Devotion(39)

‘Finally,’ Matthias whispered. ‘I thought we’d reach the colony before he stopped.’

‘There shall be two persons to each bunk,’ continued the doctor. ‘If you have an infant –’

There was an outcry of disbelief. Surely it was a mistake. The bunks were narrow even for a single man.

‘Quiet!’ He stomped his foot upon the table. Everyone hushed, taken aback by the sudden display of temper. Meissner cleared his throat. ‘If you have an infant, a box will be provided for the end of the bunk. The carpenter will fix it in place.

‘All unaccompanied single men will be confined to the stern and single young women will be placed together in the bow with a chaperone.’ He pointed to the foremost area. ‘Families will be summoned by name and directed to their berths. Under no circumstances may you change berth without my prior permission. Once assigned, you may store belongings under the lower bunks. Hooks have been provided for those passengers with an upper berth.’

‘How will we fit all our things in that small space?’ shouted Gottfried Volkmann. He pointed to one of the berths. ‘How will I fit in such a small bed?’ He slapped his round stomach. ‘One big wave and my little wife will be squished. Yes, she will be a pancake.’ There was a burble of tense laughter. Eleonore Volkmann, taller than her husband, rolled her eyes.

‘You’d think they’d arrange the bunks fore to aft,’ whispered Matthias. ‘We shall all be rocked like babies in a cradle.’

‘I am not an unreasonable man,’ answered the doctor. ‘Some alterations may be required, as I have already stated. But let us stick to what has been arranged before we discern who is discontented.’

One by one he began to announce the names of all the families on board, allowing Samuel Radtke to direct them to the bunks. The bare sleeping quarters soon looked even more cramped and chaotic as women unpacked bedding, flapping sheets and hanging them between the berths in anxious attempts at privacy.

‘Eichenwald! Friedrich!’

My heart leaped at the name. I watched as Thea’s father raised his hand. The doctor didn’t look up from his documents but waved a hand in the air. ‘Friedrich and Anna Maria Eichenwald, lower berth fourteen. Your daughter . . .’ He glanced up, eyes catching sight of Thea. ‘Your daughter in the bow.’

I watched as Anna Maria frowned. The white of her headdress glowed in the gloom. ‘But she has her parents here,’ she said.

‘Excuse me, Herr –’

‘Dr Meissner.’

Friedrich cleared his throat. ‘Dr Meissner, we are here to accompany our daughter.’

The doctor shook his head. ‘You are an odd number. Husband and wife to berth fourteen. Dorothea Eichenwald to the bow.’ He glanced up at Thea then nodded towards the berths at the front of the ship, separated from the rest of the bunks by a curtain already half ripped off its cord.

Thea glanced at me before kissing her mother and picking her way through the crowd. I watched as she lifted the rope and moved along the empty berths, before sinking onto a lower bunk in the farthest corner. She shrugged at me. I returned her smile, but my heart was a fist.


The names were ceaseless. The air grew warmer. Word spread that there were nearly two hundred souls on board, but only eighty berths. We watched as they filled.

‘Nussbaum! Heinrich!’

My father stepped forwards, raising his hand.

The doctor gestured to his left. ‘Heinrich and Matthias Nussbaum, upper berth here. Wife, daughter and infant, lower berth. Pfeiffer, Daniel!’

Samuel Radtke indicated the two bunks allocated to my family. ‘Ask the carpenter to fit a box for Hermine,’ he said. He glanced at me and smiled apologetically. ‘Shame you are so tall, Hanne.’

‘Where is the carpenter?’ asked Mama.

‘On deck. Don’t worry, there are days yet before we set sail into rougher seas. There will be time.’

I waited until he had returned to the doctor’s side before turning to Mama. ‘How am I going to fit if Hermine’s cot will be fixed to our bunk? My ankles will be dangling over her head!’

‘You’ll have to put up with it, Hanne.’

‘Can’t she just sleep with us? Between us? Then I will have room to –’

‘No, Hanne. Hermine will need some protection. The boat will rock on the open sea.’

‘Perhaps I could join Thea. In the bow, I mean.’

My mother said nothing.

I sat down on the berth. The mattress was thin and I tried to imagine sleeping there for six months, legs tucked up around me. I heard the creaking of wood above my head as my father climbed onto the upper berth.

‘Johanne?’ he called out.

‘How is it?’ asked my mother.

‘They haven’t given us a lot of room.’

Matthias stepped up onto our bunk, gripping the struts like a ladder, to peer overhead. ‘You look like you’re in a coffin, Papa.’

Mama slapped at his shins. ‘Don’t talk like that. Here, come help. You can hang your father’s things on his hook.’ She placed Hermine on the mattress and began to pull out clothes.

I noticed that Reinhardt and Elize Geschke had been assigned the lower bunk next to me and my mother. Elize, breathing hard, gave me an apologetic look as she pinned a sheet into the wood to serve as a partition between us. ‘It’s the baby,’ she said. ‘She keeps me awake. You’ll be glad for this!’ The light from the open hatch cast her into silhouette against the cloth. I watched her shadow fuss at its corners.