Beneath Gray Skies

by Hugh Ashton

  -o-

  As she turned back to go into the house, Miss Justin secretly hugged herself. Christopher was alive and doing well! Who could tell, she might even meet him at some time in the future. And to have this Britisher staying with her under a false name was the most exciting thing to happen to her in a long time. She could see life was going to become a lot more interesting over the next few days. Just how interesting, she had no idea.

  Chapter 20: Hermann Goering’s office, Office of Economic Planning, Berlin, National Socialist Germany

  “Nothing is impossible in a true National Socialist state.”

  “Just how soon do you think the airship will be ready?” asked Goering of his assistant, Fritz Spanning. Spanning had been working with Goering since their time together in the Great European War, and the two men had a close relationship. Although Goering was nominally the superior, Spanning could, and often did, speak his mind to Goering.

  “Dr. Eckener tells me it will be at least six months before it is ready to fly.”

  “Why so long?” asked Goering irritably. The pain in his leg from the shooting during the coup refused to go away, and nagged at him constantly. He would have to ask his doctor for something stronger.

  “It’s all to do with the helium valves. They’re having problems.”

  “Yes, I know that it’s about the valves,” said Goering testily, “but no-one’s given me the details. I’m not a complete technical ignoramus, you know.”

  An understatement, thought Spanning. Although sometimes impatient with details, Goering was often one of the quickest men he knew when it came to picking up new ideas, especially when they were concerned with aeronautical technology. “As you know, usually Zeppelins vent hydrogen when they reach high altitudes to avoid the over-pressurization of the gasbags and to control their altitude.” Goering nodded impatiently to show that he knew all this already. “But helium is going to be too valuable for them to waste it like that, so they are going to use a new system to correct pressurization. It involves blowing air into small bags they call ‘ballonets’ to alter the buoyancy of the airship, and bring it down to the altitude they want. They think they’ve developed the system in theory, but the new valves will need to be thoroughly tested in practice before they’re fitted.”

  “Tell them to get a move on,” said Goering. “This isn’t just me talking. The Führer has ordered this as a high priority. He decided only yesterday that he wants to travel on the first flight to the Confederacy to be present at the ceremony to mark the signing of a treaty of friendship and cooperation with their President Davis.”

  “Is that wise?” asked Spanning.

  “My dear Fritz, you should know better than to ask that kind of question. If the Führer has decided something, of course it’s wise. ‘Theirs not to question why, Theirs but to do or die’ ,” quoted Goering in English. “You and I, my friend, must make sure that this all goes according to schedule, if not faster. Dr. Goebbels assures me, or more accurately, he threatens me, that he will have film crews and reporters from around the world ready to immortalize the Führer’s visit to the New World and he needs as much time as possible to get everything ready. And if he gets upset, he goes to the Führer. And if the Führer gets upset, he comes to me to complain, and I get upset. And when I get upset, poor Fritz Spanning feels my displeasure.” He smiled to show that he wasn’t altogether joking. “And there’s one more thing,” he added. “There’s some very special cargo going over from here to there, and the Führer wants it to go on the airship.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m not allowed to say any more, but believe me, it will raise some eyebrows. The world will never have seen anything like it before, and may never see it again.”

  “It sounds intriguing,” remarked Spanning, but Goering was not to be drawn out on this.

  “Fritz, I only know the very rough details of this, and I am not allowed to discuss them with anyone, even you. Sorry.” He didn’t sound in the least apologetic—he sounded like a little boy who enjoyed the possession of a secret more than the actual knowledge.

  “How soon does all this have to happen?”

  “Within the next four months or so. Certainly before the Atlantic storm season starts.”

  “That’s impossible, I’m afraid. You know that.”

  “Fritz, Fritz.” Goering shook his head. “Nothing is impossible in a true National Socialist state.” It was impossible to tell if he was being ironic or not. “What’s the problem? Money?”

  “Just time. They won’t have time to make these tests. The good news is that this is the only thing that will take more than four months to get ready. The frame and gasbags are nearly complete. They’re having to use old Maybach engines from the wartime Zeppelins, but at least they’re tried and tested.”

  “Give them more money, and tell them to hire more people. In fact,” and Goering’s usually loud and ebullient voice dropped to a confidential whisper, “get some Jewish engineers onto the problem if you need to. I promise not to tell the Führer and Goebbels if you won’t.” His sudden hearty laugh boomed out and rattled the cut-glass chandelier.

  “I’d better get onto Friedrichshafen and tell them to get on with things, then?”

  “Yes. This afternoon if you can. Tell them to spend what they need and send all the bills this way.” Goering paused. “You’d better get some people onto the problem of building some quarters for the Führer and about 25 of his entourage as well. I don’t think the Führer’s going to want to sleep in a hammock and drink potato soup warmed up on the exhaust manifolds. I’m certainly going to want better than that if I’m going along.”

  “Are you?” asked Spanning.

  “Probably, but no-one’s told me anything either way yet. Tell you what, I’ll come along with you to the Zeppelin works. I know what the Führer wants better than you do, and it will save time if I do the explaining. Order us a car for 2 o’clock. That will get us down to Friedrichshafen late in the evening in time for dinner, and we can start stirring them up first thing tomorrow morning. Don’t let them know we’re coming.”

  “I’ll get onto it,” replied Spanning, rising.

  “Thank you, Fritz. Meet me here just before 2 and we’ll go down to the car together.”

  “Heil Hitler!” Spanning lifted his hand in salute.

  Goering sighed, but not too loudly. “Heil Hitler,” he replied, lifting his hand in response, but not meeting Spanning’s eye.

  -o-

  After making arrangements with the transport office for the car, Spanning put on his hat and overcoat and strolled along the Wilhelmstrasse, admiring the passing girls, who seemed to be getting prettier each year. Or maybe he was just getting older, he decided cynically. Outside the British Embassy, he stopped to adjust the yellow rose in his lapel that he’d bought from a vendor outside Goering’s office, and fumbled in his pockets for a cigar. He took his time about preparing it, but it still took three matches before he could start puffing happily. After pausing for a minute to savor the taste and aroma of the fine tobacco, he proceeded on his way.

  At thirty-three minutes past the hour, he was seated on a park bench in the Tiergarten, reading the morning newspaper. He was interrupted by a tap on his shoulder.

  “Excuse me, do you have a light?”

  “Here, keep the whole box. I have another,” passing it to the other.

  “Thank you. I usually carry a lighter but I forgot it this morning.”

  Spanning returned to his paper as the other lit a cigarette and opened a newspaper of his own. “The Führer’s traveling to the Confederacy on the new airship,” he said as if to himself, without turning his head or lowering his newspaper. “Goebbels is going to turn it into a propaganda exercise.”

  The other’s newspaper didn’t move. “When?”

  “Within four months. It was decided yesterday. Goering told me just now.”

  “Is it possible?”

  “Maybe. I’m off to Friedrichshafen with Goering t
his afternoon.”

  “When will the flight date be decided?”

  “Damned stupid question. Depends on so many things.”

  “Sorry I asked.”

  “Oh, and there’s another thing. There’s some special cargo going on there with the Führer. And before you ask, I have no idea what it is, and Goering won’t say.”

  “Thanks for the information, anyway.”

  Spanning did not reply, but sat in silence for another five minutes reading his newspaper before walking briskly back to the office. His companion sat for another ten minutes and set off in the opposite direction, towards the British Embassy.

  Chapter 21: Richmond, Virginia, Confederate States of America

  “I’m going to need figures which are a little more precise than ‘several billion dollars’. ”

  President Davis was in a bad mood, and he was letting everyone around him know it. His favorite dog, Patch, had long ago learned to recognize his master’s temper and to keep out of the way at these times. His two secretaries were just as good as Patch at recognizing his moods, but unlike the dog, they were unable to wriggle under the sofa to hide.

  “Fetch the file on the Amarillo oil prospecting last year!” Davis shouted at one of his secretaries, who scuttled out of the room, glad to be out of the way for a while.

  “And get the boy to fetch me another drink!” he yelled at the other secretary. Gaylord hastened to obey.

  Jesse Abelson, the Confederate Secretary of the Treasury, hovered in the background, trying to remain unobtrusive. He’d been summoned to the Presidential Office about thirty minutes earlier, but had yet to exchange any words with Davis other than conventional greetings.

  The reason for the Presidential bad mood was mainly worry. He’d received a cable from the Nazi government in Berlin announcing Hitler’s intention to visit the Confederacy on the new airship at some time in the very near future—in the next three or four months, the cable said. Exchanges of cables with the new Confederate Embassy in Berlin had confirmed this.

  Not only would the Confederacy have to cooperate on getting the new airship terminal at Cordele ready in a shorter time than they had anticipated, they’d also have to prepare enough helium to refill the airship, or lose face and prestige as possible future partners of the Germans.

  And Davis was always nervous about meeting other national leaders. After all, he didn’t get a lot of practice in this regard, being hardly ever invited to foreign countries or being visited by overseas heads of state. When he’d last met Hitler, he’d treated him in much the same way as he’d have treated a freshman Senator. Now he was going to have to treat him as an equal, and his State Department was going to have to brush up on etiquette and so on.

  His first secretary returned with the file he’d requested, and Davis ceased his pacing of the floor behind the Presidential desk and sat down to read it, lighting a thick cigar and filling the room with blue smoke.

  “Send in Homer,” he barked after reading a few pages.

  Bespectacled, white-haired Professor Homer Orville of the Department of Petroleum Engineering at the University of North Texas entered the room a few minutes later.

  “Mr. President?” he asked as Davis waved him to sit in a chair facing the desk.

  “Explain to me once again in simple language how you’re going to get the helium to the airship, will you?”

  “Well, Mr. President. The airship will be built in Germany and flown over to us filled with hydrogen. Once it arrives here, it will be emptied of the hydrogen, and filled with the helium we will extract from the gas wells in Amarillo.”

  “How much time will it take you to make a helium extraction plant for the gas wells at Amarillo?” asked the President. “We don’t have a lot of time, you know.”

  “We won’t build the extraction plant at the wells, Mr. President. We would like to build a pipeline to the airship station to carry the unrefined gas.”

  “Expensive,” growled Davis.

  “Actually, sir, it will work out cheaper, for two reasons. Building a pipeline or any kind of transportation system for helium is really expensive. Much easier to store it on site and a lot cheaper. And also, Mr. President, we can use the flammable parts of the gas to fuel the process of extracting the helium. Kind of feeds itself, you might say.”

  “So how long will it take and how much will it cost?”

  “What level of purity are we talking about this time, Mr. President? I mentioned in my report that it’s quite easy to produce helium below a certain level of purity for use in airships, and we could probably have a plant operational for small quantities within two months with enough money and the right people. Three to four for full-scale production. Quite a lot more, of course, if you want the helium at a higher level of purity.”

  “Don’t confuse me with details,” retorted Davis. “Of course this is for the goddamned airships that the Germans are sending over. How pure does the helium need to be for that? Helium’s helium, ain’t it?”

  Orville decided that this was a question that didn’t need to be answered.

  “How much will the extraction plant cost?” repeated Davis.

  “We’re talking several billion of our dollars, Mr. President, if we want the fast way and we’re not too fussy about the quality.”

  From the corner, Abelson whistled, his first contribution to the discussion.

  “Yes, Jesse?” Davis barked, without turning round. “If you have something to say, say it. Don’t just stand there making noises like you was hunting coons.”

  “Where do you want this money to come from? Transportation or Commerce? It’s a lot of money, Mr. President.”

  “I know goddarn well that it’s a lot of money,” Davis replied angrily. “It’s military, of course. We have the army working with the Germans down in Cordele to get their terminal ready. This comes under the same heading. And if the Germans decide to give us some airships cheap, we’ll put them under the military budget. We’ll be using them to patrol the borders and impress the heck out of the Yankees. Maybe even drop a few bombs or something. For the helium, just juggle the figures between the different departments, Jesse. That’s what we pay you to do, ain’t it?” He laughed.

  Abelson sighed, almost but not quite inaudibly. “Yes, Mr. President. Professor Orville, I’m going to need some figures which are a little more precise than ‘several billion dollars’.  Can we talk about the details soon?” They agreed a time for a meeting the next day.

  Davis grunted and took another pull at his cigar. “Well done,” he conceded. “You want to start constructing the pipeline at the same time as the extraction plant, I take it?” Orville nodded in response. “Good. Talk to the War Department and get them to assign as many of the Army slaves and overseers as you need. Anything else?”

  “Yes, Mr. President. We’re going to need some skilled labor as well. Welders and the like. Can we start recruiting from other places?”

  Davis sighed. “Yes, I suppose if you must, you must. Only as many as you need, and for no more than four months. Are you in charge of all this business, Homer?”

  The other shrugged. “I don’t want to be in charge of keeping it running all the time. That’s the Army’s job. But I do want to make sure the work gets done properly so that it’s all going to work right when we get it finished, so I want to have some say in what’s going on.”

  “Sounds reasonable to me,” replied Davis. He turned to Abelson. “Jesse, you and Homer are going to have to sit yourselves down with Jim,” (the War Secretary) “some time soon and get things moving mighty fast on this. We’re going to need to start work straight off, and there’s no time to lose. Get yourselves a good officer from the Army to head up this thing.” He spun his desk chair back and forth, thinking aloud in short phrases, as his secretaries took notes. “Should be a Brigadier-General at least, otherwise no-one’s going to listen to him. Make sure he’s not just a parade horse—we’re going to need a guy who’s actually proved he can do som
ething.” He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling and stubbed out the butt of his cigar. “And he doesn’t need to be an engineer himself, but he needs to know enough to understand what Homer is talking about. And there should be someone else who’s good at keeping the security tight. That Colonel Vickers who came in to see me the other day—his record shows he’s the kind of guy who’d do a good job there, even if he is scared of the sight of blood. Money. I’ll clear all that with the Senate. If you need to spend money, you can, but I want regular reports. Get someone whose only job is letting me know what’s going on. At least twice a week. Money, progress, people, problems. Bad news as well as the good. These Germans are always telling the world how efficient they are. Now let’s show them what efficiency really means.”

  Chapter 22: The War Department, Washington DC, United States of America