Beneath Gray Skies

by Hugh Ashton

  “I understand,” said the Confederate. “I understand everything now.”

  “What do you mean? Please speak slowly. I can’t understand you when you speak fast,” requested Eckener.

  “Well, sir,” said the other. “Major Weisstal tried to stop me going on the airship. And before that, Colonel Vickers was real strange about something that was going to happen today. And then Brian was out when he shouldn’t be.”

  “You’re telling me too many things too quickly,” complained Eckener. “Who is this Brian?”

  “I don’t rightly know where to start, sir,” replied the sergeant. “He’s English, with some kind of fancy Limey name, but we served together in the 3rd Alabama Regiment and he taught me to play chess. We went to Berlin—”

  “Ach so,” muttered Eckener.

  “That was where he shot Minister Goering, except that he wasn’t a Minister then. Not Brian, Goering, I mean. And I had to write out some Goethe poetry for his wife. Goering’s wife, not Brian’s,” the sergeant added helpfully.

  “Sergeant, are you mad, or am I?” asked Eckener, by now hopelessly confused.

  “No, sir. I’m telling you the truth. After Brian shot Goering he ran away in Berlin.”

  Eckener remembered a rumor that had circulated at the time of the Nazi coup about Goering attempting to rape a Jewish girl who had been rescued by a foreigner who’d shot Goering in the course of the struggle. “Go on,” he said weakly.

  “Well, sir, after I came here, I mean to Cordele, sir, Brian turned up again. But then it turned out he was a British spy, working against the Nazis. They caught him and locked him up, but he was out today.”

  “Well, Sergeant, Major Weisstal has decided that you’re coming off the airship with us.”

  “What about the President, sir?” asked the sergeant. “I mean, the Nazis are your business. If you want to get rid of them, that’s up to you Germans. I don’t mind. But that’s my President back there,” jerking a thumb back aft where the passenger car was located.

  “If you’ll excuse me, Captain,” suggested Hofschmidt, one of the navigators, who had been listening raptly, with all the crew in the control car, to this strange conversation. “Captain, can you brief the rest of us on what’s going on?”

  “Certainly,” replied Eckener. He outlined the situation to the assembled crewmen and finished with “Count the parachutes. We should have enough for all of us here to have one, and we need an extra one for the sergeant here. Throw the rest overboard.”

  “Sir?” suggested Hofschmidt. “With all due respect, my English is better than yours, since I lived in America for some years. Maybe I can try to explain things to the sergeant?”

  Eckener shrugged. “Go ahead, Hofschmidt,” he said.

  “Listen to me, Sergeant,” said Hofschmidt to the youth. “I realize that President Davis is your President, but a lot of people think that your people would be better off without him and his style of government. You think Major Weisstal’s fairly smart, don’t you? Well, Major Weisstal must think that way, or he wouldn’t have sent us that message.”

  The sergeant shook his head. “I really don’t know what to think. I mean you people obviously think that Hitler and his Nazis need to go, and I can’t say I really argue with you there, after what I’ve seen in Berlin and heard around the place. But my own President, I don’t know.” He pursed out his lips and expelled his breath, shaking his head again.

  “Believe me, I admire your devotion to your country and your loyalty to your President. But he agrees with everything the Nazis do. All the bad things the Nazis do, your President’s backing them all the way. That’s why they’re together. But wouldn’t you like to see the Confederacy get better?”

  “Yeah, I reckon,” suspiciously. “How?”

  “If your government changes, many more countries in the world are going to become friends with the Confederacy. And that means more money. I’m guessing you never went to college, did you?”

  David shook his head. “No money to go there.”

  “That’s just the sort of thing that would change. More people would have more money. Listen, you’re obviously an intelligent man. Do you think that it’s right to keep other people as slaves?”

  “Never really thought about it, I reckon.” Actually, David had always had a sneaking feeling that there was something wrong with slavery. Some of the darkies he’d met were pretty smart, and he knew they had feelings just like he did. “No,” he admitted after a pause. “I guess it’s not that right.”

  “If there’s a new government, you might see some changes there as well. But I tell you, nothing’s going to change while your President Davis is in charge. And he’s not going to give up power just like that, you know.”

  David turned all this over in his mind. “You think there’s a chance that things will get better for the likes of me if there’s a change?”

  “I’d say there was a very good chance of just that.”

  “And this is how the change is going to come, you’re saying to me?”

  “Well, this is one way to make it happen. Believe me.”

  Silence from the sergeant as he considered this. His original resolve seemed to be wavering.

  “Listen to me,” said Hofschmidt. “Even if you don’t agree with what I’ve just told you, if we let you go back and warn your President, just look at how many there are of us to stop you. What good will it do him anyway? We control the airship. By the time you get there and he comes here, we’ll be gone out of that hatch. And not just us. All the engineers, all the riggers, all the radiomen. What are the politicians going to do? What are you going to do? Better jump with us.”

  “I’d feel like an awful coward.”

  “If I’m right, you’ll be looked on as a hero,” retorted Hofschmidt. “They’ll see you as one of those who helped to save the South.”

  “Yeah?” said the sergeant skeptically, but he sounded at least half-convinced by now.

  “Cordele coming up to port,” called Müller. “Fifteen degrees to port, helmsman. Nose down five degrees, elevators.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” and the rudder and elevator helmsmen carried out their orders.

  “It doesn’t look like I have a real choice,” said the sergeant.

  “Good man,” replied Hofschmidt. “Now let’s get you into one of these parachutes.”

  “How far to Cordele, Müller?” asked Eckener, adjusting the straps of his own parachute.

  “About ten minutes, sir,” replied Müller.

  “Time for you to get your parachute on, then. I’ll take the conn.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. You have the conn.”

  “And you two,” said Eckener, pointing to two of the navigation crew, “take the elevator and rudder and you two there now, get your parachutes on.”

  In a matter of a few minutes, all the crew of the control car and the Confederate sergeant were wearing their parachutes. The elevator and rudder helmsmen resumed their posts, and continued to follow Eckener’s orders, bringing Bismarck down in a wide circle towards Cordele.

  Eckener rang the telegraphs to the engine nacelles to slow the airship’s speed as the airship came down to approximately two hundred meters over the mooring mast.

  “It’s time,” he said, and thrust the telegraph levers forward and backward twice. In a matter of seconds, the bow went down, as the engine crews jumped out of the nacelles. Müller, looking towards the stern, counted the parachutes as they opened.

  “All out, Captain,” he reported.

  “Good,” replied Eckener, opening a small box mounted beside the helmsman’s compass, exposing a large brass handle. “Pod away!” he called, pulling the handle.

  “I see the signal smoke from the pod, sir, but it looks as though it hasn’t fallen free yet.”

  “Hell and damnation!” swore Eckener, working the handle back and forth.

  “No, sir, the pod’s still with us,” called out Müller.

  “Our people are more important,”
said Eckener, picking up the voice tube to the radio car. “We can worry about the treasure later.” Privately, he wondered as he gave the order to evacuate to the radiomen, exactly how much there would be of a “later.”

  “That’s two more,” reported Müller about ten seconds later. “One chute hasn’t opened yet—oh, there it goes.”

  Eckener was already calling down the voice tube to the crew quarters.

  “How many there?” asked Müller. “My count based on the crew roster is that there should be seventeen more.”

  “Agreed,” said Eckener.

  “Fifteen … sixteen … seventeen,” counted Müller, after a short while.

  “Now it’s just us here in the control car,” said Eckener. “Go on, men.”

  “After you, sir,” said Müller.

  “Damn you, no! I’m the captain and I go last.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Get that sergeant out with you. Tell him what’s the ripcord, and explain how he should wrap his arms round himself so they don’t get torn off.”

  At that moment, a bright light shot past the windshield.

  “What the devil was that?” said Eckener. He looked out of the windshield to where a smoke trail led, seemingly from the ground, to a hole in the hull covering, just beside the control car. “Someone’s shooting at us!” he exclaimed.

  “That must be Brian, Captain,” said the Confederate sergeant. “I’ve just realized what he was doing on the ground.”

  Chapter 43: On the ground, Cordele Airship Station, Georgia, Confederate States of America

  He watched as black specks fell from the control car, suddenly getting bigger, and exploding into white mushrooms that floated downwards.

  Brian cursed bitterly as he reloaded the rocket tube. He could still see the smoke trail left where the incendiary projectile had shot skyward stretching up to Bismarck. Through Bismarck, he corrected himself. It had been a good shot—he’d allowed for wind and for the motion of the dirigible, and the rocket had passed through the fabric skin, just to the starboard side of the control car—and out the top side. Brian could see the smoke trail arising from the top of Bismarck’s hull. Obviously in its passage through the airship, the warhead had failed to find anything hard enough inside the hull to set off the detonator.

  -o-

  A few days previously, Vickers, Weisstal and he had worked out that Brian would shoot down the airship once the crew had safely evacuated. The weapon was to be a rocket-propelled incendiary device, fired from a shoulder-mounted tube. Deprived of an industrial base capable of producing and machining the high-quality steel to make gun barrels for heavy artillery, the Confederacy had developed rocket artillery as an alternative. Accordingly, the science of rocketry was somewhat more advanced there than in other nations, and there was a wide selection of such weapons available to the Confederates.

  A number of different portable light rockets had been developed for infantry use, and by good fortune, the 3rd Alabama Regiment with which Brian had served had been equipped with some of these. Brian, on account of his height, and his maturity compared to the younger Confederate conscripts, had been selected for basic training with the rockets.

  “I have to warn you,” Brian had said, that the ammunition I used in training was not always good quality. I seem to remember that about two out of three shells were duds.”

  “The ones you have with you,” Vickers had replied, pointing at the bags at Brian’s feet, “are new ones which should work. They’re the latest design of incendiary shell. As far as you’re concerned, you use them in exactly the same way as the old ones.”

  “Oh, God save us all from the latest designs,” had sighed Brian. “I’d been happier if you’d given me a tried and tested model that’s known to work properly.”

  “As you pointed out just now, that cuts down the choice considerably,” Vickers had commented dryly. “These are meant to be a considerable improvement on the previous design. We can’t make any promises, though.”

  Well, he had no complaints about the way that one had fired, but he wished there was a time fuse as well as an impact fuse. Bloody Confederates, he thought. Never do anything properly. As his hands worked in the automatic motions of reloading, he watched the parachutes slowly descending from the airship. That must be all the crew out of there safely, he thought to himself. The first of them must have landed by now, on the far side of the field. There was bright orange smoke pouring from the rear of the airship. He guessed that must be the treasure pod, but there was no time for him to wait for it to fall free.

  He slipped the second projectile into the tube, and checked the contact mounting at the rear. When he pulled the trigger on the tube’s stock, a small electrical current would flow through these contacts into the projectile’s primer, which would then explode, firing the rocket propellant, and sending the projectile for at least 600 yards. In the hands of an experienced marksman, a surprising level of accuracy could be achieved.

  He had lifted the launching tube to his shoulder and started to take aim, when he was interrupted by a shout from behind him. “You! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Put that thing down, put your hands in the air and turn round slowly!”

  Never a good idea to argue with a gun in your back, thought Brian, as he complied with the orders. Facing him was a young Confederate private, who advanced menacingly towards him, carbine held at the hip, with the muzzle pointing at Brian. Bad idea, kid, thought Brian, as the soldier moved closer towards him and slipped the safety catch. He judged the range between him and the muzzle of the carbine, and waited.

  “What’s that?” The carbine barrel jerked towards the rocket launcher at Brian’s feet.

  “Why, ain’t y’all never seen one of them before?” asked Brian, in his Lewis Levoisin accent. “That there’s a mighty fine piece of Southern weaponry. The RP-IA425C. ‘RP’ standing for rocket propelled, you understand, ‘IA’ standing for infantry artillery, and 425 is the diameter in inches. That’s four and one quarter inches, or four point two five, if you prefer it in decimal. And the C is the model number. Though come to think of it, it might just be a D model if you look at the shoulder stock a bit more closely.”

  During this speech, the soldier’s attention had been flickering between the weapon and Brian, who had slowly been moving closer. With his last words, Brian’s right leg shot out and knocked the muzzle of the carbine upwards. At the same time, his left arm reached up and grabbed the gun, pulling it and the Confederate towards him as his body slipped to one side. As the soldier’s body drew level, he reached out with his right arm and chopped viciously at the side of the boy’s neck with the edge of his hand.

  His adversary slumped to the ground, and Brian attempted to pull the carbine free of his grasp. The other’s finger caught in the trigger guard, and the carbine discharged. Brian swore aloud. Although the crowd’s attention would surely be on the dirigible and the parachutes falling from it, the noise was bound to attract attention, since it came from the source of the smoke trail from the first rocket.

  Brian slung the carbine over his shoulder, snatched up the loaded rocket launcher and the remaining duffel, and ran around behind the enormous shed, where he could still see Bismarck looming overhead. Parachutes were still falling from her, he noted. He guessed that meant that he might have killed some of the crew if the first missile had exploded, and he thanked Providence that the rocket had passed straight through Bismarck’s hull. He watched as black specks fell from the control car, suddenly getting bigger, and exploding into white mushrooms that floated downwards.

  He checked the load, put the rocket launcher back on his shoulder in firing position and observed the dirigible carefully for a few seconds. The whole crew now seemed to have abandoned ship—at any rate, there were no more bodies emerging from the control car. He took careful aim, towards the center of the dirigible this time, and squeezed the trigger. With a whooshing sound, the missile sped skywards on its column of smoke.

 
Chapter 44: Inside the control car of Bismarck, over Cordele Airship Station, Georgia, Confederate States of America

  Bismarck’s skeleton showed clearly, silhouetted against the inferno within the hull.

  David was terrified. He’d never thought he’d be frightened of heights, but then no-one had ever asked him before to step out of a door several hundred feet above the ground. He and Captain Eckener were now the only ones remaining in the control car. With the engines stopped, the airship was practically silent, except for the creaking of the skeleton as the hull flexed slightly in the wind. Over the creaking, David could hear cries from the aft passenger compartment, as the Nazis and Confederates realized their situation.

  Although they could not have seen the engineers and off-watch crew members escaping, they must have been watching the parachutes and the crew jumping from the control car, and quite probably they’d seen Brian’s rocket, thought David. In addition to the babble of confused voices, he could also hear what sounded like footsteps making their way to the control car along the gangway overhead.