Doctor Who_ Just War - Lance Parkin [92]
‘Construction took just under four and a half years. It started in November 1936. It was completed on 28 February this year. I don’t understand your objection. We have managed to design and build new fighters in under three years.’ Steinmann shifted uncomfortably.
‘No, listen. The first ever radar test was only a couple of years ago at Daventry. That was —’ Chris struggled for the date.
‘— February the twenty-sixth 1935,’ supplied the Doctor, who had emerged from the depths, his clothes spotless. He made a show of wiping his hands on his handkerchief.
‘There you go. Over a year before Hartung began work,’
Steinmann assured Chris. Cwej was not impressed.
‘That wasn’t when the British had radar, that was the first time that a radar echo was ever detected. It wasn’t until the summer that anyone proposed a coastal network of radar stations. Britain’s got its own boffins, and they worked flat out, but the first station wasn’t completed until the summer of 1937. By then, even if you hadn’t cut corners, you must have started to build the prototype. How can you possibly have built counter-measures before the device you are trying to counter has been built? It’s like building anti-tank guns before the invention of the tank! The German government wasn’t going to throw millions of marks away on a pie-in-the-sky scheme like this rubber plane in 1936. They had quite enough to spend their money on.’
‘Hartung convinced them,’ Steinmann said simply.
Chris was sceptical. ‘How?’
‘He claimed that he had been told. A vision of the future, of Nazi destiny.’ He hissed the last words, like an invocation.
Chris glanced over at the Doctor to check his reaction, but the little man was still deep in study.
‘The Doktor has been uncharacteristically silent,’
Steinmann observed coldly.
The Doctor looked up from the blueprints at the mention of his name. ‘Where is Hugin?’
‘In the other hangar.’
The Doctor was examining the plans again. ‘In one piece?’
‘Why, of course.’ But his Adam’s apple rose and fell ever so slightly, and his tone was just a little too defensive.
‘He’s lying,’ concluded Chris.
‘I know he is. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that lying was naughty, Oberst Oskar?’ Steinmann’s face was a picture of indignation. The Doctor rounded on him. ‘Hugin blew up just before midnight on March the first above a small cove in St Jaonnet on Guernsey. If you remember, Herr Wolff met me there the morning afterwards. I recovered a small piece.’
He flicked his wrist and a twisted scrap of metal appeared in his hand. The Doctor held it up to a point on the fuselage.
‘Component F-989A,’ he concluded, pointing to the corresponding place on the blueprints.
‘Very good. Would you care to explain why the plane exploded?’
The Doctor hesitated. ‘I’m not sure about that bit.’
‘No, neither are we. I thought you might know.’ There were footsteps behind them. Chris turned and saw a pair of Luftwaffe pilots stepping towards them. They wore full flight suits.
‘What’s going on?’ Chris asked. The Doctor suddenly looked worried.
Steinmann smiled. ‘These officers are about to launch an attack on Southampton in Munin. The town will be razed to the ground. The British government have been informed, but will not be able to stop the attack.’
The pilots began mounting the platform. Chris looked over to the Doctor. ‘I thought you were pledged to peace, Herr Steinmann,’ the little man said softly. ‘You saw what happened in Granville. Yet now, later the very same day, you are willing to do exactly the same.’
‘We have offered peace to the British. If they choose not to accept our offer, then we shall destroy them, and have peace that way. This is a demonstration of our power.’
Chris watched helplessly as the pilots began