The Challenging Heights by Max Hennessy Page B

the vay home. Often an aeroplane goes over my head so close I feel the draught and smell the engine fumes.’ The hand gestured again. ‘These people don’t understand.’
    There was a lot of movement round the table as the band started. Udet shrugged and began to scribble on the menu. ‘Is different now,’ he went on. ‘Nowadays we only get killed doing stupid things. Robi von Greim and I do dogfights at exhibitions. He has an old DVII, I haf a Fokker Parasol. Because we haf both the Blue Max we get the crowds, of course. But it makes me feel ashame, doing something to entertain that we once did in earnest. Besides, the crowds only really look for excitement. Vhen Robi hits a high-tension wire und falls into a lake, they think it is part of the act. I decide to give it up. I’m building aircraft now. Mit an American called Pohl. We call it the Volksflugzeug – the people’s aircraft. Cheap. Easy to fly.’
    ‘I thought under the Armistice terms Germany was forbidden to build aircraft.’
    Udet grinned. ‘You going to tell on us?’
    ‘Good God, no! But how do you get away with it?’
    ‘They think we are building locks. The aeroplane looks like a goose mit epileptic cramps, but it flies. I hear Tony Fokker vent to America. He manage to get all his half-built machines out of Germany before the end came so they are not destroyed like the rest and he has enough to start again. When it finish, they saw up and burn every German aircraft they can find. Only a few vhich are hidden are saved. The hangar at Schleissheim vas filled mit destroyed machines. They make a bonfire of superb aeroplanes.’
    ‘It wasn’t very different in England.’
    Udet shrugged. ‘They call these days the Golden Age of Flying.’ He sounded bitter. ‘The only thing golden about them iss the spirit of the pilots. We fly because ve love flying. I once meet Guynemer, the Frenchman. You know of him? Und when my gun jams he just salutes me and lets me go. Now it’s all politics. The whole of Germany iss politics. They jaw so much a flier can get toothache.’
    He tossed across the menu he’d been scribbling on. On the back was an expert caricature of Dicken sitting in a miniature aeroplane wearing RAF rondels facing a caricature of Udet himself in another miniature plane wearing the German cross.
    ‘You could earn a living at this,’ Dicken said.
    Udet grinned. ‘I prefer flying. Und shooting. Not at men. At targets. You fancy a flip? We haf an old Rumpler. Dual controls. I could fly one half. You could fly the other.’
    What time they left the night club Dicken had no idea. Udet’s wife and Janzi Lechner had both disappeared with most of the other customers, and the waiters were standing in the doorway yawning and waiting to close the place. They had drunk a lot of what Udet called ‘sekt’ – sparkling Rhine wine – and Dicken woke up on a settee to see the numbers of aeroplanes decorating the walls with British and French cockades.
    Udet appeared soon afterwards. ‘Some grosstadtbummel,’ he grinned. ‘Some pub crawl! Lo goes to stay mit a friend. She often does when I am out on the tiles. Let’s get out to the airfield. We’ll pick up coffee there.’
    The German pilots made Dicken welcome, then they went outside to watch Udet perform stunts in an old Fokker DVII marked D-UDET, trailing his wing tip inches above the ground as he howled across the field.
    He seemed to have sobered up when he reappeared – even become sombre. ‘One of these days,’ he said, ‘Lo will leave me. She says she cannot stand my bad habits.’ He stared round. ‘You’re unlucky today. Lothar von Richthofen – the Ritttmeister’s brother – comes in occasionally. Also Bruno Loerzer. He’s around a lot mit Goering, who takes over the Richthofen Circus when the Rittmeister iss killed. The Iron Man, he called himself. All discipline. But he vasn’t a Richthofen, you know, despite what he think. He has gone into politics. Fancies himself as