Swan bent down and stroked the dog, while Ross showed her the ring. The woman clutched at Janet’s wrist. ‘That’s beautiful dear. Congratulations.’ She then looked down at the flowers next to the plaque. ‘Oh, I remember that day, as if it was yesterday. All those poor people on that bus,’ she commented. ‘Did you lose someone close, dears?’
‘My mother was on the bus. She was a nurse at the Royal Herbert, and was on her way to work when the missile struck,’ replied Swan.
The woman looked at him sadly, and clutched his arm. ‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that dear. Those terrible Nazis. I lost my husband to them at Tobruk in 1941. Still, they’re all gone now, apart from that Von Braun chap on the telly, who helped the Americans put those men on the Moon. You wouldn’t believe that would you dears?’
Swan smiled admirably, mocking astonishment.
She continued, ‘Anyway, we have to try and forgive and forget, don’t we dears? At least all those Nazis are gone now, so they can’t harm us anymore, can they? Look at the one, the Israelis got in Uruguay, this summer. He was quite famous, he was.’
Swan suddenly recalled about the abduction of the unknown former Nazi, the Israelis now had in captivity. When questioned by the press, as to who it could possibly be, the government spokesman had boasted it to be someone of the highest importance; they would of course, eventually reveal who it was, but only because a trial would be forthcoming.
‘No, they can’t harm us anymore,’ repeated Swan, reassuringly,
The woman sighed. ‘Well, I wish you both lots of happy years together, my dears.’ She looked down at her dog. ‘Come along, Sam.’ She walked away, pulling her dog on his lead, leaving them to their private celebration.
They both laughed. ‘If only she knew,’ said Swan, as he helped his new fiancé over the small concrete wall. They crossed the road and walked back into the hotel entrance. Swan looked at his watch. ‘Looks as though we’re just in time for lunch.’ He took Janet’s hand, and led her to the restaurant.
Acknowledgements
This piece of fiction would not have been possible without the aid of extensive research from various sources. Too many to mention them all, as well as the wealth of free on-line resources available, I found the use of a number of titles invaluable in obtaining the accurate accounts of the featured space vehicles, namely Britain’s Black Arrow, NASA’s Saturn V and the N1 Moon Rocket of the former Soviet Union’s N-114.
Regards to the information on Black Arrow and the Highdown test site at the Needles New Battery, I can thoroughly recommend the book Backroom Boys: The Secret Return of the Boffin, by Francis Spufford. His thoroughly entertaining book was literally my guidebook when working on the sections that featured Black Arrow and the Isle of Wight tests and I only hope that I have managed to portray at least some of the antics of the Highdown team.
I would also like to mention Craig Nelson’s Rocket Men, a remarkable biography of the first men on the Moon, which was full of wonderful snippets for me to play with, as I attempted the technical accuracy of this wonderful achievement in engineering, against all the odds.
I visited museums to see some of the featured scientific marvels close-up, the final Black Arrow, R-4 can be found suspended from the ceiling of the Space Hall in The Science Museum in London, simulating the release of the Prospero satellite, which since its successful launch from R-3 in 1971, still circles our planet in its low orbit. Finally, now in the hands of the National Trust, the derelict Highdown site itself, with an exhibition on the rocket tests and some very helpful and knowledgeable staff can be visited on certain times of the year.