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Authors: Max Allan Collins
Tags: Disaster Series
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though, thanks to the arrangement of black leather settees built into three walls, facing black-and-chrome tables and chairs. The fourth wall paralleled the side of the ship, and a railing allowed passengers to gaze down at a bank of Plexiglas windows set flush in the floor along the edge of the ship. Yellow pigskin leather covered the walls, which were illustrated with images of various hot-air balloons.
Hot air was apropos, with all the smoking and talking going on by the exclusively male populace of the room, who shared one lighter, housed in the wall on a draw cable. Advertising man Douglas and his little group sat chatting in a cloud of cigarette and cigar smoke—the room was well ventilated, but these were serious smokers. Leonhard Adelt was standing at the rail, a drink in hand, a cigarette drooping from his lips, as he studied the black clouds churning below.
Charteris was glad to catch the journalist by himself.
“Mr. Adelt,” the author said, very quietly, “I must advise you to watch what you say around this Knoecher character.”
Adelt’s handsome, intelligent features tightened, then loosened as he grinned. “Oh, he seems nice enough.”
Charteris shook his head. “Don’t ask me to say more, because I shouldn’t. Just don’t talk politics around him, no matter how he prompts you.”
Adelt frowned, and his face fell as he grasped the author’s meaning. “What a fool…”
“Pardon?”
“Not you, Mr. Charteris, no not you… I must have allowed myself to be seduced by the elegance and civility of this airship…. This is like another world, is it not? A better world than the onedown there—suspicion, fear, jealousy, self-hatred, these are the cancers at the heart of the Reich.”
“I just thought you should know. But I never said this, understood?”
“Understood, Mr. Charteris. Easily understood by one who lives in a land of midnight knocks at the door… who exists in a country of rigid structure, rotting from within, morally bankrupt… Excuse me. I’m a little drunk.”
“You’re articulate, nonetheless.”
“I only hope…”
“Yes?”
Adelt’s eyes were tight with concern. “Did we say too much at the table tonight? I know we spoke of our friend Stefan Zweig….”
“I can’t judge that. I don’t have to swim in those waters.”
“Someday you may, Mr. Charteris. Someday you may…. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll join my wife in our cabin.”
Charteris finished his own drink and headed up to A deck. In the hallway, shoes had been placed outside most doors, for elves to polish in the night. No shoes outside Charteris’s cabin, though.
No sign at all of his cabin mate.
Shrugging, Charteris undressed, hung up his tuxedo, set his Italian loafers in the hall, slipped into silk pajamas, and slid between fine linen sheets and light woolen blankets, falling quickly, soundly asleep, lulled by the murmur of distant engines.
Blissfully unaware of the storm outside, or that his cabin mate, one Eric Knoecher, would not be joining him on this—or any—night.
DAY TWO:
TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1937
FIVE
HOW THE HINDENBURG MISPLACED A PASSENGER, AND LESLIE CHARTERIS WALKED THE PLANK
B Y DAWN OF WHAT WOULD be the airship’s first full day of travel, sailing along at 2,100 feet on a course designed to outmaneuver the churning storm system, the Hindenburg cruised above the English Channel, past the Scilly Islands. The swastika-tailed silver ship flew somewhat south of Ireland and the familiar landmark that was the Old Head of Kinsale, heading toward the endless lonely gray-blue expanse of the Atlantic. Aboard were ninety-six people (passengers and crew), as well as a considerable cargo including mail, fancy goods, airplane parts, tobacco, films, partridge eggs, and Joseph Spah’s dog. As the time for breakfast neared—serving began at eight A.M .—the airship gradually lowered to the accustomed altitude of one thousand feet.
Surprised and vaguely concerned when—upon
Hot air was apropos, with all the smoking and talking going on by the exclusively male populace of the room, who shared one lighter, housed in the wall on a draw cable. Advertising man Douglas and his little group sat chatting in a cloud of cigarette and cigar smoke—the room was well ventilated, but these were serious smokers. Leonhard Adelt was standing at the rail, a drink in hand, a cigarette drooping from his lips, as he studied the black clouds churning below.
Charteris was glad to catch the journalist by himself.
“Mr. Adelt,” the author said, very quietly, “I must advise you to watch what you say around this Knoecher character.”
Adelt’s handsome, intelligent features tightened, then loosened as he grinned. “Oh, he seems nice enough.”
Charteris shook his head. “Don’t ask me to say more, because I shouldn’t. Just don’t talk politics around him, no matter how he prompts you.”
Adelt frowned, and his face fell as he grasped the author’s meaning. “What a fool…”
“Pardon?”
“Not you, Mr. Charteris, no not you… I must have allowed myself to be seduced by the elegance and civility of this airship…. This is like another world, is it not? A better world than the onedown there—suspicion, fear, jealousy, self-hatred, these are the cancers at the heart of the Reich.”
“I just thought you should know. But I never said this, understood?”
“Understood, Mr. Charteris. Easily understood by one who lives in a land of midnight knocks at the door… who exists in a country of rigid structure, rotting from within, morally bankrupt… Excuse me. I’m a little drunk.”
“You’re articulate, nonetheless.”
“I only hope…”
“Yes?”
Adelt’s eyes were tight with concern. “Did we say too much at the table tonight? I know we spoke of our friend Stefan Zweig….”
“I can’t judge that. I don’t have to swim in those waters.”
“Someday you may, Mr. Charteris. Someday you may…. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll join my wife in our cabin.”
Charteris finished his own drink and headed up to A deck. In the hallway, shoes had been placed outside most doors, for elves to polish in the night. No shoes outside Charteris’s cabin, though.
No sign at all of his cabin mate.
Shrugging, Charteris undressed, hung up his tuxedo, set his Italian loafers in the hall, slipped into silk pajamas, and slid between fine linen sheets and light woolen blankets, falling quickly, soundly asleep, lulled by the murmur of distant engines.
Blissfully unaware of the storm outside, or that his cabin mate, one Eric Knoecher, would not be joining him on this—or any—night.
DAY TWO:
TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1937
FIVE
HOW THE HINDENBURG MISPLACED A PASSENGER, AND LESLIE CHARTERIS WALKED THE PLANK
B Y DAWN OF WHAT WOULD be the airship’s first full day of travel, sailing along at 2,100 feet on a course designed to outmaneuver the churning storm system, the Hindenburg cruised above the English Channel, past the Scilly Islands. The swastika-tailed silver ship flew somewhat south of Ireland and the familiar landmark that was the Old Head of Kinsale, heading toward the endless lonely gray-blue expanse of the Atlantic. Aboard were ninety-six people (passengers and crew), as well as a considerable cargo including mail, fancy goods, airplane parts, tobacco, films, partridge eggs, and Joseph Spah’s dog. As the time for breakfast neared—serving began at eight A.M .—the airship gradually lowered to the accustomed altitude of one thousand feet.
Surprised and vaguely concerned when—upon
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