According to the records of the London County Council, six people were killed by what became known as ‘the Warwick Court rocket’ and another 292 were injured, most of them caught in Chancery Lane by flying debris. The dead included Vicki Fraser, a nurse aged thirty; Irene Berti, a nineteen-year-old secretary in a barrister’s office; and Frank Burroughs, sixty-five, a heating engineer. The few photographs passed for publication by the censors show firemen’s ladders stretching up into a wrecked building, the top floors of which have entirely collapsed, and a strange, short, gaunt man in his fifties, wearing a black overcoat and homburg, squeezing between the heaps of wreckage. He was a doctor who had happened to be passing and who volunteered to climb up into the unstable ruin, and he was the man who, after five minutes of her frantic appeals, came up the ladder and followed Kay and the rescue workers into the flat.
As they entered the bedroom, the doctor politely removed his hat as if he were making a routine house call, and asked quietly, in a Scottish accent, ‘What’s his name?’
‘Mike,’ she said. ‘Mike Templeton.’ And then she added, because she wanted them to treat him with respect, ‘Air Commodore Templeton.’
The doctor went over to the bed. ‘Right, sir, can you feel your legs?’
One of the firemen said, ‘You should get out now, missus. We’ll take it from here.’
‘What about the gas?’
‘We’ve shut off the main.’
‘I’d rather stay.’
‘No chance, sorry. You’ve done your bit.’
Another fireman took her by the arm. ‘Come on, love. Don’t argue. This place could collapse.’
Mike called out, ‘It’s fine, Kay. Do as they say.’
The doctor turned round. ‘I’ll see he’s all right, Mrs Templeton.’
Mrs Templeton! She had forgotten that she wasn’t supposed to be here.
‘Of course. I’m sorry. I understand.’
She was halfway to the door when Mike called to her again. ‘You’d better take your case.’
She had forgotten all about it. It was still on the ottoman at the foot of the bed, covered in dust and plaster, mute evidence of their infidelity. He must have been lying there worrying about it. She brushed off the debris, fastened the catches and followed the fireman out to the front door. He stepped onto the first rung of the ladder, took the valise and threw it down to someone below; then he descended another couple of rungs, held out his hands and beckoned her to follow. She had to shut her eyes as the ladder bent and swayed beneath their combined weight. His hands were hard around her waist. ‘Come on, love, you can do it.’ Slowly, pausing on each step, they descended. Just as they reached the bottom rung, she fainted.
She came round to find a nurse kneeling in front of her, holding her chin and dabbing iodine on her temple. She moaned and tried to pull away. The grip tightened slightly. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart. Keep still. Nearly done.’ Something sharp was digging into her back, and when the nurse was finished and she was able to turn her head, she found she was propped up against the rear wheel of the fire engine. Two more ladders had been run up against the bombed-out building, and three men in steel helmets were standing in a row at the top, steadying a stretcher that was being lowered down to them by half a dozen firemen. The nurse followed her gaze. ‘Is that one yours?’
‘I think so.’
‘Come on then.’
She held out her hand and pulled Kay to her feet. She put her arm round her shoulder as they stood at the foot of the ladder.
The stretcher came down slowly, the men shouting to one another to keep it steady. She recognised him by the curliness of his black hair. They had wrapped him in a blanket. As he reached the ground, he turned and saw her. His face was drawn with pain, but somehow he managed to pull his hand out from under the blanket and give her a weak thumbs-up. She took his hand in both of hers.
He said, ‘Was it a V2?’
She nodded.
He smiled faintly. ‘That’s bloody funny.’
Kay turned to the nurse. ‘Where are they taking him?’
‘Barts. You can go with him if you want.’
‘I’d like that.’
He pulled his hand away. His expression was suddenly remote, as if she were a stranger. He stared up at the sky. ‘Better not,’ he said.
3
THEY STOOD UNDER A DRIPPING fir tree, Graf smoking a cigarette, Biwack with his notebook open. Graf had wanted to return to Scheveningen straight after the launch, but Biwack had insisted on seeing how the regiment worked. They watched as half a dozen members of the firing crew cleared the launch site, rolling up the electrical cables and collapsing the mast. The firing platform itself was a round, squat, stout metal frame not much bigger than a coffee table, the same circumference as the V2, mounted on hydraulic legs, with a pyramid-shaped blast deflector in the centre.
‘How heavy is that?’
‘About a ton and a half.’
The crew dragged over a two-wheel trailer and manoeuvred it underneath the platform. They worked quickly, without talking much, to minimise the time they risked being exposed to enemy aircraft. Somewhere in the wood a tank engine cracked into life, coughing up pulses of dirty brown exhaust smoke, and slowly a half-track armoured car struggled up out of the ground.
‘What’s that?’
‘The firing control vehicle. It’s dug in during the launch.’
The half-track lumbered through the undergrowth towards them, and stopped with its engine idling while the firing platform was hitched to its tow plate. Then the men climbed up onto the mudguards and clung to the armoured shell. The engine revved and they moved off. Within a minute they had gone. Apart from the faint lingering smell of burned fuel and the odd scorch mark on the surrounding trees, there was nothing to show that a missile had ever been launched.
Biwack seemed as impressed by this as he had been by the rocket itself. ‘That’s all there is to it? My God, you really can fire this thing from anywhere!’
‘Yes, as long as the ground is flat and firm enough. The corner of a parking lot or a school playground would do.’ A year ago, Graf had never imagined they might be able to fire the rocket so easily. But then he hadn’t thought they might be able to mass-manufacture the V2s in their thousands either. The appalling ingenuity of it all was a constant surprise.
‘It must be wonderful for you,’ said Biwack, ‘to see something you have worked on since you were sixteen finally turned into a weapon to protect the Fatherland.’
It seemed such an oddly loaded remark that Graf darted a look at him, but Biwack’s face was expressionless. ‘Naturally.’ He finished his cigarette, dropped it onto the forest floor and crushed it out with his shoe. ‘Now we should get back.’
They had barely gone fifty metres along the road when they heard the rumble of the half-track returning, its engine whining as if in panic. It reversed around the curve at speed, without its clinging passengers, and braked hard. The side door was flung open and the sergeant in charge of the firing platoon – Schenk, a veteran from the Eastern Front, who had lost both ears to frostbite – stuck his head out. ‘Dr Graf, there’s an emergency at site seventy-three. Lieutenant Seidel wants you right away.’