But Markus’s first concern was the well-being of his family and supporting Helena’s beliefs was a part of that, so he did it.
Knowing her husband would be leaving soon and would be gone for a considerable time, she clung to him at every opportunity, particularly as his visits home to the ranch became less and less frequent. It had become common for Markus to bunk in the officers’ quarters most nights in recent weeks.
The enemy made slow but steady progress in pushing back the German defenders deeper and deeper toward the interior and Windhoek. It was obvious to Tomas and his daughter that the time of Markus’s departure was approaching.
“They say the Kaiser has approached the Russian Tsar and the British King with peace feelers. They say it’s only weeks before the shooting stops. Isn’t that wonderful news, darling?” Helena whispered enthusiastically. The couple lay in their bed, having put Rupert in his crib and doused the lights for an early bedtime.
The ranch house was quiet, with only Tomas, Christiana, and the two youngest boys at home. Helena had exhibited great mood swings in the weeks following her awareness of his impending departure. This night she was high with optimism.
“When peace comes, we’ll be able to go to Germany and show your mother and sister and all your friends our baby. It will be a grand trip! Won’t it be wonderful, darling?”
“Yes, of course, dearest. We’ll have a wonderful visit.” It was all he could do to continue the false hope of a quick end to the fighting. He loved her so much, and she seemed so fragile, so delicate and vulnerable, even though he knew deep down she was a tough, strong woman. In her heightened mood, she was also more desirable than ever, he thought. He rolled onto his side as she did the same to meet him. They were in a different world together, far from war and fear and separation.
He rose over her, and she pulled him into her. It was their way of saying goodbye and I love you, with an unspoken promise: you must return, and you must be here when I get back.
Sub-Saharan Africa, 1914
CHAPTER 27
Death at Dawn
The mechanics worked on not one, but two aircraft; one was a backup for Captain Mathias’s secret mission. With a final departure date eminent and a rough map drawn, final preparations were made. The first and easiest leg of the journey was to fly both planes to the farthest northeast corner of the colony. This would be the jumping off point into and over enemy territory. Siegfried Schleifler the young flyer recently recovered from a bullet wound, was chosen to fly the backup plane to Schuckmannsburg, the most eastern village in the colony.
In the early morning stillness, at the improvised airstrip on the cavalry parade grounds in Windhoek, all was ready. Tomas Conrad escorted Helena, carrying Rupert, through the dust, toward a cluster of a dozen officers and several mechanics. Markus’ family were the only civilians near the two, strange-looking aeroplanes.
Guards were posted around the field, with only a few early rising soldiers looking on.
Markus stepped away from his commanding officer to his waiting family. “It’s time for me to fly, Helena, my dearest. Take good care of Rupert. I’ll be home as soon as I can.” He also spoke a few words to Tomas as he hugged his wife. Michael, Christiana, and Norbert, as well as Petre, also bid him farewell.
As prearranged, Tomas guided his family back to their carriage at the edge of the airfield. After a few short words with the officers, Markus and Siegfried climbed into the cramped, single-seat cockpits of their biplanes, adjusted their goggles, and waited for the mechanics to rotate the propeller of each aircraft into the start position. The two inflated rubber wheels under each aircraft were pressed into the hard pack of the parade field from the weight of the extra fuel stored in sealed cans in the fuselages.
Markus adjusted the revolver in its holster at his hip as he settled into his seat while turning to look at the limp windsock.
There will be no lift assist from that wind, he thought. He turned back forward, nodded to his mechanic, and gripped the stick as the propeller was forcefully pulled down. The engine roared into life as Markus adjusted the choke and the throttle. Four soldiers, gripping the wings, held back the machine as it strained to move forward. Markus looked first at the men holding the left wing and then to the men on the right. Two others were gripping the tail. He increased the fuel flow to the engine. Blue exhaust smoke blasted from the exhaust pipes and swirled into the calm air. He gave a last look to the distant carriage, waved his hand, and signaled the soldiers to release his aeroplane.
The ungainly craft leaped from the hands of the six soldiers, and with the throttle wide open, the heavy ship lumbered across the dry grass. As it picked up speed, the biplane fishtailed wildly back and forth before bumping momentarily into the air, coming down hard on the rubber wheels. Several bumps later and far down the field, the craft appeared to leap off the ground and was finally airborne.
Markus circled back around the field, while Siegfried followed the same ignition procedures as his six soldiers held back his rumbling aeroplane. He too signaled the six for release, and like Markus’s craft, Siegfried’s was slow to gain speed. With fuel pouring into the engine, it finally had the necessary lift and speed to rise into the still air. His engine sputtered several times and descended to the grassy air strip, with a hard bounce that brought it again into the air.
Markus flew to the far end of the parade grounds and part of the town while watching Seigfried’s ship gain speed midway down the field. From his vantage point, he saw the biplane first fishtail and then take the expected bounce or two before lifting off. Markus leaned over the edge of his cockpit wall and could see Helena and the family waving to him.
He noticed they all stopped waving and turned to look down field. Siegfried’s aircraft had sputtered again, descended to a hard bounce, and popped the inflated tire on the left side and collapsed the landing struts. On the next bounce, the deflated tire and rim plowed a deep gash in the earth, causing the heavy biplane to pivot left. Siegfried gave a hard right rudder, but it was not enough to correct the flight path. When finally the wheel, rim, and strut pulled free of the earth, the ship was virtually sideways, heading down field and loosing what little altitude it had.
Markus switched sides and was quick enough to see his friend’s aircraft in its precarious position. An instant later, the tip of the lower wing on the right side of the backup ship gouged into the ground, causing the biplane to flip to the earth on its back in a rolling crash of exploding gas cans and flying pieces of wing and dust. Markus couldn’t hear Helena’s shriek or the involuntary gasps from the cluster of officers on the ground, but his mind raced to a horrible realization: Siegfried couldn’t possibly have survived that.
“Verdammt! Damn it all to hell!” he shouted over the roar of his engine. He again circled back around the field, this time slowing as much as he could, coming in very low. Helena and Conrad were still standing in the same spot, her head on her father’s shoulder. When they all heard his engine, they looked up in time to see him clearly as he waved and blew a kiss as his biplane roared by only thirty feet off the ground. As he passed over the mangled wreck, several soldiers were trying to beat out the towering flames with their military tunics. There was no fire brigade at the erstwhile airfield. The last Helena saw of her husband was the tiny speck of his aeroplane disappearing into the rising cloud from the burning gasoline northeast of the cavalry parade grounds.
It was roughly six hundred miles between the capitol of German South West Africa, Windhoek, and its furthermost northeastern outpost of Schuckmannsburg. This tiny settlement was essentially a military outpost to establish a German presence in the most desolate, god-forsaken eastern reach of the colony. Swampy during the rainy season, with swarms of hard-biting flies; in the dry season, it was intensely hot with swirling, powdery sand.
With the arrival by oxcart of barrels of gasoline and cans of oil, both highly unusual products for a region with no automobiles and no gasoline-consuming engines of any kind, speculation
was rife among the few inhabitants in the area. No one at the military outpost knew of the mission except the commander, a young lieutenant. All he knew was to expect an aeroplane at any time and to immediately clear a landing strip of certain dimensions. He and his small garrison of six askari troops, and an additional white sergeant, had been waiting weeks for the wonder of the skies to arrive.
None of the askari native soldiers had ever seen a flying machine, and the lieutenant had only observed the more primitive aircraft in popular flying circus demonstrations back home in East Prussia. The few local inhabitants saw or heard about the cleared airstrip, causing gossip and speculation.
During Markus’s flight from Windhoek, after witnessing the blazing tragedy, the aviator had time to reflect on the death of Siegfried: He was an accomplished pilot and friend, thought Markus. We should have waited for better wind, better lift … It was overloaded; we—I—should have calculated more closely on maximum cargo weight. What a loss! And with Helena and Tomas there … Jesus, she’s going to be extra worried after seeing that. I never should have let Tomas bring her to the airfield … but nothing I can do about that now. I’ll send a wireless to her soon as I land in Schuckmannsburg … let her know I’m all right. Christ! I shouldn’t have let her come. I’ve got to write to Siegfried’s family before I leave the colony … try to get it home on a neutral ship, maybe through the Portuguese.
Two landings were made at prearranged fuel depots along the six hundred-mile route to the eastern-most corner of the colony. Both were bumpy but uneventful. He refueled and was on his way.
For extended periods of time in flight, Markus escaped the bounds of earth and its troubles. He reveled in the beauty of the endless sky, the views to the distant horizons, and the comforting drone of the engine. He had an extraordinary view, looking down on the German colony. He flew across the northern edge of the endless sands of the Kalahari Desert. He spotted rhinos and gazelles in the parched grasslands and thorn thickets of the savannah. Nearing the Kubango River and the great marshes of the Okovango, Markus saw the black backs of hippos, mostly submerged, sunning themselves in the rare water source.
He landed just before dusk at Schuckmannsburg on May 11, 1915. Two days later, Saturday, May 13, the tiny outpost of Schuckmannsburg received the last wireless transmission from Windhoek, transmitted to all receivers in the colony and in German East Africa. Imperial German naval vessels in both the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean also picked up the message. British, Belgian, South African, French, and Portuguese colonials received the transmission, too:
TO ALL IMPERIAL GERMAN RECEIVERS. STOP. BRITISH AND SOUTH AFRICANS ON OUTSKIRTS OF WINDHOEK. STOP. THIS WIRELESS STATION IS SIGNING OFF. STOP. GOOD LUCK AND GODSPEED. STOP. SIGNED CAPTAIN FRANKE, COMMANDER, GERMAN SOUTH WEST AFRICA. STOP.
Markus, standing next to the primitive outpost building, read the message a second time. He knew the prearranged plan, the destruction of the wireless station, his wireless station. He felt anger, frustration, and determination. “I’m getting this equipment to East Africa, so help me God!” he said to no one.
“What? What was that, sir?” one of the askari asked respectfully. He was one of the two guards assigned to the aeroplane.
“Oh, I was just talking to myself. You speak very good German, soldier. Where did you learn it?”
“The mission school at the orphanage, sir. I was taught by the Lutherans after my parents died in the Kalahari. We’re Herero, my little sister and me.” He looked down and away.
Jesus, Markus thought to himself, he’s still loyal to us after we massacred his people.
“Very good, soldier, very good.” It was all he could say.
Markus rested and spent the next day servicing his aircraft. He knew he must immediately leave the occupied colony before the tiny hamlet was overrun. The next morning, with fresh food and water and all the fuel he felt he could safely carry, Markus waited patiently for the wind to pick up.
A small crowd had gathered. Pretty much everyone for miles around came to see the strange flying contraption. There was a festive mood as the forty-some people huddled together, chatting and pointing and swigging beer in the early morning light. Pipe and cigar smoke hung in a thin, white cloud over their heads.
With the first roar of the engine and the resulting blast of oily, blue smoke, the crowd jumped back and let out a collective cheer. Many in the crowd had never heard a gasoline engine before, let alone seen a flying machine. None in the crowd knew of the pending danger of a severely overloaded aeroplane. Only Captain Mathias had visions of a deadly fireball etched in his mind and flashes of a smiling, laughing, young Siegfried, now consumed by those flames. He practiced earlier with the four askari on how to hold the plane so that there was no danger to them from the noise and smoke.
“It’s just like the herds of animals thundering across the veld during the migrations,” he said in a reassuring voice. With a final look, first left then right, and a quick salute to the young lieutenant commanding the post, Markus gave the signal and the four askari let loose their grip.
With a good headwind, his heavy craft lifted briskly into the blue sky. He circled once to see the landscape features and then headed due east across the Zambezi River. British Southern Rhodesia lay beneath him.
His intent was to follow the Zambezi to Lake Kariba and follow it east toward Portuguese East Africa, declared neutral in the war. Markus’s final destination was, of course, far-off German East Africa, now over seven hundred miles away—if traveled in a straight flight. But following the Zambezi, his only “map,” Markus figured the trip at one thousand miles. His immediate challenge was to bypass the village of Livingstone, a mere thirty or so miles ahead on the Zambezi. Locals who had traded there informed him of a British garrison, but none had seen or heard of any aircraft thereabouts.
Markus took the precaution earlier to paint out the German markings on the underside of his wings. The Iron Cross insignia could have easily been spotted from the ground among those few inhabited places he intended to fly over.
It was not long before he was spotted. Livingstone was a river town, a village really, but a fair-sized one. Markus had no knowledge of any inhabited locations along his route, so he felt the simplest solution was just to barrel on through, following his flight path. Few, if anyone, on the ground would have time to react if they saw him at all, he reasoned, thought, even if they determined he was German. He figured, if they saw him, they would think he was British. Unfortunately, he had not correctly anticipated their heightened state of alert and the British wireless communications.
He approached the garrison town of Livingstone from the west, saw mainly native huts on the outskirts, and was surprised to see a British native contingent of provisional police, their askari, drilling in the village square. Heads turned as he skimmed past. His last visual was to see several white officers running to a nearby building.
I wonder if the British have any aircraft in Northern Rhodesia, he thought. I’d bet a barrel of beer they don’t. We only have—had—three, with only two airworthy, till Siegfried’s crash … and now there isn’t a flyable aeroplane in our entire colony.
Cruising east above the Zambezi, Markus could just make out Lake Kariba simmering in the midmorning sun. He checked his gas gauge and started looking for a place to put her down. The southern end of the Muchinga Mountains was discernible to the northeast as he approached the western end of the lake. Its southern shore seemed flat and sandy in places, with much more green vegetation, trees, brush, and patches of forest inland.
He cut the throttle and the roar of the engine faded to a purr as he glided low over the water. Flocks of birds, millions of them, rose from the water in great clouds of flapping wings, honking and crying as they clustered in flight, moving as of one living organism. Markus was mesmerized by their beauty.
He found a strip of beach that looked promising, circled back around, and came in for a perfect landing on the sand. With one-quarter of his fuel weight bu
rned, the aircraft was easier to handle. He carried extra cans equivalent to two complete refuels. The aeroplane came to a halt, and he cut the engine. His ears rang from hours of engine noise and blowing wind. Silence was a welcome relief.
Standing up in the cockpit, he stretched, pulled off his goggles and leather flying helmet, rubbed his eyes, and scratched his head vigorously with both hands.
Stepping off the wing, he hit the dry sand and thought, Ja, good enough. He looked inland from the beach, scanning the brush and tree line, and then looked out across the lake. The flocks of birds were returning, settling into islands of white and gray feathers, preening themselves in a way that seemed almost vain. He smiled to himself.
Markus walked around his craft, looking here and there, checking the important wires and parts, but mostly enjoying being upright and on the ground. It wasn’t long before they found him, as he knew they would. Swarms of Anopheles mosquitoes swirled around as he turned up his collar and wrapped a scarf around his head and face. He went to work pulling a heavy can of gasoline out of the fuselage and carefully pouring the precious liquid into the tank. Two cans did it.
He was about to pitch the cans off to the side when he detected movement a hundred feet off the beach in the shadows. His hand moved to his revolver.
He waited. Sounds! More movement. He stared intently—white! Is that a uniform, a shield? He waited. Several small trees seemed to bend toward the lake.
Elephants! First, a bull with white tusks swayed into view. It stared at the aeroplane, snorted, flapped its ears, and stepped to the water’s edge. Several more elephants followed. Must be the females, Markus thought. And a young one, almost invisible on the opposite side of its mother. Soon they were all in the water, rolling over, spouting water from their trunks, and enjoying themselves, with only the bull keeping an eye on the intruder.
This is all very interesting, thought Markus, but I’ve got a schedule to keep, and you are in my way. There was nothing he could do, of course. Any one of the beasts could end his mission with a few swings of a trunk, even the little one.
The Storm That Shook the World Page 15
