Guilt threatened to overwhelm her as she wrote the labels on her trunks. They stared back at her. Had she packed the right items, made the correct decisions? Was she right to leave Otto at a crucial time in his life?
She was past the point of no return. The mantelpiece was almost bare except for the photo of Willy with Otto as a small child playing on the beach at Sassnitz on the Baltic shore. She would leave that photograph in place for Otto’s sake. Photo albums brought back memories of the happy family she once knew. She took one and left the others in the cabinet. She still found it hard to accept Willy’s passing; the grief was still raw after such a short time. If only she could turn back time. She knew it could not happen, no matter how much she willed it.
After agonizing over her recent decisions, she realised she had to be strong and decisive. She was going to Scotland. That was the right decision, though only time would tell, of course. The photo album was crammed into her trunk, all except two photographs. The family seaside scene and one of her remained on the mantelpiece for Otto to remind him of his absent parents. The constant thought, which dominated her thinking however, was how she could spy against her homeland.
The Grampian Empress lay impressively in the Vopak Terminal Dock. Hilda felt a warm glow as she read the word Glasgow on the ship’s stern, beneath a red ensign flag. Her two trunks boarded the ship, and she accompanied them to ensure no prying eyes might inspect them out with her absence. Her anxious, suspicious mind was ever-present.
Otto had said goodbye to her the night before she was due to embark, and Karl and Renate spent the final afternoon with her. They took Herr Eicke’s warning seriously. Karl promised to attend some rallies and close his surgery to show he was attending. That might ease the situation, even although it irked him to do so. They parted with long, tearful hugs, knowing both of their futures were uncertain.
She was escorted to her cabin by a crewmember quick to pick up her accent when she spoke to him.
‘Thurs nae many Scottish women like you on board, ye ken,’ said Able Seaman Rory Tait.
‘There are not many Scottish women in Germany at all,’ Hilda replied.
He looked at her as if she was an endangered species. ‘There are only a few women on this trip. I guess families o’ Jews. They Jews, they are nae welcomed here, are they?’
‘You mean in Germany?’ she asked.
‘Aye.’
‘They are victims of the state,’ she told him as she grabbed a rail in the slight swell of the ship.
‘I ken. Worrying times.’
‘These are the fortunate few. They’re getting away – that’s why they are on board.’
Tait looked at her blankly. ‘Aye… suppose so.’
He took her hand luggage and eased the cases through a compartment door leading to a carpeted aisle.
‘Ladies always need their extra boxes for perfume an’ the like. Mind you, there will be nae ballroom dancing tonight, Miss,’ said Tait.
She saw he was looking at her black box. She laughed. ‘That’s not what you think it is. It’s my oboe.’
‘Oh, I see. Well, ye’ll hae nae use for that either. There’s nae orchestra on board,’ he said.
She chuckled. ‘I am not travelling to play in public.’
Tait looked at the box and shook his head. ‘If it has any sense, that oboe of yours should stay in its case on this voyage.’
‘Not keen on music, are you?’
‘Naw, not keen on rough seas. The barometer is low. It’s gonna be a rough crossing.’ He laid her cases at her cabin door and she gave him a collection of coins. He looked at them with distain.
‘I’m sorry, I’ve no shillings or pence.’
He did not reply. Perhaps it was a familiar predicament on his sailings. He tapped his forelock and was gone.
As Able Seaman Tait had said, even before the Grampian Empress left harbour a swell gently rocked the ship from side to side. After familiarising herself with her cosy cabin, Hilda wrapped herself in a warm blanket blazoned with the ship’s livery and made her way to the deck. Her hair caught the breeze and she felt its strands tangle. Nevertheless, she needed to see the land that meant so much to her drift away. Where Germany was heading was uncertain; she wondered whether she would go with it when the extent of its ambition became clear. In fact, would she ever return to Hamburg?
Church spires and cranes stood erect above the skyline, proud of their achievements. However, the church no longer had a strong voice, and the cranes rested before they began work in the morning, building more ships for the German navy. Flags flew everywhere, warm bright red and the sombre black swastika on its stark white background. Mixed feelings swept through her as she remembered. Her thoughts came in an ordered sequence; order had become a requirement, a demand even, during her recent life in Hamburg.
Germany had been her home since 1911 when as a recent language graduate of Aberdeen University, she had come there to brush up her German. She met Willy by chance at a music concert. That memory gave her a warm feeling. She smiled as she recalled the Kunsthalle near the Binnenalster pond in Hamburg where the concert took place. They listened to Grieg’s Piano Concerto. By the third movement, the Allegro Mercator, Willy was holding her hand.
Their honeymoon in Scotland two years later was another happy memory. She was proud to take her husband, Dr Willy Richter, around her relatives scattered around the country. Then back to Germany, and the fateful visit of Vera Caldwell, her cousin, in the summer of 1914, and the trials and strains of getting her home after the first guns had been sounded in that devastating war. Perhaps she might visit Vera again on this trip if she managed to get to Glasgow. Could history repeat itself, and find their roles reversed if there was another war? Had the lessons of the Great War not been learned?
The ship’s horn sounded and the thick restraining mooring ropes were manually released from the dockside bollards and fell freely into the dark water below. They were then hauled on board, slithering upwards to the deck by the vessel’s capstan winch drum. The Grampian Empress eased itself away from the quay, setting it free from an increasingly belligerent land and headed towards an island of peace and relative harmony.
In the dying light of autumn, the golden trees and flags of Hamburg waved goodbye. She gave a lingering smile to the city which had brought her happiness, love, culture and family. Fear and foreboding now overcame the land, but those treasured happier memories would always be with her.
‘Till the next time, Hamburg. I will return, God willing. Deus Volente, I will return,’ she said to the breeze, and it cast her words landward.
She made her way unsteadily towards her cabin as the ship lurched towards the open North Sea. As she passed cabin number 227 she stopped. She listened. She made a note of the cabin number then returned to her own cabin swaying as if she was drunk.
That night in the restaurant she ate alone, noticing a dearth of single travellers aboard. She managed to spill some soup on to the clean white tablecloth. A waiter arrived promptly to wipe and clean the offending spot.
‘Soup is possibly not the best choice on a night like this,’ she said by way of apology.
‘Perhaps not,’ he replied. ‘You might like me to serve you the soup in a cup?’
‘An excellent solution, thank you.’
The soup arrived promptly. It was filling, but she needed a further layer of food to settle her stomach. That would serve two purposes. It could quell the movement of the ship for her, and go some way towards giving her confidence for what she had in mind.
After a plate of haddock, mashed potato and peas, she returned to her cabin and opened her black box. She dampened the double reed then left her room, retracing her steps unsteadily until she reached cabin 227. She knocked on the door and the German chatter inside fell silent. She waited a few moments, and then knocked again. This time the door opened an inch or two.
‘Good evening. I hope you don’t mind me calling.’
‘What have you there?’ The young girl asked, clearly curious.
‘It’s my oboe. I brought it because I thought I heard music coming from this cabin earlier.’
‘You are German?’
‘No. I speak German, but I am Scottish. I am returning home.’
The door opened wider. She entered. Three children sat on the top of the bunk bed with their legs dangling and swinging back and forth. Their mother was behind the door, gripping a dark brown shawl tightly around her shoulders.
The parents remained cautious. Hilda understood how they must have felt. She had to show she was no authority figure plotting to have them returned to Germany.
‘You are safe here. I mean you no harm.’
There was a pause. The father’s instinct of suspicious towards the visitor was understandable. That was why she had reassured them that she was not German. The ship was also now underway, and that was reassuring too. Hilda raised her oboe for his inspection.
‘I am Hilda Richter. I am a widow returning to Scotland. My parents are there.’
The father relaxed and smiled. It was a signal for the rest of the family.
‘My name is David Hortowski,’ he said ‘My wife Anna, my son Konrad and daughters Lilli and Petra.’ He pointed proudly to each member of his family.
‘You are right to leave Germany at this time,’ Hilda said.
‘We had no choice. We decided and planned to leave Vienna the day after the Anschluss,’ said Anna.
‘Ah…12th of March,’ said Hilda.
‘You remember it well. I am not surprised. It pleased the German people,’ said Anna. Her husband shook his head sideways and frowned.
‘Yes, I can remember it very well indeed,’ Hilda said. ‘In fact, I can never forget that date. It was the day of my husband’s funeral.’
Anna emitted a quiet apologetic gasp and Petra bit her lip.
‘I am sorry,’ David said.
‘I am sorry too, for the way your people have been treated,’ she replied.
David nodded thoughtfully. ‘These are difficult times.’
‘Very true. However, we can make some moments happier. Who was playing the clarinet?’ asked Hilda, looking at the children.
Lilli raised her hand.
‘My daughter Lilli was a pupil of the Mozarteum in Salzburg. It was her final year, but she could not finish her studies because we are Jewish,’ said her father.
Hilda looked at Lilli sympathetically. ‘Perhaps we can play together?’ she suggested.
Lilli’s eyes shone brightly, and with a smile as wide as the Danube, she brought her clarinet to her lips. Her eyes were dark, playful and bright.
‘Perhaps “Bist du Bei Mir”? suggested Lilli.
‘Johann Sebastian Bach?’ Hilda confirmed.
‘Yes.’
The performance, which followed, was pitch perfect, and a delight. Hilda’s oboe, an octave higher, played in harmony with the clarinet; Lilli proved to be a gifted player. When they finished, the family gave them an enthusiastic round of applause.
Anna was a little apprehensive.
‘We’ve not applauded for several months, even years,’ she said and added, ‘I hope we haven’t drawn attention to ourselves.’
‘It must be a great relief for you all to have left Germany behind,’ Hilda said.
The family exchanged nervous glances.
‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘But perhaps Bach’s “Be With Me” suggests there might be hope for brighter times one day?’
‘Brighter, yes. But will it be a Germany without any Jews?’ asked David. They all pondered the question for a few moments, then Petra asked her brother, Konrad, to hold up another piece of music. It was unfamiliar to Hilda.
“Zemir Atik” is one of my favourite Yiddish songs. I learned this tune when I was young. I used to play it when I was happy because it is a dance tune. I have not played it for several years. I feel free to play it now we are sailing away. Can you play it too?’
The only thing Hilda knew about Yiddish music was that it was often played in a minor key. ‘I’ll try,’ she said, feeling adventurous.
She soon picked up both the timing and the melody as she glanced at the written music, and the family clapped in unison. She looked around the cabin at their smiling faces and saw their tension dissipate after years of pent-up anxiety and fear. She could not help but be happy for them.
The increasing motion of the sea made her and David unsteady on their feet, and the impromptu concert came to a sudden end, amid laughter.
‘May I ask what your plans are when you arrive?’
‘We will get a train to Manchester where we have relatives. We will stay with them a while, before crossing the Atlantic to America,’ said David.
‘What an adventure,’ she replied, smiling with delight.
David opened his arms wide. ‘It is our fate. We are a people constantly on the move.’
‘And do you all speak English?’
‘I do,’ said Petra, her legs still swinging from her position on the bunk bed. ‘So does my father, but not the rest of the family, yet.’
‘The voyage is not long enough for me to give you some lessons,’ Hilda apologised.
‘We will make do. We adapt easily,’ said David.
‘Well, if I can find my feet I think I should now return to my cabin and get ready for bed. Perhaps sleep is the best way to deal with a rough sea. Shall we have breakfast together tomorrow morning?’
‘Yes please,’ said Lilli and Petra together, their faces lighting up. Anna nodded her agreement.
‘It would be our pleasure, Frau Richter,’ said David, clearly pleased to have met a friendly fellow traveller. ‘Eight thirty then?’
‘Eight thirty it will be. Good night.’
Hilda returned to her cabin, holding on to the corridor walls to steady herself. On deck, it was now ink-black dark. She did not intend to look back for a final view of light on the German coast. Instead, she turned on the walnut-cased radio bolted by her bedside, hoping to hear Henry Hall play some popular dance music. A singer, Miss Beatrice Lillie, sang the “Yodelling Goldfish”. Then, humming along to Henry Hall’s music, she prepared for bed. She climbed into the fresh white linen sheets, laid her head on the marshmallow pillow and let her dreams waft her away with the music still playing.
Before she was asleep, the music stopped abruptly for a special announcement. There was a sudden change of mood, and she sat up in bed to listen.
‘This is the BBC Home Service. The Prime Minister Mr Neville Chamberlain landed at Heston Aerodrome earlier this evening, 30th September, after his meeting with the German Chancellor, Herr Adolf Hitler. The Prime Minister is preparing to address the crowds there. We go over now to hear what he has to say.’
She sat up and clasped her bent knees, wondering how the Prime Minister had coped with Herr Hitler.
‘The settlement of the Czechoslovakian problem, which has now been achieved, is, in my view, only the prelude to a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace. This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper, which bears his name upon it as well as mine. Some of you, perhaps, have already heard what it contains but I would just like to read it to you: We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.’
‘That recording was made two hours previously, and now we go to the steps of 10 Downing Street where Mr Chamberlain has a formal statement to give to the nation,’ said the BBC announcer.
‘My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.’
And in a timely response from President Franklin Roosevelt upon hearing of the Munich Settlement and the avoidance of a new world war, the nation heard his two-word telegram to the Prime Minister: It was plain and simple. “Good man”.
Hilda gave a sighed of relief and ran her fingers through her hair. There would be no war after all; she could relax and enjoy her visit home. What was more, Otto could concentrate on his medical studies at last; the thought made her smile contentedly, despite the occasional queasiness caused by the ship’s motion. She located the cardboard bowl, in case the need arose during the night.
The following morning, dressed warmly in a sea-green pullover, she went outside on deck. The air was fresh, clean and salty, and there was no land in sight. Mesmerising white-flecked waves danced before her eyes, and seabirds took advantage of a free trip, perched on the taut wires from the mast to the bridge. The breeze blew her chestnut hair out behind her. It felt good to be alive again on the dawn of a new understanding between former hostile nations. A new month, a new start, and the anticipation of peace.
Able Seaman Tait passed by. He flicked his cigarette stub into the froth of the North Sea. ‘Good morning, ma’am. Heard the news?’
‘Yes, isn’t it wonderful? I heard Mr Chamberlain on the radio last night. It looks so promising. No war after all,’ she replied, beaming.
‘That was yesterday’s news, ma’am. You hav’nae heard? Today Germany invaded Sudetenland.’