Flight from Berlin Read Online Free

of it, moored to its mast under an azure sky. The ship was a giant, the largest flying object ever made. Streamlined perfectly from nose to fins, it lay facing into the breeze, sheathed in a silver fabric that reflected the early-evening sun. The shadow of a summer cloud passed slowly over its hull, giving Denham the impression of watching a vast fish basking in the shallows of a warm sea.
    For several minutes he stood next to Eckener in silence. The ship’s side was adorned with the Olympic rings in honour of the Games. Two of the four propeller-engine cars were visible, sticking out of the lower body like flippers. A row of promenade windows ran along part of the midship, where the luxury passenger accommodation—the lounges, bar, cabins, and dining room—were recessed entirely into the body. The control car was the only part of the structure that hung below the hull, like a single eye, resting on its landing wheel.
    ‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’ Eckener said. ‘Even with those filthy black spiders they made us put on her.’ He gestured to the enormous swastikas emblazoned on the upper and lower tail fins.
    ‘Sublime,’ Denham mumbled. It was the most marvellous thing he’d ever seen.
    ‘I wish your father could see her.’
    ‘How fast is she?’
    ‘Top speed is a hundred and thirty-five kilometres per hour,’ said Eckener. ‘Faster with a tailwind. She’s the quickest vessel over the Atlantic. Frankfurt to Rio de Janeiro in one hundred hours and forty minutes; to New York in fifty-nine hours. Not as quick as I’d have liked, but we can’t take a direct route. The French don’t want us over their rooftops . . .’
    They walked towards the Hindenburg . To the left of the field, the doorway of the nearest hangar was open, revealing the vast nose of the Graf Zeppelin . The tiny figures of some mechanics were making checks on a propeller-engine car, but otherwise the field and two hangars were deserted, giving a deep stillness to the place.
    As they reached the ship the contours of the immense hull spread out above them like the surface of another planet. Eckener led Denham to a small ladder hanging down from the control car, and up they climbed into the nerve centre of the Zeppelin.
    Inside, the fittings were of gleaming aluminium, like those of a rocket ship in Flash Gordon . An array of instruments controlled the ship’s course, speed, and buoyancy. Eckener pointed out each in turn. At the front of the bridge was the rudder wheel that steered with the aid of illuminated gyrocompasses; on the left was the elevator wheel, which maintained altitude and trim. Above these were the ballast control levers, and a gas-cell pressure gauge with warning lights that flashed—the very latest in long-distance airship-flight technology. A telegraph, like those on ocean liners, sent messages to the propeller-engine cars. But most dramatic of all, high, slanted windows surrounded the bridge, giving a superlative view onto the world: left and right, below, and far into the horizon, so that any approaching lightning storms could be circumnavigated. Everything smelled metallic and new.
    Denham felt as if he were in a dream. In another life he’d have been a Zeppelin commander, he realised. The age of fast, luxury Zeppelin travel had begun. He imagined fleets of these giant ships linking the distant continents of the earth. Their time was at hand. They were the future.
    ‘How about a spin over the lake,’ he joked, knowing the ship couldn’t go anywhere without some three hundred ground crew present.
    ‘How would you like to fly next Saturday?’ Eckener said, slapping his shoulder. ‘The Hindenburg will make a pleasure trip over the opening ceremony of the Olympiad in Berlin. And in the meantime, enjoy a few days here on the lake, as my guest of course.’
    ‘I would like that very much,’ Denham said.
    ‘Excellent. There will be a movie crew on board, too.’
    This man is the other Germany, Denham thought. The