Assegai

Eva was standing in the centre of the room, drooping tragically. For a few moments he did not seem to notice her distress, but as he held her in his arms and began to fondle her breasts he became aware of the coolness of her response and drew back to study her face. ‘What is it that troubles you, my love?’

‘You’re going away again, and this time I know I will lose you for ever. Last time I so nearly lost you to the lion, and then I was taken by those savage Nandi tribesmen. Now something equally horrible is going to happen.’ She let tears swamp her violet eyes. ‘You can’t leave me again,’ she sobbed. ‘Please! Please! Don’t go.’

‘I have to go.’ He sounded bewildered, uncertain. ‘You know I ca

‘Then you must take me with you. You ca

‘Take you with me?’ He seemed totally at a loss. He had never considered the idea.

‘Yes! Oh, yes, please, Otto! There is no reason why I should not go with you.’

‘You do not understand. It will be dangerous,’ he said, ‘very dangerous.’

‘I have been in danger before with you at my side,’ she pointed out. ‘I will be safe if I am with you, Otto. I will be in much greater danger here. Soon the British may send their aeroplanes to bomb us.’

‘What nonsense!’ he scoffed. ‘Only an airship can fly so far. The British do not have airships.’ But he stood back from her to give himself space in which to gather his wits.

For once he was uncertain. In all these years he had never dared enquire too deeply into why she had stayed at his side for so long, apart from the material benefits she received from him. But surely by now even those must have palled. There must be some other more compelling incentive. He had never wanted to know those deeper reasons because they might devastate his manhood. Now he gazed deep into her eyes before he asked the question that had scorched his tongue for so long: ‘You have never told me, and I have never dared ask, what do you truly feel for me, Eva, in your heart? Why are you still here?’

She had known that, in time, she would be faced with that question. She had prepared herself for the reply she must give, and had rehearsed it so often that it resonated with sincerity and conviction:

‘I am here because I love you, and I want to be with you as long as you will have me.’ For the first time ever, he looked vulnerable in a childlike way.

He sighed softly but deeply. ‘Thank you, Eva. You will never know how much those words mean to me.’

‘So you will take me with you?’

‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘There is no reason why we should ever be apart again as long as we both shall live. I would marry you if it were in my power to do so. You know that.’

‘Yes, Otto. However, we have agreed not to speak of it again,’ Eva reminded him. Athala, his wife of almost twenty years and mother of his two sons, still refused to release him from his vows – God knows he had tried often enough to persuade her to do so. He smiled and straightened his shoulders. Visibly his usual ebullience and self-confidence flowed back into him. ‘Then pack your bag. Take a pretty dress for the victory parade,’ he said. ‘We are going back to Africa.’

She rushed to him and stood on tiptoe to kiss his mouth. For once not even the taste of his cigar repelled her. ‘To Africa? Oh, Otto, when shall we leave?’

‘Soon, very soon. As you saw today, the airship is battle-ready, the crew is fully trained and aware of what is required of them. Now all depends on the moon phase and the forecasts for wind and weather. Ritter will be navigating day and night and he needs the light of the full moon. Full moon is on September the ninth, and our departure must be within three days either side of that date.’

For most of that night Eva lay awake, listening to Otto’s snores. Every once in a while he startled himself awake with their force and fury, but then he grunted and lapsed back into sleep. She was thankful for this last opportunity to consider what she had to do before they left on their journey. She must get one last message to Leon, confirming that Otto was bringing the Assegai to Africa, laden with arms and bullion for the Boer rebels, and that, almost certainly, he would fly down the Nile and through the Rift Valley on his way southwards. When she told him the date on which the Assegai would come, Leon’s duty would be to prevent the airship getting through by any means, including, as a last resort, attacking it with lethal force. However, her immediate dilemma was whether or not she should warn him that she would be on board. If he knew she was, his concern for her safety might weaken his resolve. At the very least it would be deleterious to his performance of his duty. She decided not to tell him, and they would both have to take their chances when they met again in the high blue African skies.

The outbreak of the Great War had been signalled not by the stroke of a pen or a single fateful pronouncement. It had taken place like a train smash in which coach after coach had run without braking into a huge pile of wreckage. Driven by the impetus of their treaties of mutual aid, Austria had declared war on Serbia, Germany had declared war on Russia and France, and finally, on 4 August 1914, Britain had declared war on Germany. The fire and smoke that Lusima had foreseen had spread out to envelop the world.

Once more the population of the newly united South Africa was divided. Louis Botha was the former commander of the old Boer Army and his comrade in arms, General Ja

Botha was only one of three former Boer leaders and heroes known as the Triumvirate. The other two were Christiaan de Wet and Herculaas ‘Koos’ de la Rey. De Wet had already declared for Germany, and all his men went with him. They were holed up in their fortified encampment on the edge of the Kalahari desert, and Botha had not yet sent a force to bring them in. Once he did, rebellion would break out in full force and the ravening beasts of civil war would burst raging from their cage.

Although de la Rey had not come out openly against Botha and Britain, nobody doubted that it was only a matter of time before he did so. They did not suspect that he was awaiting news from Germany on the flight of the Assegai from Wieskirche to his succour. This news would be sent from Berlin through the powerful radio installation at Swakopmund in German South-west Africa, just over the border from South Africa.

In Wieskirche the Assegai was taking on her final cargo. Graf Otto von Meerbach and Commodore Alfred Lutz struggled all night with the loading manifest. Much of the calculation was a matter of guesswork and instinct: no man alive had experienced flight in an airship over the Sahara desert during the summer months when air temperatures could range from fifty-five degrees centigrade at noon to zero at midnight.