Leon was waiting on the beach of Kilindini lagoon when the German tramp steamer SS Silbervogel anchored in the road-stead. He went out to her in the first lighter. When he went up the companion ladder five passengers were waiting to meet him on the afterdeck, the engineer and his mechanics from the Meerbach Motor Works, part of the team that Graf Otto von Meerbach had sent out as his vanguard.
The man in charge introduced himself as Gustav Kilmer. He was a muscular, capable-looking fellow in his early fifties, with a heavy jaw and close-cropped iron-grey hair. His hands were stained with embedded grease, and his fingernails were ragged from working with heavy tools. He invited Leon to take a glass of pilsener with him in the passenger saloon before they disembarked.
When they were seated with tankards in hand, Gustav went over the inventory of the cargo that was stowed in the Silbervogel’s holds, which comprised fifty-six huge crates weighing twenty-eight tons in total. There were also two thousand gallons of special fuel for the rotary aircraft engines in fifty-gallon drums, and another ton of lubrication oil and grease. In addition, three Meerbach motor vehicles were strapped under green tarpaulin covers on the afterdeck. Gustav explained that two were heavy transport trucks and the third was an open hunting car that had been designed jointly by himself and Graf Otto, and built in the Wieskirche factory. It was the only one of its kind in existence.
It took the lighters three days to ferry this vast cargo ashore. Max Rosenthal and Hennie du Rand were waiting at the head of a gang of two hundred black porters to transfer the drums and crates from the lighters to the goods trucks that were standing in the Kilindini railway siding.
When the three motor vehicles were brought ashore and unwrapped from their heavy tarpaulin covers, Gustav checked them for damage they might have suffered during the voyage, Leon watching his every move with fascination. The trucks were big and robust, far in advance of anything he had ever seen. One had been fitted with a thousand-gallon tank to carry fuel for the motors and aeroplanes, and in a separate compartment between the fuel tank and the driver’s seat there was a compact toolroom and workshop. Gustav assured Leon that, from the workshop, he could maintain all three vehicles and the aircraft anywhere in the field.
Leon was impressed by all of this, but it was the open hunting car that filled him with wonder. He had never seen such a beautiful piece of machinery. From the upholstered leather seats, fitted cocktail bar and gun racks to the enormous six-cylinder 100-horsepower engine under the long gleaming bonnet, it was a symphony of engineering genius.
By now Gustav had taken to Leon’s boyish charisma, and was further flattered by his interest in and unstinted praise of his creations. He invited Leon to be his passenger on the long drive up-country to Nairobi.
When at last the main cargo had been loaded on to the railway wagons, Leon ordered Hennie and Max aboard to shepherd it to Nairobi. As the train pulled out of the siding and puffed away into the littoral hills, Gustav and his mechanics mounted the three Meerbach vehicles and started the engines. With Leon in the passenger seat of the hunting car, Gustav led the trucks out on to the road. The drive was much too short for Leon, every mile a delight. He sat in the leather seat, which was more comfortable than the easy chairs on the stoep of the Muthaiga Country Club, and was cosseted by the swaying Meerbach patented suspension. He watched the speedometer with amazement as Gustav pushed the great machine to almost seventy miles an hour on one particularly smooth and straight stretch of road.
‘Not too long ago there was much debate as to whether or not the human body could survive speeds of this magnitude,’ Gustav told him comfortably.
‘It takes my breath away,’ Leon confessed.
‘Would you like to drive for a while?’ Gustav asked magnanimously.
‘I’d kill for half the chance,’ Leon admitted. Gustav chortled jovially, and pulled to the side of the track to relinquish the steering-wheel.
They beat the goods train to Nairobi by almost five hours and were on the platform to welcome it when it chugged in, its steam whistle shrieking. The driver shunted the trucks on to a spur rail to be unloaded the following morning. Leon had hired a contractor who operated a powerful steam traction engine to haul the cargo to its final destination.
In accordance with one of the numerous instructions that had been cabled from Meerbach headquarters in Wieskirche, Leon had already built a large open-sided hangar with a tarpaulin roof to serve as a workshop and storage area. He had sited this on the open plot of land he had inherited from Percy. It adjoined the polo ground, which he planned to use as a landing strip for the aircraft, which were still in their crates awaiting assembly.
These were busy days for Leon. One of Graf Otto von Meerbach’s cables gave detailed instructions for the provision of creature comforts for himself and his female companion. At each hunting location, Leon was to prepare adjoining quarters to accommodate the couple; he had been issued with detailed specifications for these commodious and luxurious suites. Furniture for them was packed in one of the crates, and included beds, wardrobes and linen. He had also received instructions as to how the dining arrangements should be conducted. Graf Otto had sent full sets of crockery and silver, with a pair of enormous solid silver candelabra, each weighing twenty pounds, that were sculpted with hunting scenes of stag and wild boar. The beautiful bone-china dinner service and the crystal glassware were embellished in gold leaf with the Meerbach coat of arms: a mailed fist brandishing a sword and the motto ‘Durabo!’ on a banner below it. ‘ “I shall survive!” ’ Leon translated the Latin. The fine white linen napery was embroidered with the same motif.
There were two hundred and twenty cases of the choicest champagnes, wines and liqueurs, and fifty crates of canned and bottled delicacies: sauces and condiments, rare spices like saffron, foie gras from Lyon, Westphalian ham, smoked oysters, Danish pickled herring, Portuguese sardines in olive oil, scallops in brine and Russian beluga caviar. Max Rosenthal was enraptured when he laid eyes for the first time on this epicurean hoard.
Apart from all of this there were six large cabin trunks labelled ‘Fräulein Eva von Wellberg. NOT TO BE OPENED BEFORE ARRIVAL OF THE OWNER.’ However, one of the largest had burst open and from it spilled a collection of magnificent feminine clothing and footwear suitable for every possible occasion. When Leon was summoned by Max to deal with the catastrophe of the damaged luggage, he gazed in wonder. The exquisite underwear, each separate article wrapped in tissue paper, caught his particular attention. He picked up a feathery wisp of silk and an enchanting, erotic fragrance wafted up from it. Prurient images bestirred themselves in his imagination. He repressed them sternly, and replaced the garment on the pile as he gave orders to Max to repack the trunk, then repair and reseal the damaged lid.
Over the weeks that followed, Leon delegated to Max and Hennie most of the petty details, while he spent every hour he could afford in the hangar at the polo field, watching Gustav and his team assemble the two aircraft. Gustav worked with precision and thoroughness. Each of the crates was marked with its contents so they were unpacked in the correct sequence. Slowly, day after day, the jigsaw puzzle of assorted engine parts, rigging wire and struts, wing and fuselage started to take on the recognizable shape of aircraft. When at last Gustav had completed the assembly, Leon was amazed by their size. Their fuselages were sixty-five feet long, and the wing spans a prodigious 110 feet. The framework was covered with canvas that had been treated with a cellulose derivative to give it the strength and tautness of steel. The aircraft were painted in marvellously flamboyant patterns and colours. The first was a dazzling chessboard of brilliant scarlet and black squares and the name painted on its nose was Das Schmetterling – the Butterfly. The second was decorated with black and golden stripes. Graf Otto had christened it Das Hummel – the Bumble Bee.
Once the bodywork had been assembled, the aircraft were ready to receive their engines. There were four 250 horsepower seven-cylinder fourteen-valve rotary Meerbach engines for each. After Gustav had bolted them in turn on to test beds made of teak railway sleepers, he started them. Their roar could be heard miles away in the Muthaiga Country Club, and soon every layabout in Nairobi had arrived to swarm around the hangar, like flies around a dead dog. They seriously impeded the work, and Leon had Hennie erect a barbed-wire fence around the property to keep the gaping throng at a distance.
Once Gustav had tuned the engines, he declared he was ready to fit them to the wings of the two aircraft. One by one they were hoisted by block and tackle on gantries built over the wings. Then he and his mechanics manoeuvred them into position and fixed them into their mountings, two engines on each bank of wings.
Three weeks after the commencement of the work, the assembly of the machines was completed. Gustav told Leon, ‘Now it is necessary to test them.’
‘Are you going to fly them?’ Leon had difficulty containing his excitement, but he was immediately disappointed when Gustav shook his head vehemently.
‘Nein! I am not a crazy man. Only Graf Otto flies these contraptions.’ He saw Leon’s expression and tried to console him a little. ‘I am only going to ground-taxi them, but you shall ride with me.’
Early the following morning Leon mounted the boarding ladder to the commodious cockpit of the Butterfly. Gustav, in a long black leather coat and matching leather helmet with a pair of goggles pushed up on to his forehead, followed him and seated himself on the pilot’s bench at the rear of the cockpit. First, he showed Leon how to strap himself in. From there Leon watched Gustav’s every move as he waggled the elevators and ailerons with the joystick, then did the same with the rudder bars. When he was satisfied that the controls were free he gave the signal to his assistants on the ground below, and they began the complicated starting routine. Finally all four engines were running smoothly, and Gustav gave the thumbs-up sign to his assistants, who dragged away the wheel chocks.
With Gustav playing the throttles as though they were the stops of a cathedral organ, the Butterfly rolled majestically out of the hangar and into the brilliant African sunshine. A cheer went up from the several hundred spectators who lined the barbed-wire boundary fence. Gustav’s men ran beside the wing-tips to help steer the machine as, bumping and rocking, the Butterfly made four ponderous circuits of the polo ground.
Gustav saw Leon’s yearning and, once again, took pity on him. ‘Come, take the controls!’ he shouted, above the din of the engines. ‘Let’s see if you can drive her.’
Joyfully Leon took his place on the pilot’s bench and Gustav nodded his approval as Leon swiftly gained the feel of joystick and rudder bars, refining his touch on the quadruple throttle levers. ‘Ja, my engines can feel that you respect and cherish them. You will soon learn to get the very best out of them.’
At last they returned to the hangar, and when Leon had climbed back down the ladder to the ground, he reached up on tiptoe to pat the Butterfly’s scarlet and black chequered nose. ‘One day I’m going to fly you, my big beauty,’ he whispered, to the towering machine. ‘Damn me if I don’t!’
Gustav came down behind him, and Leon took the opportunity to question him on something that had puzzled him for a while. He pointed out the racks of hooks and braces under the wings on each side of the fuselage. ‘What are these for, Gustav?’
‘They are for the bombs,’ Gustav replied guilelessly.
Leon blinked but kept his manner only mildly curious. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘How many can she carry?’
‘Many!’ Gustav answered proudly. ‘She is very powerful. Let me give you the English numbers, which maybe you will understand better. She can lift two thousand pounds of bombs, plus a crew of five and her full tanks of fuel. She can fly at a hundred and ten miles per hour at an altitude of nine thousand feet for a distance of five hundred miles and after that return to her base.’
‘She’s amazing!’
Gustav stroked the gaudy fuselage, like a father caressing his firstborn. ‘There is no other machine in the world to match her,’ he boasted.
By noon the following day Penrod Ballantyne had cabled the precise performance figures of the Meerbach Mark III Experimental to the War Office in London.