were wild. The hissing of flames was at their back and the screams and yells around them were like dissonant notes standing out from a hellish symphony. He kissed her forehead, gave her a tight reassuring smile, and waited as long as he could, till the ship had lowered to about ten feet.
Then he dropped her, gently as possible, hoping the sandy ground below would greet her the same way.
Like Margaret Mather, Joseph Spah was on the portside, and the acrobat was climbing out a window, following two men who’d gone out before him and dropped to the ground too soon, crashing to earth, one hundred feet or more, bouncing as they hit, and now lay unconscious or dead, flaming linen and molten aluminum raining down on them.
Sitting on the ledgelike sill, Spah waited, waited, waited, seconds that seemed forever, and would be forever, if he couldn’t find the right moment; all he could think of was, thank God he swung from a lamppost for a living!
Ravenous flames were seething behind him, and he could wait no longer—forty feet now, he guessed. He could do that. He was an acrobat—just keep his feet under him, knees bent, roll when he landed, feet under, knees bent, roll, under, bent, roll….
“It’s too high!” a voice said.
Spah turned.
It was the chief steward, Kubis.
“Too high!” Kubis repeated, his eyes almost crazed.
“No,” Spah said. “It’s too hot.”
And he jumped.
Moments later, so did Kubis.
Leonhard and Gertrude Adelt landed softly in the grassy wet sand, having jumped only fifteen or so feet, collapsing to their knees not in pain but in relief.
Short-lived relief: almost immediately they were enveloped in oily black clouds through which deadly tongues of fire licked and taunted. They got to their feet, found each other’s hand, but soon parted company, as no path for two could be found in the dangled maze of crumpled wreckage. It was like making their way through a jungle of dangling hot metal wires and glowing cables and jagged debris, under the continued downpour of burning fabric and dripping metal.
Leonhard felt no pain as he bent apart white-hot aluminum framing, to make a door to dive through, into the sea of fire; in shock, it all registered as an eerie dream to him, his body weightless, floating like a star through space.
Then he saw that Gertrude had fallen and some semblance of reality snapped back. He ran to her, hopping red-hot girders, pulled her up and gave her a push—she tottered off like a mechanical toy. He followed after her, but tripped and found himself sprawled on the oil-soaked ground, and it felt good to him, despite the flames dancing all around him; it gave him such a wonderful sense of well-being, to just stretch out on the soft sand and await death.
“Leonhard!”
His wife’s voice.
He pushed himself up, saw her beyond the wreckage, beyond the flames, safe, reaching out to him, calling out to him, and he sprang to his feet and ran for his wife, and life.
Then he was beyond the fire zone, breathing air not smoke, and as Gertrude took his hand, he looked back at the fallen giant, swirling with smoke and flame, cracked in the middle now, forward section reaching for the sky as flames shot out the bow like a monstrous blowtorch.
A husky sailor was shouting, “Navy men stand fast!”
And the same ground crew who had fled the falling, fiery airship were heading back to pull people out of there. And figures were emerging on their own, as well, running like Jesse Owens, fleeing the flames, or just staggering, some of them with the clothes burned off their bodies, others with eyes seared shut.
“We should help,” Leonhard said, coughing.
“No,” his wife said. “We need help.”
He looked at her, her blue eyes pleading, her lovely face smudged with soot, burned black in places, her hair smoking, sizzling.
Then he nodded, and they stepped over a smoldering body, and walked away, hand in hand.
The ship was nearly to the ground when Charteris jumped.
He hit on all fours, a soft sandy landing, then bounded to his feet, sparks and embers falling around him like red snow.
“Help us!”
A woman’s voice, behind him.
Glancing up, he saw the two terrified little boys, the Doehners, climbing out the sill. Their frantic mother pushed them out, one at a time. Charteris caught the boy, and in one fluid motion flung him with all his force, the child sailing in an arc, landing beyond the fire zone. The other boy landed in the