When the medic finishes cleaning her hand and wrapping it in gauze she thanks him and slips off the table. It takes some effort but she finally locates Leonhard in a small room at the back of the hangar with Captain Lehmann. The captain is sitting on a table—like a child, she thinks—dabbing at his burns with a wad of gauze. Every few seconds he dips the gauze in a tin of picric acid, then braces himself before applying it to his skin. The medicine is astringent—the very smell burns her nose. She can’t imagine how Lehmann manages to use it on such terrible wounds. Leonhard solemnly bears witness to the gruesome ritual. He does not speak to the captain or touch him, but Gertrud knows his presence is a comfort.
After several more moments, the wounds on Lehmann’s chest and thighs are all covered with the fatty-looking yellow salve, and he turns pleading, apologetic eyes on Leonhard.
He is looking for absolution, Gertrud thinks.
Leonhard bends his head down so that his cheek rests against the captain’s. It is the closest he can come to giving his friend a reassuring embrace.
“What happened?” Leonhard asks.
Lehmann has the blank-faced expression of a man given over to shock. He offers a shrug and even that small movement pains him. Lehmann winces, pulling air through his teeth. Gertrud can see him searching for an answer, something, anything that makes sense. “Blitzschlag,” he finally says, and then doubles over in a fit of coughing. It sounds liquid and raw. She cringes at the sound.
Blitzschlag.
Lightning.
Leonhard’s shoulders begin to quiver, and Gertrud eases away from the door. He is not a man who weeps easily, and he would be furious to know she has witnessed this quiet, intimate moment between friends. There is only one thing she can do to help, so she goes in search of her medic. She finds him on the other side of the hangar, covering a body in what appears to be a wool blanket. The hand that slips out from underneath is decidedly delicate and feminine. He tucks it back under the blanket and looks at Gertrud with a detached expression known only to those who have witnessed disaster and then been called upon to tend the carnage.
“Did you find your husband?”
“I did. Do you still have the morphine?”
“Yes. Are you in pain?”
Gertrud swallows. Clears her throat. “I am. But it’s not for me.”
She leads the young medic to Captain Lehmann and watches from the door as he receives the ghastly needle with gratitude.
THE NAVIGATOR
It is hours after the crash. Night has fallen. Portions of the ship still glow in the field even though the ground crew has tried their best to douse it with water hoses. Lights blare across the airfield. Jeeps race back and forth as military personnel gather and disperse and respond to orders. Max has circled the hangar at least four times, but he can’t be certain if he has been to every bed. People won’t stay still. They keep moving. They wander off. Even the patients stand and walk away. They sit. They move from a blanket on the floor to a cot against the wall, and hell if he knows whom he has spoken to and whom he hasn’t.
Max knows it’s a flawed search method, but it’s the only one he has. He would continue with it straight until dawn if he didn’t feel the firm grip of Xaver Maier’s hand on his jacket sleeve.
Max looks at the chef in wonder. “You’re alive.”
He grins sadly. “I’m not so easy to get rid of.”
“What do you want?”
Maier pulls at his sleeve. “You need to come with me.”
“I can’t. I have to find Emilie.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We found her.”
The chef has turned before Max can search his face for clues. He doesn’t know whether Maier’s eyes are filled with relief or sadness or pity. He knows nothing. He simply follows him through Hangar No. 1 and out into the night.
THE JOURNALIST
Gertrud Adelt turns in her seat to take one last look at the Hindenburg. It is well after dark, but the airfield is lit up like a macabre circus. Floodlights illuminate the wreckage, and parts of the ship still glow menacing and red. The fabric covering has burned completely away, leaving the gruesome skeleton. As men pick through the rubble their shadows are cast long across the field by the harsh lights. They look like carrion birds picking at a carcass.
The driver glances at Gertrud in the rearview mirror. He does not bother to hide his concern. “Where should I take you?”
Leonhard has laid himself across the backseat, his head in her lap, and she rests her good hand upon his forehead. He hasn’t breathed easily since the wreck, but the wheezing started to grow worse an hour ago and the coughing began shortly afterward. A slow, pained gurgle emanates from his chest now.
“To a hospital,” Gertrud says. “Quickly.”
The car maneuvers its way across the airfield and then through the cordon, bouncing through every rut and track and pothole along the way. Gertrud holds Leonhard’s head steady on her lap. She listens to his shallow breathing. Within minutes they are on the highway heading toward Toms River and Lakehurst is nothing but a strange and lurid glow behind them.
THE CABIN BOY