The men knew their job. Their questions were apposite and exhaustive. It went on for quite a time. We answered all we could and they seemed satisfied with our replies.
The Captain told them all they asked and kept to the point. Not until they appeared to have finished did he put a question of his own.
'Can't you tell us something about it?' he said. 'We've only heard that the Excelsis fell and did damage somewhere in Germany.'
For answer one of the interrogators picked up a newspaper which had recently been brought in and handed it to him. The First Officer and I got up and read it over his shoulder. The headline was right across the page:
'ROCKET SHIP WRECKS TOWN'
There followed a short but lurid account. It needed only half an eye to see that it had been hurriedly written up from very scanty information.
We learned that the disaster had occurred in Pfaffheim, Würtemburg, shortly before 12.30 p.m. (11.30 a.m. G.M.T.). A series of colossal explosions had occurred, rocking the whole town, shattering a number of buildings and causing the collapse of many more. So great had been the detonation that it had startled citizens in Stuttgart, 40 miles away. No figures of the dead and injured were yet available, but it was feared that they would run into thousands. The loss of life might have been greater but for the fact that most workers had left the factories for their mid-day meal.
Numerous witnesses had testified to seeing a rocket ship un-braked by any parachutes falling rapidly into the town immediately before the explosions occurred. Inquiries at the Salvage Register Office revealed that only one ship was known to be approaching Earth in a free fall, the Excelsis. It was unlikely, in the extreme, that there could be another.
We read the sketchy and unsatisfactory account rapidly. I don't think any of us doubted for a moment that it was the Excelsis. The Central Office would have been sure to know of another ship in a similar condition, for it is in every salvage ship's interest to register her claim to a wreck as soon as possible. But, for all that, we did not clearly understand the account.
'A series of explosions?' asked the Captain, looking up at the three officials. 'What do they mean by that? If there had been explosives on her she'd have gone up in one mighty bang.'
'Where is Pfaffheim?' asked Sinderton, before the others could answer. 'I thought I knew Würtemburg fairly well, but I've never heard of the place.'
'Our own official notification from Germany speaks of one explosion not a series,' said the man who had given us the newspaper. 'As for Pfaffheim―.' He reached for a gazetteer, found the right page and pushed it across the desk.
He watched us with raised eyebrows as we read:
Pfaffheim: Village, Würtemburg, river Jagar, 30 miles S.E, Stuttgart, pop. 2,100. Agricultural.
'There seem,' I said, 'to be some differences of opinion here. One explosion, not a series, 30 miles from Stuttgart, not 40, thousands of casualties in a population of 2,100, among factory workers in an agricultural district.'
I looked at the date on the gazetteer. It was current all right.
'Well?' I asked.
Our leading questioner shrugged his shoulders.
'It appears certain enough that the Excelsis fell there and that one or more explosions followed. Further than that, well, I frankly don't understand at present. There is more than the usual first report inaccuracy, but we ought to be able to clear it up before long.
'You gentlemen will have to appear before a magistrate, of course, but I think you may safely assume that there will be no difficulty about bail.'
He was quite right about that. There was a special and expeditious handling of our charge, and we were able to return to our families that evening. Sinderton went home, I know, with the same feeling as I did: that a day or two would see the whole mistaken business satisfactorily explained. But Captain Belford—well, perhaps he had a naturally more suspicious mind than we had, or it may have been some kind of premonition.
So far, the public had no interest in the affair. The reports were, of course, in all the evening papers, but even in those days nobody paid serious attention to an evening paper's headlines. So it can be said that the Belford affair, as it came to be known, really started the next day, with such introductions as:
'TREASURE SHIP WIPES OUT TOWN'
'GOLD ROCKET DESTROYS THOUSANDS'
'DEATH SHIP DROPS IN CITY'
The last was particularly effective on the contents bills; it left it to the readers to find out that the city referred to was not the City of London.
I bought several papers and read them carefully without learning much. They were all on much the same lines as yesterday's report. Pfaffheim was still taken to be a town of several thousands of working-class inhabitants, though a single explosion, not a series, was now reported. All reports still bore an appearance of being written up from meagre information. Nevertheless, in spite of its slender knowledge, The Radiogram seized the opportunity for improving the occasion with a leader in which it demanded a public inquiry and more than hinted at inefficiency and carelessness in the handling of salvage.
I read it through. It was in its usual vituperative style. I could not take it very seriously, and I did not suppose anyone else would. Who was going to believe that rather than open a few fuel-cocks we were going to run the risk of almost certainly losing our salvage money? Fuel is valuable, of course, but apart from anything else it must be obvious to everyone that the extra weight of full tanks would inevitably have torn the Excelsis free from her cables and crashed her.
I was still skimming the various accounts when the telephone rang and a voice told me that the D.A.C. of the Special Branch would be pleased to see me if I would step along about 12 o'clock. There are several ways of being invited to Scotland Yard. This one was perfectly amiable.
Captain Belford and Sinderton were already there when I was shown in. The D.A.C. and his secretary were the only others this time. The three were bending over a photograph on the desk. The D.A.C. pointed to it, and I looked more closely.
It showed a rocket-ship lying on her side. In the foreground and far into the background was a scene of desolation and utter destruction. Here and there were deep craters; the only vestiges of buildings were piles of bricks and rubble. The vista suggested a vast, dreary rubbish dump.
The angle at which the picture was taken showed that one side at least of the ship had been badly gashed and battered. Nevertheless, to those as well acquainted with her as we were, it was not difficult to recognise the old Excelsis.
While I was still looking at it, the Captain straightened up.
'What does this mean?' he asked the D.A.C.
The policeman took a cigarette and pushed across the box.
'As far as we can see it means quite a lot. I'm not sure how much yet, but I shall be surprised if it doesn't spell trouble of some kind.'
He offered us chairs.
'Perhaps the best aspect of it,' he went on, 'is that it will clear you gentlemen of the charge of negligence. It's perfectly obvious that if the Excelsis had been in fuel when she hit there wouldn't be a plate or a rivet of her to be found—but here she is, only a bit battered. No, it may be more serious than that.'
'Well, what did happen? Let's have it,' said the Captain.
The D.A.C. was not to be hurried.
'Since you were here we've been in touch with the Secret Service and learned quite a few interesting things. The chief one is that Pfaffheim ceased to be an agricultural village about two years ago. What you've done is to drop your Excelsis right into the centre of a new thriving and extremely hush-hush centre of explosives manufacture. As a result, you've achieved the destruction of five or six factories, wiped out an unknown number of storage depots, and utterly wrecked innumerable buildings. Furthermore, you have caused the sudden departure to Valhalla of several high officials, dozens of skilled chemists, to say nothing of between three and four thousand employees. That is what happened. And I may add that the authorities over there are very annoyed about it.'