Assegai

When they had finished eating, Graf Otto asked jovially, ‘Which of you has flown before?’

Eva was the only one who held up her hand.

‘Ah, so!’ He laughed. ‘Today we will change that.’ He looked across at Lutz. ‘Captain, please take our honoured guests on a little flight over the Bodensee.’ They crowded to the observation windows, chattering and laughing like children, as Lutz started the engines. The Assegai seemed to come to life and quivered eagerly on her moorings. Then she rose gently aloft and her link to the mooring tower dropped away.

Lutz flew them as far as Friedrichshafen, then back down the centre of the lake. The water was a magical shade of azure, and the snows and glaciers of the Swiss Alps glowed in the sunlight. Then the airship returned to the Wieskirche factory and hovered three thousand feet above the field. Quite unexpectedly, Graf Otto returned from the control car to the lounge, and his guests stared at him, perplexed: he had a large rucksack on his back held in place by an elaborate arrangement of harness straps.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, you must have realized by now that the Assegai is an airship of surprises and wonders. I have one more to show you. The contraption on my back was dreamed up by Leonardo da Vinci more than four hundred years ago. I have taken his idea and made it reality, by fitting it into a canvas pack.’

‘What is it?’ a woman asked. ‘It looks very heavy and uncomfortable.’

‘We call it a Fallschirm, but the French and the British know it as a parachute.’

‘What does it do?’

‘Exactly as the name implies. It breaks your fall.’ He turned to two crew members and nodded. They slid aside the boarding doors. The guests standing nearest to them backed nervously away from the opening.

‘Goodbye, dear friends! Think of me when I am gone.’ Otto ran across the cabin and launched himself head first through the open door. The women shrieked and covered their mouths. Then there was a rush for the observation windows and they stared down in horror at Graf Otto’s body, dwindling rapidly in size as it fell towards the earth. Then, abruptly, a long white pe

Lutz vented the valves on the airship’s main hydrogen tanks and it sank down as softly as a feather from the breast of a high-flying goose. It settled on its bumpers along the keel and the ground crew rushed forward to secure the mooring line to the anchor mast.

When the main doors of the cabin were opened Graf Otto was standing at the threshold to welcome his guests back to earth. They crowded around him to shake his hand and heap their praises on him. Then once more they mounted the convoy of vehicles and drove back to the Schloss, their excited laughter and cries of congratulation on Graf Otto’s extraordinary achievement echoing through the forest.

Di

The men were in full dress uniform, with swords and decorations. The ladies were glorious in silks, satins and a dazzling array of jewels. Eva von Wellberg far outstripped the others in beauty and elegance, and Otto was unusually attentive to her. On many occasions he spoke to her down the length of the table, to include her in an anecdote or to solicit her opinion or confirmation on a topic under discussion.

When the band struck up a sequence of Strauss waltzes he monopolized her as his dance partner. For such a big man, Otto was remarkably light on his feet and possessed an animal presence such as that of a great African buffalo. In his arms Eva was as slim and graceful as a reed bending and swaying in a breeze off the lake. He was fully aware of what a striking pair they made, and thoroughly enjoyed the stir that followed them around the floor.

As the evening drew to a close, a trumpeter blew a flourish to draw the attention of the company. Then the band and the servants were sent out of the hall. The butler locked the windows, then doors behind him, after he, too, had withdrawn. Armed sentries stood outside the soundproof doors, but the select company were alone. Otto had not been able to resist this opportunity to celebrate his triumph. He wanted them to know the full extent of his achievements, and to revel in their adulation.

At last the senior officer present, Vice Admiral Ernst von Gallwitz, rose to his feet to make a speech of thanks to the host for his hospitality, dwelling at length on the technological marvels they had been shown at Wieskirche. Then, choosing his moment skilfully, he said, ‘The world and our enemies will soon be given a demonstration of the power and potential of Graf Otto’s wondrous creation. As we are among friends, I can tell you that Kaiser Wilhelm the Second, our revered leader, has from the very begi

He turned to Graf Otto at the head of the table. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it is not gross overstatement to tell you that the man sitting among us quite literally holds the outcome of this war in his hands. He is about to set off on an epic journey, which if he accomplishes it successfully, will deliver an entire continent into our hands to the total confusion of our enemy.’

Graf Otto rose to his feet to acknowledge the applause. He glowed with pride, but his short speech of thanks to the admiral was modest and self-deprecating. They admired him all the more for it.

Much later, when they were upstairs in Otto’s private wing of the Schloss readying themselves for bed, Eva heard him singing in his bathroom and, at intervals, letting fly a guffaw.

In tune with his mood she put on one of her most fetching satin nightdresses. She brushed her hair on to her shoulders, as she knew he liked it, and touched her lashes with mascara, skilfully giving her face a haunted and sorrowful aspect. As she worked she whispered to her image in the mirror, ‘You have no inkling of the fact yet, dear Otto, but I know where you’re going, and I’m going back to Africa with you . . . to Africa and to Badger.’

When Otto strode into the bedroom he was wearing a dressing-gown she had never seen before. This was not surprising as the wardrobes in his dressing room were stuffed with such an accumulation of clothing that it required four full-time valets to keep it in order. He had never worn half of it. This dressing-gown was gold and imperial purple, its i