General Gale had landed without accident and, achieving complete surprise, had secured the two bridges that were his principal objective. That night Gregory listened with Sir Pellinore to one of the finest broadcasts delivered in the war. It was given by the King and in well-informed circles it was known that His Majesty had written every word of it himself. Then they drank a health to George VI and Richard the First.
D- Day and its terrible hazards were, at last, over; but the war was still a long way from being won, and a week later it entered a new phase. On the night of June 12th/13th the first pilot less aircraft descended on London. As had been anticipated its warhead was no bigger than an average-sized bomb; so, after the first excitement, the public proceeded to settle down and grin and bear this new affliction; although they proved to be disconcerting things, as they had a nasty habit of suddenly turning round and coming down in a place where they were not expected. But a high proportion of them were prevented from reaching London by fighter aircraft, Ack-ack and the balloon barrages. The foremost thought in most people's minds was still joy that the invasion had at last taken place, and that 'Monty' was now safely established in Normandy with a bridgehead deep enough for there to be little fear that our men would be driven back into the sea. So the general feeling was that the buzz-bombs were only a temporary annoyance which might soon be brought to an end by the Germans throwing in their hand.
Throughout June Malacou's communications to Gregory continued, and he soon became aware that the occultist's thoughts were now mainly engaged by a new interest. The Polish engineer was a member of the Underground and the cottage in which they were living was on the new experimental range being used to test the giant rockets. The firing point for the rockets was a good twenty miles away from the cottage so most of them sailed high overhead, but now and again one came down prematurely and fell in the marshes.
The Pole was the leader of a group spread widely over the countryside and its members spent some of their time making notes of the number of rockets fired, how many of them were duds and where those duds fell. But the group had no wireless or any other means of communicating their information to London, as they had started up independently and were not in touch with the main Polish Underground. In addition to charting the rockets they went out at night and committed various acts of sabotage, such as tearing up sections of railway line and destroying small bridges. To aid these exploits Malacou was again busy with his astrological studies in order to be able to predict for his new friends the most favourable nights for them to undertake their clandestine activities.
Sir Pellinore had now come to the conclusion that as Gregory was obviously sane there must be a genuine foundation for the telepathic communication he was receiving; and when Gregory told him about the Pole's plotting of the rockets he was greatly interested. The anxiety about them in high quarters, far from dying down, had considerably increased. Thousands of tents were being manufactured to house the refugees who would be driven out of London and great dumps of medical stores and tinned food were being accumulated secretly at various places in the Home Counties. Plans were being made to deceive the public who were not in the immediate area of the first mighty explosion as to its cause, so that they should not panic, and arrangements were being made for the immediate evacuation of hospitals, children and pregnant mothers in the Metropolitan area.
By early July public morale was beginning to decline again. The V. 1's were starting to get on people's nerves and the destruction caused by them had become considerable. Moreover, matters were not going anything like as well in France as had been expected. Most fortunately, the Deception Plans were continuing to function admirably. By the creation of a mock army in Kent, and other measures, Hitler continued to be convinced that the Normandy landings were only a feint, and that the main assault against his Fortress Europa was due to be launched at any moment across the narrows into the Pas de Calais. In consequence, he flatly refused the pleas of his Generals to allow the Armoured Divisions there to be brought south against the Normandy beach-head.
Yet, in spite of this, Montgomery was making no progress. He had informed the Chiefs of Staff that his object was to draw the Germans down on the positions he held and then destroy them. But it had been expected that a month after their landing the Allies would be well into France and, possibly, across the Seine. So far he had not even captured Caen; and to those who had originally planned it, the Second Front was proving a grievous disappointment.
On July 16th Gregory was on day duty, so he went to bed in his flat at his normal hour, which was about eleven o'clock. But he found that he could neither concentrate on his book nor, when he put out the light, get to sleep, because Malacou was in a great state of excitement and his thoughts were coming through with exceptional clarity.
In addition to keeping a careful record of the performance of the rockets, the Polish Resistance leader had been seeking to get at and examine one of them. To do so was far from easy; because, whenever there were firing trials, the Germans stationed little squads of their men over many square miles of the marshland and when a rocket came down prematurely their job was to locate and dismantle it as soon as possible.
Two days ago a rocket had gone wild and fallen miles away from the marshes, on the bank of the river Bug. No German patrol had been anywhere near and some Poles had rolled the rocket down the bank into the river; so that when the Germans reached the locality they had failed to find it. The previous night the Poles had retrieved the rocket from the river and hidden it among the reeds, then sent word to the engineer who was living with Malacou. That night he had gone off to join them and they were now working like demons to dismantle the tail of the rocket, which contained its mechanism. Malacou meanwhile was still in his cottage and a prey to fearful anxiety lest the Germans should catch the Pole and his companions either while working on it or, still worse, when they brought the pieces they secured to his dwelling, where they intended to hide them in the woodshed.
Eventually Gregory dropped off to sleep, but he woke next morning with the knowledge that the job had been completed without mishap and that the Polish engineer was now in possession of a complete set of the parts that made the rocket work.
After lunch that day Gregory walked across the Horse Guards and looked in on Sir Pellinore. When he retailed what he believed to have happened the elderly Baronet's blue eyes popped. Jerking forward in his chair he slapped a long leg encased in a pin-striped trouser with a mighty thud and cried:
`By Jove! If only we could get hold of those bits and pieces! Might be the saving' of London! I was talking' to Lindemann the other day. Seems we're working on a device now that'll explode shells and bombs in mid-air. What these science wizards will get up to next, God knows. Still, the Prof. says it's perfectly possible. Got to make one box of tricks to set off the other, though. But if the boffins knew how these rockets worked we might blow 'em up while they were still sailing' over mid-Channel.'
`If that's so,' Gregory said, `we ought to do our utmost to collect the mechanism that this Polish engineer has secured. And, of course, to let us have it is the reason he risked his neck to get it. But how we could set about that I don't see.'
`I do,' replied Sir Pellinore promptly. `Our bombers haven't the range to reach Poland. But lighter aircraft fitted with extra fuel tanks can. S.O.E. are sending one or two in every week now to drop supplies for the Polish Underground. I'll have a talk with Gubbie about this.'