Part 19 (1/2)

'At ease.' He faced Forrester, treating her as the senior officer in the room for the first time in a week. The admiral was smiling for the first time that Reed could recall. It suited Kendrick's lined face, giving it the air of a benevolent monarch. There was none of the weariness, none of the resignation that had weighed so heavily on him before. When he spoke, it had the ring of a royal proclamation.

'Captain, three hours ago I took your sterling work to the War Cabinet. It has convinced them. Tonight, Bomber Command will target Granville and the adjoining airfield. We'll blow Hartung, Steinmann and their superbomber right off the face of the Earth.'

Roz s.h.i.+fted in her seat as she spoke. 'But, sir, the reason that has never been done before is the danger to the French civilian population. Where next, Guernsey?'

There was no remorse in Kendrick's green eyes. 'The stakes are high. Captain Forrester, I understand your concerns, but if we don't take this action now then the whole course of the war will change. The sacrifice is necessary.'

Something about his answer nagged at Roz's mind.

G.o.ddess! He hadn't batted an eyelid when she'd mentioned Guernsey. She dare not accuse him here and now, but instinctively she knew that the War Cabinet had discussed the bombing of Guernsey if this raid wasn't a success. They They were going to bomb their own people were going to bomb their own people.

'Sir,' Reed began, 'there may be some evidence to suggest that there isn't a superbomber. We've found out what Hugin and Munin are.' He explained what they had discovered. Thought and Memory. A pair of birds that fly invisibly around the world. 'That doesn't sound like a short-range heavy bomber, sir.' Why was Reed agreeing with her now?

His conscience. Like her, Reed could picture the French civilians dying needlessly.

Kendrick considered the new information for a moment.

No, they don't sound like bombers. But Hartung is still working from Granville. Destroying the town will destroy Hugin and Munin, too, whatever they are.'

'Sir, Granville is a civilian target,' Reed said forcefully.

'Lieutenant, this is total war. There are no civilian targets.' More quietly, 'George, I sympathize, but there is too much at stake.'

'I strongly recommend, sir, that we don't go ahead with the raid until we know precisely what we are dealing with,'

Roz declared.

'My dear, the planes took off twenty minutes ago. They'll be in France in less than a quarter of an hour. An hour from now, Granville will have been removed from the map. After that, there will be nothing left of Hartung except... thought and memory.'

'That was impressive even for you, Doctor. You persuaded that man that you were a nun nun, of all things. That was the worst acting performance I have ever seen, and you got away with it!'

The Doctor gave a twirl, his borrowed habit spinning joyfully around him. He was almost certainly the least convincing nun the world had ever seen. 'Clothes maketh a man, Chris. Or woman. Think of it this way what's easier to believe: that I am a nun, or that I'm a man pretending to be a nun? The human mind has a great capacity to ignore things that make life difficult for it. It much prefers to turn a blind eye, say it's someone else's problem, or that it's nothing to do with - ' The Doctor stopped in his tracks, his head c.o.c.ked to one side.

'What's the matter...?' Chris began, but the Doctor ignored him. They were right in the middle of Granville's town square shortly before the curfew was due to begin, not a good place to stand around, especially in fancy dress. Chris tugged at the sleeve of the Doctor's habit, but before Chris could speak again, the air-raid sirens had started. Slightly higher in pitch than those in Britain, but unmistakable.

Searchlights began probing the evening sky. In the distance, further up the coast, antiaircraft guns were firing. The Doctor grabbed Chris's arm.

'It's the yellow alert. We haven't much time.'

The first bombs dropped in the harbour. The sea wall was breached, and over a dozen small boats were destroyed, along with a handful of storage sheds. At the same time, another plane attacked the coastal road, rendering a mile-long stretch impa.s.sable. British aerial reconnaissance had been focusing on the Granville area for some weeks, at the request of the SID. As a result, the RAF knew exactly which bridges to hit to cause maximum disruption to German damage control teams.

The main purpose of this first wave was to mark out targets more clearly. Flares were dropped in key areas, drifting down to the ground underneath their own miniature parachutes. Decoy flares were also dropped to cause confusion. A pair of larger targets, Granville's two pumping stations, were bombed, cutting off the town's water supplies.

A bomb hit Granville's main fire station, but failed to go off. It hardly mattered, as the (mostly French) firemen were all huddled deep underneath the building, in their shelters.

As yet there had been no casualties. This changed when a fuel storage area on the outskirts of the town was. .h.i.t, killing thirty soldiers stationed there. A chain reaction started, with each of the fuel tanks exploding in turn. The fire burned for three days. In the centre of Granville, the RAF missed the telephone exchange with their first three efforts, the bombs exploding in nearby residential areas. The fourth attack was successful. It took the Germans ten minutes to restore communications with the outside world.

'The church bells won't stop ringing. What does that mean?'

Chris asked.

'It means that the spire has been hit and the bell-ringing mechanism has been damaged,' the Doctor answered prosaically.

They had been on high ground when the fuel dump had exploded. From this distance - three miles, perhaps four - the string of explosions had been spectacular, an incredible display of air power. The earth pounded with each blast.

Night was falling, but a new sun had risen in the east, and the whole town was lit by the firelight. Cwej could hear the jangling bells of fire tenders making their way across town.

Chris glanced over at the Doctor. The little man was fascinated by the events unfurling beneath them, apparently oblivious to any danger they might be in. A couple of miles further up the coast to the north, there was a long, reverberating crash.

'The airfield,' said the Doctor.

'The British don't know about it,' Chris observed.

'Not the camouflaged one, the normal one. They probably think that Hartung is there.' There was a series of distant explosions from the direction the Doctor was looking.

'Perhaps he is. Or was.'

Isolated points on the landscape below them began to flare.

'They're beginning to target the town itself. There are only two searchlights for the whole of Granville. As far as I can tell, there are only three antiaircraft batteries.'

'Without the searchlights, they'd be firing blind. Looks like the good guys will win this one.'

'The RAF have the advantage, certainly,' the Doctor said dryly. 'We need to get down there, try to find a clue to Hartung's whereabouts.'

A small group of bombers had separated from the main party five minutes before the start of the attack, while the squadrons were still over the English Channel. At the airfield, the first reports of the attack on the harbour were being radioed in. Fighter crews were scrambled, but the RAF bombers arrived seconds before the pilots reached their planes. Not a single fighter was launched, and both runways were carpet-bombed. Over two dozen trained Luftwaffe pilots and a whole squadron of Messerschmitt fighters were caught in the explosions.