THE NAVIGATOR

It is freezing outside the airship. Not quite dawn. And the elevation, combined with the speed at which the Hindenburg travels, has turned the scattered clouds into little specks of ice that pelt against his cheeks. Max braces himself against the brisk rush of Atlantic air. It smells of ocean and frost and the oily hint of engine exhaust. The slipstream moves visibly along the structure like silver ribbons in the pre-dawn light. The sky is a perfect soft pewter gray, and the water beneath them matches as though one is reflecting the other—bands of stratus above, calm sea underneath. The ship glides elegantly between the two, its shadow a charcoal smudge on the gentle waves below.

The barrage of sound coming from the engines is enough to split Max’s head wide open. His senses are at war with one another, sight and sound registering two different things: beauty and turbulence. To his left is the propeller, twenty feet long and spinning like a flywheel. One slip, one wrong move, and death will come in the most gruesome way.

Perhaps Werner will think twice before dabbling in blackmail again. His face is strained with the effort not to look juvenile or afraid. And yet he pulls away from the hatch.

“Too late for that now,” Max yells into the wind. “This was your idea. So come along. But mind your step. I’m the one who will have to write your mother if you go tumbling off. We’re six hundred feet up. So the fall will kill you. But we can’t turn back for your body. Understand?”

Werner nods feebly, and his skin turns a sickly shade of puce.

Max wants to laugh but doesn’t. No one has ever fallen from this airship. Or any other that he’s aware of. The zeppelins rarely travel fast enough to blow anyone off the ladders. Eighty miles an hour at most. But a bit of fear would do the boy good. He backs out of the hatch and takes one step onto the ladder that leads down into the engine car. “Crook your elbows around the windward edge like this. See?” He nods at his arm, the way it’s bent around the handrail. “It will keep you steady against the wind. Go slow. Watch your feet. And you’ll be fine.”

Again Werner nods, skeptical.

“Chin up, kid. It’s loud as Hölle down there.”

Max descends the ladder without further instructions and stomps twice on the hatch door below to announce their arrival. It slides to the side and he drops into the engine room. He already has a certain fondness for the kid, but when Max sees Werner’s slender body turn and back out of the opening, he feels a pride that he can only describe as fatherly. Werner is afraid. And hesitant. That much is certain. But he has not said or done anything to give Max cause to regret bringing him along. The boy obeys without question. And he summons the courage when it counts.

“What’s he doing here?” August Deutschle is one of three mechanics assigned to this engine and, thankfully, the friendliest of the lot. The look he gives Werner leans more toward curiosity than irritation.

“The little bastard blackmailed me.”

“I like him already.” August grins, quick and wide. “And I’d pay good money to know what he has on you.”

“The day you have money for anything other than booze and gambling will be a miracle.”

“I find it when I need it.” Already the wicked glint is growing in his eyes. “Ten marks says I can get the boy to tell me.”

The last thing he needs is Werner developing a taste for gambling or extortion. Besides, the truth is harmless enough. “Let’s just say he caught me conversing off duty with a certain female crew member.”

The mechanic slaps Max on the shoulder hard enough to rattle his teeth. “About damn time!”

He’s about to explain that it wasn’t that sort of conversation when Werner shimmies down the ladder and onto the gondola with only a minor amount of terror. He’s sure-footed and well balanced. Once Werner’s rubber-soled boots land on the outer hatch ledge August gives an approving nod. “He’ll do.”

Max moves aside to let Werner drop down beside him. He rewards the boy with a proud smile and a pat on the back, then returns his attention to August. “What’s this with the engine telegraph dial?”

“So they finally figured it out? Good. I was afraid one of us would have to go in.”

“I got here as quickly as I could.”

“But why you? I thought they would send Ludwig Knorr or maybe German Zettel. He’s handy in a pinch.” August looks at his watch. “And on duty right now.”

It’s a good question, and one he should have stopped to consider sooner. Max pulls the message from his pocket. Unfolds it. Rereads the hastily scribbled surname. Zettel. The chief mechanic. He turns slowly to Werner and gives him a withering glare.

“Why?”

There’s no point explaining the question. The boy clearly knows what Max is asking. “It was a mistake,” Werner says. His eyes have grown wide, his back rounded into a defensive posture as though he might bolt. Yet there’s nowhere to go but up, and he needs Max’s help for that.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’m telling the truth. Honest! I thought it said Zabel. At first. And then, while I was waiting for you outside the err…you know, while I was waiting for you and uh, her to be…done, I reread the note and saw my mistake. But I’d already interrupted you. And you were mad enough. So I gave it to you anyway.”

“And?” He knows there is more. With Werner there is always more. Layer upon layer of motive.

“And German Zettel doesn’t like me. There’s no way he would have brought me along.”

“I truly hope this”—he waves his arm around the thunderous engine gondola—“was worth it.”

August laughs. “Clever little bastard, indeed. I’ll keep him around. Unless you decide to kill him. In which case I’ll help you throw the body overboard. He’s probably heavier than he looks.”

It has been a long time since Max navigated the turbulent waters of adolescence, but he remembers his own wild mood swings and those of his parents as they tried, without much success, to keep him out of trouble. So he’s not entirely surprised that the pride he felt at Werner’s courage a few moments ago has taken a drastic left turn and has been transformed into anger at the boy’s idiocy. He says nothing but turns to the control panel and taps on a glass-covered dial. It sits toward the bottom, grouped with other similar meters. But this needle spins frenetically, never settling on a number.

“Can you hear it?” August asks. “The engine. I can’t adjust it with that thing broken.”

Max can hear the engine. And he can also feel a slight shudder in the floor beneath him. This engine is working out of sync with the others. The mechanics have the noisiest job aboard the airship, and Max has never quite known how they don’t lose their hearing within a week. The cacophonous roar of the diesel engines drowns out everything but the loudest yell. It’s an alarming sound and Werner has backed himself up against the wall, hands over his ears and face scrunched in concentration. Max suspects that this is a defensive position and that the boy is waiting for Max to cuff his ear. The thought is tempting.

All of the mechanics wear thick leather aviator caps and earplugs beneath the flaps, but he knows that they rely mostly on lip reading and a sign language of sorts—adapted shorthand for the temporarily deaf. Each of them is limited to short double shifts, two hours during the day and three hours at night. The downtime is supposed to provide a respite from the noise, but since their quarters are located near the stern, they never really escape the deafening clamor of the Daimler-Benz motors. Max knows that the mechanics often wake when the engines are shut down for midair repairs. The silence is startling to them. It’s an odd job, this, and few men are well suited for it. Given Werner’s response to the danger and the noise thus far, Max would guess the boy is not one of them. Not that Max can blame Werner. He would sooner quit aviation altogether than spend one full day in this engine gondola, dangling over the Atlantic Ocean, slowly going deaf, and—depending on their destination—either half-frozen or melting right out of his uniform. Max Zabel aspires to consistency, calmness, and, above all else, self-control. He is a man who avoids extremes at all costs.