as dangerous as hell. Don’t you know those ships are full of hydrogen, Harry? Have you ever seen hydrogen burn?’
‘I know all the problems and the dangers,’ said Winter, ‘but, just as you have your contacts here in London, I have friends in the Berlin War Office. At present the General Staff is showing strong opposition to all forms of airship; the soldiers don’t like new ideas. But the Kaiser has personally ordered the setting up of a Motorluftschiff-Studien-Gesellschaft: a technical society for the study of airships. It’s still very secret, but it’s just a matter of time until the army orders some big rigids from Count Zeppelin.’
‘That’s all moonshine, Harry. I hear that Zeppelin’s second ship, which flew in January, turned out to be a big flop. They say its first flight is going to be its one and only flight.’
‘But Count Zeppelin is already building LZ3, and it will fly in about twelve weeks from now. Make no mistake: he’ll go on building them.’
‘Maybe that just shows he doesn’t know when he’s licked. And who can say how the airships will shape up when the army tests them?’
‘Do you realize how much aluminium goes into one of those airships? They weigh almost three tons. Thousands of girders and formers go into each ring. I’ve done some sums. Using Count Zeppelin’s first airship as a yardstick, I’d need only six-point-seven-three per cent of an airship’s aluminium requirement to break even and pay back the interest.’
Even Rensselaer was visibly impressed. ‘But we’re talking about every red cent you possess, Harry. Why not a smaller investment?’
‘I could have a smaller investment; I could do without the aluminium factory and be at the mercy of my suppliers. I could have half an interest and have only nonvoting shares, but that would mean someone else was making the decisions about who, what, why and where we sell. That’s not my way, Mr Rensselaer: and it’s not your way, either.’
Rensselaer scratched his chin. ‘I’ve spent half my working life trying to talk people out of these kinds of blue-sky investments. But I can see I’d be wasting my time trying to talk you out of it.’ Rensselaer got up from his chair for enough time to flick ash into the fire. ‘J. P. Morgan bought up steel companies to make U.S. Steel, and he’s made himself one of the most powerful men in the U.S., maybe one of the most powerful men in the whole damned world. It looks easy, but don’t think that you can corner the market in aluminium and become the J. P. Morgan of Germany. The European market just doesn’t work that way.’
‘I know that, Mr Rensselaer.’
‘Do you?’ He slumped back into his chair. ‘That’s good, because I meet a whole lot of people who try to get me involved in financing crackpot schemes like that.’
‘It’s just bridging.’
‘It’s not bridging, Harry!’ Suddenly Rensselaer’s voice was louder. Then, as if determined to control his temper, he lowered it again to say, ‘We’re talking about guarantees that will go on until 1916. Ten years! A hell of a lot of things could happen between now and then.’
‘I have most of it, Mr Rensselaer.’
‘You need nearly a million pounds sterling, Harry, and that’s a hell of a lot of dough when you’ve got no collateral that I’d want to try and realize on.’
Winter knew that his father-in-law had decided to let him have the money. He smiled. ‘It’s a great opportunity, Mr Rensselaer. You’ll never regret it.’
‘I’m regretting it already,’ said Rensselaer. ‘I’ve always tried to stay clear of government agencies in all shapes and forms. Especially I’ve avoided armies and navies. Now I’m going to find myself with a million pounds sterling invested in the army of the Kaiser: a man I wouldn’t trust to look after my horses. What’s worse, I’m going to have the security of my investment depending upon his bellicose ambitions.’
Rensselaer knew his words would offend his son-in-law but he was angry and frustrated at the trap he found himself in. When Winter wisely made no reply, Rensselaer said, ‘It’s for Veronica’s sake – you know that, of course – and I’ll want proper safeguards built into the paperwork. I’ll want your life insured with a U.S. company for the full amount of the loan.’
‘It’s the Kaiser’s life you should insure,’ said Winter. ‘My death would make no difference to the investment.’
‘Here’s to the Kaiser’s health,’ said Rensselaer sardonically. He raised his glass and drank the rest of his whiskey.
Winter smiled and decided not to drink to the Kaiser’s health. In the circumstances it would seem like lese-majesty.
Little Pauli crawled out of his hiding place and went slowly upstairs, trying to figure out what the two grownups had been talking about. By the time he found his bedroom again, only one part of the scene he’d witnessed was clear to him. He shook Peter awake and said, ‘I saw Daddy and Grandpa. They were smoking cigars and talking. Daddy made Grandpa drink to the health of His Majesty the Emperor. He made him do it, Peter.’
Peter came awake slowly, and when he heard Pauli’s story he was sceptical. Little Pauli hero-worshipped his father in a way that Peter would never do. ‘Go to sleep, Pauli, you’ve been dreaming again.’ He turned over and snuggled deep into the soft down pillow.
‘I haven’t been dreaming,’ said Pauli. He wanted Peter to believe him; he wanted his big brother to treat him as an equal. ‘I saw them.’ But by the time morning came, he was no longer quite certain.
1908
‘Conqueror of the air – hurrah!’
In Friedrichshafen it was cold, damned cold. There was very little wind – the zeppelins could not take off in a wind – but November is not a time of year when anyone goes to the shores of the grim, grey Bodensee unless he has business there. Across the calm water of the lake, the Swiss side was clearly visible and the Alps were shining in the watery winter sunlight.
Harald Winter had persuaded his wife to stay in the car. It was Winter’s pride and joy. A huge seven-and-a-half litre Italian car, just like the one that won the Peking-to-Paris Road Race with twenty days’ lead! And yet, with its four-speed gearbox, so reliable and easy to use that Winter sometimes took the wheel himself. He’d had it parked down by the waterfront under the trees near the Schlosskirche, so that Veronica would have a good view of the airship and the shed that floated on the lake. She was well wrapped up, and under her feet was a copper foot-warmer that could be refilled with boiling water. And if she got too cold, the chauffeur would drive her back to the Kurgarten Hotel in Friedrichshafen, where the zeppelin people had provided for the Winter family a comfortable suite of rooms.
But Harald Winter was at the lakeside, nearer to the activity. He was excited; he would not have missed this occasion for all the world. Together with his two boys – Peter twelve and Pauli eight – he’d been given a place from which he could see everything. He would have been flying in the zeppelin but for the stringent terms of the life insurance that his father-in-law had made a condition of the loan.
They’d seen the floating shed being revolved to eliminate any chance of a crosswind damaging the airship as it came from
