`By all means do. But I doubt if that will get us anywhere. Even if General Gubbins can be persuaded that I am in telepathic communication with a man hundreds of miles from England, and is willing to send an aircraft to collect this stuff, I couldn't tell him where to send it. I've only the vaguest idea where this place is. It can't be many miles from Ostroleka, where Malacou had his house; I'm sure of that. And the cottage is situated near a stretch of broad very winding river from which tributaries make forks some miles on either side of the cottage. But there are any number of rivers in that part of Poland and I couldn't possibly describe it well enough for a pilot to identify.'
`But you… No.' Sir Pellinore hastily hauled himself to his feet. `Forget it, Gregory. Odds are it's all moonshine.'
`It's not moonshine,' Gregory replied uneasily. 'And I'll not be allowed to forget it. I'm certain of that. As sure as God made little apples Malacou will be coming through to me again and urging me to think of some way of getting those bits of mechanism to England.'
His prediction proved right. That night Malacou ceaselessly bombarded Gregory with his thoughts. He declared that the prize the Poles had secured was invaluable. His friend the engineer had managed to get away with the whole works and now knew how the rockets functioned. It was imperative that an aircraft be sent to pick him up and fly him with the mechanism to England. Then the rockets could also be made in Britain and Hitler would derive no overwhelming advantage by having sole possession of his secret weapon. The nearest village to the cottage was Rbzan, and westward from it there ran a long stretch of good straight road along which there was never any traffic at night; so an aircraft could land on it. Gregory had only to let him know the night the aircraft would come in and they would be waiting for it. Three-quarters of an hour would be enough to load the stuff on to the 'plane. In that desolate area the risk of the Germans arriving on the scene while they were doing so was negligible. The aircraft could then take off again for England.
In the morning, still tired after his restless night and far from happy, Gregory telephoned the War Room to say he had an urgent matter to deal with so would not be in till midday. Then he went to Sir Pellinore. They had a lengthy talk, at the end of which with a heavy sigh the elderly Baronet rang up General Gubbins. Half an hour later, in Sir Pellinore's Rolls, they drove to Baker Street.
The little General, dapper as ever in the Bedford Cord riding breeches and well-polished field boots he affected, listened noncommittally to what they had to say, then he said:
`Of course telepathy has been scientifically proved, so it's pointless to argue about that; although I find it very difficult to believe that it could. be maintained between two people continuously and over such a great distance. Frankly, I'd turn this proposition down flat had it to do with anything other than the rocket. But to find means of protecting ourselves from that is now an all-time high priority.
`It's not only London we have to think of; though God knows the results it may have here are too ghastly to contemplate. It's the invasion ports as well. Monty is blazing off thousands of rounds every day. If the ports that are supplying him with shells and hundreds of other items could be rendered unusable, even for a week, he would be a dead duck. The beach-head he is holding is still narrow enough in all conscience and deprived of ammunition he could not possibly stop the Boche from driving his whole Army back into the Channel.
`In view of all that is at stake. I'd be prepared to send an aircraft on a sortie to the moon if there were the least chance of its bringing back information which might scotch these hellish rockets. The devil of it is, though, that we have no down-to-earth means of communicating with these people. Since we can't arrange with them to put out recognition signals and be ready to receive our aircraft on a certain night, there can be no hope of such an operation succeeding. No pilot could even find the place.'
`No,' Gregory agreed heavily, `but given moonlight I'm certain I could tell the pilot where to land; and it happens to be my bad luck that I am the only person capable of making the necessary arrangements with Malacou. I swore I'd never again set foot on German-held territory until the war was over, but on those two counts I see no alternative. I'll have to guide the pilot in and pick up the mechanism of the rocket myself.'
14
The Best-laid Schemes of Mice and Men…
WHEN they began to discuss the operation the first thing Gregory learned was that he would have to make the flight from Brindisi in Italy. There was not much difference in the actual distance flying east from Suffolk or north from Brindisi to central. Poland; but the, latter route was preferable because an aircraft taking it ran less risk of encountering flak or enemy night fighters. All operations for dropping arms and supplies to Resistance groups in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia; as well as northern Italy which was still held by the enemy, were carried out by special squadrons under the command of Air Marshal Sir William Elliot, C.-in-C. Adriatic, whose headquarters were at Bari.
For there to bee any chance at all of this hazardous operation succeeding it would be necessary to undertake it on a night when reasonable weather over Poland could be predicted and during the period of maximum moonlight which, that month, ran from the 23rd to the 29th. So it was agreed that Gregory should leave England on the 21st. Sir Pellinore telephoned Brigadier Jacob and arranged that Gregory should be relieved of his duties in the Cabinet War Room right away, then he telephoned Erika and asked her to come down to London on the afternoon train.
When they left General Gubbins's office Gregory went straight down to Gloucester Road, told the faithful Rudd that he was off on his travels again, then packed a bag and took a taxi up to Carlton House Terrace. Erika joined him that evening and when he broke the news to her about his new mission she did her best to hide her distress. He endeavoured to reassure her by stressing the fact that aircraft sent on such missions nearly always returned safely; and that, apart from the flight, he would be in danger only for an hour or so while picking up the parts of the V.2, and should be back in England within ten days of setting off. So during the next three days they did their best to forget this new peril he was about to face.
But that was far from easy, as he had to spend long periods endeavouring to secure from Malacou more precise information about the situation of the cottage and make arrangements with him for the landing.
After several such sessions… Gregory was as satisfied as he could be in the circumstances. The cottage lay about twelve miles to the north-east of a fair-sized town named Pultusk, and this, together with the conformation of the rivers, should enable him to identify the second-class road from Rozan on which the aircraft was to land, provided there was a fair degree of moonlight… But the arrangements for the pick-up had to be left distinctly vague.
Although the road was hardly ever used at night, owing to the sabotage operations carried out by the Poles, S.D. men on motor-cycles patrolled a main road that was not far distant to the west; so to put out flares to guide the aircraft in would entail much too great a risk. Moreover, as Gregory could not specify the night on which the landing was to be made until shortly before the aircraft took off, at such short notice it would not be possible to muster a number of Polish partisans to help carry the heavy cases containing the rocket mechanism from the cottage to the 'plane, but between them they should be able to do the job in an hour at most; and on every evening from the 23rd Malacou would keep his mind free to receive a message from Gregory that he was on his way.