V-S Day: A Novel of Alternate History

NELL’S FATHER

JANUARY 25, 1942

“Company’s coming,” Esther Goddard said.

Henry Morse looked up from the counter where he was peeling potatoes. Through the open kitchen window, he spotted a dusty fantail rising from the dirt road leading across the New Mexico grasslands to Mescalero Ranch. Esther’s voice came from the front porch, where she’d been taking a break from preparing lunch to have a cigarette and read the morning paper.

“They’re early, I think.” Henry dropped the potatoes in a bowl and wiped his hands on a terry-cloth towel. The car was still a mile away, but they already knew who was in it and where they were coming from. “Must have followed the directions I gave them and turned right at the second cow instead of the first.”

Esther laughed. The fifteen-acre ranch was notoriously hard to find by anyone who wasn’t a local, which was just the way the Goddards and everyone else who lived out there liked it. Henry heard the rustle of newspaper as she put aside the Roswell Morning Dispatch. “Think I should get Bob, or…?”

“No, not yet.” Henry carried the potatoes over to the stove, where Esther would fry them. “Let’s talk to these guys first. If they’re not serious, then we can always tell ’em that Bob’s gone fishing or…”

“Fishing?” Another laugh. Esther had a point; gone fishing was a weak excuse when you’re living at the edge of the desert.

“Or something, I dunno.” Henry shoved his shirttails into his trousers. He briefly considered going to his bedroom to grab a necktie but decided against it. No one out here put on a tie unless he was going into town for dinner and a movie. If their visitors didn’t like the informality of Mescalero Ranch, they could go back to Washington. “We’ll tell ’em we needed milk, and he went in search of the nearest cow.” Or rattlesnake, he silently added. If these guys are from the Pentagon, they might actually believe that.

Esther still hadn’t gotten up from her seat when Henry swung the screen door open and stepped out onto the porch. After the coolness of the ranch house’s adobe walls, the dry warmth of a Southwestern winter day was almost enough to make him start sweating. As they watched the car rattle across the cattle guard at the front gate, Esther crossed her legs beneath her short summer skirt and tipped her straw sun hat forward a bit to shade her eyes. When she made no effort to rise, Henry knew it was his job to greet their guests and shoo them away if necessary.

The car was a four-door Pontiac sedan, khaki brown with a serial number stenciled across the driver-side door. Probably from the motor pool at Albuquerque Army Air Base, where their visitors had flown in earlier this morning. The Army was currently building another airfield in Alamogordo, much closer to Roswell, but its runways hadn’t been finished yet. The Pontiac came to a stop beneath the cottonwood out front, and Henry waited until the two men inside climbed out before he ambled down the steps to meet them.

“Can I help you, gentlemen?” he asked.

Both men wore Army uniforms. Although they’d had the good sense to take off their jackets and loosen their ties, Henry wondered why anyone wanting to keep a low profile would wear uniforms in a place where dressing up meant putting on a clean shirt. The corporal driving the car didn’t look old enough to buy a beer in the enlisted men’s club, but his companion—the silver eagles pinned to his collar told Henry that he was a colonel—was almost Bob’s age, with a small pot at his belly and dark brown hair turning grey at the temples.

“Yes, sir… I mean, I hope you can.” The corporal squinted at him, his stammer betraying uncertainty about his location. “We’re looking for… um…”

“We’re trying to find someone who lives around here,” the colonel said. “Professor Robert H. Goddard, from Clark University in Massachusetts.” His gaze flitted to the renovated adobe house. “Is he present?”

“And who might you be?” Henry absently scuffed a toe of his work boots against the driveway sand.

The colonel’s mouth pursed slightly. He obviously wasn’t accustomed to being questioned. He looked past Henry to the woman casually seated in a rocking chair on the front porch. “Mrs. Goddard, I presume?”

“Perhaps.” Esther coolly studied him from behind her rimless spectacles, not giving him an inch. Henry suppressed a smile. Esther was a woman who knew Charles Lindbergh as “Slim” and called one of the richest men in the country “Harry”; she was not easily impressed by a bird colonel. “You still haven’t told us who you are.”

“Colonel Omar Bliss, of the U.S. Army command in Washington, D.C. This is my aide, Corporal Max Hillman.”

“Hello, ma’am.” Hillman gave her a polite nod. Henry noted that his eyes were traveling up and down Esther, taking her in, probably believing that she was ten years younger than her actual age. She affected every guy that way when they met her for the first time; even at forty, she’d managed to hold on to her looks, elegant and sublimely sensual. If you think her legs are swell, Henry thought, just wait till you get to her brains.

“Hello to you, too,” Esther replied, favoring the kid with a smile that probably stopped his heart for a moment. “Yes, this is Dr. Goddard’s place,” she continued, standing up from her chair and sauntering down the steps. “And yes, we’ve been expecting you. Thanks for calling in advance. We’re not crazy about having people show up unannounced.”

“You’re welcome, ma’am.” Bliss was still being patient, but only barely. Esther didn’t faze him in the slightest. “Now, if I could see your husband…?”

“Dr. Goddard is busy at the moment. He’s gone fishing.” Esther didn’t care about the absurdity of her lie. “If you could tell me why you’re here, I…”

“Sorry, ma’am, but that’s official business. I’m not at liberty to discuss it with anyone but him.”

“Really? Oh, well, then…” Esther nodded toward the gate. “Quickest way back is to head down Mescalero Road until you get to town. Turn right at Route 285, then…”

“Esther?” A voice came from the screen door. It creaked open, slammed shut. “Who’s here?”

Everyone looked toward Robert Goddard as he stepped out onto the porch. Even for Mescalero Ranch, his appearance was sloppy: baggy trousers with loose suspenders, dirty undershirt, worn-out loafers with no socks. Oil stains on his hands showed that he’d just come from the workshop; Henry guessed that he’d come in through the back door. His question was most likely a ruse; he’d probably been standing just inside the house for a little while, eavesdropping on the conversation.

“These men have come to see you, Doctor G,” Esther said, using her favorite nickname for him. “Colonel Bliss says it’s about something so important that he can’t discuss it with anyone but you.”

“Oh, really?” Tucking his hands in his pockets, Goddard ambled down the porch steps. “Well, now… did the Army finally change its mind about that shoulder-fired rocket I offered them?”

Henry grinned. Everyone who worked with Bob was familiar with the story. During the last war, Goddard had developed a prototype for a portable solid-fuel artillery rocket that an individual soldier could carry onto the battlefield for use as a tactical weapon. The rocket had worked well during field demonstrations, yet the Army had given it a pass. With the “war to end all wars” coming to an end, many in the War Department believed that the coming armistice would make new weapons unnecessary.

In the end, several years of research and development had been wasted, and Bob had come away empty-handed. He’d been skeptical about working for the military ever since. Not that he needed War Department funds anymore. Clark University and the Smithsonian had underwritten his research during the twenties, and for the last twelve years he’d been the beneficiary of a sizable private grant from the Guggenheim family. So he didn’t need to go fishing; in fact, he could tell Colonel Bliss to go jump in a lake.

“No, sir, this is something different.” Bliss looked him straight in the eye. “I’ve been sent here to consult with you about a project of the highest priority… one which we believe you are uniquely qualified to handle.”

“Oh?” Goddard raised an eyebrow. “And who is ‘we’? Besides yourself, I mean.”

Bliss didn’t immediately respond. Instead, he reached into a pocket and pulled out an envelope. Without a word, he handed it to Goddard. Curious, Henry glanced over Bob’s shoulder. The envelope itself was blank, but when Goddard pulled out the typewritten letter inside and unfolded it, Henry caught a glimpse of the letterhead. It was from the White House.

Stepping aside, Goddard read the letter. For a few seconds, he said nothing, until at last he slowly let out his breath and looked up at the colonel again. “I see,” he said softly as he handed the letter to Esther. “This changes everything.”

“I thought you might say that.” Bliss turned to Hillman. “Corporal, would you please get the report? Dr. Goddard, it may be easier if you simply read what we’ve brought you. It’ll explain things a bit better than I could.”

As he spoke, Henry walked over to Esther. “Is that from who I think it’s from?” he whispered. She silently nodded but folded the letter before he could read it.

Hillman returned to the car, came back with an attaché case. Using a key to open it, he pulled out a thick manila folder. As the corporal handed it to Goddard, Bliss said, “I’d prefer it if you’d read this by yourself and not discuss it with anyone.”

“I’ll read it alone,” Goddard said, “but I won’t make any promises about the second condition.” He nodded toward Esther and Henry. “My wife and Mr. Morse here are two of my closest assistants, as are the two other men who are my employees. Anything I may agree to do for you, I’ll need their help. Keeping this a secret from them is out of the question.”

Bliss hesitated. “All right, have it your way. But we’ll need to have them sign security agreements… and the FBI will probably want to check their backgrounds, too.”

“Uh-oh,” Esther said, giving Henry a sly wink. “You’re in trouble now.”

Bliss looked at her sharply. “Why? Is there something we should know about?”

“Henry has suspicious political affiliations.”

The colonel’s eyes narrowed as he turned to Henry. “You’re a Communist?”

“Worse than that… he’s a Republican.” Goddard had already opened the folder and was peering at the document inside. “I wouldn’t worry about my associates, Colonel. They’ve all signed confidentiality agreements with me. Esther, please take our guests inside and give them some lunch. Henry, ask Lloyd and Taylor if they’ll come in, too. I’ll be in my office.”

“Okay, Doctor G,” she said, but he’d already turned away and begun walking back up the stairs, tripping slightly on the first riser. “Colonel, Corporal…”

The two Army men nodded and followed her. Henry watched them go, then headed for the assembly shed behind the main house. He still hadn’t any idea what this was about, but if the president’s signature was on the letter Bliss had presented Bob, then it was a good bet this couldn’t be about shoulder-fired missiles.

Lunch was enchiladas with fried potatoes, served at the battered pinewood table that took up most of the dining room. Taylor Brickell and Lloyd Kapman were there as well, both of them just as oil-stained and filthy as Bob. The rocket men cleaned themselves up before coming to the table, but Colonel Bliss wrinkled his nose a bit when he saw them. Henry couldn’t blame him; except for Esther, everyone at Mescalero Ranch looked like an automobile mechanic.

Bob didn’t join them for lunch. From his office at the back of the house, they could hear Bach playing on the old windup Victrola he and Esther had brought with them from Worcester. At one point, Henry got up to visit the bathroom. On the way there, he passed Bob’s office. The door was half-open, and through it he saw Goddard leaning back in his armchair with his feet propped up on the desk, intently studying the report while smoking one of his foul black cigars. Bob didn’t look up even though Henry’s footsteps caused the floorboards to creak, and Henry knew that his former professor was completely riveted by what he was reading.

Conversation at the lunch table was light. Inevitably, the subject turned to why the Goddards had moved from Worcester, Massachusetts, to this remote corner of New Mexico almost twelve years ago even though Bob continued to serve as the chairman of Clark University’s physics department. The most obvious reason, of course, was Bob’s health. The New England climate had never been kind to the tuberculosis Goddard had suffered since childhood. Indeed, it had very nearly killed him when he was a teenager; at one point, his doctors had given him only a couple of weeks to live (“He got better,” Esther said, an understatement if there ever was one). The dry Southwestern air allowed him to breathe freely for the first time in his life; nonetheless, he still smoked, a habit that he’d picked up from his father.

The main reason, though, was the nature of his research. The first rockets Robert Goddard built—including the world’s first liquid-fuel rocket, launched on March 16, 1926—were sent up from his Aunt Effie’s hilltop farm in Auburn, Massachusetts, just south of Worcester. Goddard kept them secret for quite a long time because he wanted to protect his designs from imitators—particularly Hermann Oberth, the German scientist whom Bob knew was pursuing the same line of research—yet public discovery was inevitable once he was awarded patents and published his work as a Smithsonian Institution monograph.

“When that happened, the newspapers were all over him,” Esther said. “Before he knew it, every reporter in America wanted to do an interview with him. And they all wanted to know when he was going to build that rocket to the Moon.”

“A moon rocket?” Hillman still hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Esther. Henry couldn’t blame him. With her sun hat gone and her soft blond hair cascading down around her shoulders, she was as lovely as a desert rose. “Why would they think he’s building something like that?”

“At the end of the paper, Bob speculated that it might be possible to fire a rocket to the Moon with an explosive charge aboard, to blow up when it crashes there so that astronomers could see it and know that it had arrived.” Esther reached for the lemonade pitcher. “Of course, it was just idle speculation on his part…”

“Aw, c’mon, Esther… you know that’s not entirely true.” Lloyd polished off the last of his enchilada and wiped his mouth with a napkin. A small, gnomish man with curly black hair, he peered at her over the top of his glasses. “Bob’s intent all along has been to build something that will take him into outer space. And not just to the Moon, either. He wants to go to Mars.”

“Mars?” Bliss was incredulous.

Henry winced. Lloyd might just well have said that Mescalero Ranch was in the business of weaving magic carpets. “It’s Bob’s dream to construct a vehicle that one day”—he carefully emphasized this—“might be capable of transporting people to another planet. He’s had this ambition his entire life, ever since he read The War of the Worlds as a kid. But that’s not what we’re doing here, Colonel. We’re just taking the first steps.”

“Anyway, if the press wasn’t bad enough, there was also… well, the accidents.” Ice chuckled in Esther’s glass as she poured herself some more lemonade. “The big one in particular. One of those rockets went off course and crashed, starting a small fire that the Auburn fire department had to put out. When the local papers heard about it, they claimed that it was a giant moon rocket and that it had blown up.”

“Yeah, that was a good one.” A bit on the chubby side, Taylor Brickell had a round and pleasant face that made him look more like a stock clerk than an aeronautical engineer. “I liked that almost as much as the New York Times saying that Bob’s a crackpot because everyone knows rockets wouldn’t be able to work in space because…”

“There’s no air for them to push against.” Bliss smiled. “I know… I read that story in his intelligence file.”

Esther shot him a surprised glance. “Army intelligence has a file on Bob?”

“You didn’t think we’d completely forgotten about him, do you?” The colonel shook his head. “Granted, we sort of lost track of him after he stopped using Camp Devens as a test area… why did he do that, anyway? It’s a perfectly good place to launch rockets.”

“Are you kidding?” Henry almost laughed out loud. “Sorry, Colonel. I know the Army was trying to be generous, letting him use that place… but it was a marsh, for God’s sake. Mud, mosquitoes, briar patches…”

“The Army meant well,” Esther said, cutting him off, “but it was unsuitable for our purposes. Besides, with Bob’s now spending so much time outdoors, we felt we needed to leave Massachusetts. Auburn passed ordinances prohibiting rocket launches in town limits, and Clark University wasn’t keen on his working with explosive materials on campus, so we started looking elsewhere.”

“And that’s how we landed here.” Lloyd leaned back in his chair, cradling his head in his hands behind his neck. “Thanks to Harry Guggenheim. He bought the land we’re on and writes the checks.”

“Yes, I understand that’s where your funds have been coming from,” Bliss said. “Him and Charles Lindbergh.”

“My… you have been keeping tabs on us, haven’t you?” Esther’s eyes were as sharp as tacks.

“As I said, we’ve been keeping an eye on him… somewhat.” Bliss hesitated. “Matter of fact, Mrs. Goddard, I’m a big fan of your husband’s work. I studied his work when I was an engineering student at MIT.”

“You’re an MIT grad?” Taylor asked, obviously surprised to find a fellow alumnus at the table.

Bliss smiled and raised his left hand to show off his class ring, turned around on his finger so that the beaver etched upon its face has its paddlelike tail pointed toward the person looking at it: kiss my tail, as the in-joke went. “That’s why the Army sent me,” he said. “If Dr. Goddard agrees to help us…”

“Then I’d be working for you, is that it?”

Unnoticed until just then, Goddard had quietly walked into the dining room, the thick folder cradled under his arm. Everyone looked around as he came to the table. “Is there any lunch left, dear,” he asked his wife, “or did you eat everything?”

“No, there’s some enchiladas left.” Esther reached for the pan that Taylor had been eying hungrily. “Sit down and…”

“That’s all right. I’m not sure I have an appetite left.” Goddard took the vacant seat at the end of the table, carefully placing the folder between him and Bliss. He let out his breath as a long sigh as he turned to the colonel. “This is… one hell of a thing you’ve brought me. One hell of a thing.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Bliss solemnly nodded. “It startled me, too, when I read it.”

Henry started to pick up the report, but Hillman reached forward to stop him. “I’m sorry, sir, but it’s…”

“Go ahead and let him see it, Corporal.” Bliss shook his head. “I’ll trust them to abide by their agreement with Dr. Goddard. Besides, if he agrees to work for us, he’ll probably want to pick his own men, and Mr. Morse here will undoubtedly be one of them.” He glanced at Goddard. “Isn’t that right, sir?”

Goddard didn’t reply but instead opened the folder and ruffled the report’s pages. Henry caught a glimpse of single-spaced type, equations, diagrams. “I’d love to know how you came about getting your hands on this, but I imagine that’s a long story.”

“It is. For now, let’s just say that a couple of men probably gave up their lives in order for us to see this, and be grateful for their sacrifice.” A quiet gasp from Esther, and the colonel looked in her direction. “Yes, ma’am, it’s that important.”

“What is it, Bob?” Lloyd asked. “Are the Germans building rockets, too?”

“Worse than that. They’re working on something that goes beyond anything we’ve done here.” Goddard absently ran a hand across the hairless top of his head, almost as if he’d come down with a sudden fever. “I’ve known that they’ve been doing rocket research for quite some time, ever since their man Oberth wrote to me and requested that I send him the technical details of my own work…”

“You didn’t, did you?” Bliss stared at him in horror.

“Oh, of course not. Besides the fact that I have my patents to protect, I had little doubt that they hadn’t overlooked the military implications. And when Hitler took over…” He shook his head. “No, whatever progress they’ve made, they’ve achieved it without my assistance. But I’d never suspected that they’d moved so fast, so quickly. Oberth…”

“We don’t think Hermann Oberth is directly involved with this. The Nazis have found other people instead… a fellow by name of Wernher von Braun, and another chap named Eugen Sanger. Heard of either of them?”

“Von Braun, yes… he’s Oberth’s protégé. A very talented young man. Sanger, though, I don’t know.” Goddard tapped a finger against the report. “And you say this is his proposal?”

“It’s Sanger’s work, yes, but von Braun appears to be the man the Nazis put in charge of actually implementing it.” Bliss paused. “Do you think it’s possible, sir? I mean, it’s not just some pipe dream but something the Nazis could actually pull off?”

Goddard drummed his fingers against the table for a few moments as he regarded the report Henry still hadn’t picked up. “If they have enough money and people to throw at it,” he said at last, “yes, I think they could. There’s nothing there that isn’t possible.”

“I see.” Bliss hesitated. “And do you think you could find a way to defeat it… that is, if you had enough money and people of your own?”

As an answer, Goddard pushed back his chair. “Come with me, Colonel,” he said, standing up. “I’d like to show you something.”

Colonel Bliss rose from the table to follow Goddard. Everyone else fell in behind them as they walked through the house to the back door.

The shed located out back wasn’t much to look at, a T-shaped wood-frame workshop about sixty feet in length, with windows running along its sides. Goddard led everyone through one of the two doors set side by side at the short end of the shed; past a row of offices and storerooms was a large laboratory with a bare wooden floor, the ceiling’s rafters supported by slender beams. The lab was filled with machine tools of all kinds—metal lathes, drills, acetylene torches—and its walls were lined with shelves and workbenches, with canvas aprons hanging from hooks near the door.

In the middle of the room, lying atop a long assembly table, was a rocket. About thirty feet long, it looked like an enormous silver pencil made of duralumin. Panels had been removed from its sides to expose its interior: three cylindrical fuel tanks, with insulated pipes and compact fuel pumps leading from one another, everything feeding into the combustion chamber at the aft end. The nose cone had been closed—it would eventually be reopened so that the rocket’s recording instruments and parachute could be fitted into it—and the four guidance fins were stacked against the wall, waiting to be attached.

“This is Nell,” Goddard said, fondly laying a hand upon the rocket’s side.

“Nell 21, to be exact,” Henry added. “They’ve all had the same name.”

Bliss gave him a questioning look, and Esther laughed. “We started naming the rockets Nell after the crash at Aunt Effie’s farm. There were so many mistakes in the newspaper that it reminded us of a line from a Broadway musical: ‘They ain’t done right by our Nell.’”

“Cute,” Hillman murmured, then turned red as he caught an angry glance from Esther. “No offense, ma’am, but… sorry, I never would’ve thought of giving a rocket a girl’s name.”

Esther said nothing, but Henry knew that the corporal had touched a sore spot. The Goddards never had children, nor would they ever. Bob’s doctors didn’t want Esther to even kiss her husband, for fear that she might contract tuberculosis; raising a family was out of the question. Esther was nineteen years younger than Bob, and surely the thought of having children with him had crossed her mind, but so far as Henry could tell, their relationship had always been more cerebral than physical. Theirs was a love affair of the mind, and Nell was their spiritual daughter.

“Yes, well…” Goddard made an uncomfortable grunt. “As Henry says, this is the twenty-first rocket we’ve built since we’ve been in New Mexico, and so far we’ve had a pretty good success rate. Three years ago, one of Nell’s sisters set the altitude record for an unmanned aircraft… 6,565 feet at sea level, although from here the actual altitude was 3,294 from ground level.” He paused, then added, “Of course, the Germans may well have exceeded this, but we’ll never know.”

Bliss strolled down the length of the table, bending down now and then to closely inspect features of the half-finished rocket. “Very impressive… and you’ve had how many people working on this?”

“Just the five of us,” Taylor said, arms folded proudly across his chest.

“And how much does Mr. Guggenheim give you each year for your research?”

“Our annual budget is $10,000,” Esther replied.

“I see.” Bliss looked up from the rocket. “Dr. Goddard, your Uncle Sam is willing to write you a blank check and give you as many men as you need to complete your research, provided that you deliver us a rocket capable of shooting down whatever the Nazis put up. But I don’t think I have to tell you what the challenges are. You’ve reached an altitude of almost seven thousand feet…”

“I know.” Goddard’s expression was stoical. “And you need something that can reach forty-three miles, at least.”

“What?” Henry couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. He stared at the colonel. “Are you kidding?”

“I wish I was, but I’m not.” Bliss calmly gazed back at him. “And we need to do this as soon as possible, or else…”

“A lot of people will die,” Goddard finished, “and it’s possible that Germany will win the war. You’ll see what he’s talking about when you read the report.” He looked at Bliss again. “All right, Colonel, you’ve got me. Consider me your man.”

“Glad to hear it, sir.” Bliss smiled and nodded. “So… what’s the first thing you need to get started?”

“People. I need people… the right people.”