Page 15 of V2

There was another pause. The air commodore said smoothly, ‘Les, why don’t you and the section officer go on up? I’ll follow at my own speed. Second-floor conference room, next to my office.’

Kay was conscious of the click of her heels on the patterned marble floor, of the other woman’s eyes drilling into her back. For some reason she had always pictured her as older. Clearly he had a type. How many more of us are there? She felt as if her knees would give way. When she reached the staircase, she had to grab onto the handrail to make sure she didn’t fall. She hauled herself up after Starr, who was striding ahead, taking the stairs two at a time. On the second-floor landing, he didn’t stop to wait for her.

Halfway along the corridor, a door was open. She could hear men’s voices. He paused on the threshold and gave her a look. ‘A car accident? Really?’

‘What do you mean, sir?’

‘Oh dear.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘You’re not the first and I’m afraid you won’t be the last.’ He put his hand around her waist and steered her into the room. ‘Ladies first.’

Everything was a blur to her now. A large wood-panelled room with a carpet and a fireplace at one end. Half a dozen airmen in uniform around a table, most of them smoking, faces turning to stare as she came in. A large map of south-east England and the Low Countries mounted on an easel beside the fireplace, Greater London dotted with red pins. She took a seat in the corner, as far away from the rest as she could, and placed the file of photographs in front of her. Everyone knew Starr. There was a lot of ‘Hello, Les’, ‘How are you, old chap?’ and handshakes as he went round the table. He didn’t introduce her. After a couple of minutes, the tap of crutches could be heard getting louder along the passage, and Air Commodore Templeton swung himself into the room, followed by a young flight lieutenant carrying a folder. Everyone stood.

‘Thank you. Sit.’ He handed the crutches to his aide, took the folder, and lowered himself, wincing with the effort, into his chair at the head of the table. ‘And before we go any further: yes, I was caught by the rocket round the corner yesterday morning; no, I’m not badly hurt; and yes, this has suddenly got bloody personal.’

There was a release of nervous laughter.

‘So,’ he opened the folder, ‘the Secretary of State has been telephoned this afternoon by the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary, and he has in turn telephoned me to ask me to give him something he can tell the Cabinet tomorrow in the light of the increase in V2 activity over the past couple of days. I need some facts, and above all I need some recommendations for action. This is an informal meeting: no minutes, no names, nothing for the record, therefore no need to protect any backs, yours or anyone else’s – got it? Good. Jim, why don’t you bring us up to date?’

He sat back stiffly in his chair and lit a cigarette. Through the screen of smoke, he stared down the table at Kay. She caught his eye briefly and he looked away. One of the officers rose and stood in front of the map.

‘Right, sir, I think it’s fair to say we were all rather lulled into a false sense of security in October, when the parachute landings at Arnhem forced the Germans to pull the V2 launchers temporarily out of the area around The Hague. That put London out of range of the rockets, and all they could do was fire missiles at Norfolk, to little or no effect. Unfortunately, when Operation Market Garden failed, they were able to reoccupy the coastal strip here’ – he gestured to the map – ‘at the end of October, and as a result November has been the worst month by far.’ He opened his file. ‘We recorded a total of twelve V2s hitting Greater London in the first week of November, rising to thirty-five in the second week, twenty-seven in the third week, and so far we’re looking at about forty for this week.

‘Just to give you some idea of casualties over the past seven days: we had nine killed in East Ham in one incident on Monday; twenty dead on Tuesday in Walthamstow, Erith and Battersea; twenty-four dead in Bethnal Green on Wednesday, plus another six in Chislehurst about fifty minutes later; two dead on Thursday; nineteen dead on Friday; and then, unfortunately, yesterday – the worst incident so far – a hundred and sixty dead in Deptford, and another seven elsewhere. We’re still getting information about today, but so far it’s more than a dozen killed.’

A square-faced officer with thick black eyebrows raised his hand. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Jim, but if we’re speaking frankly, and at the risk of sounding like a brute, at Bomber Command we’re probably killing ten times as many Germans as all of that in a single night. In strictly military terms the rockets are a bloody nuisance, but they’re not going to be a decisive factor in the war.’

Templeton said, ‘That may be true. But any day now, one of those things could hit the Houses of Parliament or Buckingham Palace or Number Ten Downing Street and we’re powerless to stop them. We can’t just tell people to grin and put up with it. They’ve had enough.’

‘Yes,’ continued the officer at the map, ‘we did have an airburst above the Houses of Parliament on Sunday evening two weeks ago – that caused a panic at Victoria station. And the other side to this, sir, apart from the casualties, is homelessness. Because the missiles hit so fast, they create craters up to thirty feet deep and the blast damage can be pretty devastating for an entire neighbourhood.’

‘How many buildings have been damaged so far, do we have any idea?’

‘About five thousand houses have either been destroyed or will have to be demolished, sir. In total, about a hundred and fifty thousand buildings have been damaged.’

A murmur went round the table. He returned to his seat.

Templeton said, ‘Have we really not been able to lay a finger on these bastards at all? How many sorties have we flown in the last couple of days?’

‘The weather’s kept us grounded for forty-eight hours, sir,’ said one of the other officers. ‘We did put up four Spitfires from Coltishall this morning.’ He stood in front of the map. ‘They crossed the coast here, at Egmond, turned south and flew down the Dutch coast to the Hook of Holland. Unfortunately, the cloud base was three thousand feet. Even when they dropped to two and a half thousand, there was still too much mist to see anything. As soon as they went back up to twenty thousand – sod’s law – they saw a V2 rising straight up through the clouds, but of course’ – he gestured helplessly – ‘they had no idea where exactly it had come from.’

Jim said, ‘What time was that, do you know?’

‘Around ten thirty.’

He consulted his papers. ‘Must have been the one that hit Rainham.’

‘If they’re firing forty a week, surely we should be able to locate at least one of these damned launch sites? Les?’

Starr said, ‘It’s not for want of trying, sir. I’ve brought along some of the coverage of the area, just to give you an idea of what we’re up against.’

He nodded to Kay. She stood and went around the table, distributing the photographs. Mike took his without even glancing at her. She resumed her place, watched him studying the image, frowning, irritated, turning it this way and that. He ought to wear his glasses but he would never put them on. He hated to be reminded of the poor eyesight that had ended his flying career.

Starr said, ‘It’s very difficult, sir.’

‘Sure, I can see it’s difficult. Everything’s difficult. Even so, this has to rank as one of the greatest failures of photographic intelligence of the entire war.’

Starr flushed. His mouth flapped open. ‘I can assure you we’re working on it day and night, sir.’ He looked around in desperation. ‘Section Officer Caton-Walsh has been going back over the coverage to see if anything was missed. Kay, you can confirm that this presents us with unique difficulty?’

She was aware of all the men turning to look at her. She was so surprised to be asked to speak, she didn’t have time to feel nervous. ‘Yes, sir. I believe it wasn’t until late September, when the V2 testing range at Blizna in Poland was liberated by the Russians, that we discovered the rocket requires an area of only twenty square feet to launch from. That’s about half the size of this table. It’s impossible for us to find something that small if it’s hidden in trees.’