The Poison Tide by Andrew Williams Read Free Book Online

simple act of writing the equation had set his mind to another thread of chemical possibilities.
    Is he a genius? Dilger wondered. Some people said so. The first to fix nitrogen from the air.
Brot aus Luft!
Bread out of air. His discovery made fertilisers possible; he’d enriched the soil and fed the world. Yes, there were some who called it ‘an act of genius’.
    Haber was completely bald, like a wrinkled egg. Late forties, short, his eyes almost hidden beneath a pronounced brow and by pince-nez spectacles. He had a bushy moustache and a large nose. His manner was clipped, even a little haughty. He won’t suffer fools gladly, Dilger thought anxiously. He knew he was a little too conscious of the honour Haber was bestowing in speaking to him as an equal. Professor Troester had arranged the visit to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. ‘I’d like you to meet the director,’ he had told Dilger. ‘The professor is a great German patriot,’ and, more cryptically, ‘You’ll find him helpful.’
    Haber had greeted the three of them – naturally, Nadolny had come too – in his lecture hall. He’d been sitting near the back, almost lost in the rows of empty benches, elbows on his knees, rolling a large cigar between his fingers, his assistants in white coats at the door like monks in attendance on an abbot at prayer.
    ‘I still don’t understand a word of it, do you, gentlemen?’ remarked Count Nadolny, turning with a wry smile to Troester.
    ‘Of course,’ he replied curtly.
    ‘To the director of this Institute, everything is simple,’ said Nadolny, acknowledging Haber with a gracious bow. ‘I am merely an old soldier.’
    ‘You do yourself an injustice. The Count has a subtle mind, don’t you agree?’ Haber asked, turning to Dilger with a distant smile. ‘In chemistry as in life, Count; few things are as simple as they appear. There are always choices to be made.’
    ‘Tested in the crucible of time, but . . .’ the Count paused, flourishing his hand and the red intaglio at the blackboard. ‘Perhaps you can demonstrate the practical application of your work here, Professor.’
    The late-afternoon sun was casting strange shifting shadows as it streamed through the laboratory windows on to shimmering Bunsen flames and assorted bell jars, flasks and cylinders. It was a long room with a high barrel-vaulted ceiling, the ceramic-topped benches in rows facing the door, glass-fronted cabinets and shelves against the walls. Better equipped than Heidelberg, Dilger thought, and a more orderly environment than the one he’d studied in at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, but unremarkable except in one respect. The collars and Saxon cuffs beneath the white coats of the young men at the work benches were field grey, and peaked caps were hanging on the stand by the door. On a board next to it was the old saying,
War is the Father of all things
,
and in ebony frames on the wall, the Kaiser and the Chief of the General Staff, von Falkenhayn. Professor Dr Fritz Haber’s laboratory belonged to the Army and to its industry.
    ‘We discussed the possibility in a general way before the war and I carried out a little research of my own,’ he said, leading them over to the workbench nearest the window, ‘but it wasn’t until we had the money and there was the political will.’
    One of his research assistants had drawn a hose from a steel cylinder beneath the bench and was attaching it to the bottom of a large bell jar. In the jar were five albino rats.
    ‘Doctor Hahn is my Pied Piper.’ Haber smiled benignly at his assistant, then bent forward to peer at the squealing tangle of white fur. ‘Our calculations suggest it will be effective on the battlefield at a concentration as low as one to one thousand.’ He paused, his brow wrinkled like an anxious Humpty Dumpty, before adding as an afterthought: ‘Of course, we won’t be able to determine this precisely until we’ve tried.’
    Then he nodded to his assistant who reached