‘Will they send us to the front?’ Paul asked his friend between mouthfuls of ice cream. Alex’s time at the military prep school and the skills he’d already shown made him an authority on all things military, and Paul always deferred to him.
‘Not right away,’ said Alex, finishing the last of his chocolate ice cream and starting on the raspberry one. ‘But they’ll need officers once the war starts. Perhaps they’ll graduate us quickly.’
‘No one could be commissioned before they were seventeen at least, could they, Alex?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Alex. ‘But if we fight the Russians they’ll need everyone they can get. The Russians have a very big army. My father will have to go: he has a reserve commission in the cavalry. He wants me to go into the cavalry, but I’m going to fly in the army airships.’
‘My father has a factory that builds airship parts,’ said Paul. He wiped a dribble of ice cream from his chin. ‘My brother likes airships, but I wouldn’t much like to fly. I prefer horses.’ In fact, Pauli found the prospect of flying in an airship quite terrifying, but that wasn’t something he’d confide to anyone: not even Alex.
After finishing their ice cream they walked up Unter den Linden, just to see what was happening. From the Victoria Café they went past the cathedral, over the ‘museum island’, and then returned to the enormous block of the Royal Palace. The sentries had been doubled outside the palace, and a crowd was staring up at the empty stone balcony, hoping the Kaiser would appear, but the Kaiser was at sea with his Fleet. Some of the crowd began to sing ‘Deutschland über alles’, until a dozen policemen appeared and after a lot of shouted orders and pushing, moved them along.
When the boys eventually got back to the Winter house it was four o’clock. Hauser opened the door. Hauser was growing a beard; progress was slow and each weekend Paul noted its development. ‘The master is in the study with Herr Fischer,’ said Hauser, ‘and your mama has a headache and is sleeping. Your father said you are to see Nanny right away.’
Paul took his friend up to the top floor. It was a big house, as Alex, on his first visit here, noticed. It had the smell of newness. There had been many such fine new homes built in Ku-damm over the last twenty years or so. There was wood panelling, rich carpets and wonderful furniture. And although Alex’s own home in far off Königsberg had fine furniture and just as many servants, if not more, the Winter house was in such faultless condition that he was frightened of leaving a footprint on the perfectly brushed carpet or a fingermark on the polished handrails. But Alex was enough of a snob to know that these big houses near the Ku-damm were the mansions of the nouveaux riches. The established tycoons had villas in Grunewald, and the aristocracy their palaces on the Tiergarten.
Paul found his nanny in her room, packing her case. ‘I’m off, back to Scotland, young Paul,’ she said. She looked at him as if expecting a reaction but, not knowing what he was supposed to say, Pauli stared back at her without expression. ‘Be good to your mother, Pauli,’ she said. Her eyes were red. She leaned over and gave him a peck on his forehead. Then she reached for the cup of tea she always liked to drink at four o’clock in the afternoon. She put condensed milk in it. Afterwards, for all his life, Paul never smelled condensed milk without remembering her. ‘It will seem strange after nearly sixteen years with you all.’ She gulped some tea and said, ‘Your father thinks it’s best, and he knows.’ Her voice was rough. She was on the verge of tears, but Paul didn’t realize that. He watched her folding her aprons and packing them carefully into the big scarred suitcase. He’d never seen inside the case before: outside it was stained and scuffed and covered with torn hotel labels, but inside its leather was like new. Dutifully the boys stayed with her watching her pack, until Paul glanced at Alex and made a face. Then, unable, to think of anything more appropriate, he said, ‘Goodbye, Nanny,’ and with no more than a perfunctory kiss on her cheek he took Alex off to his ‘playroom’, which had been called the nursery when Nanny first arrived so long ago, before Paul was born.
While the two boys were setting out the train set, downstairs in his study Winter was drinking brandy with his guest, Erwin ‘Fuchs’ Fischer. The lunch had been a protracted one, as lunches tended to be when Winter wanted to discuss business, for Winter was not a man who rushed his hurdles.
‘The loss of both naval airships last year – how did the Count take that?’ asked Fischer. Asking how von Zeppelin had reacted to the crashes was just a roundabout way of asking how Winter had reacted.
Winter smiled. He was a dapper man and his hair, now parted on the left side of his head and allowed to grow longer, had greyed at his temples. But he was handsome – undeniably so – even if he was somewhat demonlike with his pointed chin and dark, quick eyes. And always he was optimistic. It seemed as if nothing could get him down. ‘Zeppelins have flown thousands and thousands of kilometres since 1900. Those sailors in L1 were the very first deaths in any Zeppelin airship. And that was due to a squall; there was no structural failure.’
‘You always were a good salesman, Harry.’ Fischer grinned. He had now inherited the big complex of metal companies that his father had built up in over thirty years of trading. Harry Winter was trying to persuade him that a big cash investment in his aluminium business would be to their mutual benefit, but Fischer wasn’t so sure. He didn’t know much about the light-alloys business and he was frightened of bringing ruin to his father’s work. The added responsibilities had aged him suddenly. The great helmet of hair had now thinned so that his pink scalp was visible, and his eyes were dark and deep-set.
Winter said, ‘A light cruiser – the Köln – radioed a storm warning, but…Well, we don’t know what happened after that.’
‘Except that L1 crashed into the sea and fourteen sailors died.’ Fischer scratched his nose. He didn’t want to do business with Harald Winter. He enjoyed his friendship, but he didn’t trust his judgement. Winter was too impulsive.
‘Airships are safe, Foxy. But freak weather conditions are something no one can provide against.’
Fischer sipped his brandy. The food and drink were always first class at Winter’s place, he had to admit that. And he lived in grand style. Fischer looked round at the magnificent inlaid desk, the leather-bound editions of Goethe, Schiller and Shakespeare that he actually read, and the exquisite Oriental carpets that he wasn’t afraid to walk upon. Winter was not known for giving big parties or having a box at the opera, but in his own quiet way he lived very, very well. ‘Then, just five weeks later, the navy lost the L2. It burned and fell from the sky. How does the Count explain that one, Harry?’
‘They took her up to “pressure height” too fast, and hydrogen was valved from the gas cells.’
‘I read all that, Harry. But damnit, why did the hydrogen ignite?’
‘The navy fitted big windscreens to the gondolas to provide a bit of protection from the air stream. The leaking gas went along the underside of the envelope – combining with enough air to make a very explosive mixture. From the keel those damned windscreens took it down to the gondola and the red-hot parts of the engines.’
Fischer stroked his lips nervously. ‘The navy say that von Zeppelin approved their modifications,’ persisted Fischer. If Harald Winter wanted him to invest in his aluminium company, Fischer might let him have some small token payment for the sake of their friendship, but it would be no more than the company could afford to write off. And even for that Fischer was determined to drive a hard bargain.
‘No,’ said Winter. ‘He simply sent his congratulations on the way the finished airship looked.’
‘Having a stand-up row with Grossadmiral von Tirpitz at the funeral didn’t improve matters for him.’
‘Count Zeppelin’s an old man,’ said Winter.
‘We’re all getting older, Harry,