Beneath Gray Skies (38 page)

For communications,
Bismarck
was equipped with a powerful radio apparatus and a long retractable wire antenna, trailing for over a hundred meters behind the airship, and used Morse code to talk to base stations around the world, and it was hoped that, when the atmospheric conditions were right, it would even prove possible to talk to Germany across the Atlantic. Because of the risk of sparks from the radio, the radio room was housed in another gondola mounted on pylons beneath the airship’s hull to separate it from the hydrogen, and accessed through a ladder running from a trapdoor in the floor of the hull to a sliding hatch in the roof of the radio car.

The “treasure pod” specified by Goering was at the rear of the Zeppelin, and could be released from the control gondola using a specially adapted bomb release mechanism. The location of the treasure pod had been specially chosen to avoid any risk of the pod’s parachutes, opened by a static line, becoming entangled with the propellers as the pod was jettisoned. No such precautions had been taken with regard to the passengers, who were expected to fall clear of the airship before pulling their ripcords.

-o-

Y
es, Eckener thought to himself,
Bismarck
was beautiful, covered in her shiny skin stretched over her ribs, coated with heat-reflecting silver dope to prevent the sun from heating up the gas inside and disturbing the balance of the ship. It was a shame those bloody Nazis had insisted on putting their damned symbol all over her.

He and Dietelbaum were joined on the shed floor by a short, somewhat rotund man in SA uniform, who extended his right arm and greeted them with “Heil Hitler!”

“
Grüss Gott
,” replied Eckener, deliberately using the Southern German informal greeting. Dietelbaum, more diplomatically, said nothing at all.

“Herr Doktor,” the man said, making the formal title sound like an insult, “when will the airship be taken out of the hangar?”

“The ground crew are being assembled now,” replied Eckener. “Once they are in position, which will be in about twenty minutes, it should take no more than an hour before the ship is attached to the mooring mast. About fifteen minutes after that, passengers may start boarding.”

“Thank you,” said the SA man. There was little gratitude in his tone of voice. “I will inform the Führer.” With another (unreturned) “Heil Hitler!”, he left.

“Is he on the passenger list?” asked Eckener. “I sincerely hope not, otherwise I shall be sorely tempted to use him instead of ballast to lighten the ship.” It was rare for the otherwise stiff Eckener to make any kind of joke, and Dietelbaum recognized this good humor as the accompaniment to the excitement that Eckener always felt on the occasion of an airship flight.

“What about the new arrangements at the other end?” asked Dietelbaum. “Do you think that they will work?” Only twelve hours before, an official directive had come from Berlin, ordering between ten and thirty “non-essential” crewmen (as if any of his crewmen were not essential, Eckener had thought to himself bitterly) to “go ashore” immediately on docking with the mooring mast, with their places taken by an equal number of dignitaries of the Confederate States of America.
Bismarck
would then make a further demonstration flight of a few hours carrying the new passengers before finally docking and being housed in the shed.

“They’ll work,” replied Eckener, “so long as we have sufficient fuel. If we meet headwinds over the Atlantic, then we may be running short, and we will have to cancel the idea. But I don’t actually anticipate many problems.” He stroked his beard rhythmically, another sign that Dietelbaum had learned to recognize of the excitement hidden inside.

“Herr Doktor, I hate to remind you, but I think you should be in the control car very soon.”

“Of course I should, Dietelbaum,” Eckener replied. “Just a minute while I enjoy the sight of
Bismarck
before we set off. It will all be different once we’re aloft. I wish you were coming with us, Dietelbaum.”

“So do I, sir,” replied Dietelbaum. He had had a place reserved for him on the trip, but at the last minute, Ernst Röhm had demanded a berth for his latest handsome blond male “secretary.” Since Dietelbaum had no airship crew skills, and Röhm appeared to be riding high in the Nazi Party’s favor, Eckener had had little alternative but to drop Dietelbaum from the roster.

“Never mind, Hans, there will be other times. And in more congenial company,” said Eckener. “This may not be the most enjoyable flight that
Bismarck
will make.” He moved towards the control gondola, from which he had stepped only twenty minutes before to admire the view of the airship in the shed. Because Eckener was Eckener, everything that he had to do on board had been completed and double-checked hours before. “In the air,” he used to say to new employees of the Zeppelin company, “there is no room for second chances. Check everything before you take off. There may not be time later on.” He glanced at his reflection in the windshield of the control gondola, and straightened his uniform cap before reaching out to the ladder dangling from the hatchway. “Man coming on board,” he sang out.

“Aye, aye, man coming on board,” came the reply from one of the handlers aft. As Eckener swung himself up the ladder, a sandbag roughly equivalent to his weight was released, preserving
Bismarck
’s neutral buoyancy.

“
Hals- und Beinbruch,
” called out Dietelbaum, using the traditional wish that the recipient would break his neck and legs, and thereby confusing and confounding the evil spirits lurking in wait to cause mischief.

Eckener waved back in response. Dietelbaum watched the passengers’ baggage being weighed and loaded, and sandbags dumped to maintain equilibrium. When this process was complete, a bugle sounded, and the handling crew emerged from the shadows at the sides of the shed and closed in to take the handling ropes that were attached to the sides of the gondolas.

The bugler sounded “Start engines” and in prescribed sequence, the engineers listening for the sound of the engines due to start before them, the Maybachs roared into life. The sound of the six 12-cylinder motors in the enclosed space of the hangar was almost physically terrifying, and Dietelbaum wondered, not for the first time, how the engineers in the gondolas survived the noise for hours on end, despite their ear protection. The shed, on its enormous turntable, had been turned into the wind, so that when the doors opened, a cool breeze swept directly into the hangar and the handling ropes went taut. Through the double doors, Dietelbaum could see the mooring mast against the clear blue sky, and beyond that, the Bodensee.

The bugle sounded “Lighten ship”, and five sandbags were dropped.
Bismarck
strained upwards, but was held down easily by the double line of men. The bugle sounded “Walk her out”, and in the control gondola, Dietelbaum saw Eckener move one of the engine-room telegraph levers. About ten seconds later, the rear pair of propellers started to rotate slowly as the engineers throttled back and engaged the clutches. At the pace of a slow march, the handlers guided
Bismarck
, bow first, out of the shed.

Dietelbaum followed, and watched as the rigger high in the bow port threw down the bow mooring rope, which was then picked up and clipped to the rope coming from the mooring mast. A waved exchange of flag signals between the control car and the top of the mast, and the bugle sounded “Up ship.”

The handling crew released their ropes, and
Bismarck
rose slowly and majestically a few feet into the air. The rear propellers windmilled to a stop, as the winch inside the mast took up the slack of the bow rope, and gently tugged the bow of
Bismarck
to meet the mooring mast. The airship turned slowly so that the bow was pointing directly into the wind.

A hatch opened just above the control car, and a crewman threw a rope to the mooring mast, where a ground handler attached the end of a flexible canvas and rope gangway, stiffened with wooden slats running across its width and fitted with ropes as handrails. In a few minutes, there was a relatively rigid and stable, yet flexible, path for the passengers to walk from the platform on the top of the mooring mast that rotated together with the airship, into the hatchway. From there, crewmen would guide them along catwalks and down internal stairways to the passenger accommodation.

This was a new technique, being tried for the first time on
Bismarck
to avoid the inconvenience of noise, and reduce the possible danger to passengers as the airship was walked out of the shed, and the difficulties of boarding a low hovering airship in the open air. Dietelbaum was pleased to see that it appeared to be working so well. Hitler and the other Nazi VIPs, followed by their assistants and secretaries went one at a time along the gangplank and disappeared through the hatchway. As each one entered, sandbags, corresponding to the weight of the passengers, were released to maintain equilibrium.

At last the final passenger boarded. Dietelbaum could now see faces along the side of the passenger promenade deck. The hatchway closed, and the gangway was withdrawn into the mooring mast.

A brief pause, and more flag signals from the control car. The bugle sounded “Up ship” again, and as
Bismarck
dumped gallons of water ballast to the ground, the bow rope was slipped from the mooring mast, and the vast silver cylinder soared into the air. The engines roared at full throttle, and the note changed as the clutches were engaged on the propellers, pair by pair, and the airship picked up speed.

A collective sigh, like the sound of a crowd at a fireworks display, arose from the onlookers as
Bismarck
rose to a height of about a thousand feet and started to turn in a circle.

As the airship came out of her turn and headed towards the west, there was a cheer from the watchers, and what seemed like the whole crowd pulled out handkerchiefs and pieces of white cloth and waved them at the departing dirigible. “Godspeed to you all!” someone called out, and the crowd took up the chant.

“Fantastic!” said the man next to Dietelbaum, watching the airship shrinking to a dot in the distance. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life. I’m sure the Confederates are going to be overwhelmed when they see that.”

“
Are we waiting for the same thing?”
“I’m waiting for the bastard to die.”

“
I
was wrong, you were right,” Vernon Gatt said to Henry Dowling. “John Summers is in one heck of a mess financially. He seems to have invested all his money in worthless business ventures. Not a single success among them in the last five years. I wonder what he’s been living on for the past six months. No, make that the last year,” turning over the pages that spelled out a man’s financial ruin in gruesome detail.

“Well, I guess he’s been paid by the Confederacy for the past few weeks at least,” replied Dowling. “Either that, or he’s been living on God’s fresh air, which doesn’t make for a very secure way of life. Do you want to know my guess?”

“I’m getting to be scared to listen to you any more, Henry. Your guesses are almost always uncomfortable to listen to, and to make matters worse you’re usually right. Go on.”

“I’m guessing that he borrowed money privately on the expectation of repaying the loan with the Wasserstein money once he’d married Virginia, and then he found himself trapped with the interest repayments when he realized that the marriage was off,” suggested Dowling.

“You think that was his only interest in her?” asked Gatt, somewhat horrified by the suggestion that a trusted member of his staff could have behaved in such a way.

“I doubt it, quite frankly,” replied Dowling. “She is, after all, a most attractive young lady in so many ways. But I venture to suggest that had she been penniless, she would have been a good deal less attractive to Mr. John Summers. When did you first notice his interest in her?”

Gatt looked a little sheepish. “I suppose, now I come to recall, it was about the time that he seems to have started getting into real difficulties, according to these papers. I am afraid that you may be right in your suspicions, Henry. We’re definitely going to have to ask him some questions which I don’t think he’s going to appreciate.”

“Then you’d better move as fast as possible,” remarked Dowling. “Believe me, in cases like this, you don’t want to let the grass grow under your feet.”

Gatt pressed a bell on his desk, and Christopher entered the office.

“Oh, I didn’t realize you were going to be in the office today, Chris,” said Gatt. Since joining the American side, Christopher had become “Chris”. “I thought you were going over to Foggy Bottom to talk to the State Department.”

“I was going to go there, but John Summers told me he was going instead of me. Is that a problem?”