Flight from Berlin

by David John

Genres: Historical Fiction; War & Military; Thrillers

Synopsis

A world-weary English reporter and a maverick American female Olympian find themselves caught in a lethal game between the Gestapo and British Secret Intelligence Service in David John’s spellbinding thriller Flight from Berlin.
 
While traveling to Berlin on the Hindenburg to cover the 1936 Berlin Olympics, journalist Richard Denham meets socialite Eleanor Emerson, recently expelled from the U.S. swim team.
 
Richard and Eleanor quickly discover the dark power of Hitler’s propaganda machine. Drawn together by danger and passion, Richard and Eleanor become involved in the high-stakes world of international intrigue must pull off a daring plan to survive the treachery of the Third Reich. But one wrong move could be their last.
 
Flight from Berlin is a riveting story of love, courage, and betrayal that culminates in a breathtaking race against the forces of evil.

Release date: June 25, 2013

Publisher: Harper

Print pages: 384

Sample

Prologue

He landed hands first on the wet, sandy soil and rolled over on his side. Wind roared inwards towards the blaze, sucking the air from his mouth. His skin was paper; his hair tinder.

Run, for God’s sake.

Richard Denham moved to get up, but the next blast flattened him, sending a huge jet of flame over his head.

He crawled forwards through showers of brilliant white stars. Some fifty feet away a man in a sailor’s cap was beckoning, shouting through the rippling glow.

‘Over here, buddy, come on.’

I’m coming, friend, he thought, seeing in his mind that first day on the Somme twenty years ago. Which way are the Jerry lines, pal?

He staggered up and began to run, but a roll of burning diesel smoke engulfed him. Stumbling, he hit his head against something metal.

The next thing he knew he was being carried away at a run, jiggled over the sailor’s shoulder like a sack of oats, the man’s lungs heaving under the load.

The sailor swore as he lowered Denham to the ground.

A light drizzle was falling. He touched the swelling lump where he’d hit his head.

People were moving, dark figures silhouetted against the glare of the fire. He caught the obscene reek of roasted flesh.

Suddenly he thought, Where is it?

‘Can’t hear what you’re saying, buddy. We’re giving you morphine, you understand? You’re burned.’

Bundles of paper, he knew, had a knack of surviving blazes. He remembered that from crime reporting. Eleanor would have made it safe.

A needle pricked his arm. He felt the cool flow of the injection.

Where was Eleanor?

How strange, how small the things that change history, turn it from its darkened course, send it eddying off down new, sunlit streams.

He lay back on the wet grass, feeling the ropes that tied him to consciousness begin to loosen. In the blackness above, embers traced the air like fireflies.

How strange.

Chapter One

New York City, July 1936

Eleanor Emerson arched her body through the air and broke the surface with barely a splash. In the world below she glided through the veils of sunlight, the bubbles of her breath rumbling past her ears. She surfaced, and air, sound, and light burst over her again. Her muscles were taut, ready for speed.

Weekday afternoons were quiet at Randall’s Island, the periods when only the dedicated furrowed the lanes, marking lengths as mechanically as electric looms. But today the pool seemed far from the world. She was the only swimmer in the water.

At each fifty-yard length she tumble-turned back into her wake, cleaving the water, faster, beginning to warm up. After all the training was she close to her peak? Lungs filled; legs thrust. Steadily she was rising through her gears, reaching for full steam, when something tapped the top of her bathing cap, causing her to stall and choke.

For a second she hoped it was Herb, coming to surprise her, but a lady with a rolled parasol stood at the pool’s edge, the sun behind her, so that all Eleanor could see was the light shining through a floral-print dress and a pair of Ferragamo shoes.

‘Jesus, Mother. What are you doing here?’

‘It came, sweetheart,’ the woman said.

Eleanor stood, dripping, shielding her eyes, and saw that her mother was holding out a Western Union envelope. Only now did her heart start to race.

‘Oh no, Mother dear. Read it to me.’

Mrs Taylor began an exploration through her handbag for a pair of reading glasses, ignoring the mounting agitation in the pool. Finally: ‘On behalf of AOC am pleased to confirm your selection for US team congratulations Brundage . . .’

Eleanor had started screaming before her mother had finished, her wet hands fanning her face as if there weren’t air enough.

‘Really, sweetheart . . .’

She screamed again as she did riding the chute at Luna Park, breaking into a high, girlish laugh and smacking the water with both hands, splashing and kicking with her feet, so that her mother opened the parasol.

‘You’re soaking me.’

‘Mom, I made it!’

‘Well, did you think you wouldn’t? You’d better break the news to your father. I’m certainly not going to.’

Joe Taylor handed the telegram back to her and looked out of the open window. It had turned sultry. The breeze moving the flag next to his desk carried the smell of traffic fumes, coffee, and a promise of rain. Below, a fire engine wailed up Madison Avenue.

‘I see,’ he said eventually. He stood still, his shoulders rising in a sigh. His back towards her, he said, ‘Do you intend going?’

The question filled the room.

‘I’m going,’ Eleanor said.

‘Well, my girl, I won’t pretend I’m not disappointed.’

‘Dad, please—’

‘It’s all right.’

He looked tired. With a pang of sadness she noticed that his hair had completed its change to white, making him seem much older. And there was a lack of vitality about him, an incipient infirmity. He turned to face her and smiled in the worried way he had with her, hands in his waistcoat pockets with his thumbs sticking out, a posture she knew usually signalled a speech. If only he’d lose his temper, shake his fist, and rave like a Baptist. Then at least she could shout back. This was the worst thing about the whole business. His tolerance. His disappointment.

‘I know I should congratulate you. Any father would be proud of a daughter who’s made the Olympic team, and of course you must follow your own star . . .’

Here we go.

‘Your mother and I have given our blessing to whatever choices you’ve made. We welcomed Herb into the family . . . We supported your singing career. But Germany?’ He shook his head vaguely. ‘We send our athletes there and we will be condoning, lending respectability to the most iniquitous . . .’

‘Dad.’

‘ . . . the most unconscionable regime ever to—’

‘Dad.’

Exasperation flared in her eyes. ‘Quit the speech. It’s about competing. That’s all.’

They held each other’s gaze.

He said, ‘I fought hard to stop Brundage winning that vote. I lost. And now I’m entrusting you to his care?’

‘I can handle him.’

‘Can you?’ He sat slowly down at his desk, his shoulders slumped. ‘Everything’s a game, isn’t it? A high school dare, a challenge. Rules are to be broken; advice to be ignored.’ Thunder rolled and a splash of rain hit the windowsill with a thump. ‘One day, my dear, you’ll see

the world for what it is. And that’ll be the day you quit being a Park Avenue playgirl and grow up—’

His desk intercom buzzed.

‘Yes?’

‘Senator Taylor, sir, I have the New York Times on the line.’

‘Well, well,’ he said, looking up at her. ‘News travels fast in this town.’

Her cab made a right at West Twentieth Street, and Eleanor braced herself for the barrage of flashbulbs. One enterprising reporter waiting on the corner had already spotted her and was running alongside her window, trying to jump onto the running board.

‘Eleanor, how’s it feel to be going to Berlin? How’s it—’

She put her sunglasses on and ignored him.

‘Hey, lady, don’t be a snob.’

It was just after rush hour on a humid July morning. The ship wasn’t sailing until eleven, but the boardwalk was already filling up with hundreds of well-wishers and passengers preparing to embark. Her cab inched past a sidewalk crowded with athletic teams in club sweatshirts, some laughing, some chanting a college yell, all heading towards the pier, holding Olympic flags and banners with good-luck messages. Hot dog vendors had set up stalls.

Directly ahead, the bow of the SS Manhattan towered above the crowd like a sheer rock promontory, shimmering in the haze of heat. Cranes lifted cargo to the top deck, where the United States Lines had painted the liner’s two funnels red, white, and blue, and festooned the rails with bunting in honour of the team.

The cab pulled up as close to the boardwalk as it could get and was mobbed.

‘Will you break the world record for backstroke again, Eleanor?’

‘I’m going to Berlin with no other aim,’ she said, stepping into the fray, long legs first, and posing briefly in the bias-cut skirt and tilted cream hat she’d chosen with this moment in mind. Flashbulbs popped.

‘Is Senator Taylor mad

at you for going?’

‘My father wishes me well in whatever I do.’

‘Will your husband be joining you?’

‘No, my husband will be on tour with his orchestra.’ She pointed in the direction she wished to go, and the reporters moved aside. ‘Take it easy, boys.’

‘Say, if you meet Hitler what’re you going to say to him?’

‘Change your barber.’

The reporters laughed, and scribbled.

She pushed her way into the crowd, swatting aside an autograph book. Will your husband be joining you? They sure knew how to ask a sore question. She was still raw from her fight with Herb last night. Since she’d qualified for the team he’d acted like he’d lost his top dog status in life, one minute spilling her the sob stuff, the next, a real asshole. Same story every time she achieved something. Then this morning he’d claimed some phoney engagement as an excuse not to wave her off. Hadn’t her dad been enough to handle? What was it with men?

Nearer the barrier to the pier a group of her teammates were sitting on steamer trunks and talking in high, excited voices. Some had never been out of their home state, let alone on board an ocean liner. A few veterans, like Eleanor, had competed at Los Angeles in ’32, but most were doe-eyed college kids, plucked from the boondocks. All wore their USA team straw boaters, white trousers or skirts, and navy blazers embroidered with the Olympic shield.

‘Hey, you guys,’ she said. ‘Who’s up for a little first-night party on board later?’

Just then, the sound of screams was carried on a wave of applause from near the entry to the pier, where another cab was inching its way into the dense mass of people. Jesse Owens’s coach jumped out, followed by the man himself in a pinstriped navy suit, and the press jostled to get a word from America’s star athlete. Photographers shouted his name.

‘Make way for the golden boy,’ she said. Her teammates stood on their steamer trunks to wave and whistle.

Eleanor and Owens were

the same age, twenty-three, and both were world-record holders. She’d never figured him out. The less winning seemed to concern him, the more effortlessly he won. The more courtesy he showed, the farther he left his rivals behind. For her, winning required a dedicated mean streak—and a desire above all else that the others should lose. She watched him ponder each reporter’s question, brow furrowed, and answer as though to his father-in-law, nodding and grinning modestly.

The heat on the pier was rising, and the noise and the wafts of diesel oil and dead fish were making her feel nauseated. She decided to board and made her way up the gangway. So long, New York, she thought. When I set foot here again it’ll be with shame or glory.

At the entry to the deck stood a stout, middle-aged matron wearing the team uniform and hat. She was holding a clipboard.

‘Welcome aboard, Mrs Emerson,’ the woman said with a faint, whiskery smile. ‘You’re on D deck, sharing with Marjorie Gestring and Olive McNamee. Your trunk’s in your cabin.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Hacker. D deck sounds delightful.’

‘If it’s luxury and glamour you were after, you should have booked your own first-class fare.’

‘You think I didn’t try?’

The woman ticked her list. ‘Count yourself lucky, my girl. The Negroes are sleeping below the waterline. You’ll wear your uniform at dinner, please. Bed is at ten o’clock.’

Eleanor walked on before her irritation showed. She’d had enough evenings ruined by chaperones.

‘Old drizzle puss,’ she muttered.

‘I heard that, young lady.’

She found her two cabinmates unpacking to shrieks of laughter and felt herself tensing slightly. At school she’d stood out from the other girls in so many ways that she’d learned to endure their frequent unkindnesses. Swimming had often been her way of escaping them.

‘Hi there,’ said the nearer, a broad-shouldered blonde chewing gum. ‘I’m Marjorie, and this is Olive.’ The second girl, who wore oyster-thick eyeglasses, grinned at her. ‘It’s a privilege to dorm with you.’

‘Likewise.’ Eleanor smiled, embracing them both in turn, and suddenly realised that she recognised them from the trials. ‘Jesus, you can rely on old Hacker to put swimming rivals in the same cabin.’

‘I’m a diver,’ Marjorie said, a little crestfallen. She looked about fourteen.

Eleanor didn’t want to be a bad sport. She’d been green, too, before her Olympic debut at age nineteen. Her gold medal at Los Angeles had made her the belle of the press corps, celebrated on the covers of magazines as an all-American beauty. ‘Your body’s a head turner,’ Sam Goldwyn had told her, ‘and you’ve got a lot of class.’

She wanted to say something friendly, but Olive spoke first.

‘I heard your husband’s band at the Harlem Opera House.’

‘You’re from New York?’

‘Queens,’ said Olive.

‘Los Angeles,’ said Marjorie, chewing.

‘Town girls, thank God,’ Eleanor said, sitting on the bed and testing the springs. ‘I was worried I’d be with some of our sisters from Ass-End, Nowhere.’

Olive’s laugh sounded like an old windscreen wiper. ‘So what’s it like singing?’ the girl asked. ‘With a dance orchestra, I mean.’

‘As a career I wouldn’t recommend it,’ Eleanor said, taking a Chesterfield from a tortoiseshell case and lighting it. ‘Late nights, loose ladies giving your

husband the eye, and the perpetual disappointment of your father . . . But I guess it’s taught me to hold my liquor.’

Marjorie tittered behind her hand.

‘Your father opened my school,’ said Olive. ‘He doesn’t like the band?’

‘Senators tend not to get along with bandleaders. Especially when a daughter marries one and gets talked into playing nightclubs wearing a one-piece bathing suit and a pair of high heels.’ She exhaled a long plume of smoke, remembering the dismay on her dad’s face when she’d sung him her version of ‘Whoopee Ti-Yi-Yo.’

Whatever the excesses of her second career, she’d never let it interfere with her training. She recalled a night at the Century Club in Chicago, the place smoke filled and reeking of scotch. A hoodlum crowd if ever she’d seen one. After the show she’d stood drinks for the boys, but Herb went to bed, licked. And at two in the morning she was at the Lakeshore Pool, lap swimming, ploughing up the lanes as a mist billowed over the water. Her nose and throat were raw from the cold air, her every muscle honed to its purpose—not just to win, but to win spectacularly, with all the speed in her power.

A knock at the door, and a uniformed cabin boy entered with a bouquet almost as large as he was.

‘One o’ you ladies Eleanor Emerson?’

Eleanor took the flowers and opened the card. Good luck, Kid. No hard feelings? Herb.

A scent of lilies settled heavily in the confined space. But before she had time to dwell on Herb’s gesture, Olive was holding up a small sheet of paper.

‘Hey, who put this here? It was underneath my pillow.’

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.’

The 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.

Chapter Two

‘Achtung . . .’

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

‘Unsere nächste 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.

‘My dear Richard,’ he yelled, ‘I saw you go in. Have you just arrived?’ 

‘Dr Eckener,’ Denham said, unsure how to return such bonhomie with a brigade of aggrieved Brownshirts looking on. He sensed trouble.

‘Come on, get in. I’m giving you a ride to the hangar. You can check into the hotel later.’

Reluctantly the marchers began manoeuvring around the vehicle, casting malign looks at Eckener and Denham.

Self-conscious, he walked to the car, put his case on the backseat, and was about to hop in when an iron hand gripped his shoulder and yanked him around. A thickset, sunburned man glowered into his face. He wore the cap and insignia of a Scharführer. The brown collar strained around a neck that was like a rump of cured ham.

‘You took photographs of this?’ he said.

Denham felt the Leica become hot in his hand.

‘You thought it was amusing?’ The man’s breath came in short snorts. Violence hung in the air like static.

‘Comrade,’ Denham said, attempting a smile. ‘Hasn’t this week before the Games been decreed a Week of Jollity and Cheerfulness?’ He heard the Anglican vowels in his German as if his voice were a recording on a gramophone.

A brown bank of uniforms was moving in around him, penning him with no gap for escape.

‘Your name, sir.’

‘My name’s Denham. I’m a British reporter resident in Berl—’

‘British?’ the man said, parodying Denham’s voice. ‘And what is your business here?’

His mouth began to dry. ‘Your esteemed Dr Eckener has asked me here. I’m writing a piece on the new Zeppelin.’

The Scharführer looked over the heads of the men and stared at the doctor.

‘Our esteemed Dr Eckener closes his heart to our national awakening, yet feels free to do whatever he pleases.’ For some reason the men chuckled

as if this were some local running joke. He turned back to Denham. ‘But you, sir, are coming to the barracks.’

Denham opened his mouth to protest, but it was Eckener’s voice that sounded, filling the length of the street on the warm air.

‘This man is here at my invitation.’

Standing in the open-topped car he towered over the Brownshirts, the chin beneath his goatee wobbling with rage. Elijah addressing the followers of Baal.

‘You’re harassing a foreign guest of the Reich’s, and believe me, that will not go well for you in the week before the Olympic Games.’

The Scharführer seemed to waver. The men glanced at each other.

Denham saw his moment, shoved his way through the uniforms, and jumped into the passenger seat. The Maybach’s engine roared. He took a ten-reichsmark note from his wallet and held it towards the Scharführer.

‘Here. No harm done,’ he shouted. ‘Buy your men some beers.’

The man snatched the note just as the car jerked forwards and accelerated up the street, forcing the men bunched at the back of the brigade to step quickly out of the way.

‘Do you often ruin their parades?’ Denham said over the noise of the engine.

‘Criminals and gangsters,’ Eckener shouted. He was furious.

Denham leaned back in his seat and laughed, pulling the brim of his hat over his eyes. ‘Always keep your head down and stay out of fights. I should have learned that lesson from the war.’

He had to admire the old man’s effrontery, but then Hugo Eckener enjoyed an immunity afforded to few other opponents of the regime. In 1929 he’d become the most famous German in the world when he circumnavigated the globe as commander of the Graf Zeppelin—the first voyage of its kind in an aircraft. Immense crowds turned out to greet the silver machine when it landed in Tokyo, San Francisco, and New York, fulfilling his dream that the Zeppelin should forge links of friendship among nations. He was an ebullient, courageous, driven

 man, an enormous personality who counted kings and presidents among his acquaintances. So high was his standing at home and abroad that the Nazis dared not touch him, and he knew it.

‘It’s wonderful to see you again,’ Eckener yelled. ‘How long has it been?’

Denham saw familiar houses, gables, and barns speeding by. ‘I haven’t been here in six years. Not since we flew with you on the Graf to Brazil.’

‘Ha! Yes. Your dear father saved our skins on that one . . .’

But Eckener’s mind, Denham sensed, was still seething with Brownshirts.

‘You told those devils that you’re living in Berlin. Is that true?’

‘It’s true.’

The old man shook his head. ‘Unglaublich.’ Incredible. ‘You mean you choose to live in this lunatic asylum? What about your family?’

Denham shrugged. ‘My wife said I was more intimate with the typewriter than with her, and left me. Besides, Berlin is where the news is. I sell a lot of stories from there.’

‘You have a son, though, yes?’

‘That’s right. Tom. He’s eight years old.’

‘Surely you miss him?’

‘Of course. But . . .’

‘The British,’ Eckener said with admiration, ‘are intrepid.’

Denham’s other reason for living in Germany was harder to explain, but he knew it had something to do with the hysteria gripping the country. The shrieking, stamping monstrousness of it had the odd effect of making him feel sane and normal. There’d been times in the quiet civility of Hampstead, in the difficult years after he’d returned from war,

when he’d felt he was losing his mind.

They motored out of the town and along lanes where the air was sweet with mown hay. In the far distance across the lake he saw Säntis, the nearest of the Swiss Alps, still blue with snow, its peak hidden in a thundercloud.

‘Hindenburg is a good name for the airship,’ Denham said.

‘It was a compromise. The first name they gave me was Adolf Hitler.’

The maiden flight of the D-LZ129 Hindenburg to New York in May had made headline news. Denham had followed the story of its construction, sending cuttings for Tom’s scrapbook. At 804 feet in length—one-sixth of a mile long—it was only a few feet shorter than the Titanic. At its middle, widest point, it was the height of a fourteen-storey building, and had a gas volume of more than seven million cubic feet.

Possessed even with these statistics, he gasped at his first sight of it, moored to its mast under an azure sky. The ship was a giant, the largest flying object ever made. Streamlined perfectly from nose to fins, it lay facing into the breeze, sheathed in a silver fabric that reflected the early-evening sun. The shadow of a summer cloud passed slowly over its hull, giving Denham the impression of watching a vast fish basking in the shallows of a warm sea.

For several minutes he stood next to Eckener in silence. The ship’s side was adorned with the Olympic rings in honour of the Games. Two of the four propeller-engine cars were visible, sticking out of the lower body like flippers. A row of promenade windows ran along part of the midship, where the luxury passenger accommodation—the lounges, bar, cabins, and dining room—were recessed entirely into the body. The control car was the only part of the structure that hung below the hull, like a single eye, resting on its landing wheel.

‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’ Eckener said. ‘Even with those filthy black spiders they made us put on her.’ He gestured to the enormous swastikas emblazoned on the upper and lower tail fins.

‘Sublime,’ Denham mumbled. It was the most marvellous thing he’d ever seen.

‘I wish your father could see her.’

‘How fast is she?’ 

‘Top speed is a hundred and thirty-five kilometres per hour,’ said Eckener. ‘Faster with a tailwind. She’s the quickest vessel over the Atlantic. Frankfurt to Rio de Janeiro in one hundred hours and forty minutes; to New York in fifty-nine hours. Not as quick as I’d have liked, but we can’t take a direct route. The French don’t want us over their rooftops . . .’

They walked towards the Hindenburg. To the left of the field, the doorway of the nearest hangar was open, revealing the vast nose of the Graf Zeppelin. The tiny figures of some mechanics were making checks on a propeller-engine car, but otherwise the field and two hangars were deserted, giving a deep stillness to the place.

As they reached the ship the contours of the immense hull spread out above them like the surface of another planet. Eckener led Denham to a small ladder hanging down from the control car, and up they climbed into the nerve centre of the Zeppelin.

Inside, the fittings were of gleaming aluminium, like those of a rocket ship in Flash Gordon. An array of instruments controlled the ship’s course, speed, and buoyancy. Eckener pointed out each in turn. At the front of the bridge was the rudder wheel that steered with the aid of illuminated gyrocompasses; on the left was the elevator wheel, which maintained altitude and trim. Above these were the ballast control levers, and a gas-cell pressure gauge with warning lights that flashed—the very latest in long-distance airship-flight technology. A telegraph, like those on ocean liners, sent messages to the propeller-engine cars. But most dramatic of all, high, slanted windows surrounded the bridge, giving a superlative view onto the world: left and right, below, and far into the horizon, so that any approaching lightning storms could be circumnavigated. Everything smelled metallic and new.

Denham felt as if he were in a dream. In another life he’d have been a Zeppelin commander, he realised. The age of fast, luxury Zeppelin travel had begun. He imagined fleets of these giant ships linking the distant continents of the earth. Their time was at hand. They were the future.

‘How about a spin over the lake,’ he joked, knowing the ship couldn’t go anywhere without

some three hundred ground crew present.

‘How would you like to fly next Saturday?’ Eckener said, slapping his shoulder. ‘The Hindenburg will make a pleasure trip over the opening ceremony of the Olympiad in Berlin. And in the meantime, enjoy a few days here on the lake, as my guest of course.’

‘I would like that very much,’ Denham said.

‘Excellent. There will be a movie crew on board, too.’

This man is the other Germany, Denham thought. The Germany of decent, kind people who stand like rocks against the flow of the times.

In the navigation room next to the bridge, Eckener motioned for him to sit at the chart table. A golden light burnished the dials and switches of the radio instruments. The old man’s face seemed rejuvenated in the sunset. At sixty-eight he had the appearance of a man years younger, though his hair and goatee beard were white. His face was large, jowly, and intelligent, with flinty blue eyes, one of which, disconcertingly, was higher than the other.

‘Let’s have a schnapps,’ he said, unlocking a drawer and taking out a bottle and two glasses. ‘I sometimes permitted the night watch a nip on board the Graf at the end of the shift. It gets very cold over the Atlantic in spring.’ They toasted each other in silence, and knocked it back. ‘And now, my dear Richard, I have something for you.’ He opened a cupboard beneath the table to reveal a small safe. ‘I keep a precious relic in this chest, but by rights it belongs to you.’ He turned the dial slowly. ‘The combination is five-ten-nineteen-thirty.’

Denham was puzzling over why the doctor should give away the numbers to his private safe, when it struck him. They made the date of his father’s death. Eckener removed a small felt bag and handed it over with what seemed to Denham a look of earnest pity. He opened it and a pocket watch fell into his hand.

‘I’ve been waiting for a chance to give it to you in person,’ Eckener said.

For a fleeting moment he had a sense that his father was present in the room, as though 

slipped in through some fissure in time. The watch lay cool in his palm. He turned it over and saw in tiny engraved italics the words:

For Arthur Denham—On his retirement—Royal Airship Works—Cardington

An overpowering sense of love and loss welled inside him. His eyes filled, and hot tears rolled freely down his cheeks. Eckener put his arm around Denham’s shoulders.

‘You were young to lose your father.’

‘Not that young. I am forty next year.’

Denham fell silent for a while, staring at the watch as he turned it over in his hand.

‘I thought there was nothing . . .’

‘It was found near the site,’ Eckener said. ‘Somehow it must have been thrown clear.’

Later, as they walked back across the Zeppelin field in the gloaming, Denham turned to look again at the Hindenburg. Dully it reflected the purple light.

 

Chapter Three

Eleanor, paddling her legs as hard as she could, strained against the rope that attached her waist to the side of the tiny swimming pool on deck. But it was no use. As the ship pitched and rolled, she found herself flailing in two feet of water at one end of the pool, with six feet at the other end, before it all slopped back the other way. She stood up and undid the rope.

‘Another twenty minutes, please.’ The women’s swimming coach was pacing the edge of the pool.

‘I can’t train like this.’

‘It’s the only pool we’ve got for the next few days.’

‘Yeah, with water straight from the goddamned icebergs.’

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘For a shower,’ Eleanor said, plucking up a towel. ‘And a cigarette.’

She headed along the deck, leaving a trail of wet footprints. A fresh wind had been blowing all afternoon, whipping spray from the crests of the waves high into the air. Patchworks of cloud skittered overhead, breaking now and then to admit flashes of hot sunshine that coloured the ocean a deep verdant green. The ship was making slow progress as it seesawed through the weight of wind and water.

As she turned the corner towards the stairs that led back to D deck—smack—her shoulder collided with a strapping blond running laps.

‘Hey, mister,’ she said, clutching her shoulder. ‘Oh. Sorry, Helen.’

‘No problem, sis,’ the woman growled and continued her lolloping stride.

Her guess was that poor Helen Stephens, the hundred-metre champion from Missouri, was forever being mistaken for a guy, but she didn’t seem to care. All the same, her flat-chested manliness was sure to raise eyebrows when they got to Berlin. Helen had even more brawn than her archrival, Stella ‘the Fella’ Walsh.

Eleanor washed her hair as best she could under the thin trickle, then slipped into her bathrobe and lit a Chesterfield. The cabin vibrated from the hum of the engines below. One by one, she pulled out the gowns hanging in the tiny closet, cocking her head as she appraised each in turn, before settling for a shining pearl grey chiffon number to wear with her white-sable stole. She laid it on her bed and was choosing some jewellery when Marjorie and Olive returned.

‘So, guys,’ she said, ‘how was your turn in the Olympic paddling pool?’

Marjorie stared at Eleanor, wide-eyed. ‘Is that what you’re wearing to dinner?’

‘Sure. Why, what are you wearing?’

‘Our team uniforms.’

Eleanor wouldn’t even be joining them for dinner if Mrs Hacker hadn’t ordered her to be present for Brundage’s speech. But she had no intention of sticking around afterwards for whatever entertainment the team had organised. The playwright Charlie MacArthur, whom she'd

run into on deck earlier, had invited her to join him and his wife, Helen Hayes, for a little drink with the press corps up in first class. Now that sounded like a party worth going to.

There was a knock on the door, and the cabin boy entered, smirking, with Eleanor’s curling tongs.

‘Got them heated on the chef’s grill, ma’am.’

‘Thanks, kid,’ Eleanor said, handing him a second pair. ‘Girls, whatever you want, just ask Hal.’

‘That’s right. Coffee . . . tea . . . me,’ the boy said as he left.

She took out her small beauty mirror, balanced it against her trunk, and blew smoke thoughtfully into her reflection.

‘Eleanor,’ said Olive in a schoolma’am voice. ‘You’re smoking again.’

‘Haven’t you heard?’ Eleanor said as she set about waving her hair. ‘I train on cigarettes and champagne.’

She found most of her teammates already assembled in the noisy C deck dining room. They were so many that they ate in two sittings, but all had gathered to hear Avery Brundage’s speech, with dozens standing around the edges of the room. Jesse Owens entered, looking a little delicate, she thought. She’d heard he’d spent the day in his cabin, seasick.

Eleanor found herself sitting at a table with the decathlete Glenn Morris, the five-thousand-metre runner Lou Zamperini, and two relay runners, Sam Stoller and Marty Glickman. Morris had matinee-idol looks: six foot two, with brooding, Cherokee eyes and a chin like a DC Comics superhero.

The noise subsided as Avery Brundage strode in, followed by two AOC officials and Mrs Hacker, the team chaperone, self-important with her clipboard. She’d applied some lipstick, Eleanor noticed.

Brundage, the president of the American Olympic Committee, had on his buttoned-up double-breasted suit and rimless eyeglasses, which, together with his bolt-upright posture, gave him a trim, conceited appearance. He was a tall ex-pentathlete, broad shouldered, and at forty-nine wore his age well. Not handsome exactly—his chin and

forehead were large and plain—but he had the charisma of conviction. Eleanor knew from the public beefs he’d had with her dad that Brundage took himself seriously in the extreme. Both were men of strong principles, but where her father’s were inclusive and egalitarian, she suspected Brundage’s were quite the opposite. He stood still, waiting until the dining room had fallen silent.

‘Fellow Olympians,’ he began, ‘we are finally on our way.’ Cheers and whistles from the audience. ‘You, America’s finest, are participating in an event that enshrines the world’s noblest sporting ideal: the Olympic Games. It is an ideal that exemplifies all that is good in man’s nature, an ideal that transcends the quotidian struggles of everyday life . . .’

‘The what?’ mumbled Lou Zamperini.

‘Hold the spirit of this ideal in your hearts and remember that you represent the grandest country in the world. You are going to Germany to win for the honour of your country and for the glory of sport.’

The athletes applauded with wild enthusiasm, but now Brundage wagged a finger in the air.

‘It has not been an easy road. Only a few months ago, it was still uncertain whether we would be competing in this Olympiad. Those in the so-called boycott movement—the Communists and the cosmopolitans who understand little of sport—sought to make the American athlete a martyr for a cause not his own . . .’

‘He means Communists and Jews are not real Americans,’ Eleanor said in a low voice.

‘ . . . but common sense has prevailed. The Olympic ideal rises above all those issues of politics and skin colour, and let no one tell you otherwise.’ Again, the athletes applauded and whistled. ‘Whatever misconceptions people may have about Germany, whatever distortions are perpetuated in the press, let one thing be understood.’ Pointing into the audience, he paused, looking at everyone in the room. ‘Germany appreciates the Olympic ideal better than any other country I know. It has made athletic excellence the highest priority in

its national life—a policy our own government would do well to emulate. For I believe that in striving for this ideal we may one day witness the development of a new race. A race forged through sportsmanship, a race physically strong, mentally alert, and morally sound . . .’

‘Jesus,’ said Eleanor.

Brundage stopped for a moment and seemed to be looking in her direction, his eyeglasses flashing in the light.

‘A race that scorns injustice and will fight for fair play and what it believes is right.’

The applause this time was less certain, as the arcane articles of Brundage’s faith passed over the heads of most in his audience.

‘Sounds like fascism to me,’ said Marty Glickman.

Eleanor looked at him, this almond-eyed relay runner from the Bronx, still in his teens, and wondered if he and Stoller were the only Jews on the team.

‘Finally,’ Brundage said gravely, ‘I must give you a word of warning about your conduct over the next few days at sea. You will be tempted by an unlimited variety of rich food. If you are undisciplined in controlling your appetites, your medals will be lost at the dining table . . .’

Even as he spoke, waiters were preparing the tables for the first course, placing baskets of bread rolls on each.

‘Will you look at that?’ said Lou Zamperini in hushed amazement. ‘Six types of bread roll.’

‘ . . . Second, I would remind you all of the AOC handbook rules, which demand that you refrain from smoking, the drinking of intoxicating liquors, gambling, and other forms of dissipation.’ He looked slowly around the room to make sure everyone was hearing. ‘Anyone who violates these rules will be dealt with severely. Thank you.’

‘I’ll take that as a challenge,’ Eleanor said, to laughter from those around her. She’d heard enough of Brundage’s views to know that if Communists and Jews didn’t fit into his Olympian ideal—whatever bunk he spoke about sport transcending all—then, frankly, neither did she. Athletes, in his world, were supposed to be poor and pure, but she had made 

of her own and had tasted plenty of what life had to offer. But she was a sure bet to win a gold—and Brundage knew it.

‘What’s on the menu tonight?’ Lou asked a waiter.

‘Pumpkin soup, roast chicken with gravy and mashed potatoes, roast beef with French fries, tomato salad, baked apple, cranberry Jell-O, and ice cream.’

‘Oh my Lord . . .’ Lou’s eyes filled with wonder.

‘Careful, Lou,’ Eleanor said. ‘Fatty Arbuckle never won the five thousand metres.’

After coffee, she slipped on her white sable stole. ‘Well, see you boys around,’ she said. ‘This joint’s a little clean for me.’

‘Have fun,’ said Lou, into his second ice cream.

The rolling seas had calmed, and Eleanor stepped out onto the deck to a beautiful night. She leaned back against the rail and watched the Olympic flag on the top deck flutter gently against a sky already filling with stars. Water lapped away from the ship, which hummed gently. The lights of a distant vessel twinkled and bobbed, and she felt a sudden yearning in her heart, a void that longed to be filled, but with what, she wasn’t sure. Didn’t she already have love? Phrases of music from the upper decks carried down on the breeze. She turned and climbed the stairs up to first class, trying to push Herb from her thoughts.

Some of the ship’s grander passengers were walking off their dinner with a promenade on A deck. Eleanor caught the sparkle of diamonds around the women’s necks and the scent of expensive perfume. Inside, a piano was playing a familiar song, ‘The Glory of Love.’

She followed the music down a wide corridor to a small lounge decorated in the modern style. The lighting was soft and low.

At a bar made entirely of polished chrome, Charlie MacArthur and his wife, Helen Hayes, were standing drinks for a number of men Eleanor guessed were the reporters. Helen, fair haired and delicate in a white gown and corsage of apple blossom, looked lovelier in the flesh than

 she did on the silver screen, and, unlike Eleanor, had received the benefit of the A deck hairdresser.

Charlie spotted her in the doorway and clicked his fingers several times to get the attention of the pianist, who obliged him by playing the signature tune Eleanor sang in her shows with the band.

‘Charlie,’ she said, arching an eyebrow. ‘I’m on board as an athlete.’

‘Eleanor, my rose, you know Helen of course? Come and meet our friends.’ The men stood up. He introduced her to Allan Gould of the United Press, and two journalists, John Walsh of the Chicago Tribune and Paul Gallico, the chief sportswriter of the New York Daily News.

‘The pleasure’s ours, ma’am,’ said Gallico. ‘We’re fans of yours.’

He had a fresh, square-chinned face, glasses, a college tie, and an Ivy League manner of the shy sort. She liked him immediately.

A groomed young man with an Errol Flynn moustache stepped forwards, holding a half-pint glass brimming with champagne. He was the only one wearing white tie. ‘William,’ he said, handing her the glass. And she realised he must be William as in Randolph Hearst Jr. ‘You’ve got some catching up to do, my dear. We’re all getting pleasantly soused here.’

‘You can’t shake your shimmy on tea,’ Eleanor said, raising the glass and downing it in one.

‘Now, where did you learn to do that?’ said Hearst, slipping his arm around her waist.

‘An Illinois roadhouse called the Sudsbucket,’ said Eleanor, gently removing his hand.

Another gentleman, introduced as George Kennan, an American diplomat returning to Moscow, joined them. ‘Seems you’ve got the run of the decks here,’ he said to Eleanor, a pipe clenched in his teeth. ‘I’ve been dodging gum-chewing Tarzans all afternoon.’

‘Mr Kennan, some of those Tarzans were Janes,’ she said.

Helpless laughter.

‘So I guess you finally told those boycotters where to get off,’ said the diplomat.

‘Oh please, George, this is a party,’ said Helen, clutching his elbow. ‘Did Charlie tell you I’ve returned to Broadway? California was simply ruining my skin . . .’

Eleanor considered for a moment, reminded of something that had irked her in Brundage’s speech. She’d heard every boycott argument over this last year and shrugged them off. Politics, as far as she was concerned, was supremely irrelevant to the Games. Not once had her conscience been troubled by the thought that she shouldn’t go to Berlin; not a wink of sleep had she lost. But tonight? She found herself very reluctant to side with Brundage, whose pro-German argument had struck her as highly unsavoury, with its mysticism and horseshit about forging a new race. The text of that anonymous note from under her pillow flickered across her mind like a title card in a silent movie—every day citizens who do not think like the Nazis are tortured and murdered—and now she caught herself wondering how much truth was in it. And yet . . . her mind reached for an argument that trumped them all: Jesse Owens. Wasn’t he the key?

‘The fastest man on earth is on board this ship,’ she said, interrupting Helen, ‘and he’s a Negro. He’s going to win gold in Berlin in front of the whole world. Don’t you think that’ll be one in the eye for stupid, hokey race theories? I think it’s damned right that we’re going to these Games.’

Mumbles of ‘Here, here.’

But for the first time along the contours of her brash and uncomplicated worldview, there were buds of doubt.

They were joined by a dozen more friends and acquaintances of Charlie’s and Helen’s, who arrived to squeals and cheers—‘My dear, what a surprise seeing your name on the passenger list’—and the party progressed noisily through its indistinct stages: sociable, elated, raucous.

Eleanor was enjoying herself. Enjoying herself more and more as the champagne went down. Two hours later, after repeated requests from Paul Gallico, and now more than a little refreshed, Eleanor was persuaded to sing.

‘Name your song,’ she

 said.

‘ “Let’s Misbehave,” ’ someone shouted to howls of laughter and encouragement. She stepped unsteadily up to the piano, which played her in, and began, in her low voice:

‘We’re all alone,

No chaperone

Can get our num-ber,

The world’s in slum-ber

Let’s misbe—’

She stopped midnote. Her face froze, and the piano fell silent one bar later. The revellers turned, following the line of her gaze towards the doorway of the lounge, where a stout woman in the Olympic team uniform was standing with her arms folded. Mrs Hacker stared straight at her ward with a slow nod of her head.

‘Eleanor Emerson,’ she said. ‘Go to bed. Now. Or shall I fetch Mr Brundage?’

Someone snickered as everyone in the room looked back at her. But Eleanor wasn’t going to feel embarrassed.

‘Friends . . . ,’ she began, with a straight face. ‘Do we need to go to Germany to see a notorious dictator with a moustache? We have our very own right here. Folks, meet our team chaperone, Mrs Eunice Hacker,’ she yelled, throwing her arms out as if introducing a star act. The party cheered and raised their glasses.

A flash of alarm in the chaperone’s eyes, but then her face hardened, and so did Eleanor’s resolve not to have her evening spoilt.

‘What’re you gonna sing, Hacker? Hey, this is first class. You can’t wear that movie-usher’s uniform up here.’ Mrs Hacker turned and waddled away, to more applause from the revellers.

‘Oh boy,’ said Eleanor, collapsing in a fit of laughter. ‘That’s done it.’ ...