The bomb damage was appalling. Whole blocks had been destroyed and cleared away to leave gaping holes in the line of buildings. For some reason he had not noticed before how ragged the city had become. Shops, however, were open, and the streets crowded, particularly with children, who seemed to have filtered back in spite of the government’s efforts to keep them in the countryside. It rained steadily, but the air was warm and he didn’t mind. No one paid attention to his shabby clothing and run-down shoes; he looked more or less like the majority of Londoners around him, except that most men his age were in uniform.
As he started up Gray’s Inn Road a teenage girl darted up, thrust a white feather at him, and disappeared, giggling, into the crowd. An elderly woman clucked and turned away as he stared after the girl, too outraged even to swear. Suddenly all the frustration, all the fear and misery he had endured for so long, crashed upon him. People stared with mixed expressions at the tall no-longer-young man dressed in shabby civilian clothing swaying on the kerb; most thought him drunk.
The block of flats on Montague Street seemed unchanged; the unpleasant image of an earlier homecoming had been in his mind the past few days. The flat was locked and, as he expected, Janet was out, probably still at work. Memling considered going across to Red Lion Square and reporting in, then decided against it. Tomorrow was soon enough, and he was exhausted. He sat down on the top step and leaned against the banister. It was four-thirty, and Janet wouldn’t be home until after six. He closed his eyes, seeing the foolish little girl with her bunch of white feathers and no idea in her silly head except to… to… To what? he wondered. They were about the same age, that silly girl and Francine. The futility angered him all over again before he realised that he was canonising her. Francine was no different from that girl with the feathers. She too had considered it all a great game, until it had killed her.
So much had happened since he left that it might have been someone else who lived here. The memory of his terror was rapidly being sublimated as events of the past month receded. He did not understand them and doubted he ever would. Nor did he understand himself or the fear which infected him, and of which he was ashamed. He knew he would never be able to discuss it with anyone, not even Janet.
He forced his mind away from that line of introspection as he had done so many times in the past, and thought about the strides the Germans were making in rocketry. My God, he breathed, as the wonder of it struck him again. A rocket powerful enough to reach the moon! It was incredible, but the thrill died abruptly when he remembered that a rocket that powerful could also deliver thirty metric tons of explosive on London in one blow.
Any sympathy, any understanding, any liking for the Peenemunde personnel, had evaporated with the girl’s murder. The scientists may have had nothing to do with her killing, but they had acquiesced in it by tolerating the sadists infesting the SS and the Gestapo. And he knew with fierce pleasure that even though there had already been one bombing raid, there would be many more when he made his report. The fact that massive enemy rockets existed could no longer be ignored.
Janet found him two hours later when she came up the steps searching her handbag for her keys. He was sound asleep against the banister. In the dark she took him for someone who had wandered in out of the rain in search of shelter. But after turning on the hall light, she sat down abruptly, confused and conflicting thoughts swirling through her mind. She studied his face, wondering at the deep lines carved in the forehead and cheeks and the streaks of grey above the temples. He is too young, she protested silently. Too young! She knew then that she would neither give him up nor let him go again.
Franz Bethwig stared at the yellow telegram sheet.
REGRET STANDARTENFÜHRER EDGAR ULLMAN, NO. 3254678, KILLED IN ACTION, EASTERN FRONT.
He crumpled the flimsy sheet, dropped it in the wastebasket, and left the administration building. The day was exceptionally hot and still. A storm was brewing, but Bethwig was oblivious to his surroundings. He went along the paths leading to the beach, wanting only to be by himself. People scurried past, so many that their faces did not even register. Once he had known everyone on the island, including the military guards.
