Dettmer was going on and on to the colonel — to me — about guiding cars and a winch and wind headings and cloud cover and the moon and we were moving inexorably forward, and even as he spoke, I took my watch from my pocket to check the time.
It was a Waltham.
An American watch.
I put it away as quickly as I could without drawing attention to it, glancing at Dettmer, who was speaking to me at that moment but looking forward. I cursed myself for all the details I had not anticipated. This one I had failed to consider long before things got tough. Though why shouldn’t a high-ranking officer in the Foreign Office have a fine American watch? It was a privilege that could readily accrue to his position. But I’d overlooked it. And that made me worry about what else I’d overlooked.
Perhaps Dettmer had seen me in his periphery as I read my watch. Perhaps he’d finally realized I was not responding to him. Maybe he’d finally said all that he could possibly think of to say to keep his Foreign Office observer informed and impressed. Whatever the reason, he did stop talking to me.
And then finally we were well free of the hangar.
And the airship was set against the wind.
And the water ballast was released and the watch officer returned and the engines began to pound and the lines were cast off and I stood through all this simply waiting, hearing the orders but not listening to them, feeling the bustle increase around me but not moving, holding even more still, waiting now to do what I had to do.
The floor was quaking beneath my feet.
The engines vibrated into my legs and into my jaw and into my brain.
Dettmer commanded engine revs and elevation angles and we were moving, we were rising, the distant tree line was beginning to sink below us, slowly. There was no necessary race forward as in an aeroplane. We crept upward.
“Major,” I said. “I will leave you now.”
Dettmer looked at me.
I tried to read his face.
I kept mine blank, inhabiting, in my actor’s brain, my character’s power, his independence, his arrogance.
Dettmer’s face was blank as well. Rare for him, with me. But surely natural to him with others. He had his own power here. He was the commander of this ship. He was respectful of me, of the people I represented. Fearful even. Perhaps. But the self-possession and the exercise of power and independence that I was portraying to him were, in a real sense, conferred by him. Especially now that we were in the air. The captain of a ship on the sea was God. The commander of a ship in the air was no different.
I tried to see suspicion in Dettmer.
I could not.
But this look between us went on for a longer moment than was comfortable.
“With your permission,” I said, and I lowered my head to him ever so slightly.
He said, “We each have our mission, Colonel.”
I said, “My mission tonight is based on a surpassing respect for yours.”
He smiled. Quickly, warmly.
How ardently this soldier, this commander, this master of a German warship craved personal reassurance. Craved approval.
How sad this all was.
“My ship is yours,” he said.
I brought my right hand up sharply to my right temple. He straightened with a silent gasp. He was touched by my initiating this salute. He brought his own hand up and we held this for a moment, those few beats of amplified respect between two officers.
But through this whole exchange I could not look him in the eyes.
59
I turned to cross the gondola, and as if the cabin knew my haste it grabbed my chest and pushed at the backs of my knees and propelled me toward the ladder. The airship was climbing, of course, and I was rushing downhill.
Manageable still. The angle was maybe ten degrees. But I was very glad the ladder would let me face aft.
I put my hand to the ladder and the executive officer said, “Careful, sir.”
I nodded without looking at him.
I climbed through the roof and out into the open air.
I let the angle press me tightly against the rungs, but almost at once I was dragged to my right. I grasped hard at the left side rail and held on tight. I stopped climbing. For now it was sufficient not to be slung into the air.
We were coming round a bit, perhaps adjusting to the head wind, perhaps taking a heading. But the outward pull eased now and I climbed hard and fast and I was inside the keel.
I had to get this done long before we were at our final cruising altitude. This angle would be a constant challenge.
The hull was still dark.
I held tight to the handrail along the walkway and shined my flashlight forward and I moved as quickly as I dared let myself, with this constant tugging in my chest threatening to fling me headlong into the darkness.
I passed over the gondola engine. Along this stretch of the walkway the sound of the forward Maybach, which was straining to help lift us, jackhammered in my head. It was a bit of a struggle to think in the midst of this but I knew at once I needed to do my work close to this place. The sound of my Luger plugging a gas cell would be masked here.
I pushed on aft for now. I needed to do two things before I could get to the matter of making fire.
There was no light up ahead. The forward hatch — my hatch — was, of course, closed. When I desperately needed for this to be open, I would not have time to open it. So I pressed on, pushing my center of balance downward, down into my legs, into my knees, pressing hard at each footstep, leaning my torso backward, holding tight to the handrail, my flashlight beam bouncing before me, lifting as far out on the path as I could throw it.
And then I saw in my beam the walkway turn up ahead, where it skirted the hatch.
I arrived.
I braced myself against the starboard turning of the railing and I flashed the beam to the closed hatch and then, beyond it, to its portside. I was looking for a lever or a handle or a wheel, some way to open this thing. It wasn’t there. I scanned the beam and I found it, at the forward end of the hatch, a wheel with protruding handles set in the bulkhead.
I moved toward it.
The rail along the walkway ended and I angled my body hard to my right — the ship’s upward incline seemed greater now by a few degrees — and my target, clear in my flashlight, was another rail along the bulkhead.
I lunged for it.
I had it.
I made my way along to the wheel, and with my left hand I grabbed one of its handles and then, needing the wheel to both open the hatch and hold myself steady, I grasped a second handle with my right hand.
The dispatch case lifted off me. My chest clamped in panic even as the shoulder strap grabbed at my neck.
It was okay. The strap held. The bag and the tin box were safe. The angle backward was a good fifteen degrees. Perhaps more. It felt like fifty. Two powerful hands pulled at my shoulders.
I strained at the wheel. It turned, bit by bit, bearing my clinging weight with each torque of the gears of the hatch. Light was dilating into the keel behind me.
And then the wheel would turn no more.
I looked. The hatch was fully open.
I let go of the wheel, one hand at a time, quickly grabbing downward and reattaching at the handrail. And now I had both hands secure there and I dragged myself along the bulkhead and approached the corner going forward.
I stopped.
I clung hard. The pull on me was strong, trying to fling me aft. I knew the danger. The light was all around. I sensed the hatch gaping behind me. The maw of a bright-faced beast. If I let go I would tumble directly out of the Zepp.
I turned my head. I looked.
We were running over rooftops and now over a paved road, and now a dense stand of trees was passing and passing. Had we circled back over Spich? A public relations move upon takeoff?