CHAPTER EIGHT
Henry Reichart was in for his sixth try. So far, all were failures, the infant's heart beating slow as an adult, and then ceasing to a stop near delivery, that is, if his wife did not miscarry first. The latest and most successful, if you considered a baby dying after its last breath, was six months, a month later than the other ones. Dr. Forsythe expected that the pregnancies would not last nine months, being that the infants were supposed to be more advanced than regular human infants.
The next batch of sperm was ready for installation. However, this time, Henry was under the weather so they asked him to help in the lab. When he saw the miniscule amounts, he thought, no wonder they did not succeed. He went back to his flat, and took several papers from the bottom of his suitcase. Grabbing something to put them in, he ran across the hall to Major Southam's office, and barged in just as the Major looked up.
Reichart saluted and got down to business. He showed no nervousness, holding the large yellow envelope, his demeanor that of an equal. It was time for him to reveal the facts.
"It's what was done for my cousin. He couldn't produce so the doctors took all the blanks out, sir, if you know what I mean."
"We did that."
"You did? Look is there any you didn't take out? You see, before I joined the army, I studied medicine but ran out of money and then when I heard of what was happening with Hitler, I joined up."
Major Southam frowned. "I wonder why you didn't tell me this information before, sergeant."
"Because I am a sergeant. If I had been a lieutenant, you would have listened to me. However, I did keep up by borrowing medical books in the library, and when I volunteered for this experiment, I boned up on obstetrics, infertility, and pregnancies. By the way, I do have a smattering in chemistry," he said, handing the Major the envelope.
"These marks are excellent, Sergeant. I would say you had more than a smattering and you do have your facts correct. The medical journals you listed are the best in the field." He handed back the papers. "What do you suggest, sergeant?"
"Just keep the ones that you want and take everything else out and don't limit it just to one." He then gave the Major his thoughts on the matter. He spoke about couples who could have children easily, "just by looking at each other, sir and no morons, imbeciles, and cripples even when they reach fifty. The others, you and I sir, not everything works right. So's what does the docs do but take all them out and see the best of the good ones, but that's not enough."
"Not enough? All is needed is one sperm, Reichart."
The sergeant shook his head. They had to insert back all the specific type..." And once that's done, and the little tykes start showing up, and growing up, that's the type they'll produce just in case the SS decide to produce more little Hitlers?"
The Major still had doubts. "Look we thought one or two would work Explain to me, why you felt this way. I thought you were just in it to improve our odds in winning the war."
"Because I saw those little Nazi babies and those little monsters, I mean those Hitler youths . That was selective breeding and I did grow up on a farm, sir."
"I'll discuss this with Doctor Forsythe. You are dismissed, Sergeant."
"Thank you sir," he said.
After the customary salutes, Major Southam went to the laboratory and told the doctors and scientists. They shook their heads, but could not deny the plausibility of this experiment.
When conception time came, they put the women to sleep, removed the cups, and removed all the fast and the damaged sperm, but insert not just one or two, but all the slow moving sperm back into the women's wombs The couples as per suggestion made love a couple of days later, and the scientists did the whole procedure again.
And they waited.
Three months later, they had their answer. By using stethoscopes, Doctor Forsythe had been able to detect when the former babies were in danger. Although their heartbeats were louder than normal, they slowed down gradually. They were not the fast beats, but more inclined to those of adults.
These little hearts inside their mothers' wombs were beating just as large, but rapidly as those of normal babies in the womb, in fact, perhaps an eighth of a second faster. They did not have the equipment to tell the difference, but Dr. Forsythe and Major Southam shook hands and hugged each other when they saw the results. The children were going to survive.
"By the looks of this," said Forsythe, "each woman carries four in her womb and it appears that they all are lodged equally inside. I would estimate that delivery to be the last part of the second trimester or the first part of the third trimester, between five and seven months. Normal for quadruplets."
At once, the Major went to the telegraph office that he set up for such an occasion, and dot dashed the message to MI-5. "Eight dash two slash sixteen is a go stop," he sent. For a few minutes he waited, now troubled as the answer seemed slow in coming. He turned off the machine and went back to his office. Half and hour later, the lieutenant handed him the message. "It's for you sir. Bad news. "
With trembling hands, the Major read the message.
Local storm threatening. Stop. Seed shipment cancelled. Stop.
Famine in Malaya. Stop. Food supplies on hoof to China. Stop.
This meant only one thing. The suspected invasion was going through and that meant that the whole Allied armed forces would finish off Hitler and his Nazis. Malaya was the code name for Mexico and China, the code name for France. Local storm threatening meant a major invasion is planned and the seed shipment were the future children of the Hercules Project, but perhaps there was the Japanese. He rewired MI-5 and received this answer.
Supplies in Bohemia damaged. Stop. Bohemians mixed grain with vodka.
Stop. Damaged destroyed. Stop. Only unadulterated products
allowed. Stop.
So, the Japanese tried an experiment much like that of the Aryan project, but met with failure. Major Southam looked through his codebook to interpret the message.
Although the Japanese equivalent to the super Hitler youth lived, they proved too dangerous. As was done by the Hitler Youth, they kept boys and girls separate, but the Japanese super youths fought among themselves, reducing their numbers. The Japanese trainers thought that now the best would survive, but when they started to turn on them, they sent in a couple of platoons. They sent off the survivors to Buddhist monasteries with vows of celibacies and executed those who refused. They hated to do this, but to ascertain that none reneged on their vows of celibacy the Japanese sterilized all their super youth.
"At least our Allies on the Eastern Front have nothing to worry about," said the Major.
"But, what about ours? All though, the Hercules Project is a success, we cannot use them," said Forsythe. "The only coming threat is this Russian dictator called Stalin and right now he's on our side."
Major Southam flipped through a sheet of papers on his desk. "I have no idea what was going on. Apparently this communiqué was from the top level."
"An invasion, sir?" asked Lieutenant Coverton.
"It appears so. We'll wait until tomorrow.
Early the next day, Major Southam looked out the window of his flat towards the Channel. Deep clouds covered the sky, but even from that distance, and using his binoculars he could see the movements of planes flying towards the coast and eventually Normandy. Wishing he could go with them, he wiped an uncharacteristic tear from his eye, and went back to work. He had not sat down for one moment when the telephone rang.
"Yes, Sir. I'll be on it right away sir." He then hung up the telephone. "Lieutenant, the War Office is interviewing several officers, not high ranking ones. Ensigns, petty officers, first and second lieutenants. What the Americans call ninety-day wonders. Fresh from the Academy and totally unsuitable for combat."
"What for sir?"
"It's bloody well awful but we cannot have them here indefinitely. The Mexican government has agreed to let the couples stay in Oaxaca. It's an old area with a long history, but they need a military escort so we're put out the tale that they're European refuges, artists who refused to buckle down to the Nazis. . They'll supply the amenities and we'll take along a radio for communication and then when trouble starts, we'll have a force that'll take care of any trouble that might come up."
"Yes sir."
:"But we don't want the officers to know how many there are."
The Major explained his plan. There were to be eight fishing trawlers. On these eight ships, there would be one or two officers, possibly two, chosen from the military. Each ship would hold twelve couples, the ships numbered from one to eight with the name of the ship starting with the first name of the number. Since some of the passengers were foreign, the officers would teach them English on their journey. To make sure that no one knew of the Hercules Project, these trawlers would mingle with the regular ones on the way to the Grand Banks and then leave the convoy.
Some of the passengers were Spanish speaking, since the trawlers would fly the Mexican flag when going down the shore and would have to cross the Panama canal. They would then land at the beach near Oaxaca at night, and make their way to the area set out for them.
"And how would we know if they got there?"
"That's the beauty of it, Lieutenant," said the Major with a smile, "Each of officers selected will receive an envelope which he will open when they arrive at their destination. However, only one officer will get the message to stay there. If he is one of the volunteers, he will stay there permanently and report to us once a year unless an emergency arrives." He handed Coverton a slip of paper.
"8-2/16. Aren't there twelve couples on each ship?"
"Yes lieutenant. This is the code referred to as the Hercules Project and the Nazis will be looking for eight couples not twelve. We did have a couple of incidents, Lieutenant, remember?"
"Yes sir, those dock workers."
"When the ships leave, I will personally drive to MI-5 headquarters and you will put it in the tropical medical kits so I am sure no one will open that until they arrive. The stuff spoils so I'm sure no one will open it.. It will contain a special code and a number to call. When the other man or woman receives the code, he or she will send a telegraph to us. By the way, there will be another code and number so each officer will make two separate calls."
Coverton could not understand it and asked why.
"They have been ordered to destroy the fishing trawlers. The first code is to verify that they have arrived; the second code is to notify us that all except one of the officers wants to return to England. As soon as they have been verified, we will send a plane out to pick them up."
"So no one can betray them."
"Yes Lieutenant, and if the codes are not sent, we know something is wrong."
Henry Reichart was in for his sixth try. So far, all were failures, the infant's heart beating slow as an adult, and then ceasing to a stop near delivery, that is, if his wife did not miscarry first. The latest and most successful, if you considered a baby dying after its last breath, was six months, a month later than the other ones. Dr. Forsythe expected that the pregnancies would not last nine months, being that the infants were supposed to be more advanced than regular human infants.
The next batch of sperm was ready for installation. However, this time, Henry was under the weather so they asked him to help in the lab. When he saw the miniscule amounts, he thought, no wonder they did not succeed. He went back to his flat, and took several papers from the bottom of his suitcase. Grabbing something to put them in, he ran across the hall to Major Southam's office, and barged in just as the Major looked up.
Reichart saluted and got down to business. He showed no nervousness, holding the large yellow envelope, his demeanor that of an equal. It was time for him to reveal the facts.
"It's what was done for my cousin. He couldn't produce so the doctors took all the blanks out, sir, if you know what I mean."
"We did that."
"You did? Look is there any you didn't take out? You see, before I joined the army, I studied medicine but ran out of money and then when I heard of what was happening with Hitler, I joined up."
Major Southam frowned. "I wonder why you didn't tell me this information before, sergeant."
"Because I am a sergeant. If I had been a lieutenant, you would have listened to me. However, I did keep up by borrowing medical books in the library, and when I volunteered for this experiment, I boned up on obstetrics, infertility, and pregnancies. By the way, I do have a smattering in chemistry," he said, handing the Major the envelope.
"These marks are excellent, Sergeant. I would say you had more than a smattering and you do have your facts correct. The medical journals you listed are the best in the field." He handed back the papers. "What do you suggest, sergeant?"
"Just keep the ones that you want and take everything else out and don't limit it just to one." He then gave the Major his thoughts on the matter. He spoke about couples who could have children easily, "just by looking at each other, sir and no morons, imbeciles, and cripples even when they reach fifty. The others, you and I sir, not everything works right. So's what does the docs do but take all them out and see the best of the good ones, but that's not enough."
"Not enough? All is needed is one sperm, Reichart."
The sergeant shook his head. They had to insert back all the specific type..." And once that's done, and the little tykes start showing up, and growing up, that's the type they'll produce just in case the SS decide to produce more little Hitlers?"
The Major still had doubts. "Look we thought one or two would work Explain to me, why you felt this way. I thought you were just in it to improve our odds in winning the war."
"Because I saw those little Nazi babies and those little monsters, I mean those Hitler youths . That was selective breeding and I did grow up on a farm, sir."
"I'll discuss this with Doctor Forsythe. You are dismissed, Sergeant."
"Thank you sir," he said.
After the customary salutes, Major Southam went to the laboratory and told the doctors and scientists. They shook their heads, but could not deny the plausibility of this experiment.
When conception time came, they put the women to sleep, removed the cups, and removed all the fast and the damaged sperm, but insert not just one or two, but all the slow moving sperm back into the women's wombs The couples as per suggestion made love a couple of days later, and the scientists did the whole procedure again.
And they waited.
Three months later, they had their answer. By using stethoscopes, Doctor Forsythe had been able to detect when the former babies were in danger. Although their heartbeats were louder than normal, they slowed down gradually. They were not the fast beats, but more inclined to those of adults.
These little hearts inside their mothers' wombs were beating just as large, but rapidly as those of normal babies in the womb, in fact, perhaps an eighth of a second faster. They did not have the equipment to tell the difference, but Dr. Forsythe and Major Southam shook hands and hugged each other when they saw the results. The children were going to survive.
"By the looks of this," said Forsythe, "each woman carries four in her womb and it appears that they all are lodged equally inside. I would estimate that delivery to be the last part of the second trimester or the first part of the third trimester, between five and seven months. Normal for quadruplets."
At once, the Major went to the telegraph office that he set up for such an occasion, and dot dashed the message to MI-5. "Eight dash two slash sixteen is a go stop," he sent. For a few minutes he waited, now troubled as the answer seemed slow in coming. He turned off the machine and went back to his office. Half and hour later, the lieutenant handed him the message. "It's for you sir. Bad news. "
With trembling hands, the Major read the message.
Local storm threatening. Stop. Seed shipment cancelled. Stop.
Famine in Malaya. Stop. Food supplies on hoof to China. Stop.
This meant only one thing. The suspected invasion was going through and that meant that the whole Allied armed forces would finish off Hitler and his Nazis. Malaya was the code name for Mexico and China, the code name for France. Local storm threatening meant a major invasion is planned and the seed shipment were the future children of the Hercules Project, but perhaps there was the Japanese. He rewired MI-5 and received this answer.
Supplies in Bohemia damaged. Stop. Bohemians mixed grain with vodka.
Stop. Damaged destroyed. Stop. Only unadulterated products
allowed. Stop.
So, the Japanese tried an experiment much like that of the Aryan project, but met with failure. Major Southam looked through his codebook to interpret the message.
Although the Japanese equivalent to the super Hitler youth lived, they proved too dangerous. As was done by the Hitler Youth, they kept boys and girls separate, but the Japanese super youths fought among themselves, reducing their numbers. The Japanese trainers thought that now the best would survive, but when they started to turn on them, they sent in a couple of platoons. They sent off the survivors to Buddhist monasteries with vows of celibacies and executed those who refused. They hated to do this, but to ascertain that none reneged on their vows of celibacy the Japanese sterilized all their super youth.
"At least our Allies on the Eastern Front have nothing to worry about," said the Major.
"But, what about ours? All though, the Hercules Project is a success, we cannot use them," said Forsythe. "The only coming threat is this Russian dictator called Stalin and right now he's on our side."
Major Southam flipped through a sheet of papers on his desk. "I have no idea what was going on. Apparently this communiqué was from the top level."
"An invasion, sir?" asked Lieutenant Coverton.
"It appears so. We'll wait until tomorrow.
Early the next day, Major Southam looked out the window of his flat towards the Channel. Deep clouds covered the sky, but even from that distance, and using his binoculars he could see the movements of planes flying towards the coast and eventually Normandy. Wishing he could go with them, he wiped an uncharacteristic tear from his eye, and went back to work. He had not sat down for one moment when the telephone rang.
"Yes, Sir. I'll be on it right away sir." He then hung up the telephone. "Lieutenant, the War Office is interviewing several officers, not high ranking ones. Ensigns, petty officers, first and second lieutenants. What the Americans call ninety-day wonders. Fresh from the Academy and totally unsuitable for combat."
"What for sir?"
"It's bloody well awful but we cannot have them here indefinitely. The Mexican government has agreed to let the couples stay in Oaxaca. It's an old area with a long history, but they need a military escort so we're put out the tale that they're European refuges, artists who refused to buckle down to the Nazis. . They'll supply the amenities and we'll take along a radio for communication and then when trouble starts, we'll have a force that'll take care of any trouble that might come up."
"Yes sir."
:"But we don't want the officers to know how many there are."
The Major explained his plan. There were to be eight fishing trawlers. On these eight ships, there would be one or two officers, possibly two, chosen from the military. Each ship would hold twelve couples, the ships numbered from one to eight with the name of the ship starting with the first name of the number. Since some of the passengers were foreign, the officers would teach them English on their journey. To make sure that no one knew of the Hercules Project, these trawlers would mingle with the regular ones on the way to the Grand Banks and then leave the convoy.
Some of the passengers were Spanish speaking, since the trawlers would fly the Mexican flag when going down the shore and would have to cross the Panama canal. They would then land at the beach near Oaxaca at night, and make their way to the area set out for them.
"And how would we know if they got there?"
"That's the beauty of it, Lieutenant," said the Major with a smile, "Each of officers selected will receive an envelope which he will open when they arrive at their destination. However, only one officer will get the message to stay there. If he is one of the volunteers, he will stay there permanently and report to us once a year unless an emergency arrives." He handed Coverton a slip of paper.
"8-2/16. Aren't there twelve couples on each ship?"
"Yes lieutenant. This is the code referred to as the Hercules Project and the Nazis will be looking for eight couples not twelve. We did have a couple of incidents, Lieutenant, remember?"
"Yes sir, those dock workers."
"When the ships leave, I will personally drive to MI-5 headquarters and you will put it in the tropical medical kits so I am sure no one will open that until they arrive. The stuff spoils so I'm sure no one will open it.. It will contain a special code and a number to call. When the other man or woman receives the code, he or she will send a telegraph to us. By the way, there will be another code and number so each officer will make two separate calls."
Coverton could not understand it and asked why.
"They have been ordered to destroy the fishing trawlers. The first code is to verify that they have arrived; the second code is to notify us that all except one of the officers wants to return to England. As soon as they have been verified, we will send a plane out to pick them up."
"So no one can betray them."
"Yes Lieutenant, and if the codes are not sent, we know something is wrong."