The Lucy Ghosts

BOOK ONE BEFORE TODAY

They were still at Peenemünde, burning the pile of papers, when that last act of attrition, a V1 doodlebug rocket, was hurled at London, launched from the belly of a Heinkel bomber over the North Sea.

The few scientists left at Peenemünde, seven of them, knew nothing of this. Nor did they appreciate that for all their efforts to turn the tide of the war back in Germany's favour, no more rockets could be launched because there was no more fuel; the supply had simply dried up.

In truth, their attention was elsewhere. It was directed towards the sounds of gunfire from the Polish border only a few miles to the east.

When they saw the first flashes of exploding shells spark across the sky no more than twenty miles from their position, many of them decided to leave the testing site and make their way to Berlin, to the safety of the capital.

They knew the War was over.

If they were to surrender, then it was the Americans to whom they must turn. The Russians were to be avoided at all costs, they were barbarians who would exact a most cruel revenge.

The sky flash visions and nightmare sounds of battle from the east meant the Red Army was getting closer. Peenemünde must be abandoned to its own fate, the rocket test pads and launch structures weren't important any longer.

Before they departed in the last truck, they piled up the secret files they had taken from General Walter Dornberger's offices, doused the paper stack in petrol and set fire to it. Dornberger, the head of the rocket section, had long since left the site and was already surrendering to the Americans with his brightest aide, the twenty one year old Werner Von Braun.

The papers this young group of scientists were burning were not the secret technical data that they had meticulously prepared and worked on these past few years. That had already been taken by the senior officers as insurance for their safety in the hands of the Americans. The turncoats of war had turned, loyalty no more than a commodity on the open market like beans or a bar of chocolate.

These documents actually related to the foreign work imported to Peenemünde. The Poles, the Czechs, the other Slavs… and the Jews. It was a slave force, transported in its thousands to this god-forsaken northern peninsula. This place which was a technical triumph for the Germans, became a death curse for its workers.

'Get the truck started!' said the senior administrator, a man in his early twenties called Grob Mitzer.

One of the others, the most junior of the scientists, rushed over to the truck and started the engine. He watched the remainder of the group through the side window. They all stood around the blazing fire, some still throwing piles of documents on the pyre, others mesmerized by the leaping flames that were the final reminder of their failure.

'Damn the politicians!' said Mitzer.

'Damn Hitler!' said the scientist, Heinrich Spiedal, next to him.

'No. It wasn't him, Heinrich. He did what was right for Germany. It was the others. The politicians and the Generals. The clever arses. That fat pig Goering and his kind. Those bastards let him down.'

'He's right, Heinrich. They let him down.' It was Albert Goodenache who now joined the discussion. 'Christ, they're all running for cover now. Did you hear that Martin Boorman was seen just over the border with Russian soldiers?'

'When?' asked Spiedal.

'The other day. You remember that group of nurses that came through on their way to Rostock?'

Spiedal nodded.

'One of them saw him. Some General's daughter. She'd met him before.'

'She said it was Boorman?'

'So she said. And he wasn't even under guard. Just sat in the back of some staff car on his way east.'

'I don't believe it.'

'I'm just telling you what she said.'

'The big wigs are O.K. But what do we do now?'

'Start again,' said the administrator. That was Grob Mitzer's duty and his strength. At twenty one he was the architect of order amongst the unbridled enthusiasm of the young rocket scientists. His nature was to close one file and immediately open another. 'As we did after the Great War. Like the Fuhrer said, this is a thousand year war, that's all. Never forget'

A sudden burst of gunfire in the distance rattled them into sudden activity.

'Time to go,' said Mitzer. He turned and shouted at the others. 'Come on, everybody. Into the truck. Before it's too late. Albert, Heinrich, get in the front with me.'

The group, startled by the ferocity of the latest explosions, ran towards the truck, their faces lit up by the blazing fire and the redness of the erupting sky.

'That's near Swinoujscie,' someone shouted. 'They must have crossed the border.'

'Come on, come on,' urged Mitzer. 'Let's get going.'

He followed the group of hurrying scientists and stood behind them as they climbed into the back of the truck, an unmarked grey Army vehicle which had been used for transporting the work force to the site from their wooden slatted huts the other side of the sand dunes. There were no seats, only a slatted wooden floor on which the scientists stood, holding themselves upright on the bowed metal cross members that were supports for a canvas tarpaulin that had long since been lost.

When the last of the group had climbed on, Mitzer swung the tailgate up and locked it into position with a metal latch.

'Hang on tight,' he shouted. 'It's going to be a bumpy ride.' He ran round to the front and opened the driver's door, startling the young scientist he had sent on ahead to start the engine. Albert Goodenache and Heinrich Spiedal sat jammed together on the passenger side of the short wooden bench seat that stretched across the cab. 'In the back. Join the others. I'll drive. I know the way,' he shouted at the driver.

The man started to protest, but Mitzer cut him short, reached up and pulled him out of the cab. He sprawled in the wet mud. As he started to pick himself up there was a piercing, shrilling sound followed by a booming explosion from what seemed only a few hundred metres away.

'Hurry up, or you'll get us all killed,' yelled Mitzer, putting his hand out to help the fallen scientist. 'Come on, come on.'

The scientist scrambled through the mud to the rear of the truck as Mitzer climbed into the cab and slammed the door.

The engine screamed as he poured on the power, but nothing happened.

'Damn and shit!' cried Mitzer.

'What's wrong?' asked a frightened Albert Goodenache.

'We're too heavy. Too much mud. Too much bloody mud.'

Mitzer took his foot off the accelerator, swung the door open and climbed out into the mud. He rushed round to the rear of the truck.

'Everybody out,' he shouted as he unlatched the tailgate and swung it down. 'It's too heavy in the mud. You'll have to push to get it going.'. The scientists stood there; they were men of reason and considered logic, not an instinctive breed by nature. 'Come on, get out. Do you want us all killed?' He climbed up onto the back and started to push them out; some jumped, most fell into the mud. He leapt down amongst them and started to help them to their feet. 'Push, damn you. Get behind and push. Come on, we only need to get out of this mud then we'll be on our way. Hurry, Hurry!'

He rushed back to the cab and jumped in, put the truck back into gear and gently fed power to the engine.

'Shall we help?' shouted Heinrich Spiedal.

'No, stay where you are,' replied Mitzer.

'But…'

'Do as you're bloody told,' he ordered, then leant out of the cab and shouted back at the group. 'Push, damn you, push, push, push for everything you're worth.'

The shrilling distant sound came again, low to start with, then building in its intensity until it exploded on the sand dunes near the experimental rocket launch tracks. As the shell deafened them, so the truck, having been rocked backwards and forwards by the small group, finally broke loose of its slippery hold and shot forward. The pushers collapsed as they lost their grip.

Another shell exploded nearby.

'Stop!' shouted Heinrich Spiedal. 'Wait for the others.'

Mitzer kept his foot rammed to the floor, not wanting to lose momentum, not wanting to be clawed back into the wet soft earth under the vehicle.

Thirty metres on he drove onto the road and safety.

He stopped the truck to wait for the others.

At that moment Albert Goodenache saw the silhouette of a Russian soldier lift into view across the sand dunes. Before he could shout a warning, the soldier opened fire on the small group.

Mitzer heard the scientists calling, screaming for him to wait as they scrambled out of the mud.

He put his foot down and drove away. The shouts of those left behind disappeared as the sounds of war enveloped them.

The three of them never looked back at Peenemünde, the place that was to have been their shrine. The two scientists said nothing. Their cowardice and shame sat on the bench with them. They had nothing left to say to each other.

After five minutes, Mitzer stopped to check the petrol cans tied to the back of the cab. There were four of them, containing nearly one hundred and twenty litres in total, enough to get them to Berlin. He looked back at the explosions, knew he could outrun the Russians as long as the truck kept going. He tried not to think of those he had left behind. He climbed back into the truck and, without a single glance or comment to his two companions, drove off towards Wolgast and the road to Berlin.

'We should go west, not south,' said Albert Goodenache after they had been travelling for nearly half an hour.

'Why?' asked Mitzer.

'Because Berlin will be lost to the Russians. If not today, then tomorrow. Peenemünde is directly north of Berlin. All their effort will be directed there. Go west, towards the Americans and the British. They're not the barbarians, the Russians are.'

'Alright. We'll follow the country roads. Towards Hamburg. Do you agree, Heinrich?'

The young scientist nodded. He wanted only to get back to his bride of four months, Trudi, who waited for him in Dusseldorf. To hide with her and avoid the questions that would be asked of him, of his Nazi Party membership, of his treatment of the workers he had controlled at Nordhausen and Peenemünde, of what he saw as expediency and others would see as evil.

They drove on, through the villages of Jarmen and Demmin and the town of Gustrow. They saw few people, mostly straggling refugees who, like them, were escaping the oncoming Russian army. One group tried to stop them but Mitzer kept his foot down and almost ran them over. They skirted Gustrow and followed the road to Schwerin.

The sounds of war were far behind them now, but visions of defeat became clear as dawn broke. The isolated groups of refugees they had passed in the dark swelled as the morning light flooded the countryside. These people had slept in the hedges and ditches for protection against the night's cold and were now striking out for the last leg towards the safety of the western allies. The country roads were filled with an army of homeless people, a sad pitiful line of Germans moving west. Many pulled handcarts piled high with their belongings, but most carried whatever they felt was worthwhile on their backs. It was a pathetic sight, a people beaten into submission, now trying to salvage whatever they could from the days when they had arrogantly set out to conquer the world. There were children everywhere, many struggling to keep up with their parents, many crying for food. A shabby, shuffling line stretching to the horizon.

The truck had slowed to a crawl. Mitzer kept his hand on the horn, but it had little effect on the fleeing mass. He edged the vehicle forward, making slow progress through the crowds.

The abandoned farms and houses were being looted by small gangs of armed soldiers who had deserted their units to escape to the west. Others who had decided to remain behind and take their chances with the Russians had boarded up their homes as a defence against the looters. Some had even taken their livestock into their houses and now guarded their properties with guns and pitchforks. There were occasional flurries of shooting between these groups, but no serious attempts were made on the fortified dwellings as the main concern of all the deserters was to escape the oncoming Red Army.

A few individuals tried to jump on the back of the truck, and some succeeded. As they progressed along the route over twenty people climbed onto the rear. It caused Mitzer little concern as they were on a hard asphalt road and the vehicle could cope with the extra load. What he didn't want to do was open the doors and invite an attack on them. In this case discretion was definitely the better part of valour.

The sights they witnessed were a constant reminder of their own vulnerability. Images of greed and despair, of fear and degradation: the man with his middle fingers cut off on both hands, sliced off by a fellow traveller who had wanted his gold rings; the old woman who had died in the cold of night bundled up against the hedge, naked after she had been stripped of all her clothing by others intent on keeping warm; the children, crying and hungry; the parents who could do nothing about it; two men fighting over the carcass of a dead pet dog, hardly able to lift their arms and strike each other in their weakness; the eighteen year old mother by the side of the road trying to feed her baby from breasts in which the milk had long dried up, her baby already been dead through the cold of the night. They saw the eyes of a lost nation; and in their fear they saw themselves, and realised how lost they had all become.

This was Germany turning on herself, cutting her own throat in the face of oncoming defeat.

They were on the outskirts of the village of Crivitz, some 50 kilometres from what was to become the border between a divided East and West Germany when things started to go horribly wrong.

The sixteen year old girl had already been raped when they saw her.

She was crawling into the hedgerow, trying to hide her shame from the passers-by, most of whom showed no interest in her plight. The thorns and thick branches of the hedge cut into her flesh, but she felt nothing except the need to go to ground and safe haven. Her clothes had been torn from her body and now lay scattered between the road and the hedge. A woman had already picked up her coat and run away, another was now darting in to grab her shoes before the girl could recover.

The men, five foot soldiers wearing Wermacht uniforms, were sitting nearby, the effort of their exertions taking its toll on their strength. They were unshaven, unwashed, desperate men. Life had become cheap on the Russian front and, hardened veterans that they were, they had decided to take whatever they wanted in their anger and frustration against those who had led them to war.

The girl, beautiful and fulsome in her youth, had simply been something they decided they wanted.

They had walked up to her, dragged her away from her father and pulled her to the ground by the side of the road in front of everyone.

The eldest soldier, a sergeant, had knocked the father to the ground with his rifle-butt when he tried to stop them attacking his daughter. When he rose to his feet again and stumbled forward to help her as she screamed, the sergeant pulled back his rifle and bayoneted him through his stomach.

The girl stopped screaming as she watched her father fall, saw the bayonet slip out of his flesh as easily as a knife comes out of butter.

She shut her eyes and let the men claw at her, one by one.

When they had finished, and only when she felt they had finally lost interest in her, did she pull herself up on her elbows and drag herself backwards into the protection of the hedge.

That was the moment the truck came down the road.

'For God's sake!' shouted Albert Goodenache. 'That poor girl. I just don't believe it.'

'There's nothing we can do,' replied Mitzer. 'Nothing.'

'You've got to stop!'

'No.'

'We can't just ignore what's going on around us. Stop, for God's sake!'

'No. We're only three. We can't save the whole of Germany. Shit we're having enough trouble saving ourselves.'

'Fuck you, Grob. You must stop. Tell him, Heinrich.'

The other scientist said nothing, kept his head lowered. He just wanted to get home.

'Grob, for Christ's sake. Stop and help.' Albert Goodenache turned back to Mitzer.

'Shit, Albert,' shouted Mitzer, slamming his foot on the brake and pulling the truck up sharply. 'Shit, man, you're always trying to save the fucking world.'

'Well?' asked Albert Goodenache. 'Well?'

'Go on, get her in here. Quick. Hurry up.'

Goodenache unlocked his door, swung it open and jumped out.

'Close that door!' Mitzer shouted at Spiedal. 'We don't want anyone else getting in.'

Heinrich leant over and pulled the door shut as Goodenache reached the girl. They watched him talk to the girl and try to bring her out from the hedge.

The girl, in too great a state of shock to understand that Goodenache's good intentions, fought against him and, started to scream. The harder he pulled her, the louder she screamed.

One of the soldiers, attracted by the commotion, shouted at Goodenache, 'Leave her, bastard. Find your own tarts.'

'Come on, Albert,' yelled Mitzer. 'Leave her.'

But Goodenache persevered. He shouted back at the soldier, but his words were lost in the loudness of her screams.

The soldier stood up, pointed his rifle at Goodenache and shot him in the left knee.

'Shit, shit!' cursed Mitzer as he watched Goodenache roll away from the girl clutching his shattered knee and screaming in pain. He put the truck into gear.

'No!' shouted Heinrich Spiedal.

'They'll kill us. They'll kill us all. It's too late.'

The other soldiers had now all come to their feet. Before the truck could gather momentum, the sergeant had run across the road and jumped on the running board, his rifle pointed through the closed window at Mitzer.

Mitzer stamped on the brake once again and stopped the truck.

'Get out,' ordered the sergeant. 'Get out now.'

'Do it,' said a defeated Mitzer to Spiedal. 'Easy. These men have itchy fingers.'

The two men climbed out of the truck as the sergeant called to the others.

'Come on. Get in. Come on, hurry. And get that rabble off the back.'

One of the men grabbed the girl and tried to pull her out of the hedgerow.

'Leave her!' ordered the sergeant. 'Unless you want to stay behind and fight the fucking Russians on your own.'

The soldier cursed, gave her one last hefty kick with his boot and rushed towards the truck as the others cleared the other passengers off the rear. The sergeant and one of the soldiers climbed in the cab, the others onto the back.

As they drove off, the sergeant waved cheekily at Mitzer and Spiedal. The administrator turned away and walked towards Goodenache who was still clutching his knee and screaming with pain.

'Let me see,' said Mitzer, kneeling down and examining Goodenache's knee. 'Jesus Christ. What a mess.' The bullet had passed right through his leg, but shattered the knee. It was a pulpy, fleshy mess and Mitzer set about bandaging it with the remnants of Goodenache's trouser leg and sleeves off his own coat.

'We need a doctor,' said Mitzer. 'Someone who can stop this bleeding.'

Spiedal took off the scarf that was wrapped round his neck and gave it to Mitzer. 'Use that for a tourniquet,' he said.

Mitzer applied it to Goodenache's thigh and, with a broken branch, turned it tight until the bleeding eased off.

'You're going to have to walk with us,' said Mitzer. 'Lean on us. Between us. Can you manage that?'

'I'm sorry,' replied Goodenache. 'I was only trying…'

'I know. To help.' Mitzer looked up to where the girl had been, but she had scrambled away by now, had run down the road, her dead father and the terrible ordeal behind her. In her panic she was running east, back from where she had come and straight towards the Russian troops. He shook his head. God knows what they would do when they stumbled on the half naked girl. Shit, what a mess. 'Forget it. Can you walk?'

'I don't know.'

'Come on. We'll give you a hand.'

They helped Goodenache to his feet, supporting him between them while he held on to the tourniquet. In this slow and painful fashion, they continued their journey to satety.

Just before night fell, when they had only managed to complete another six agonising kilometres, they heard gunfire to the south. It was the Russians, having entered Berlin, sending their troops north to mop up any resistance in that area.

'You'll have to leave me,' said Goodenache.

'No,' said Mitzer. 'We came this far together. We've been friends too long to split up now.' He wondered if they believed him. He knew he was lying.

'At this rate it'll take us three weeks to get to the Americans or the British. And we don't know if they're any better than the Russians. Look, I caused this. If I hadn't tried to…we'd have been there by now.'

'We can make it,' said Spiedal. 'If we go through the night.'

'Stop dreaming. He's right,' interjected Mitzer. 'And he'll bleed to death if we keep walking. He needs medical attention.'

'Go on. I'll be all right. I will,' said Goodenache. 'Put me down and get going. Before it's too late for all of us.'

They helped him down, let him sit with his back against a cedar tree.

There was so much to say, but little that could be said.

They had known each other for more than six years and had worked closely as a team on the rockets and other weaponry projects. They hadn't seen war through the eyes of the soldier, death was something you read about. War to them was a state of being, somewhere they practised their arts without seeing the fruits of their results. War was no more than a laboratory, where success wasn't a nation's victory, but a scientist's achievement. They knew they had failed, their rockets had been too late and too futile to change the final destiny of the war.

The whole thing was so bloody useless now.

'If the Russians get to you first,' said Mitzer, 'tell them that you're a scientist.'

'Why?' asked Albert Goodenache.

'Because they'll want your experience.'

'I can't work for them.'

'We'll all be working for someone else from now.'

'But the Russians…?'

'Wait and see. It might even be the Americans first,' lied Mitzer. 'Look, when someone finds you, then you must ask for an officer. Say it's important, a matter of life and death. When you speak to the officer, tell him who you are, that you worked on the rockets. Tell him you must speak to his superiors. You must tell them that, Albert.

There was no answer from Goodenache as the awful realisation of his predicament sank in. He leant against the tree, twisting the tourniquet above the shattered knee. They didn't ask each other what Goodenache's chances were. It was a slim thread that kept him alive, a flash of a chance that he wouldn't either bleed to death or be killed by a passing looter or invading Russian.

'Whatever happens,' Mitzer attempted to raise his friend's spirit, 'we must never forget we are comrades. Let's not forget the past, especially the failures. We must be one. Let us not forget that. They will destroy our Germany. Just like they've tried to do before. But we must wait, and believe, and work towards becoming one again. Don't lose the dream. Believe in that, believe it with all your heart, always remember it, and one day…all this…shambles…will be just a bad memory.'

Mitzer held out his hand to Goodenache, who reached up and took it.

'To the day we meet again,' he said.

'And if we want to communicate? If we are to be friends at a distance? If we are found on opposite sides? Then how do we talk?'

'Die Lucie Geists. That must be our password,' said Mitzer after a long pause. And Mitzer told them of the Lucy Ghosts, what they had been and what they would become. When he had finished, the others nodded. The Lucy Ghosts would be the password to their future.

Two days later Mitzer and Heinrich Spiedal stumbled on an American unit at the town of Marienstadt and were taken to a senior officer who arranged to transport them in an army jeep some fifty kilometres to Hamburg.

After a series of interrogations and interviews, Heinrich Spiedal would join the eighty-nine other Peenemünde rocket scientists who went to America under the leadership of Werner Von Braun. This same team, the most experienced and integrated of rocket scientists in the world, would spearhead the drive that resulted in America putting the first man on the moon twenty four years later.

Grob Mitzer, the administrator, was to remain in Europe and use his exceptional organisational skills to build one of the most successful electronics corporations in the new West Germany, a cornerstone of the new economic miracles that would revitalise that country.

They were never to find out what became of the scientist Albert Goodenache.

Two days after Spiedal and Mitzer were driven to Hamburg, the Russians rolled into the eastern outskirts of Marienstadt. The border they established was to split Germany for the next forty five years.