She watched his plane lift off safely, move into the clouds and become a fly in the sky. When it was out of sight, she made her way back to her flat at MI6.
‘Many congratulations, Hilda. Have you chosen the wedding day?’ asked a delighted Thornton.
‘What? We have not even decided on the venue. I will be leaving here though, as soon as the trial is over.’
Thornton looked over his hornbill glasses. ‘I assume you won’t be returning to live in Germany?’
‘No, that’s quite out of the question now. It will be Helsinki initially, after that, who knows? We might be sent anywhere in the world until Sir Francis retires. After that, I expect we will settle in the Cotswolds.’
‘Ah, God’s country,’ said Thornton, his eyes glowing dreamy.
‘That’s where you are from?’ she asked.
‘No, but I have a sister who lives there with her husband, so I know it well. It is peaceful. Quiet rural lanes and many thatched cottages.’ Thornton waxed lyrical.
She looked through the window with unfocused eyes. ‘How wonderful to have a family once more.’
‘Have you no regrets at all about leaving Germany?’ Thornton asked.
He touched a raw nerve, but she forgave him. She owed much to Thornton. ‘Regrets? No. I have memories, wonderful memories that no one can take away from me. Moreover, the memory of my first meeting Sir Francis was in Hamburg of course. However, Germany has nothing to offer me now except grief. My future will be wherever Francis is.’
‘Er… marrying Sir Francis, you know what that means, don’t you?’ asked a grinning Thornton.
Hilda was flummoxed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, no longer Hilda Campbell, no longer Hilda Richter, so I must bow to… Lady Hilda Shepherd, soon.’
In truth, Hilda had not even thought about this. Coming from Thornton it did have credence, however. Nevertheless, marriage was still to come first and Sir Francis had not mentioned this inevitable title. She smiled at Thornton. ‘I suppose so,’ was all she could muster.
She walked over to the window and looked out on to the street. ‘Such a contrast Hamburg and London now are. One regaining its glory and one about to build itself again.’
‘You are certainly getting around Europe these days, Hilda,’ said Thornton picking up the Times newspaper.
‘Yes, Scotland, Germany, Portugal, England and now Helsinki. Mind you, you will not get rid of me yet. I fly out to Nuremberg on 18th November.
That day in November eventually came. All her worldly possessions seemed to go with her when she reported at Northolt airbase the next day. Her suitcase bulged so fully that the seams stretched, and her hand luggage was quite bulky too. Strapped to the smaller bag through the leather handle was her oboe case.
It was a three and a half hour flight to Nuremberg. Throughout the journey she turned over her evidence repeatedly in her mind. Would there be a QC for Eicke’s defence, determined to ensure Hilda was seen as a Nazi spy more than a British agent? Could she end up in the dock herself? She examined every possible angle and reached the only other conclusion; that it would not be plain sailing. The best defence of her own actions would be Bletchley Park, but of course, she was unable to make any mention of that at all.
An army jeep took her to the hotel in Nuremberg and she booked in. The driver informed her that he would let the prosecutor’s office know she had arrived safely: a kind and welcome gesture on his part.
That night, in an attempt to relax, she played her oboe. She put her glove into the end of the instrument to reduce the volume, so as not to disturb any of the other hotel guests. The first piece she played was the Shepherd’s Song from Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. She played from her heart and imagined the composer wandering in the countryside as he composed the melody. Then she played a passage from Carl Maria von Webber’s opera Der Freischütz. She closed her eyes as she played, and walked around the bedroom slowly as if she was a huntsman stalking game. It seemed right to play German music in Germany. As she contemplated what to play next, there was a knock on the door. She laid the oboe on her bed and answered; the hotel manageress stood in the corridor before her.
‘Was that you playing, Frau Richter?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I hope I did not disturb or annoy you,’ Hilda said, a little concerned.
‘No, no, not at all. You play so beautifully,’ the woman said. Her lips seemed to be quivering with emotion, and Hilda saw tears begin to well up in her eyes.
‘Do come in,’ she beckoned.
The woman followed her into the room. ‘German music is so beautiful,’ she said.
‘Yes, I know,’ Hilda said. ‘I have often played with tears in my eyes.’ She had a lot of sympathy for the other woman; the war had brought a great deal of pain on both sides.
‘I am Elise.’
‘And call me Hilda, please.’
They smiled at each other as they established their friendship. Elise’s eyes then rose to the ceiling. ‘All I have heard for many years now is military music. In the square, on the radio, always marching tunes. It has been years since I heard the music I first learned as a child.’ Her voice faded to a whisper.
She was clearly grieving. ‘My son, Otto, was killed in the war,’ Hilda said for the first time to a stranger. She felt by doing so, a raw nerve of her host might be exposed.
‘My son was killed too. Herman. I am lost without him.’
‘How old was he?’
‘He was just twenty two. He was the man of the house since his father died.’
Their stories were the same. ‘My son too was the man of the house. That is one more reason we feel the loss so keenly.’
‘Yes,’ Elise said. ‘Herman played the piano beautifully, so beautifully. Your music was the first I had heard here in the hotel since his last visit home.’
So many German homes were grieving; it was the national condition. Hilda wondered if that dominant feeling in the public galleries of the court would help the nation heal itself of all the pain and grief.
The following morning as she was having breakfast, she listened to the radio news. A nuclear bomb had dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The announcer spoke of a dreadful fire which had ripped through the city with deaths running into thousands. The world was waiting to hear Emperor Hirohito accept defeat.
Hilda sat motionless for a few moments; this was shocking news, almost unbelievable. A city almost wiped out; thousands of deaths. What did it mean for the future of the world if these fearsome bombs were to be the main weapon in any conflict?
All the same, this momentous event brought with it a grain of hope. Despite the destruction of the city and so many deaths, if the bomb had brought to a halt the Knights of Bushido and the Japanese military’s barbaric treatment of prisoners and an end to the war in the east, it had done some good. Strangely, she had thought little about the war in the Far East. Precisely the Far East, whereas her main preoccupation had been with her own war, closer to home. Now that hostilities had ceased in Europe, she prayed that the Japanese would surrender as soon as possible. Surely, the global conflict was now coming to the end, though that end had seemed to be so elusive. Inevitably, this would be the beginning of a more peaceful world.
That morning she reported to the prosecutor’s office as requested. She learned she would be witness number four in Gerhardt Eicke’s case and would remain in the witness room with everyone else, until she was required.