Vengeance 10

The meeting had been as stormy as the day outside, and Brigadier Oliver Simon-Benet fumed as he and Captain Jan Memling hurried along the road to their car. Jan opened the door and stepped back, but the brigadier, who held the umbrella, motioned him in impatiently. As the staff car, an American Buick — Memling still did not understand how Simon-Benet had acquired it — edged into traffic the brigadier swore and shoved the folded umbrella into its holder as if bayoneting his worst enemy.

‘Damn, I suppose they’re right. One more overflight at low level and the Germans are certain to know we’re on to them. But we do need those data! Isn’t there anything more CIU can do?’ he demanded plaintively.

Memling shook his head, ‘I’ve been over it a dozen times with them. Perhaps if the weather had been better….’ He shook his head, recalling the grainy, underexposed pictures that were all the photorecon aircraft, at the very limits of their fuel supply, had been able to obtain. ‘Unless your people on the ground can obtain the information, I am afraid we will have to go on what we now have.’

The brigadier muttered to himself, then said, ‘Nothing there, I am afraid. The AK people say their only contacts inside Peenemunde are with low-level labourers.’ He fell silent, staring out at the rain-sodden streets. May has been nothing more than a month of rain, he thought, all across Europe. But they had to have that data. Without specific and precise co-ordinates for the important test sites and facilities, Bomber Command could never hope to destroy the Peenemunde research centre. It was just too huge. He glanced at Memling sitting beside him, likewise staring out at the rain. He had been considering this solution for some time now but had not wanted to broach it until every conceivable avenue had been explored.

‘Jan,’ he began abruptly. ‘We need to send someone in. Someone who has the training to understand what he’s seeing. Will you go?’

For just an instant Memling thought he might vomit. He breathed slowly through his nose at the same time tightening his diaphragm to control the gag reflex. Ah, Christ, he thought, to go back again? He couldn’t do it, but even as the thought was formulated he knew he had no other choice. Janet was right, he had done more than his share. But that was an excuse no one would ever accept, particularly the brigadier.

Simon-Benet grunted in satisfaction at his nod of acceptance.

Passage at Arms

Germany August 1943

The blackness was absolute until he tugged back his sleeve and the radium dial of his watch glowed like a hundred-watt bulb. Three and a half hours since take-off. Jan Memling groaned and shifted position in the cramped confines of the Mosquito’s bomb bay. His legs were numb, and his back ached. The space, according to his sadistic instructor, was no larger than the famous medieval torture chamber in which you could neither sit up nor lie down at full length.

Memling shifted again and tugged on the parachute harness until the offending buckle came away from his spine. He started to curse, but gave it up, having already run through his entire vocabulary several times, and looked at the watch again. Twenty- five minutes. Of a sudden, that damnable surge of fear slashed through his chest. After two years’ active service in the Royal Marine Commandos he thought he was finished with that pervasive terror. My God, he wondered, why did I never experience it in combat? Why now? Why always in situations where I must operate on my own? Memling found that he was starting to hyperventilate, and he struggled to hold his breath; then as he began to think coherently he pinched the oxygen tube shut and squeezed the rubber bulb to force carbon dioxide back into the mask. After a few moments his heart stopped fluttering and his breathing evened. This was always the worst part, the anticipation. Yet Memling also knew from experience that the fear would continue, growing more intense, until he was safely out — or dead. It did no good telling himself he hadn’t wanted this mission; no one ever did.

‘Are you comfortable, old man?’ The pilot’s voice rattled in his earphones, startling him. Memling swore and the pilot laughed. ‘Ten minutes will see us passing south of Greifswald. Five minutes more will put us north of Wolgast and into your drop area.’

Memling acknowledged. At least the painful — physically and mentally — three months of training were behind. Coupled with an almost overpowering fear of going back into German territory was his growing estrangement from Janet, so that he had boarded the aircraft at Church-Fenton almost with a sense of relief.