Every available inch of space was used. Illustrious generals, spiked helmets on their heads and chests crammed with medals, and admirals with high, stiff collars and arms garlanded with gold, were all crowded shoulder to shoulder. Standing behind von Zeppelin – the seventy-one-year-old ex-cavalry officer whose single-minded endeavour was today celebrated – they saw Dr Hugo Eckener, whose conversion to the zeppelin cause had made him even more zealous than his master. Next came Dürr, the engineer, Winter with the two children, and then senior design staff and an official from the engine factory.
‘In my name,’ began the Kaiser suddenly, his voice unexpectedly shrill, ‘and in the name of our entire German people, I heartily congratulate Your Excellency on this magnificent work which you have so wonderfully displayed before me today. Our Fatherland can be proud to possess such a son – the greatest German of the twentieth century – who through his invention has brought us to a new point in the development of the human race.’ At this, one or two of the generals and admirals nodded. One of the design staff edged aside to give little Pauli a better view.
The Kaiser looked round his audience, drew himself up into an even more erect posture, and continued: ‘It is not too much to say that we have today lived through one of the greatest moments in the evolution of human culture. I thank God, with all Germans, that He has considered our people worthy to name you as one of us. Might it be permitted to us all, as it has been to you, to be able to say with pride in the evening of our life, that we had been successful in serving our dear Fatherland so fruitfully. As a token of my admiring recognition, which certainly all your guests gathered here share with the entire German people, I bestow upon you herewith my high Order of the Black Eagle.’
Count Zeppelin stepped one pace forward. Over his head the Kaiser put the sash, and then embraced him three times and called, ‘His Excellency Count Zeppelin, the conqueror of the air – hurrah!’
From the crowd in the distance, cheers could be heard. For Winter and his two sons it was a day they would never forget.
It was already getting dark by the time Winter and the boys got back to the hotel in Friedrichshafen. Nanny was sent to have dinner alone in the restaurant so that the boys could have theirs served in the sitting room of their suite. Harald Winter was excited by the events of the day, and at times like this he liked to have a few extra moments with his sons.
A solicitous waiter in a white jacket brought the meal and served it to the children course by course. There was turtle soup and breaded schnitzels with rösti potatoes, which the Swiss, across the lake, did so perfectly. When no one was looking, Peter took forkfuls of Pauli’s cabbage – Pauli hated cabbage – so that he wouldn’t get into trouble for leaving it on his plate. And after that the waiter flamed crêpes for them. It was the first time that their father had permitted them to have a dish containing alcohol and, despite the strong flavour, the boys devoured their pancakes with great joy, slowing their eating to prolong this happy day forever.
After Nanny had taken the boys off to bed, Harald had a chance to express his happiness to his wife. They were in the bedroom; Veronica’s maid had gone. Harry was fully dressed in his evening clothes and his wife was making a final selection of jewellery. She had already put three different diamond brooches on her low-cut ballgown and rejected each. She was wearing a wonderful new Poiret dress from Paris, a simple tubular design with a high waist. She knew the new Paris look would create a sensation at the ball tonight. But on such a neoclassical design the jewellery would be all-important. She didn’t want to get it wrong. ‘What do you think, Harry?’ She turned away from the mirror enough for him to see her hold the diamond-studded gold rose against her.
‘You’re very beautiful, my darling,’ he told her.
‘I’m thirty-four, Harry, and I feel every year of it. My shoes hurt already, and the evening has not even started.’
‘Change them,’ said Harry.
‘The pink silk shoes would look absurd,’ she said.
He smiled. That was the way women were: the pink shoes looked absurd, the white ones hurt; there was really no answer. Perhaps women liked always to have some problem or other: perhaps it was the way they accounted for their disappointments. ‘Did you see His Majesty?’
‘I got so cold, Harry. I just waited until the airship lifted away. Then I came back for a hot bath.’
‘The boys saw him. He looked magnificent. He’s a great man.’
‘I’ll just have to slip them off at dinner.’
‘The LZ3 is to be delivered to the army right away. And as soon as the LZ5 is completed – and has done a twenty-four-hour endurance flight – they want that, too.’
‘I know. You told me. It’s wonderful.’
‘You realize what it means, don’t you?’
‘No,’ she said vaguely. She’d heard it all before. She wasn’t listening to him; she was looking at her shoes.
‘It means we’ll be rich, darling.’
‘We’re already rich, Harry.’
‘I mean really rich: tens of millions …perhaps a hundred million before I’m finished.’ He sat down, reaching behind him to flip his coat tails high in the air like a blackbird alighting. You could tell a lot about a man by the way he sat down, she decided. Her father always lifted his coat tails aside carefully, making sure they’d not be creased.
‘We’re happy, Harry. That’s the important thing.’
‘Dollars, I’m talking about, not Reichsmarks.’
‘What does it matter, Harry? We’re happy, aren’t we?’ She looked up at him. Somewhere deep inside her there arose a desperate hope that he would embrace her and tell her that he would give up his other women. But she knew he would not do that. He needed the women, the way he needed the money. He had to be reassured, just as little Pauli needed so much reassurance all the time.
‘It doesn’t matter to you,’ he said, and she was surprised at the bitterness in his voice. He was like that; his mood could change suddenly for no accountable reason. ‘You were born into wealth. You have your own bank account and your father’s allowance every year. But now I’ll have as much money as he’s got. I won’t have to kowtow to him all the time.’
‘I haven’t noticed you displaying servile deference to Papa,’ she said. She gave him all her attention.
He ignored her remark. ‘The army will buy more and more airships, and the navy will buy them, too. I had a word with the admiral today. They’re already planning where the bases should be. Nordholz in Schleswig-Holstein will be the biggest one; then others nearby. Revolving sheds built on turntables – the North Sea is too rough for floating the hangars.’
‘Schleswig-Holstein? Why would they want them so far north? The weather there is not suited to airships. You said they’d need calm weather today.’
‘Use your brains, Veronica. Germany has the only practical flying machine in the world. The experimental little contraptions that the Wright brothers have made can scarcely lift the weight of a man. What use would those things be for bombing?’
‘Bombing? Bombing England?’
‘This has been Count Zeppelin’s idea right from the start. I thought everyone knew that. He conceived these huge rigid airships as a war-winning weapon.’
‘How ghastly!’
‘It’s how progress comes. Leonardo da Vinci developed his great ideas only to help his masters fight wars.’
‘But bombing England, Harry? For God’s sake. What are you saying?’
‘Don’t get excited, Veronica. I wish I hadn’t started talking about it.’
‘War?