The Hindenburg Murders (4 page)

Yet again the travelers were subjected to queuing up at a table where another group of Nazi-uniformed customs agents inspected tickets and passports, and checked one last time for lighters, flashlights, or camera equipment (numerous books of hotel matches were confiscated). Dusk gave way to darkness as this tedious process continued, and Charteris approached his new old friend, Fritz Erdmann.

“Why all these precautions, Fritz?”

The Luftwaffe officer in mufti stood with arms folded, a posture more of supervision than observation. “Would you have the Zeppelin Company take chances with its passengers’ safety? The
Reederei
have a flawless record; I’m sure they’d like to maintain it.”

Very quietly, Charteris said, “It’s a bomb scare, isn’t it?”

Erdmann’s eyes tightened in an otherwise impassive mask. “I told you before, Mr. Charteris… I’m merely an observer, here.”

“Please, Fritz—it’s ‘Leslie’… and, since we’re friends, I must beg you please not to insult my intelligence. Hydrogen is the most flammable, hottest-burning gas in the world… and that big silver sausage is filled with it.”

“And that is why such careful precautions are being taken… excuse me.”

But before Erdmann could wander off, Charteris gripped him by the arm. “Why the hell don’t you people use helium, instead? Of course, you couldn’t make as much money that way, could you?”

With cheap, buoyant hydrogen, the
Hindenburg
could lift an extra sixteen and a half tons of cargo and passengers than with inert helium, a gas so safe you could smother a fire with it.

“I’m surprised at your ignorance… Leslie.” Erdmann plucked off the author’s hand as if removing a bothersome insect that had landed there. “The Americans control the world helium market… and their government refuses to export it to us.”

“Hell, that’s a difficult one to figure. Who wouldn’t want to help your man Hitler keep his airships safely flying?”

Erdmann chuckled hollowly. “I believe boarding is beginning, Mr. Charteris… Leslie. Perhaps you and your wry wit should make your way aboard.”

Stewards in white jackets and dark ties were escorting the ladies the brief distance between hangar and zeppelin. Umbrellas were available for the men, as well, and Charteris snatched one and sidled up to the Viking blonde before one of the stewards could beat him to the punch.

“May I?” he asked, offering her an arm, tipping the umbrella’s shelter above her.

She gazed at him with an amusement that wasn’t as detached as it pretended to be. Her full, lushly red-lipsticked lips pursed in a smile that was tantalizingly near a kiss.

But, as she’d said nothing, he repeated his question in German.

“We have not met,” she said, in German-accented English.

“Well, then by all means we should. Allow me to introduce myself—I’m the man who’s going to keep your lovely braids from getting damp. And you are?”

Now she laughed, lightly, and it was fluid, musical. “I am the woman who is going to allow you to do so.”

They began to walk across the final expanse of hangar toward the drizzle and the airship.

“I thought you already had a female companion,” she said, nodding toward Miss Mather, who was on the arm of a young steward.

“I think I’m a little old for her. By the way, my name is Leslie—Leslie Charteris.”

“Hilda—Hilda Friederich. May I ask a favor, Leslie?”

“I hope you will.”

“Could we go for a quick stroll on the airfield? I would like a better look at this balloon that promises to swallow us up.”

“Certainly,” he said, already liking this woman, who seemed as sharp as she was alluring. “After all, I’m sure Jonah would have appreciated a closer look at the whale.”

Rain beating an uneven tempo on the umbrella, they walked out onto the runway, the plump silver airship looming; they couldn’t seem to get far enough away from it to get a decent look at the beast. Finally they stopped and he tilted back the umbrella and they both gaped, unable even from this distance to take it all in without moving their heads side to side, a motion that seemed to express their disbelief. Monocle flecked with droplets, Charteris squinted behind the glass and opened his other eye wide as he surveyed the airship he and Hilda would soon be flying.

The overall impression was of a stupendous streamlined seamed silver specter; but here and there were markings and mechanical manifestations that indicated this was indeed, for all its size, a man-made object. Perhaps a quarter of the way back from the nipplelike mooring cone, lower-case Old English lettering spelled out in red the designation:
HINDENBURG
. Almost directly below, underneath the belly of the flying whale, extended the boothlike control gondola, seeming ridiculously
small. Moving aft, fairly low, lay a long narrow bank of observation windows; farther aft, toward the final third of the ship, perched the propellers of an engine car, like a bug hopping a ride. Another such bug was farther aft still, but between it and its prop-driven predecessor, higher up, were bold block numerals:
D-LZ129
. Toward the tail, a rocketlike fin separated the rudder-bearing fins above and below—both of which wore the Nazi
hakenkreuz
—the swastika.

“It is impressive,” Hilda said.

“Size isn’t everything,” Charteris pointed out, and—as she seemed to ponder this concept—walked her toward the ship, skirting puddles.

Despite the drizzle, the
Hindenburg
was not without spectators to see her off, prominent among them a detachment of Hitler youth in their Nazi uniforms, and a brass band in blue-and-yellow finery, their instruments festooned with matching streamers. Right now they were playing a German folk song, “Muss I denn?”—which, coincidentally, that drunk had already executed (in several senses of the term) on the bus.

A pair of puny-looking aluminum retractable stairways served as the gangway of the ship; between the two sets of hinged stairs, stewards collected umbrellas—the underbelly of the ship providing a roof away from the rain—as the passengers climbed up the flimsy steps into the
Hindenburg.

Immediately, ooohs and aaahs of pleasant surprise drifted up the stairwell, as only passengers who (like Charteris) had flown this very ship before could have anticipated such splendid surroundings. Unlike the zeppelins that preceded her, the
Hindenburg
boasted two decks of luxury-liner lavish passenger accommodations. (Even the grand
Graf Zeppelin
had housed its passengers in a cramped gondola slung under the ship.)

At the first landing, Hilda paused—taking in the sleek modernity of the surroundings, the soothing pale peach-linen walls, the rich rust-color carpeting, the gleaming chrome railings—until Charteris guided her toward the stairs that led on up.

As they climbed, Hilda glancing back at him, Charteris said, “The bar and smoking room are that level—B deck. We’re headed up to A deck, where the cabins and dining room are, and the observation area, so we can watch the world shrink as we lift off.”

Hilda smiled and nodded at this news. She was still snugged into her trench coat, and Charteris admired the pistonlike action of what appeared to be a fine female bottom beneath.

At the top of the stairs, an ample aisle extended laterally across the ship. Charteris was pleased—in fact, relieved—to see that the bust of Marshal Paul von Hindenburg still held its position of prominence on a high central shelf overlooking this foyerlike area, off of which the cabins were accessed; Dr. Eckener had bragged to Charteris, on the maiden voyage, that he’d refused to replace the bust with one of
Der Führer.
Considering the repressive treatment the passengers had received going through customs, the author wouldn’t have been surprised to see Hitler’s glowering picklepuss in the place of the ship’s namesake.

Charteris took Hilda’s arm and—following behind several other passengers, who were still moving slow, taking it all in—escorted her to the starboard side, where a spacious lounge was outfitted with modernistic tables and chairs of an aluminum chrome so light a child could lift them.

The lounge—dominated by a huge mural-style wall map with sailing ships, denoting the routes of famous explorers—was bereft of the feature that had been its most popular item on the maiden voyage: the lightweight yellow pigskin-covered
aluminum Bluthner baby grand piano, around which Charteris and his wife, Pauline, had so often stood as Captain Lehmann played. He and Pauline would offer slightly tipsy renditions of Cole Porter, to the delight of their fellow passengers. “Cheek to Cheek” had been their showstopper.

“Leslie,” Hilda said. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” he said, realizing he’d paused in reflection, now moving on, dismissing a pang of loss that he told himself was for the Bluthner baby grand but was in fact for his soon-to-be ex-wife. “Let’s find a nice front-row seat.”

Separated from the lounge by an aluminum railing, an observation deck ran the length of the starboard side (a similar one would be found portside). A number of passengers—Miss Mather among them—had found positions along this promenade. Padded upholstered rust-orange benches, now and then, sat at a right angle to the wall of big slanted windows, offering an aquariumlike view on the world below.

Right now that view was of the Nazi Boy Scouts and that blue-and-yellow-garbed brass band, as well as several dozen spectators—friends and relatives denied permission to go aboard before castoff, waving their bon voyages in the rain.

Charteris and Hilda had just taken one of the seats—barely room enough for two, but a pleasant sort of crowding, the author thought—when the brass band began to play “Deutschland über Alles.”

“Ah,” Charteris said, “we’ll be casting off soon…. Would you like to remove your raincoat?”

“No, thank you. I rather enjoy this breeze.”

The slanting windows were open, letting in cool evening air but no rain; even at cruising speed, Charteris knew, nasty weather could not find its way in these ingeniously rigged
windows, which had a generous shelflike sill. Unfortunately the blaring German band—somewhat off-key—was having no trouble getting in.

When the band had completed the ponderous anthem, the crowd applauded and cheered and whistled; above this clamor came a voice over the ship’s loudspeakers, a blaring announcement in German that could be heard outside, as well.

“
Will the wife of Colonel Erdmann please come forward!
”

So Erdmann of the Luftwaffe was a colonel—but unlike the stockyard king from Chicago, Nelson Morris, Fritz hadn’t bragged about the fact.

From the crowd stepped a slender woman in a green-and-white gingham dress and large-brimmed green straw hat, protecting herself and her stylish attire under an umbrella. Even at this distance, it was apparent that Mrs. Erdmann was a strikingly attractive woman. A steward ran to greet her and escort her to the ship, the pair walking out of view from the promenade windows.

“Privileges of military men,” Charteris muttered, glancing around to see if Erdmann was on this side of the ship.

He was, but not with the others, at the slanted windows—the Luftwaffe colonel had taken a seat, by himself, in the lounge area, which was otherwise unpopulated, his hands folded on the table, his expression an odd amalgam of glum and anxious.

Soon the woman in green and white emerged on A deck, appearing like an apparition; and she was indeed striking, Charteris noted—brunette, slenderly shapely, her face a pale oval, as perfect and lovely as the image on a cameo brooch.

Erdmann sprang to his feet and she rushed to him. They embraced, not kissing, not speaking, just clutching each other with a passionate intensity that caused most of the passengers
witnessing this private moment to turn away, out of respect, or embarrassment.

But Charteris watched. As an author, he had trained himself to observe and this farewell was both touching and unusual. Erdmann’s wife was grasping her husband so tightly her knuckles had whitened; and when they finally drew away, her face was streaked with tears. He withdrew a handkerchief from his suit coat pocket, dried her face with it, then pressed it into her hand. They kissed, briefly, and he walked her toward the stairs, both of them disappearing from view.

Charteris caught Miss Mather’s gaze, down the promenade; the spinster was frowning as her eyes sent him a question:
Had Erdmann, too, had a premonition?

“What do you make of such an emotional
auf wiedersehen?
” Hilda asked.

Charteris shrugged. “That gentleman is involved with ship security. He may know something we don’t.”

“I cannot say I like the sound of that.”

“I can’t say you’re alone.”

Then a voice blared over the loudspeaker, first German, then English: “
Schiff hoch!
Up ship!”

The band began to play again, a reprise of the national anthem; figures were scurrying below, loosening mooring lines, unhooking the nose cone at the bow, searchlights on the field fanning the great ship as if at a motion-picture premiere. Diesel engines sputtered to life, but on the observation deck, the sound seemed muffled, even remote.

Down on the runway, Mrs. Erdmann had not rejoined the crowd—she stood closer to the ship than anyone else, staring up at the windows, waving with the handkerchief her husband had given her to dry her tears. And indeed Erdmann stood at
the promenade windows, now, staring down at his wife, his hand raised in a frozen wave that uncomfortably resembled a Nazi salute.

Then Mrs. Erdmann and everyone else on the airfield grew smaller.

THREE

HOW THE HINDENBURG FLOATED INTO THE NIGHT, AND LESLIE CHARTERIS SHARED A CABIN