
Wallace put a finger to his lips. ‘Just be careful who you talk to for now.’
The old man looked down at his watch. It was nine o’clock.
‘I’m sorry, but I’m feeling pretty beat up and tired. I’ve done a lot of travelling today and I could do with some sleep. I think the excitement has taken it out of me.’
‘What? You can’t leave now!’ blurted Chris.
‘I’m sorry. I’m tired and I find it hard to concentrate these days when I’m tired. My mind isn’t as sharp as it once was.’
Chris looked at the old man’s face and noticed for the first time how pale and unwell he looked. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and he wobbled uncertainly as he pushed the chair back to stand up. Chris found himself instinctively helping him out of the chair and up onto his feet as if he were a dutiful grandson to the old man.
‘My legs get so stiff if I sit down for too long,’ he muttered in a voice that sounded weak and thin.
‘Well, can we meet tomorrow for breakfast then?’ Chris asked as he helped the old man into his windcheater.
‘Yes, yes of course. I should like to come out on the boat with you, if you’re planning on another dive . . . you know, to see where she went down.’
‘Okay, sure. I’ll organise that, but we can do breakfast tomorrow?’
‘Of course. I’ll be a little more with it, I hope,’ Wallace said with a worn smile.
‘So, where are you staying?’
‘I booked into a place just along up the street. A nice little place, Joe and Jan’s I think it’s called.’
Chris knew of it. It was a quaint boarding house with an old-style colonial porch on the front.
‘Okay then, Mr Wallace, I’ll come by and pick you up tomorrow morning and we’ll go and find somewhere quiet to have something cooked.’
Wallace nodded. ‘Don’t come knocking before nine o’clock.’
Chris would rather it be earlier. As it was, he was going to have a hard enough time waiting for the rest of his story.
‘Nine it is, then. Can I help you out -’
Wallace shook his head. ‘I’m fine, I’m fine. Just a little stiff and tired is all. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.’
Chris watched Wallace leave the bar. He noticed Wallace studying the street outside in both directions before finally shuffling out into the night. The old guy seemed genuinely twitchy. Chris wondered whether he should have warned him about the two men he had spotted down by the jetty, but then decided the old man looked anxious enough. Giving him something extra to worry about would probably finish him off, by the look of him.
‘Not a well man,’ Chris muttered.
Chapter 27
The Route
8 a.m., 28 April 1945, an airfield south of Stuttgart
‘So then, from Lyon I’d suggest we make sure we give Paris a wide berth, duck down and cross over, say . . .’ Max’s finger traced across the map, ‘just north of Limoges.’
‘Okay,’ said Stef, scribbling down the course direction from the previous waypoint.
‘You got that?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Max yawned and stretched in his seat, arching his tired back. His wrist smacked against the bulkhead as he stretched his arms. ‘Ouch, shit,’ he said, rubbing it. ‘There are so many damn edges and corners in this thing. I don’t know how many times I’ve clumped my head or knees against something.’
Stef grinned and pulled his ginger fringe back from his forehead to show a small scab. ‘I forgot to duck climbing up the ladder into the cockpit.’
‘You idiot,’ laughed Pieter.
Max leaned forward once more to study the maps. ‘It’s basically a dog’s leg. South, out of Germany into Swiss airspace, and then a shallow north-westerly climb across France. What’s the total distance?’
Stef flattened the map out and measured the distance along the sequence of waypoints he’d plotted across the map.
‘About eleven hundred and sixty miles in total to Nantes.’
‘And we’re talking another four thousand and five hundred across the sea. That’s five thousand, six hundred and sixty miles all in,’ said Max.
‘We should tell Major Rall six thousand miles,’ said Pieter.
‘Agreed . . . let’s have a healthy margin.’
Max noted the figure and would inform the Major later on how much capacity the extra tanks inside the bomber would need to have.
‘Over France, we’ll fly at close to ceiling, then once we’re out to sea, we should take her down to about ten thousand to conserve fuel.’
‘All right,’ said Pieter. The Atlantic would be his part of the flight.
Max looked at both of them. ‘All right? That’s the route, then. I’ll take it over to Rall for him to look over. I’m sure he’ll be happy to give this his approval.’ He looked at his watch. It was gone one o’clock in the morning. The Major would be awake still and keen to get this information.
‘I’m going to piss off, get some sleep, I’m all in,’ said Pieter yawning.
Max nodded. ‘Fine, go get some rest. We’re doing another practice flight to
night.’
Pieter stood up and climbed forward through the bulkhead out of the navigator’s compartment.
Stef began inking in the waypoint headings on the map, tidily circling the clusters of numbers on the map and labelling each pocket of information with a waypoint number. He was a tidy, efficient navigator.
‘Good work, Stef.’
The lad looked up and smiled. ‘Thanks, sir.’
His gaze lingered on Max, as if there was something more he wanted to say.
‘What’s up?’ he said to the boy.
Stef put down his pen. ‘I was wondering, sir, do you ever get nervous? It’s just that you never seem to be worried or scared, you know, before a sortie.’
If only.
Every man felt it as the time ticked away, and Max knew he was no exception to that rule. The growing sense of dread, those pre-battle nerves, it affected them all . . . just in different ways. Some men it made feel nauseous, others terribly thirsty. Many of the men he’d commanded in KG-301 suffered a desperate need to shit just before the planes were ready to leave the ground; some of his men had even confessed to feeling sexually aroused just before it was time to go.
Fear really did seem to have a plethora of ways of expressing itself.
With a little knowledge of anthropology, one could explain away most of these symptoms of extreme stress as the body’s way of clearing the decks and preparing itself for danger. Nausea? - The body discouraging the ingestion of bulky food that might slow it down, or hamper its performance. Thirst? - A dry mouth was the body asking for water, hoarding it ready to be consumed after a burst of extreme physical exertion. Defecation? - The body ensuring that unnecessary body weight was quickly jettisoned.
Sexual arousal? - That was an odd one.
Max had a suspicion that it was the body’s desperate plea to procreate one final time, an attempt at some basic level of instinct to ensure the bloodline continued.
All of these stress-symptoms made sense. They were emergency systems designed to ready the human body to fight, flee or face death. Once upon a time, when men had fought with clubs and rocks, those stress-responses must have been invaluable. But war now wasn’t about brute strength, or swiftness of foot. It had much more to do with concentration and patience. And none of these damned symptoms helped at all.
They were made all the worse if there was nothing to do to fill in that dwindling time until zero hour. So he was thankful that for all of them there had been plenty to take care of and plenty more that needed doing in the next couple of days.
Do I get nervous? he asked himself.
More than he would ever let the others know.
‘A little bit, maybe, Stef.’
‘Oh. You never seem to look it, sir.’
Max smiled. If only you knew.
‘We’re going to be in good hands, thanks to Schröder and his men. We’re flying a tough old plane, we’re flying in secrecy and we’re heading somewhere nobody expects us to go. The wind’s in our favour, Stef. We’ll do just fine.’
‘Yes, I suppose you’re right,’ replied Stef.
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself, lad. It’s good to be a little jittery, just enough to keep you alert, keep your wits about you.’ Max slapped his back. ‘You’ve done us proud over the last year and you’ll do just as well tomorrow night.’
Chapter 28
On the Move
11 a.m., 28 April 1945, a suburb in Stuttgart
Schenkelmann found the diffuse glare of the thinly overcast morning almost unbearable after months of living by lamplight below ground. His eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the brightness even though he’d been toiling in the daylight for ten minutes now. The little back street he had seen fleetingly all those months ago when they had dragged him into the building under the railway bridge and down below into the cellar did not seem to have taken any bomb damage, it looked unchanged.
He could hear the thudding of artillery shells landing nearby, or perhaps it was bombardment from above, and the sporadic crack of gunfire echoing off the empty streets.
‘Hurry up, damn it!’ said Hauser, looking up and down the cobbled back street, fear flickering across his narrow face.
Schenkelmann and his two lab assistants had nearly finished loading the weapon components into the back of the truck, where half a dozen of the SS Leibstandarte that Hitler himself had assigned to protect Hauser and the bomb sat guarding the odd-looking collection of crated items.
The U-235 mass and the two U-235 bullets had been carefully transported to the truck separately, but the altimeter trigger was the part of the bomb that needed some degree of protection from the bumping and shaking that lay ahead. This frugile component was in for a turbulent ride as the truck picked its way over cratered roads to get out of the city. The altimeter was carefully padded in a wooden crate filled with coarse sawdust. The detonators for the two U-235 bullets were also packed away in two separate caskets, safely away from the rest of the bomb.
Schenkelmann slowly finished off sealing one of the caskets, taking his time under the bored gaze of the men in the truck. As he finished up and climbed back out of the truck, he looked around. There was no sign of Zsophia and his mother. Hauser had promised they would be brought along with him when the bomb was to be moved.
A crack of rifle fire sounded nearby, its echo rattled off the stone arches running down one side of the back street. It sounded like it had come from nearby, from behind the furniture workshop that faced the bridge and cast a long squat shadow over the cobbles. Or perhaps it was closer?
Schenkelmann smiled at the obvious discomfort Hauser was experiencing. He resumed the task of packing the second detonator, slowly.
‘Hurry up!’ Hauser shouted, his nerves beginning to fray.
How close are they? A hundred yards away? Fifty yards away?
Hauser gave an order to two of his SS men to torch the cellar. They had drums of gasoline and immediately jogged into the building and started sloshing the liquid down the stairs into the lab below.
Schenkelmann lifted the casket into the back of the truck, taking his time to place it securely on the floor. Hauser was becoming aware that he was stalling for time.
‘Right, that’ll do, now get out of the truck.’
Schenkelmann made his way cautiously past the components of the bomb to the open back of the truck and eased himself down. He looked around again, still no sign of them. ‘W-where are my sister and mother?’
Hauser smiled. ‘Don’t worry about them, Joseph, you’ll be together soon. You’ve worked hard for me, and I assure you they’re fine.’
‘I want to see them.’
‘And you will, but first things first.’
There was the sound of a dull ‘whump’, and they could immediately smell burning. The two SS guards who had been sent down to set the place on fire emerged with their hands over their mouths. They were followed by the first wisps of smoke curling up the steps and out of the corrugated metal doorway.
‘Why -?’
‘Why are we destroying the lab? Because, Joseph, we’re certainly not going to let the Americans have it now, are we?’
Americans? It’s American guns I’m hearing, not Russian. Thank God.
Schenkelmann felt a desperate surge of hope that the nightmare was nearly over. In the next street, possibly only hailing distance away, lay his salvation. Perhaps they might just capture the bomb before it was moved . . . capture Hauser before he got away . . . find his mother and sister, and reunite them all. Today it could all be over.
If they were alive still. Hauser should have brought them along, they should be here.
‘Dr Hauser, w-where are they?’ he asked.
The German smirked like a child about to play a spiteful prank. ‘Where are they, eh? Well let me tell -’
Schenkelmann cut him off with a desperate outburst. ‘Please . . . I have given you everything, worked hard, please -’
‘Oh, do shut up,’ Hauser snapped, annoyed that he
had been rudely interrupted.
Gunfire again. This time much closer. Schenkelmann cast a glance down the cobbled street.
I could call out, the Americans might hear me.
Hauser looked uneasily at his men.
‘We should go now, Doctor,’ called out one of the SS guards, leaning out of the back of the truck.
‘Yes . . . yes, you’re right,’ he replied, and turned towards the officer in charge of the platoon of regular Wehrmacht soldiers who were going to be left behind to watch that the laboratory was properly destroyed.
‘Bösch.’ Hauser nodded to the Feldwebel and his men. ‘You know what to do. Get on with it, then.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the soldier answered with a gravelly voice.
He grabbed both the lab assistants by the arms and pulled them towards the corrugated metal wall of the archway. He let go of their arms and walked back a few feet.
‘What is going on, Dr Hauser?’ Rüd asked in a voice that was breaking with a dawning sense of dread. The technician had realised all too late that they were to be purged along with the lab.
‘I’m sorry, gentlemen. I can’t allow either of you to fall into enemy hands. However, I want to thank you for your diligence over the past few months,’ Hauser said with an ill-placed smile. He nodded at Bösch.
The Feldwebel unshouldered his machine gun and, without a moment’s delay, fired the entire clip at both men.
Hauser’s face flickered with excitement at the sight of the two technicians as they collapsed to the ground; one of them drummed his feet noisily against the base of the corrugated metal door in a post-mortem spasm.
‘Give me your gun,’ he said. Bösch passed Hauser his weapon.
‘And now, about your family, Joseph,’ said Hauser, walking menacingly towards Schenkelmann, pointing the gun at him.
‘You wanted to be with them again, didn’t you?’ He placed a hand on Schenkelmann’s shoulder, squeezing it, caressing it.