Page 44 of V2

Away to the south, above the rooftops, Graf could see the British planes – four of them again – coming in from the sea, plunging in line almost vertically. The howl of the high-performance engines cut through every other sound. Glittering lines of tracer fire waved against the clouds. He noticed that a couple of other planes had appeared in the sky above the Jabos. It was curiously remote and unthreatening, like watching flies buzzing around. The heavy thud of exploding bombs carried over the pounding of ack-ack fire. The hotel windows rattled. Again Graf found himself counting the detonations – eight in all.

Biwack said, ‘Shouldn’t we get to the shelter?’

‘No need,’ said Huber. ‘They’ve dropped their bombs.’

‘How do you know there won’t be more?’

‘Because they hunt in packs of four and it’s obviously the launch sites they’re after. They have no interest in the town, or they’d have bombed it by now. But do go down to the cellar if you wish, my dear Sturmscharführer. I’m going to my office.’

The colonel turned and strode into the hotel, followed by Drexler and a smirking Klein. After a brief hesitation, Biwack went with them. Graf lingered on the pavement for a moment, reluctant to tear himself away. He could still hear the drone of the planes even though they were no longer visible. The flak and the anti-aircraft from the batteries continued to pound away, but only sporadically. Once again his mind went back to Femke and her meagre collection of debris. It seemed unlikely she had a direct connection to any of this. But what did he know? Perhaps it was the resistance, passing intelligence to the British? He felt suddenly uneasy, complicit.

The colonel’s office was on the ground floor at the back of the hotel, and by the time Graf reached it, Huber was already seated at his desk, talking on the telephone. Behind him was a framed photograph of the Führer in a grey tunic with his arms folded, staring moodily off-camera. Graf couldn’t remember seeing it before. He wondered if it had been hung for Biwack’s benefit. Drexler was also on the telephone, at a corner desk. A couple of junior officers had come up from the shelter. Biwack was studying a large-scale map of The Hague that showed the positions of the regiment’s launch sites – with the locations they had used in the past marked with green pins and those in current use marked with red – from the Hook of Holland and Loosduinen in the west, all the way along the coast to Scheveningen, the Haagse Bos and Wassenaar, a strip of more than twenty kilometres.

‘Yes, yes,’ Huber was saying. ‘Good. Understood. Call me when you have more information.’ He hung up and went over to the map. ‘Well, it seems we were lucky again. Seidel says the bombs hit the woods here, at Duinrell.’ He tapped his finger on the map. ‘That’s about a kilometre from our launch positions. What the devil are they playing at?’

Biwack said, ‘Isn’t it obvious? They must be receiving intelligence from the local population.’

‘Well, if they are, it’s not very good intelligence! We’ve never launched from Duinrell.’

Drexler put down his receiver. ‘One of our SS patrols has picked up a kid in the woods nearby. Claims to be the son of a farmer. They’re bringing him in for questioning.’

Huber grunted. ‘You think he’s responsible? A farmer’s son? It doesn’t seem likely.’

‘He was in the restricted zone.’

The colonel’s telephone rang. One of the staff officers moved quickly to answer it. He listened for a moment, then came to attention. ‘Yes, Herr Gruppenführer. I’ll put him on at once.’ He held out the phone to Huber. ‘It’s Gruppenführer Kammler, Colonel.’

The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. Huber regarded the receiver as if he were being offered a hand grenade with the pin removed. He tugged down on the hem of his tunic to straighten it, walked over to his desk and sat. He took the receiver and covered the mouthpiece.

‘Will you all leave the room, please?’ He waited until they had filed out. From the passage, Graf heard him say, ‘Yes, my Gruppenführer, it’s Huber here,’ and then the staff officer pulled the door shut after them. Klein gave Graf a grim look and passed his finger across his throat.

They wandered into the lobby. Klein flung himself down into an armchair and lit a cigarette. Graf took the chair next to him. He wasn’t sure what he was doing there. The two SS men went into the corner and stood in quiet conversation.

Graf said, ‘What does this all mean, do you think?’ He didn’t know Klein as well as he did the others, although he recognised his type – the mechanic, more at home with engines than people. He was said to be popular with his men.

‘Nothing good.’ Klein contemplated the end of his cigarette. ‘You know Kammler?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then you know that anything is possible. Did you ever hear the story of what happened to the regiment at Rijs?’

‘No.’

Klein switched his gaze from the cigarette tip to Graf, and took a moment before he spoke. ‘We were stationed there for about three weeks, while the fighting was going on at Arnhem. Kammler had pulled us out of The Hague, in case the Allies took it, which meant the rockets couldn’t reach London any more, so he told us to fire at eastern England instead. When he decided it was safe for us to come back, he said he was worried our security had been compromised in Rijs, because the local people had seen what we were doing.’ He stopped, frowned. ‘You’re sure you haven’t heard this before? I thought everybody knew it.’

Graf shook his head.

Klein glanced over at Biwack and Drexler, then he leaned forward, and said quietly, ‘Kammler ordered the colonel to round up every civilian in the area – that’s about five hundred people – and shoot them. His exact words were “Your men must finally learn to see blood flowing.” ’

‘Good God! What did Huber do?’

‘He ignored the order. We pulled out that night and came here under cover of darkness. The following day, the RAF hit the woods at Rijs. So maybe we were betrayed by the locals – who knows?’

‘Did Kammler ever say anything?’

‘Not a word, as far as I know. He probably just forgot all about it – you know how he is, leaping from one crazy impulse to another. But anyway, that’s why the colonel gets a bit jumpy around the SS, and our friend from the NSFO in particular.’

Graf looked over at Biwack. He was still conferring with Drexler, wagging his finger to make a point. Klein suddenly stubbed out his cigarette and gestured with his head. Huber had appeared in the passage. They both got to their feet.