Bolko might nevertheless have something to offer his friends, and after arranging a business meeting for him, his older brother took his own son in hand and retired to their rooms. There, he delivered a lesson in patient words about shouting out Daddy's name when Daddy wants to be ignored. "Herr Lindbergh, I understand, is mobbed in public. There are people out there who want to hurt me, and you, and all of us, so sometimes we have to trick them," he said.
They had to go through some more tricks to take the train for Detroit the morning after next, for some of Herr Woollcott's friends wrote regularly for the newspapers. While Manfred did not mind being found out as really a charming fellow and not the vicious Hun, having to escort the family past flashing cameras and autograph hounds was a less than desirable consequence of that. He got enough of that at home.
The Ford Trimotor looked familiar. Too familiar. Their Junkers W33 transport was setting records and selling at a good rate, and Hugo was talking about a multi-engine version that would be even more powerful. And would look like this.
"We have a Fokker plane, too," Byrd said as Manfred inspected the center engine. "This one will be our principal plane, though. Next year, we'll take it to the South Pole."
"I never did much in the way of big airplanes," Manfred said.
"Well, we also have a little one, from Fairchild, and even an autogyro! Airplanes are the future of exploration, but they are the very devil to handle. That oil leak Floyd and I had on the northern trip, for example. It had me worried for a bit."
The rest of their days in New York had been calmer, and the trip to Detroit was almost restful It was strange to see the world going by from ground level. The airfield in Detroit was not particularly cramped, and Manfred longed to take the Ford airplane up for a spin and compare it to Junkers's W33. Which was probably why he wouldn't be allowed to do so. Besides, he had to have lunch with the airplane's maker. Byrd hit him up for a donation, and he put up more than he could really afford. Perhaps he could get Junkers to refund some as payment for his information on this triple-engined American airplane.
The luncheon was, if not a disaster, not one of the high points of the trip. Herr Ford talked endlessly about the financiers, who seemed to have power as pervasive as it was evil. Bolko kept silent throughout the dinner, perhaps taking mental notes of things to do. He was the closest thing to a financier there at the table.
Ford also seemed to have it in for Jews. Manfred had once been forced to endure a long rant by Herr Hitler's man in Berlin on a hot day; he had to keep the windows open or stifle in the hotel room and the National Socialists outside were using loudspeakers. This luncheon was all too reminiscent of that miserable event. That one had been a doctor of philosophy; he had heard that Ford was rather less enthusiastic about education.
When they left, the first thing he said to Bolko was, "I'm sorry you had to endure that."
"It was a bit of a waste of time, wasn't it? We can't even buy in, it's a privately held company. Just him and his family, I understand."
The streets were crowded with Ford's own cars and traffic was at a crawl. "Was that all you were thinking about?" Manfred said.
"Better that than what he was talking about. He acts better than he talks. Look around here. I wish some of our own Reds could see this. The workers buying back the product of their labor and all that. Five dollars a day -- twenty-one marks. I ought to talk to some of our people about that."
Horns blew ahead, the driver, ignoring the two Huns chattering in German behind him, let out the clutch and crept forward again. It was quitting time in Dearborn; it would be a long drive back to the hotel among the "oppressed proletariat."
Saint Louis was less cramped, and the automobile entrepreneur he met less obsessed about matters that did not interest him. The Rickenbackers all came, and Mother and Doris cooed over the two little boys, who played with the Richthofen clan. Dogfights erupted in the hotel corridors.
At least no one cared about the "Red Baron" here; they had their own local hero who remained in seclusion. Indeed, it seemed to be a substantial concession that he would even come out of hiding at all to see them.
Rickenbacker came by in the morning, dropping Adelaide off to help tame the wild children's mob. It was one of his own cars he was driving, and he complained about how no one was interested in advancing the field. He looked over at Manfred and said, almost petulantly, "Here you are putting all these innovations in airplanes, and automobiles are the same thing as last year, only bigger. The American automobile industry needs to wake up!"
"Perhaps this Lindbergh will inspire them," Manfred said as he got in.
Eddie put the car in gear and set off. "Slim never got overseas," he said as they turned the corner and got on the road to the airport. "Well, not in the war, I mean." And he laughed before going on, "When I mentioned the idea to him, he was quite interested in meeting you. Why didn't you greet him after his flight?"
"Because he went to Paris, and then Belgium, and around England. I did greet those two fellows who came after him, Chamberlin and Levine -- went up on one of our planes to escort them to their landing in Berlin, well it was supposed to be Berlin, and then gave the welcoming speech at the reception. I did want to meet Lindbergh, too, this is a great opportunity. Thank you for setting it up. I suppose I'll be seeing Byrd again, when he gets back from the south."
Lindbergh had been flying his trans-Atlantic plane from place to place, so all the American people could get to see "Lucky Lindy, the Lone Eagle". Now it was going to the national museum in Washington City. Manfred got a good look at this Spirit of St. Louis as they pulled up; it was in a hangar, with the doors open. The sunlight touched sparks of light from the metal engine cowling; there was something about the nose that seemed not quite right. There was security around the place. He had read about the mobs that had stormed whatever residence its pilot happened to be in and did not envy him that.
And there was his rival, his rival in women's romantic dreams anyhow if not actual flying. Eddie stopped the car; he got out, waited for Eddie to join him, and then they walked over to him. Manfred said, "You must be Lindbergh. Richthofen, at your service."
Lindbergh had been wiping his hands on a rag -- it helps to check your equipment yourself. He looked at his hand, stuffed the rag in a pocket, and put his hand out. "Baron von Richthofen," he said, "how good to meet you. What's this I hear about this new Junkers ship you're flying . . "
They talked equipment and the fools who flew it for an hour or two. Someone was let in with a camera and they had to pose for a picture. Manfred got to look into the cockpit of the famous trans-Atlantic plane and was slightly appalled to observe that there was only a little periscope with which to see ahead. That was what had looked wrong! "I can understand that you could fly using that on the big flight, but now, these conditions? What if you hit a power cable while coming in for a landing?" he said, thoughts of Lothar's death coming to mind. It was a serious concern.
"Oh, it handles all right."
"I wonder about that."
Lindbergh got a strange expression on his face, he thought for a minute as Manfred realized he was forcing himself to make a great concession. Eddie looked at them, and sighed.
Manfred found he was almost too small to fit in the cockpit. Eddie was a tall man and so was Lindbergh. His neck was getting stiff from the conversation. Someone found a seat cushion and he stuffed it behind his back. Lindbergh leaned in and meticulously pointed out controls, finally saying, "And if you crash this, don't come back alive."
"Believe me, if I go down with your plane thousands of Germans will mourn. Men, too."
The engine started with a roar, everyone stepped back, and Manfred peered through the little periscope before beginning to taxi to the takeoff point.. . .
Thank God for lavish American hotel rooms with hot and cold and hot and copious and hot and free-falling and hot running water! Especially the hot water. In spite of an hour in the tub, te was still tired and sore by dinnertime a
nd had to have it brought up to them; when the waiters had gone he took his seat and slumped at the table.
"Manfred, why don't you get dressed?" Mother said. "A bathrobe! At the dinner table! That is a disgrace!"
In fact it was a very good one, long and full and comforting against his skin. He said, "All right, Mama, I'll change, just a minute," and wearily got to his feet. He had to hold on to the back of the chair to stand, while waves of cramp spread across his shoulders and arms.
"Manfred?" Doris said, concerned. "What happened? Are you all right?"
"It's a flying matter," he said. "Herr Lindbergh's airplane -- I had to ask him about it, and so he had to let me fly it, and I don't for the life of me see how he managed to control it all the way across the Atlantic . . ."
The next morning's paper had that picture of the three of them, Lindbergh and Rickenbacker towering over him. "The masters of air war give their blessing to the master of peaceful flying," it said. Something bothered him . . .
Douglas was apologetic. "You understand, they weren't too happy about the state of affairs in Washington -- the ownership, I mean," he said as they looked out over the airfield that shimmered in the warm California sun. "Any foreigner owning a big share of a company making planes for the Army would be suspect. At least I didn't have to buy back your stake when we went public."
Manfred tried to look sympathetic. "Rickenbacker said it was a good deal, and you needed the money."
"You bet I did! You made all this possible, and I won't forget it! Now what was it you wanted to do?"
"Outrage Washington some more."
But they were almost as far from the American capital as one could get and still stay in the country. California was a different place, it seemed to be living by its own rules. Even more so than the rest of America, it bustled with excitement and growth, one might drive past a grove of orange trees in the morning, do one's business, and come back at dinnertime to see a great office building turning away tenants. The Richthofen Flying Circus, their families all together, had arrived in Los Angeles to see the sights -- which included airplane makers. Naturally.
The Douglas Aircraft Company, which now complied with U.S. government regulations regarding foreign ownership for companies doing business with their War Department, produced observation planes for them. The planes themselves reminded Manfred of the D.VII. They also made a transport that reminded him of the giant Gotha bombers. Several of the planes were ranked alongside the runway, already warm in the summery sun. A few orange trees remained, but most of them had fallen to the developers' saws.
As Manfred set out to the O-2 observation plane that was waiting for him he said, "You know, we were working with all-metal planes in the last months of the War. I think that's the way it's going to be, even with big ones like that one over there." And he pointed towards the modified World Cruiser parked beside the runway. "I remember going up to see the three original World Cruisers, when they flew over Bavaria on the way from Vienna to Paris, during their round-the-world flight. That was quite a sight. You can congratulate yourself for your contribution."
Douglas said, "They were good advertisements. Oh, and speaking of advertisements, that's not the O-2 you're going to fly, it's the next one, behind that one."
The O-2 "behind that one" was painted red. Manfred stopped in his tracks for a moment. "Are you sure you want this?" he said, half-disbelieving -- not that he thought it was a bad idea, but some other people might.
"The War is over."
But he was thankful for the consideration. He did have to pause before taking off, to let the photographer they "just happened" to have on hand take pictures of him by the plane, getting into the cockpit, and waving enthusiastically. Then he started the engine, and taxied to the end of the runway for takeoff.
The O-2 handled very well in the air and he said so to Douglas. "Of course, how much value your government will place on my words is another issue altogether," he also said.
Sure enough, the rotogravure section of the Sunday newspaper had a piece that began "Germany's Number One Pilot says 'Donald Douglas knows his airplanes!'" The cover picture showed him in the red O-2, and inside another such picture was labeled, "Germany's Red Baron flies peacefully in the new Douglas Observation plane, painted in his trademark color."
What Douglas wanted to do was make civil transports, like Junkers did. The Junkers W33 transport was setting records and selling at a good rate, and Hugo was talking about a multi-engine version that would be even more powerful. He kept his mouth shut about that. The Ford people for example might make a fuss.
One of Bolko's business acquaintances had found them a villa in the mountains above Los Angeles. Mother sat in the shade and watched the children play Karl May cowboy and Indian games. As she said, "You were right, Manfred, this is a very restful place, so calm."
What she didn't say, didn't need to say, was "like home should be". Brown terror on the right, red terror on the left . . .
"Don't get too attached to it, Mother."
"It's not Germany, of course," she said.
Then the boys came running back, shouting and explaining about this American game they played where you hit a ball with a stick. Ach, that would set off the old-timers for sure.
That evening Doris took the children off to bed and while she was off reading to them he finally spoke about something. "Mama, you should have met Herr Lindbergh," he began.
They were sitting in the drawing room, listening to the California night. The air was already a bit close, and he was annoyed. He had been told that it often got that way, but the beaches were special. No, Sylt was special.
She looked at him curiously. "Was there something special?" she said.
"If nothing else you can see who is really the Pilot That Everyone Loves. Poor fellow, if he looks at a girl, the newspapers immediately plan her wedding outfit, honeymoon location, and children's names. Remember with that nurse who looked after me when I got wounded? They took that picture of her with me, and the newspapers made her my fiancée. It is far worse for him.
"No, he has it worse in some ways. Everyone who admires him sees him as having his own virtues, but better. Like one of those screens on which they project the movies."
"So?" Bolko said. "The Nationalists, the People's Party, even the Social Democrats, never mind the Austrian's scum, they all imagine you support them. Just like the freikorps people did. Some of them went a little far. Like the National Socialists, for that gazette of theirs they pasted up a picture of you with Göring and Hitler and ran it with a big headline about the heroes of the air."
Mother said, "I hope you did something about it! Those people are unspeakable. Bolko, you are too polite, they are the lowest of the low."
"We did, Mama," Manfred said. "It took a while but they backed down. Those are not the sort of people I want to be associated with.
"But I was talking about Lindbergh. Like I said, something about him was bothering me, and it's taken this long for me to work it out.
"He seems dreadfully naïve, like an overgrown child. Now that can be refreshing, you know, someone who has nothing to hide can be a change after all this business negotiating where everyone has a secret agenda and two or three skeletons in the closet." Bolko sighed in agreement.
Manfred went on. "He has nothing to hide, and it took me a while to realize that he had nothing to hide in a different sense; he was a blank page in a different sense. No, not that he is stupid; if he were a dullard that would be one matter, but he is no dullard. He has so little there there -- I think that was how the poet put it? He has knowledge, but his character is not wholly formed. All that talk about him being everyone's idealization of themselves? The first person who comes along with strong ideas can make that man into the image of those ideas."
"God help the Americans, then!" Mother said, shocked. "If some of those dreadful people take him up --"
"Mama, they're not so bad off," Bolko said. "There are plenty of good people here, and I thi
nk Herr Lindbergh will come out well."
"I hope you're right, Bolko," Manfred said. "I hope you are right."
The birds began calling in the luminous night. Those were flying creatures that had no concern for the morrow.
All good things must come to an end, before the month was over they set out to visit Eddie Rickenbacker's race track. He had begun reviewing his Karl May before Eddie told him that there weren't very many Indians left in the state of Indiana.
Not that they went straight from California to Indiana. There was a diversion along the way, and it was not that far out of the way to the horse country. He had been driven out to the farm where the racehorses were. Bolko had taken off to look at properties and Mother and Doris were keeping the children in line.
It was a green and pleasant land that reminded him of that one time in England. The city of Lexington, Kentucky, U.S.A., was surrounded by horse farms. The driver had been gladly pointing out where this champion and that was at stud, and where the big racers would be. "But you're going straight to the top, Baron," he said. "You missed the big race, though, back on the fifth. Reigh Count, it was, went off a bit slow but . . ." and he had to endure a description of this race. Eventually they arrived at Faraway Farm
They had a lunch there -- he wasn't the one being shown off, so they ate in peace and relative solitude -- and then went out to the paddock where the local hero lived. What a magnificent stallion! So he said so: "Magnificent! Simply magnificent! I wish we had horses that good in Germany!"
"Go much to the races, Baron?" the trainer Mr. Hurlburt had asked. He liked to show off his champion. Manfred knew that feeling, people came by the house in Schweidnitz every day, even when he was away.
"Go!? Once I was in a steeplechase . . ." and he told the man about the time he had taken an unplanned swim in the Weistritz.
A Man and a Plane: An Alternate Germany Page 8