Agent of Death (4 page)

In any case, the first wing must specifically bomb the U-boat pens, and one particular one, at that. They had to hit pen six.

‘Steady … left a bit,’ said the bomb aimer as the ground flowed past and the rectangular, camouflaged U-boat shelter slid into view, and edged under the cross-hairs of the bombsight. ‘Steady … and …
yes
!’ he cried, pushing his button. His job was done.

‘Wait!’ I said, ‘Everyone hang on like buggery.’ And … crack! ba-bang! came from beneath the aircraft as the SABS bombsight sent a signal to the single, heavy shackle holding the bomb in place, firing an explosive bolt that threw the two arms of the shackle out and up, against the sides of the fuselage.

Freed of the enormous load, L-for-Leather leapt six hundred violent feet straight up, wings groaning, the navigator cracking two teeth on his table, and the bomb aimer knocked, bloodied and scarred for life, by his own bombsight.

‘Come on Ellie!’ I cried, ‘Come on my sweetheart! Come on my precious, darling! Go on girl! Go like the clappers!’ and the bomber sped forward: freed, unburdened, light as a feather, swift as a hawk, and turned through the flak to head for home.

Meanwhile the enormous object of the exercise, freed from the Lancaster’s embrace, made its way downwards. It was twenty-five feet six inches long, from chrome-molybdenum steel nose to aluminium tail. It was three feet ten inches wide at maximum diameter. It was beautifully streamlined and had fins to make it spin. It was a
Grand
Slam
, ten-ton bomb, designed by Mr Barnes Wallace and made by Vickers Ltd at the River Don Works in Sheffield. It was the biggest bomb ever dropped in anger, and it took thirty-five seconds to reach the ground, by which time it was supersonic, and scored a direct hit on pen six, penetrating deep into the ‘bomb-proof’ concrete roof.

And there it rested, for ten, silent seconds while the fuses counted down.

CHAPTER 4

Headquarters
,
Besuboft
1
,

(
Besonder
-
U
-
Bootflotillestützpunktunt
Einz
),

South
of
Wilhelmshaven
,

The
Jade
Bight
,
Germany

Monday
15 May
,
13
.
45
local
time

Von Bloch, tall, grey, and dignified, closed the door behind him and glanced at the gold-on-black lettering painted on the door:
A
.
Svart
, it said;
Oberstgruppenführer
A.
Svart
,
SSA
. Von Bloch stood still a moment, thinking of the exceptional orders he had been given, and the complex reasoning behind them; reasoning that lesser men struggled to understand, because Svart’s mind was so vastly far above their own.

And now, Svart held the highest commissioned rank in the elite SSA –
Schutstaffel
Adler
– Eagle Unit SS, which had been formed for Svart to command, as the Reich’s foremost genius. So while it was partly as a soldier that Svart held authority, it was principally as an intellect, and even von Bloch – the
Freiherr
von Bloch, a Prussian Baron – always felt diminished when he left Svart’s presence. He felt dull and slow, as if his hopes were small, his ideals were lacking, and his wit was nothing compared with Svart’s dark humour which made men laugh even as they shuddered.

Nonetheless, Svart was the leader whom von Bloch had personally chosen to follow, and, conscious of the dozens of busy staff in the outer office, von Bloch straightened his back and put on his cap to set a good example to others. Then he found a telephone where he could speak without others listening. He dialled a number and in a wooden hut on the far side of the site, another telephone rang.

*

The hut was office, bedroom, and refuge from an impossible workload for a young officer with big, rough hands, who picked up the receiver.

‘Weber,’ he said.

‘Von Bloch,’ said the voice at the other end, and Weber leapt to his feet, knocking over the small wooden table bearing the remains of his lunch. He stood to attention and buttoned his black-and-silver uniform. He was an SS
standartenführer
, a colonel, with East Front decorations, but he was nervous. There was too much to do here, and no time to do it, and the ever-present risk of being found lacking, either in spirit or achievement.

‘Weber,’ said von Bloch, ‘we have received an air-raid alert from Luftwaffe Regional Control. A formation of four-motor enemy bombers is approaching. They will be over us in forty-five minutes.’ Weber listened to the elegant
Hoch
-
Deutsch
. Von Bloch had a beautiful voice, while Weber spoke street-Berlin from the beer-houses. He knew he should think himself as good as a Prussian nobleman, because in the Führer’s new world everyone was equal, but the sense of class inferiority niggled and nagged.

‘Yessir,’ said Weber, ‘but ain’t that the third alert in five days, sir? An’ all them others – them lot, sir – they all went to Bremen, didn’t they? P’raps these lot ain’t coming here, neither.’

‘Weber! Listen to me,’ said von Bloch, ‘I have just spoken to Herr Svart,’ he paused. ‘I don’t know if you have had that pleasure?’ Weber frowned. There was an implied disrespect, which was unthinkable because Svart was untouchable. He was personal wonder-boy to the Führer. Weber spoke carefully.

‘No, sir. I ain’t met the
Oberstgruppenführer
. Not personal, I mean.’

‘Then think yourself lucky,’ said von Bloch, and Weber realized that von Bloch wasn’t disrespectful. He was afraid. ‘Listen,’ said von Bloch, ‘Herr Svart says this attack is aimed at us. A formation of British Lancasters flying very slowly, which means a heavy bomb load.’

‘But, sir, this blockhouse has a roof eight metres thick, with bomb-catcher beams on top of that.’

‘I know. But Herr Svart says the Tommies have ten-thousand-kilo bombs designed for deep penetration into concrete. He says they can smash the pen and destroy the Führerboat. So you will get the boat out and under way.’

‘
What
? In forty-five minutes?’

‘Herr Svart says that when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor the American Battleship
Nevada
was got under way in forty-five minutes. He says we can do better than that, and you, my friend, must make it happen. Svart is going aboard at once, with the Mem Tav personnel. Your life is on it, Weber. Yours and mine. Do you understand?’

Weber understood. The Führerboat was not scheduled to go out for six weeks. But Weber ignored that. He had no imagination, but excelled at carrying out orders, and was a tremendous organizer. That was why he was a colonel at twenty-five. He dashed out, ran fifty metres across open ground, through steel doors, and into a deep tunnel entering the vast, concrete cavern that was pen six.

A man ran close behind him. Weber knew who it was without looking:
SS
-
sturmscharführer
, sergeant major, Zapp, who’d been alert in the next-door hut, and instantly fell in behind his master. Zapp was a thin, tough little man, with a wonderful knack for getting work out of subordinates. This was mainly because he’d been a champion lightweight boxer, but also because of his bad teeth and bad breath, which ensured that nobody liked Zapp shouting in his face at close range to enquire after jobs not done or done slowly.

Once inside the massive pen, Weber stopped and blinked at the countless floodlights converging in distant, perspective lines. But impressive as it was, the lair was nothing compared with the monster within, which gleamed in the floodlights with the oil-slicked water lapping its hull; the monster which was the biggest submarine in the world: the Führerboat.

Weber straightened his immaculate uniform, glanced at his gleaming boots, and marched forward, with Zapp following, saluted by Kriegsmarine and SS, and blank-faced slave workers in blue-white stripes. But he couldn’t help looking at the boat. It was bigger than a
Hipper
-class heavy cruiser, and contained everything ever learned about submarine warfare, plus AdlerKraft electronics from end to end. It had been designed as the Führer’s last hope: that he might continue the struggle against world Bolshevism from South America, taking senior party leaders and families, plus what was left of the Reich gold reserves and vast quantities of exquisitely forged US dollars and British pounds.

That had been the plan. But now there was Svart and his Mem Tav (whatever that was) and nobody argued with Svart, certainly not Weber as he grabbed the handrails and leapt up the clanging iron stairs to Kontrol – a glass-walled box suspended from the roof of the pen – where he sounded General Alert, gave orders over the loudspeakers, and brought his admin team together. That took seven and a half minutes, but by which time pen six was swarming with work, pumps were humming, generators roaring, and crates and stores were being coaxed down awkward hatches by skilled hands. There was much shouting and running, but all of it disciplined, and all of it purposeful. Weber looked on in pride.

‘Report!’ yelled Weber. His team stood in front of him. They replied in priority order.

‘Mem Tav team has embarked one attack unit, plus spares,’ said the first voice.

‘Can another be got aboard in time?’ said Weber.

‘No, Herr
Standartenführer
.’

‘Then we go with one.’ Weber turned to the next man.

‘Fuel tanks full, batteries charged, Herr
Standartenführer
.’

‘Good!’ he turned to the next.

‘Electronics eighty per cent ready, Herr
Standartenführer
.’

‘Do the boat’s crew need help?’

‘No, Herr
Standartenführer
. Except …’

‘Except what?’ said Weber

‘We found a radio transmitter, Herr
Standartenführer
, in Slave Block Two.’

‘So deal with it!’

‘I apologize, Herr
Standartenführer
, but we scheduled public executions for today, for fifteen hundred hours. The traitors are Jews. They were university men before we …’

‘
So
what
?’ said Weber, ‘What do I care about Jews?’

‘They’re part of the electronics team, Herr
Standartenführer
, they are needed to calibrate the computers.’

‘Ah,’ said Weber, understanding. It was the old problem. Jews were supposed to do the lowest possible work; the dirty work, the shameful work. But Jews were so clever. ‘I see,’ said Weber, ‘then put ’em on the boat. We’ll shoot them at sea when the job’s done.’

‘Yes, Herr
Standartenführer
!’

After that, Weber had little to do. The pen six team was practised, organized, and motivated, and the Führerboat’s heavy diesels were already pounding when the air-raid warning sounded at 14.30. By then, Weber was on the conning tower of the giant sub, standing beside
Kapitän
Sur
Zee
Helmut Sohler, the boat’s commander, and his officers of the watch. Sohler wasn’t yet thirty, but was a veteran submariner used to seeing his picture in the magazines and newsreels. He was a famous man, a film star.

Weber looked round. The conning tower was a thing of the future. Not the open platform of an ordinary submarine, crammed with jutting equipment, but slim and featureless, fully enclosed on top with just small, rectangular openings to port and starboard, where the watch keepers stood, heads barely showing above the steel. And there was no deck gun. Instead, the tower mounted twin thirty millimetre flak guns, fore and aft, in rounded turrets that merged into the smooth streamlining.

Sohler grinned at Weber. Sohler was delighted to be taking his wonderful vessel to sea, but Weber frowned. He disapproved of Sohler’s sea-going rig: Kriegsmarine cap over British battledress.
British
, for God’s sake! Great quantities of Tommy khaki had been captured at Dunkirk, and submariners loved them for their warmth, toughness, and buttoned-up neatness that left nothing to get snagged in a universe of jutting mechanism. But Sohler hadn’t even cut off the British insignia! He wore it as a joke: red shoulder-flashes bearing the words
Coldstream
Guards
in white. Weber shook his head and glanced at the smooth black of his SS uniform.

‘Cast off bow! Cast off stern! Cast off midships!’ cried Captain Sohler, yelling over the air-raid klaxon. Then he bent his head to the voice pipes, ‘All ahead, dead slow,’ he said, and turned to Weber and saluted, irritating Sohler still further because he didn’t raise the right arm, but put a hand to his cap, Kriegsmarine style. ‘Permission to open the pen, Herr
Standartenführer
?’

‘Go on. Quick!’ said Weber, aware that this was the last time Sohler would defer to him. Once under way, the naval officer was in command, or so he thought. Sohler turned instantly to the senior dockside officer.

‘Gates!’ cried Sohler, ‘Open ’em up!’ It was precisely forty-four minutes since Weber had been given his orders; water was foaming at the Führerboat’s stern, and the huge black mass was moving forward, the dockside crew cheering, the massive, three-metre-thick gates sliding open, the daylight shining in, and the sounds of the raid surging into the pen from outside: the
crump
-
crump
-
crump
of the flak batteries, the heavy drone of the enemy overhead; all the world was smiling proudly, and the boat was under way and the great task achieved, when ….

BOOOOM! Something hit the roof of pen six like the fist of God. Weber ducked. Sohler ducked. Everyone ducked. Then everyone looked up. Dust and a few fragments shook off from the roof above and settled down, and the floodlights swung, and that was it. Nothing more. Nothing for ten, silent seconds, during which everyone sighed with relief and straightened up and thanked the mighty thickness of concrete that the OT engineers had poured into the roof of pen six.

Then the universe reeled. The firmament shook. The gods wept. The sound of the explosion was colossal beyond imagination. The concussion dropped every living thing to its knees in piercing pain and sickening nausea, while a huge crack sprung from side to side of the pen roof and great chunks of concrete dropped with crushing, lethal force on to the dockside; falling into the waters and clanging and groaning on the hull of the slowly moving submarine. Sohler was up first.

‘Control room!’ he screamed down the voice pipe, ‘Full ahead all engines! Keep her going!’

CLANG-BANG! A mass of concrete glanced off the conning tower spattering sharp fragments into Sohler’s face.