Page 90 of Flight of Dreams

“Old enough to be your father.”

“My father is better looking.”

They go around the table like this. Swapping cards and insults. Adding money to the pile. Telling their zeppelin stories.

“Just a year and a half for me,” August Deutschle says.

Xaver snorts. “Baby.”

“I’m older than you.”

“You’re still drinking from your mother’s tit.”

“I like your mother’s tits better.”

This makes the American think of his brother and how his mother laments that boys are like dogs—how they do things in a pack that they would never do by themselves. Age has no bearing on this truth. Especially given the fact that boys never really grow up. They simply age. There is something about male camaraderie that lends itself to insults. You will never see men who dislike each other trading jabs like this without drawing blood. But friends can be bitterly cruel and end up loving each other more. It’s about wit and laughter and one-upmanship with men. Insults become terms of endearment. This is the thing that the American misses most about the military.

“I’ve got the most seniority,” Ludwig Knorr says, stating a simple fact.

Again the groan. Xaver tosses a coin in the pile. “As usual.”

“Took my first flight in ’06. But that was a balloon. I’ve been on zeppelins since 1912.”

“You’ve all got me beat, I’m afraid,” the American says. “Six months ago for me. On the Graf Zeppelin. I like this ship better. But given the choice I’d prefer to do my traveling on the ground.”

Ludwig tries to hide the disdain in his voice. “Afraid of heights?”

“Only when falling.” The American arranges his cards. He’s ready to call. “I just prefer to be on the ground when disaster strikes. Easier to tuck and roll.”

Knorr narrows his eyes. “So the military, then?”

“For a short while, 1918 mostly. France. You?”

“For most of my life. All of the Great War.” He doesn’t look up. This is sensitive territory. Two men at the same table who were on opposite sides of the same conflict. Ludwig Knorr pulls further into himself. He sheds the visage of good humor. He becomes a soldier again before the American’s eyes.

He looks at Heinrich Kubis but asks the entire table, “Anyone else?”

“No,” Kubis says.

Maier and Deutschle shake their heads. The American can see this from his peripheral vision.

“Good,” he says, laying his cards facedown on the table. Four of a kind. Tens and the ace of spades. “I call.”

He is about to collect his winnings when Ludwig lays his cards down with a cold smile. A straight flush. Hearts. The American watches as Margaret Mather’s ring is stuffed inside the chief rigger’s coat pocket.

The American has found his target—Ludwig Knorr—but there is, strangely, little satisfaction in having done so. Captain Lehmann lied to him. It is certain the captain does not trust him, and with good reason. But why protect one man only to endanger another? He has to concentrate, to heighten his intuition. He studies them, and the answer soon becomes clear. Heinrich Kubis is innocuous. Arrogant, yes. But he is no threat, and he is almost always surrounded by other people. Lehmann knows this. Ludwig Knorr, on the other hand, is a different kind of man entirely. Lehmann took a calculated risk with his deception, hoping to distract the American. No matter. Tomorrow he will kill Ludwig Knorr. And then he will destroy the Hindenburg.

THE CABIN BOY

Werner Franz crouches outside the swinging door that leads from the kitchen into the crew’s mess. It’s past midnight and the American has been in there for long enough that Werner is starting to feel stiff and cramped in this position. That is his task: spy on the American. Frau Adelt wants to know whom he speaks to and what he says. She wants to know where he sits in the room. The journalist was very clear about these things, but when he asked why she was so interested he was told it was none of his business.

The boy knows nothing of poker, although he hears it’s not all that different from chess in that it requires a straight face and a good bit of strategy. But his father has always told him that chess is a thinking man’s game and that he’s raising Werner to be a thinking man, not one who relies on the luck of the draw. So that’s how they spend their time together when he is home. Sitting at the kitchen table beside the fire escape, discussing the merits of the Sicilian Defense over the Alekhine Defense. The Queen’s Gambit. The English Opening. The Stonewall Attack. They rehearse the moves, pieces in hand, eyes on the board, the name of each play and the name of each piece suggesting arcane military tactics. And he wonders if the men in the kitchen have names for their own moves. Is it just a bluff? Or a blindman’s bluff? A fold? Or a Folded Hat? Is there room for such creativity in a game of chance, or does a man simply rely on his own luck and powers of subterfuge?

As he listens, conversation moves to flying, how long each man has served aboard the Hindenburg, and then on to military service. This topic of conversation seems to interest the American more than the others. He is very curious about Ludwig Knorr and the time he spent flying over England during the Great War.

The American has not won a game yet. Or is it a hand? Werner isn’t sure. Regardless, they’ve dealt the cards a number of times, and the American has come up short on all of them. However, he suspects that is about to change because he lost something valuable in the last hand and now he tosses something heavy and metallic into the middle of the table that sends coins scattering in all directions. The other men gasp. Someone whistles.

“I told you I had more,” the American says.