‘The most important aspect of your mission was to provide us with irrefutable evidence that the V-1 and V-2 rocket programmes exist and represent a threat to this country. Amongst other things, the report you brought back from Browning corroborated that too. As you know, there was something of a disagreement in London about how seriously we should take the threat of these rockets. That battle has now been won. We now just have to deal with the bloody things.’

‘Was the bombing raid on Peenemünde a success?’

‘Tell me what you think, Prince. You were there.’

‘I was arrested the following day, sir, so I didn’t get much chance to check out the whole site. My impression was that there was a fair amount of damage, but perhaps it wasn’t as extensive as one would have hoped.’

‘Spot on. The RAF intelligence branch have done a good deal of analysis on the post-bombing photo reconnaissance. I don’t know if you’re a boxing man, Prince, but their conclusion is that we landed a couple of heavy blows, and one or two may even have put the opponent down on the canvas and cut him up a bit, but we didn’t manage to knock him out. To extend the pugilistic analogy, it looks like this one is going to go to points. From what they can gather, the RAF boys think that at best we may have set the work at Peenemünde back by two, perhaps three months, which is not to be underestimated: a delay like that could save an awful lot of lives, and who can predict the course of the war?’

For the first time in months, Prince felt a slight sense of relaxation. The tension that had wrapped itself around him since September seemed to be detaching itself from him. He gazed out of the window onto a perfect English scene: lush green meadows rolling towards a hedge, beyond which a herd of cows grazed, all facing in the same direction. In the distance was a church spire, pointing to a sky in which the clouds were hurrying away to reveal an early summer sun. The breeze carried the faint sound of children playing from somewhere far away.