Assegai

All the coin had been struck in eighteen-carat gold. There were almost equal amounts of authentic British sovereigns and Deutsches Reich ten-mark coins. The money was packed first into small canvas bags, which were placed in sturdy ammunition cases, the lids securely screwed down. The final tally was 220 cases. Each case packed with coin weighed 110 troy pounds. This was the usual pack carried by an African porter on safari. Historically gold was always valued in American dollars and it had been fixed at twenty-one dollars per fine ounce for decades. Graf Otto was quick with figures: the value of his cargo in round terms would be nine million dollars, which, despite the current chaos in the exchange markets caused by the outbreak of war, was the equivalent of two million pounds sterling.

‘That should be enough to keep the Boers smiling sweetly for a long time to come!’ He personally supervised the baggage-handlers as they packed the chests in neat rows down the length of the main salon of the Assegai and lashed each one to the ring bolts in the deck. On top he laid the cases of live ammunition and the crates of Maxim machine-guns.

By the time the last had been secured, there was little space for the crew to move around the airship and attend to their duties. In an attempt to alleviate the problem, Graf Otto ordered that the bulkheads between the cabins be taken out and the bunks removed. The crew would be forced to sleep on the wooden deck. He had the chart and radio rooms knocked down, then moved forward to the control gondola under the bows. Three latrines were stripped out to make extra space; only one remained to provide for the needs of twenty-three people. There was to be no differentiation between the men and the woman, the senior officers and the Lascar cook. The laundry was dispensed with and the galley halved in size. A small electric stove would be enough to heat soup and coffee and turn out a pot of porridge each morning, but there would be no other hot food. The milk would be powdered; sausage, cold meat and hard biscuit would make up any shortfall. He would allow no alcohol on board. It would be a bare-bones ship, stripped of all but the necessities.

The last dinner before departure was a banquet held in the Assegai’s shed under the massive silver bulk of the airship. At the last moment one of the Meerbach limousines, driven by a uniformed chauffeur, brought Eva from the Schloss. She was wearing her flying gear, with boots, gloves and a goggled helmet. The chauffeur carried her valise, which was all the luggage she had.

Until she arrived the crew had not known she would be travelling with them. Her beauty and charm had made her a universal favourite, so they gave her a hearty welcome. Hennie du Rand had not seen her since the voyage back from Mombasa on the SS Admiral. Rough and graceless man of the soil that he was, he bowed and kissed her hand. His companions hooted with glee and he blushed like a schoolboy.

Eva was touched and felt a pang of guilt that she had deceived him with her pretence of not understanding what had taken place during his meeting with the Boer general.

When Graf Otto called her, she went to join him at the head of the dinner table. He introduced her as the expedition’s mascot. The company clapped and cheered. They were happy and excited, eager to set off on a journey that they knew would be considered an epic of airship travel.

The plates were piled high with Bavarian delicacies. Only the liquor was stinted: Graf Otto wanted clear heads and eyes on board when they took to the skies. The toasts were drunk in a light pilsener, in which the presence of alcohol was barely detectable.

At 2100 hours precisely Graf Otto came to his feet. ‘Ah, so! My friends, it is time we were on our way to Africa.’ There was another burst of cheering, then the crew hurried aboard and stood to their action stations. The ship was weighed off carefully, then walked out to her mooring mast. Standing in his makeshift radio room Graf Otto made final contact with Berlin Central. He received the Kaiser’s personal good wishes and was told, ‘God speed’. He turned off the transmitter and gave the launch orders to Commodore Lutz. The Assegai slipped her nose cable, rose gently into the golden summer twilight and turned on to a heading of 155 degrees.

Over the past weeks they had planned the flight in detail so there was little need to discuss it now. Lutz knew precisely what Graf Otto required of him and his crew. Showing no lights they ascended to their maximum safe cruising altitude of ten thousand feet as they floated over the Bodensee and ran on due south to cross the Mediterranean coastline a little after midnight a few miles west of Savona. They went on southwards, keeping the lights of the Italian coastal towns in sight on their port side.