David John - Flight from Berlin

Eleanor and Marjorie lifted their pillows and found the same anonymous printed message. Eleanor read it out loud, her voice hardening as she realised what it was.

MEN AND WOMEN OF THE USA TEAM! GERMANY WILL SHOW YOU A SMILING FACE THAT HIDES ITS EVIL HEART. EVERY DAY CITIZENS WHO DO NOT THINK LIKE THE NAZIS ARE TORTURED AND MURDERED. PROTEST AGAINST THIS CRIMINAL REGIME BY REMAINING ON YOUR STARTING BLOCKS AT EACH RACE! DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELVES TO BECOME PAWNS OF NAZI PROPAGANDA!

‘Gee, those boycotters don’t let up,’ said Marjorie, who had picked up a copy of Vogue and began flicking through it. She held up a page with an airbrushed portrait of Hannah Liebermann posing with her foil. ‘Doesn’t she look like Myrna Loy?’

‘My mom got a letter from her union telling her I shouldn’t be going,’ said Olive. ‘That the Nazis have banned the trade unions… or something like that. Didn’t sound like such a bad idea to her. If the AOC says it’s okay for us to go, that was fine by her.’

Eleanor crumpled up her copy of the note and tossed it straight through the open porthole. A thought crossed her mind-that her father had arranged for these notes to be placed here, that he was aiming one final guilt-tipped arrow at her before she sailed. But equally, she supposed, they might have been left there by any hothead from the boycott movement. There were enough of them.

‘What I cannot understand,’ she said, opening a compact mirror and inspecting her lipstick, ‘is what the hell’s it to do with Olympic sport?’ She snapped the mirror shut. ‘Why would anyone think there’s something wrong with wanting to win gold medals for the USA?’

Two trombone blasts from the ship’s funnels reverberated through the floor, and they heard feet running along the corridor outside. ‘Come on,’ she said to the girls, ‘I think it’s time for bon voyage.’

T he American Olympic team members, all 384 of them, were pressed against the rails, waving to the thousands come to see them off, along with the ship’s other passengers-the reporters, diplomats, and socialites-on their way to the Games as supporters and spectators. Eleanor spotted Mary Astor and Helen Hayes standing on the first-class promenade.

On the pier, a high school athletic team unfurled a banner reading GIVE ’EM HELL, GLENN. Tugs, yachts, and liners tied up at the neighbouring piers began sounding their horns in a raucous medley, with each blast echoed by vessels farther up the Hudson. Overhead, a biplane circled. It seemed as though the whole of New York City was there to wish them luck. Every window in the towers of Midtown was filled with faces.

On the ship’s top deck five girls from the women’s high jump team hoisted a vast white flag emblazoned with the Olympic rings. The crowd roared and stamped their feet, breaking into a chant.

‘U-S-A! U-S-A! A-M-E-R-I–C-A!’

Eleanor basked in the happiness and goodwill of the thousands of faces, and felt their energy. Not a single protester as far as she could see. Not one angry face.

The funnels sounded their bass notes again, the companionways were cast off, and three tugboats pulled the Manhattan out into the harbour. The athletes waved and whistled in a frenzy. Some held paper streamers linked to the hands of parents and sweethearts on the pier, wept when the streamers broke, and hugged each other. Gradually the pier slipped away in a tumult of spray, foam, and engine noise. The band struck up ‘America the Beautiful’ and tears welled in Eleanor’s eyes. Who needs a damned husband anyway, she thought.

‘Achtung…’

The ferry’s loudspeaker announced each stop along the shore as a U-boat might alert its torpedo room to targets.

‘Unsere nachste Halt ist Friedrichshafen! Friedrichshafen!’

Richard Denham was the only passenger to disembark onto the narrow quay. As the weather was mild and his luggage light he decided to walk the half mile up the high street towards the hotel. He carried a flaking leather case that contained his portable Underwood and a change of clothes. In his breast pocket was the letter of invitation, in case he should be obliged to produce it at the reception desk. He could imagine doubts about his liquidity at the region’s smartest spa resort when they saw his unshaven face and the slept-in flannel suit he’d worn on the long train journey from Berlin.

A breeze swept across the lake from the Alps, rimpling the glassy surface and dispelling the oppressive heat of high summer. Clouds and sky reflected.

The high street of Friedrichshafen, narrow in places, was a pretty, cobblestone affair, with baker, coffee shop, and butcher, all with window boxes in bloom and high-gabled roofs of red tiles. This could be any small town in southern Germany on a peaceful Saturday in summer. Even the sound of approaching drums, from some distance away, was depressingly normal.

The day after he’d received a call from his press agent in London, demanding more ‘human interest’ stories and less politics, Denham had cabled an old colleague of his father’s. To his surprise he received a response by return:

My dear Richard,

I am indeed very happy and pleased to receive a message from you. With the greatest pleasure I remember the visits of your father to us here in Friedrichshafen, and we Germans live in remembrances. It would be my pleasure to welcome you Saturday. I insist please that you stay at the Hotel Kurgarten as the guest of the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin. You shall of course have whatever access you require to our work and I promise to do my utmost to answer your questions.

I remain sincerely yours,

Hugo Eckener

The dismal boom of the drums was getting nearer, so Denham slipped into a shop out of sight. This was the second time in as many weeks that he’d taken refuge somewhere to avoid saluting some passing banner. He’d seen them beat up people who didn’t salute. As his eyes adjusted after the glare of the street, he saw that he’d entered a post office and remembered the stamps his son, Tom, had asked him to find.

The walls of the narrow street amplified the advancing sound, the drumbeat now underscored by the crunch of marching feet.

He watched from the post office window as the brigade leader passed, holding high a banner with the words DEUTSCHLAND ERWACHE — ‘Germany, awake.’ Shoppers along the pavement raised their right arms, holding groceries in the other. Row after row of Brownshirts followed the banner, caps strapped under their chins, boots smacking the cobblestones. Each man carried a tall swastika flag of scarlet, white, and black and sang what sounded like a hymn, except that it was about sharpening daggers on kerbstones.

Denham folded his arms and swore under his breath. Warm weather in Germany brought out a tide of shit these days.

Just out of sight, a car horn blared once, and then persistently, causing the marchers to break step. Something must have blocked their way, because as the rows in front came to a sudden halt the ones following collided into their backs, throwing the parade into disarray. Caps were knocked off, flagstaffs whacked into faces, and fronts shoved against rears. The men swore and yelped, shouting, ‘ Halt! ’ to those in the rear.

‘Haaaalt!’

Denham snorted with laughter. What was going on? He pulled his Leica out of the case and tried to get a couple of shots of the farce unfolding.

‘Mister Denham.’

He usually got a better fee for an article with photos.

‘Mis-ter Den-ham.’

Denham froze.

A man’s voice was yelling his name over the commotion outside. It was coming from the direction of the car horn, which sounded again.

‘Mis-ter Rich-ard Den-ham?’

The voice was addressing him in English. So, chances were it didn’t belong to a Brownshirt. In fact, it sounded familiar. He stepped outside into the crowd of uniforms and saw, about twenty yards down the street, a black, open-topped Maybach parked half up on the pavement. The old street was so narrow, however, that it left barely six feet for the marchers to pass. Standing in the car was the tall, plumpish figure of Hugo Eckener, waving with his hand high in the air.