THE CABIN BOY

Werner won’t back away from the cordoned-off wreckage despite orders from the gruff soldier. The man can’t be much older than Werner, but he’s had the fear of God put in him and he won’t let Werner near the airship. American soldiers stand at regular intervals guarding what’s left of the Hindenburg. They hadn’t moved quickly enough the night before, so spectators made off with bits of the ship and various objects. Now they don’t know if important clues were lost. Commander Pruss blames this on the Lakehurst leadership. They blame it on him. Tension sweeps through both ranks, and the finger-pointing and the whispering have already begun.

In theory Werner could move down the line and try his luck with the next soldier, but he doesn’t see the point. The base commander has given him permission to search for his grandfather’s pocket watch, and he intends to do just that.

“My name is Werner Franz—”

“I don’t care who you are,” the soldier says but then hesitates when he notes the heavy German accent.

“—And I’m cabin boy on this ship.” Werner chooses words that he knows. Simple, clear words. He speaks them loudly. With confidence. “Rosendahl gave me permission.”

He doesn’t break eye contact and he doesn’t betray any emotion. The soldier looks uncertain, but Werner stands there, hands clasped in front of him, waiting. He’ll go back and get it in writing if he has to.

“Let him through, Frank!” someone shouts from twenty feet away. “That’s the kid I told you about last night.”

Werner turns to see the soldier who had so kindly lent him a coat. He waves a greeting and then ducks under the rope before anyone else has a chance to object.

The ship has burned its mark into the field; a patch of scorched earth the exact length and width of the Hindenburg. Werner stands at the edge, unsure how to enter. It’s only when he catches a glimpse of Max picking his way through rubble at the rear of the ship that Werner finds the courage to step in.

He goes first to where the officers’ mess was located. Even with nothing left but ashes and blistered metal, he finds the place by instinct, making turns where corridors would have been, imagining the steps down to B-deck. Werner knows the pocket watch could not be here, but he doesn’t think he’ll get another chance to look around. Besides, he wants to find a souvenir if he can. Perhaps a bit of the fine china on which he used to serve meals to the officers. He wants proof—something he can hold on to with his own hands—that he was on the Hindenburg and that he survived. Seeing his name in print this morning has made him fear his own mortality. But it has also made him proud of his service.

There is nothing left of the officers’ mess. Not a dish. Not a table. Nothing but bits of broken metal and melted glass. So he moves on toward the crew quarters and the room he shared with Wilhelm Balla. He has a sinking feeling in his heart that the watch has been lost forever. How will he explain that to his father and his grandfather? They gave the watch to him, not Günter. He should have taken better care of it.

Werner is mentally berating himself when he steps through what is left of the doorway to his cabin. The fabric-covered walls, the carpet, the beds have all been burnt to ash. But he sees a glimpse of what used to be the closet. He kicks at it with his foot and it crumbles further, revealing the corner of a burlap bag. Hope trembles in his chest. Werner squats to pick through the bag. Bits of burned clothing and the heel of a shoe are all that’s left. Or at least he thinks so until his fingers touch the unmistakable links of chain.

He lifts his grandfather’s pocket watch from the ruins with the tip of one dirty finger. He sits back on his rear end, right in a pile of ashes, astonished. Had he been forced to wager, he would have said the watch was lost. Yet here it is, cradled in the palm of his hand, its survival as improbable as his own.

Werner sets the watch in his pocket and dusts the soot from his pants. He isn’t certain what to do with himself now that he has no duties to perform. The officers and crew members who survived are either in the infirmary or meeting with the base commander to figure out what happened, how this could possibly have happened, and what they will do about it now. There is no place for Werner, so he wanders away from the wreckage, circling it aimlessly.

He has seen the small clumps of flowers, but it’s not until the toe of his boot catches one for the third time and he stumbles forward that he stops and looks at them. The petals are small, but they are bright and open and they smell like spring.

Werner Franz has something to do after all.

He picks a messy handful of the white starbursts and jogs back to the main office where he left the newspaper earlier that day. He scans the list of names more thoroughly this time now that the shock has worn off. He finds the one he’s looking for and reads it three times, just to make sure. He sounds out the letters carefully, using the tricks that his mother taught him.

It is not a pleasant task but Werner will keep his promise. He finds Irene Doehner laid out beside her father, arms crossed over her chest, a blanket laid across her body. Their names are written on cardboard signs at the base of their cots. There are almost three dozen bodies in the room, and hers is the smallest of them. Werner does not see her mother or her brothers, either on the cots or anywhere else, and he wonders where they might be. He wonders, but he doesn’t go in search of them to offer his condolences because his business is with Irene alone.

“I told you that I would bring you flowers today,” Werner whispers over her still, slender form. He lays them on her chest, then presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubs. The tears spill around then. Down his cheeks. Over his chin. Werner stands beside the body of Irene Doehner and cries until his throat is dry and his nose is red.