Flight of Dreams (14 page)

W
erner watches Max lean closer to the dial. Max thumps it with an index finger, and the glass case wobbles at his touch. “Oh,” he says. “That explains it.”

The face of the dial is thick glass rimmed with metal. Max spreads his palm across the surface, fixing each finger at a point around the edge. He gently rotates it, and removes the dial face. The needle stops spinning altogether.

“The face came loose,” he offers by way of explanation, holding it up. “The needle won't read accurately unless it's pressurized.”

It would never have occurred to the cabin boy that he could simply pluck off the face of the dial, but Max has done it without the slightest hesitation. Max rubs the cuff of his sleeve against the glass to wipe away his fingerprints and then carefully holds it by the metal rim and pops the face back onto the dial. The needle wobbles uncertainly for a moment and then begins a lazy rotation around the numbers until it quivers to a stop, the arrows at each end pointing directly at nine and three.

August Deutschle jumps into action, adjusting the engine speed to correspond with the dial reading. Within seconds the revving evens out around them. Less of a shudder and more of a hum. Werner drops his hands to his side and lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

“You,” Max pokes Werner in the breastbone, hard, with one finger, “are damn lucky I actually knew what to do.”

The reprimand hurts the boy's pride more than he would like to admit. Werner rubs the spot with his thumb, trying not to pout. It has been his experience that a pout can often lead to tears.

“That's it?” August asks.

“Trust me. Much better a loose bit of glass than a blown engine. Yes?” Max glances at his watch. “I'd best get young Herr Franz back to his duties before someone figures out that he's taken a stroll in midair.”

Max hoists Werner upward so he can grab the first rung of the ladder, and then follows close behind. Max doesn't crowd him, but Werner has the impression that the navigator is staying close enough to catch him should he stumble. He keeps his eyes forward and his feet steady and is halfway to the hatch above in no time.

“You have good balance,” Max says.

“It's not so different than climbing a fire escape. Except for the wind.”

Werner feels Max's hand clamp onto his ankle like a vise. “Wait. Look,” he says.

Below them is the long, sleek form of an ocean liner. Werner can make out clean white letters that read
Europa
just above the water line. The smokestacks puff like dragon lungs as the ship cuts a clean wake through the water. It looks like a horned, painted sea serpent.

“That's one of the nicer ones,” Max says.

“Is it expensive to travel by boat?” Werner has never even paid cab fare. He cannot fathom what sort of riches it would take to buy passage on an ocean liner.

“It's not cheap. But not nearly as expensive as this—or as fun, if you want to know the truth. You could buy a car for the price of a ticket on the
Hindenburg.
”

They've not quite come parallel with the ocean liner when the
Europa
sends out a friendly bellow of her horn, and they look down to see a handful of people on deck waving madly in greeting. Tiny faceless mites. From this height they look no bigger than grains of rice. Werner wonders what it's like for them to look up and see this colossus overhead. How strange it must be. Beasts of this size should be in the ocean, not over it.

They wait to finish climbing the ladder until the
Europa
has slipped a good distance behind, her massive bulk dutifully chugging along. The hatch door slides shut once they've made it safely back inside the main structure, and Max secures the interior fasteners and double-checks to make sure it is locked securely.

“Satisfied?”

Werner is flushed and windblown. He is so excited that his words turn into an unbroken stream of syllables. “That was incredible!”

Werner flashes a grateful smile and marches back toward the security door. He is just as enraptured by the inner workings of the
Hindenburg
on the return trip, peppering Max with questions about this support beam or that aluminum shaft. Max can answer most of the questions easily, but there are a few that stump him. What coating covers the hydrogen cells to prevent the gas from leaking out? Who designed the diesel fuel tanks? The navigator grows impatient—Werner can tell by the clipped tone of his voice—but he humors him anyway, answering as best he can.

After another five questions Max laughs. “Go ahead. Tell me again that you're no good at sums.”

Werner is ahead of Max now, and he lifts the sharp points of his shoulder blades in a shrug. He doesn't look back. “I was top of my class.”

“That's what I thought.”

It is the truth. Technically. But the credit lies more with Werner's mother than with him. She is the one who helped him study for every test; the one who patiently taught him to pick through words until he found their meaning. No longer being in school is irrelevant to Werner. But no longer being under his mother's tutelage is starting to take its toll.

Their shoes hang by the security door where they left them, and it takes only a moment to make the exchange. Werner stands straighter when back inside the passenger area. He's about to say something to Max—to thank him—when they round a corner and nearly collide with Irene Doehner and her two little brothers. She is herding them toward the dining room but looks as though she'd rather still be in bed.

Max catches him staring. The girl
is
pretty after all. Her hair is neither blond nor brown but one of those soft shades in between. Lips bright and soft like one of his mother's potted roses. Blue eyes. They mumble apologies but do not make eye contact. It takes only a moment for her to glide around them in the corridor, and then she moves along after her brothers.

Max nudges him with an elbow. “Five marks says you already know that girl's name.”

“Irene.” It's a noble attempt at nonchalance, but his cheeks are hot.

“Save yourself the trouble, kid.” Max straightens the collar of Werner's white jacket. He assesses his appearance head to toe to make sure he's not sporting grease stains or tears in his clothing. His voice betrays no hint of sadness, but he wears a melancholy expression that Werner has never seen before. “She'll only break your heart.”

He opens his mouth to defend himself, but Max interrupts. “You know what? Don't tell me. I have my own troubles.”

“There you are. I've been looking for you.”

Werner turns to find the American waiting patiently a few steps away, sober, showered, and dressed in a clean, pressed suit. It takes Werner a moment to realize that he isn't speaking to Max.

“Might I have a word with you?” the American says.

Werner looks at Max for approval.

“Go on. You don't need my permission.” Then he glances at the passenger and tips his hat.
“Guten Morgen.”

The American gives a disinterested nod, barely shifting his gaze to Max in greeting. Werner can't help but feel that it's not an altogether friendly gaze.

T
he American leads Werner into the dining room before he speaks. But it becomes immediately apparent that the young Doehner girl is a distraction. The cabin boy is watching her situate her brothers at the table nearest the observation windows. And she must know it because her chin is lifted at a coy angle and there is an exaggerated awareness in her movements. Women do learn early.

The American clears his throat. “What do you know about dogs?”

Werner tries to mask his confusion. “They stink.”

“Sometimes. But more to the point, do you like them?”

“Well enough. My grandfather breeds Doberman pinschers.”

“Are you afraid of them?”

“They can be nasty dogs if treated poorly. Or trained to guard.”

“Not pinschers. Dogs in general.”

Werner hesitates a moment too long. “No. I don't suppose so.”

“You're lying.”

“It depends on the dog. I was bitten once. Right here.” Werner rolls back the cuff of his jacket to reveal four pale scars on his forearm.

“You should be afraid of them. Dogs are animals after all.”

“Why are you asking me this, Herr…?”

The American doesn't offer his surname, merely peers at the boy and waits for him to ask the obvious questions.

After an awkward silence the cabin boy continues. “Why do you want to know if I like dogs? And if they scare me?”

“Because there is a dog on this aircraft that I would like you to care for. I'll pay you to do it. But if you're lazy or a coward or cruel I need to know up front. I'd rather not waste my time or money.”

“I'm none of those things.”

“I didn't think so.” He likes the boy. Werner is frank and bright and has just the right amount of confidence to accomplish this task.

“You don't mean the acrobat's dog, do you? Because I doubt he'd like me interfering.”

“No. Not that one. There's another dog in the cargo hold that seems to have been forgotten about. I want you to feed it and change the papers in its crate twice a day. I'll pay you ten American dollars to do the job. That way you'll have spending money once we land. Maybe you could buy something for your mother?” The American looks over Werner's shoulder at Irene as she pretends not to watch them. “Or maybe a trinket for Fräulein Doehner?”

Werner's eyes narrow in suspicion. “How do you know what's in the cargo hold? Passengers aren't allowed outside of the passenger areas.”

Oh, he likes this kid very much. Werner cleanly ignored the bait and went straight for the jugular. “Neither are cabin boys, from what I hear.”

Silence.

“But given the fact that I saw you in the belly of this ship not half an hour ago, I would say that you and I are both people for whom exceptions are made.”

“I don't—”

The American holds up a hand to stop him. “No point in lying. I don't care what you were doing. You are clearly ambitious and clever, but those are tools that you should make the most of elsewhere. The only question you need to answer, Herr Franz, is whether or not you would like to make a bit of extra money.”

The cabin boy clears his throat. “Of course,” he says. “But not if I'll get in trouble for it. I can't afford to lose this job.”

“You won't get in trouble. I can promise you that. Simply ensure that the dog is cared for. And if anyone asks what you're doing back there, you can tell them the owner paid you to care for it since he isn't allowed in the cargo hold.”

“You own that dog?”

“No. But no one else needs to know that.”

Werner considers this proposition for a moment. “What's its name?”

“Owens.”

“Is that actually his name?”

“Hell if I know.”

“What if it won't answer to Owens? Dogs are smart.”

“Trust me. It will answer to anything.”

“Why are you doing this? Why pay to care for an animal that isn't yours?”

Sometimes a bit of compassion and decency is reason enough to do something out of the ordinary. This isn't something he will say aloud, however. “That dog doesn't deserve to be abandoned, starved, and left to shit itself.”

“I'll do it, then. But you will pay me up front.”

The American pulls a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and hands it to Werner. “Agreed.”

The boy scrutinizes this windfall for a moment as though to make sure it isn't counterfeit, as though he'd know the difference. Then he tucks it into the small breast pocket of his steward's coat. He gives the American the serious nod of one gentleman conducting business with another.

“Now I'd like to know what we're having for breakfast. I'm starving. And I'm also quite interested to learn everything you know about a certain passenger on board this airship.”

“Which passenger?”

He rocks back on his heels, arms crossed, anticipation written into the lines around his mouth. “Leonhard Adelt.”

M
ax descends into the control car for his shift and feels the charged atmosphere immediately. He has missed something important. An argument most likely. There's palpable tension in the air. No one makes eye contact or speaks. The officers look like a pack of angry dogs, hackles raised, spines stiff. There's a feral look to Commander Pruss, an aggressive slant to his mouth.

Colonel Erdmann has observation duties this morning, and he has removed himself to the edge of the utility room. He watches, concern evident on his face.

Max sniffs out the situation carefully. “What's wrong?”

Christian Nielsen stands in the navigation room glowering at a set of charts spread on the table. He jabs them with an angry finger. “Headwinds.”

“And?”

“We're three hours behind schedule.”

It was Max's affinity for logic and order that drew him to navigation in the first place, but it is his capacity for problem-solving and maintaining order that keeps him in this position instead of reaching for command of his own airship. Already his mind is ticking through potential issues, looking for a solution. A loss of this magnitude can easily happen over the course of an entire trip, but for it to happen overnight is highly irregular. Max inspects the instruments on the wall above his desk, looking for the culprit. A broken clock or a malfunctioning triangulation gauge. He even pulls the compass from his pocket to double-check the gauges. But nothing is out of sync.

“Headwinds?” he asks.

“Fifteen knots.”

He ponders this for a moment. “Crosswinds?”

Nielsen checks the logbook. “They've stayed around twelve knots, give or take a bit, depending on altitude. But still, we should have crossed the prime meridian at one o'clock. And we didn't get there until three. We've lost another hour since.”

“That doesn't make sense,” Max says. “It's—”

“Inexcusable,” Commander Pruss growls. He stands at the rudder wheel, his back turned, his voice charged with electricity.

So here is the source of the tension, then. Pruss is frustrated, Nielsen is defensive, and everyone else is unwilling to take sides. No matter what might have been spoken between them, the delay cannot be Nielsen's fault. The
Hindenburg
is an aviation marvel but no state-of-the-art technology can defeat Mother Nature. The airship will always be subject to her capricious whims.

“Get us back on course, Max,” Pruss says. He dismisses Nielsen with a curt nod.

Nielsen is ready to protest, but Max shakes his head.
No,
the movement says,
it's not worth the trouble you'll make for yourself.
Max is on duty now. He'll fix the problem—it's what he does best after all. If Nielsen is smart he will keep his mouth shut, and Pruss won't remember the incident come nightfall.

Nielsen signs out of the logbook with resignation. Then he salutes Pruss and leaves the control car. There is an immediate shift in the atmosphere, as though Nielsen has taken the strain with him, and as Max assumes his position at the chart, balance is restored.

Max consults his equipment and then traces the ship's course on the chart as he mentally calculates the total air speed and the angle of the wind based on their direction of travel.

He makes a decision. “Commander?”

Max waits for Pruss to turn.

“If we lower altitude fifty feet and alter course two degrees to the south, headwinds will be reduced significantly.”

Pruss considers Max's suggestion for a moment—it's for show, as Pruss always defers to Max in this area—then he gives the orders to descend. There is an immediate tug on the airship, like a balloon being pulled forward.

“Well done,” Colonel Erdmann says quietly behind him.

Max acknowledges the praise with a slight nod, unnerved at the intensity of Erdmann's gaze and the unasked questions it contains. Then he returns to his duties, feeling rather satisfied with himself.
No, you can't defeat Mother Nature,
he thinks,
but you sure as hell can move out of her way.