The Last Airship (2 page)

He
rode his R75 right up to the ship’s mooring line and then released his grip on
the handlebars unceremoniously as he dismounted. The bike fell to its side, but
the motor could still be heard running smoothly, evidence of the strength of
its simplicity.

Fritz
panted heavily as he made his way through the thick, snow-covered, metal stairs
carrying one small suitcase. He climbed up to the open door of the gondola.

“You’re
late,” said his old friend, Peter Greenstein, curtly. The man was crouched down
at the door. Peter looked outside one last time and immediately closed the door
behind Fritz.

Fritz
didn’t bother apologizing for his late arrival. He wasn’t sorry at all. If he
could have been here sooner, he would have been.

He
studied the interior of the gondola as he approached the others.

It
was spacious, more like the interior of a grand yacht than an aircraft, he
decided. It felt like a yacht too – even moored several inches off the ground,
the slow, rolling motion of the gondola reminded him of the gentle feel of
riding an ocean swell.

He
heard the large, powerful engines increase in pitch. The swaying motion
stopped, as the mooring cables were cut and the Magdalena was finally free to
begin her journey.

His
right arm instinctively reached for the nearest chair for balance. Smoothly,
the giant craft began its vertical rise into the air, like a helium balloon
released from a child’s grasp. He also sensed a slight forward motion, similar
to the feeling one experience when an escalator ascends.

There
was only one vacant seat, and he carefully made his way toward it.

The
windows sloped outward, so that he could look straight down and watch the
scenery roll by beneath his feet, not that there was much to see below on this
dark night.

“This
must be yours, it’s the last one,” said a young boy, whose voice was far from
breaking. “Thank you.”

He
noted that the boy’s father quickly admonished him for speaking to a stranger.

He
took his seat, glad to relinquish the weight on his unsteady feet.

Thank
God, it’s going to be safe.

Two
seconds later, he heard the barking sound of a German machine gun being fired.

*

Walter
Wolfgang perused the report in front of him.

It
was bad. The Fuhrer was going to be most displeased. People in Germany
disappeared, or were frequently made to disappear, these days. But today, of
all days, to lose such an important person, was to invite severe criticism. It
was the man that he, specifically, was assigned to keep his eyes on.

The
Fuhrer himself had given him this assignment. He, of all the loyal members of
the Third Reich, had the exact qualifications and position to carry out this
important task.

And
now, he had failed.

How
could I have let this happen?

A
clean shaven man in an SS uniform entered the room, carrying a manila folder
imprinted with the words “Top Secret” across the front.

“Heil
Hitler,” the officer said, as he saluted.

“Heil
Hitler,” Walter dutifully replied, returning the salute.

The
officer had come directly from #8 Prinz Albrecht Street in Berlin – Gestapo
headquarters. Walter shivered, just thinking about it. Everyone feared the
Gestapo, even himself, Germany’s most loyal servant.

As
a civilian, he held no military rank and had no authority.

In
actuality, he was secretly working for the Fuhrer on a most important
assignment. The Gestapo, he realized, could and did send fear through everyone.
Should he object to their interference, by the time news of his complaint
reached the Fuhrer, the Gestapo's punishment would have already been meted out.

He
understood precisely why the SS officer was standing before him today.

“So,
he left work early today?” The officer spoke each word slowly and carefully, as
though he were actually interrogating Walter.

Does
he not realize that I want to catch Ribbentrop as much as he does?

“Yes,
he did.”

“Has
he ever left work early, previously?”

“No,
never.” Walter fidgeted with his briefcase as he spoke.

“And…
you just let him leave?”

“We
are civilians. Both he and I are working diligently for the Third Reich, but he
is my superior, and if he says that he has to go, then I cannot stop him.”

“Where
did he say he had to go?” The officer persisted, without raising his voice – he
never had to. If a person was being questioned by an SS officer, they listened
carefully.

“He
told me that he was meeting with another professor today. The meeting was to
take place at his house.”

“But,
you say that you went to his house and no one was there?”

“That’s
correct.” Walter replied. 

The
skin along the SS officer’s strong jawline tightened in frustration. “And, I
have men at his house, even as we speak, determining whether or not Ribbentrop
has taken anything with him.”

Walter
sat patiently in his tan leather chair, feeling like a child attending one of
his own lectures; a child who had failed to demonstrate satisfactory
understanding of a concept and was now to be instructed as to what was expected
of him.

Someone
knocked at the door. 

It
was probably another SS officer. No one else in their right mind would
interrupt an ongoing interrogation by an SS officer otherwise.

“Yes,
who is it?”

“Rutherford,
Sir. Heil Hitler.” The young man, little more than a boy, in his starched SS
uniform saluted.

“Heil
Hitler.” The first SS officer didn’t invite the younger officer to take a seat.
“Now, Rutherford, what do you have for me?”

“He’s
been spotted riding his BMW south.” Rutherford struggled to disguise the
pleasure of his own success.

“He’s
trying to escape Berlin on his motorcycle?” His incredulity was visible. “He
must know that he can’t escape Germany that easily. He must have found help.
Where is he now?”

“He’s
on the A9 motorway. Do you want us to bring him in for questioning?” Rutherford
asked.

“No,
I want you to follow him. Arrest him once he has met with his contact.”

These
people have no idea!
 Walter was
horrified that SS were going to risk Ribbentrop’s escape so that they might
have a chance at catching his accomplices.

The
SS officer then looked at Walter, and said, “You’d better pray that we catch
this prick.”

“You
have no concept of what’s at stake,” Walter replied.

*

Peter
gripped one of the levers with his right hand. It controlled the angle of the
two forward propellers. He pulled backwards on it, and then turned to the pair
of levers beside it, which increased their forward thrust. The idling sound
rose to a higher pitch, but nothing happened.

Franck
then released their mooring lines.

The
Magdalena was now floating unrestrained.

A
moment later, the airship started to move forward, ever so slightly.

Peter’s
hands gripped the large wooden steering wheel adeptly, it was not too
dissimilar to those which might be found on a sailing ship. Like its naval
counterpart, the wheel controlled an oversized rudder at the rear of the
airship, allowing directional control.

A
careful movement of his left hand on a somewhat smaller wheel allowed the rear
four propellers to pitch the nose up, while preventing it from yawing from
side-to-side. On the wall to his right, where his co-pilot Franck sat, were a
number of pressure switches, valves and toggles that controlled the pressure of
both helium and air, as well as the distribution of ballast.

Peter
felt good to finally nose up with the pitch control wheel so that the Magdalena
could reach for the sky.

It
was painfully slow.

All
dirigibles were.

There
was nothing you could do about that. Tonight, Peter felt the slowness. He felt
as though he was running from a monster, but, as if in a nightmare, his legs
were stuck in the mud and he couldn’t get away fast enough.

Finally,
he felt the Magdalena climb and start gaining forward speed and momentum.

With
both hands fixed firmly on the steering wheel, he kept the enormous, lumbering
aircraft under control. With its six engines, six propellers and filled with
helium gas, whose buoyancy constantly changed depending on the temperature and
atmospheric pressure, piloting the Magdalena was like a combination of flying
an airplane and making a scuba dive at the same time.

“We’re
just about to clear those pine trees, Franck. Once we’re over them, we should
be ready to switch to flight configuration.

“Copy,
that.”

Peter’s
heart stopped as he heard the rapid staccato of machine gun fire.

“What
the fuck is that?”

“Machine
gun fire, but are they shooting at us, or at a ground target?”

His
hand pulled the two levers on his left back further, this increased the speed
of the rear four propellers from1450 to 1700 RPM, which was just above the
maximum recommended RPMs for the advanced Daimler-Benz engines.

It
seemed pointless.

The
extra strain on the engines barely increased their speed at all.

Ahead
of them, he could hear the sound of more gunfire.

Suddenly,
the area directly in front of the pilot’s cabin lit up with sparks.

“Holy
shit! We’re hit.”

“What’s
our pressure?” Peter was still in control, despite the disaster. He was very
glad that he had opted to use the more expensive inert gas, helium, rather than
the cheaper and much more highly volatile gas, hydrogen, which had proved so
fatal in the Hindenburg Disaster of 1937.

Franck
looked over at the gas pressure gauges.

There
were fourteen separate helium compartments within the Magdalena. Each one had
its own pressure gauge and release valves to prevent explosions during air
pressure changes, and separate helium cylinders to increase buoyancy if
required.

“Still
5.2 millibars in all fourteen compartments.”

“Okay,
copy that. Let’s check the rest of our systems to see if anything else has been
damaged.”

“Everything
looks all right.” Franck then started to tap the compass. “Damn. It must have
knocked off our forward gyroscope.”

“Okay,
we’ll have to work something out by dead reckoning.” Years of piloting had
taught him to work on a problem rather than to panic over something you
couldn’t change.

Because
of the metal used within the gondola, an interior compass was made
fundamentally useless. To circumvent this problem, the Magdalena had a mounted
gyroscope at the nose of the ship.

The
sound of the machine gun fire was becoming quieter with distance.

Just
a little further and we’ll be out of their range.
  

“Okay,
we’ve reached 25 mph. Let’s switch the ship to flight configuration and see if
we can increase our speed some more.”

“Copy
that,” Franck said, as he pulled the levers before him, to a horizontal level.
Now, the Magdalena was using its fins, not its engines, to control the ship's
motion.

Like
a ship in water, the Magdalena’s steering wheel felt as though it was having
more of an effect on their direction now that their speed had increased.

The
ship now flew more like a yacht with a rudder. As such, Peter had to contend
with other factors, such as air currents and thermals. It had taken years of
experience, but he had learned to make minor adjustments early for expected
changes.

“Good,
our speed is picking up. It’s now at 30 mph.” Peter then noticed that his left
hand was struggling to keep the pitch of the nose straight and level. “Can you
check the helium again, she seems to be sinking?”

Franck
ran his hands over each of the gauges and then he stopped at number fourteen.
It was the one that was placed in the nose of the ship.

“It’s
already down to 3.5millibars. We’re quickly leaking gas from compartment number
fourteen,” Franck said.

“Okay,
we’re going to have to re-route some of the helium from the other tanks.”

“Copy
that.” Franck started to make the adjustments on the valves to move helium from
the remaining thirteen compartments to the front. “Sir?”

“Yes?”

“How
long can we keep her in the air by doing this?”

“I
don’t know. Four, perhaps five hours?” Peter said. Then, tapping on the
pressure gauge to make certain the swivel stick hadn’t become stuck, he said,
“It will be close, but we might just make it. We’re going to lose some gas as
we fly over the mountains. I’ll get up into the canopy shortly and see if I can
repair the helium bladder by myself.”