The harsh, chilling clamor of the fire alarm took Kees by terrible surprise. He spun around, his coffee cup flying from his hand and striking the bulkhead with a loud bang.
The other officer all but ran to the panel of lights that presented an almost schematic representation of the alarm system—and the ship—an electronic picture of all twelve decks.
The twinking red light was on E deck, deep in the bowels of the engine compartments.
For a moment Kees could not move. The ringing bell seemed accusatory, informing everyone on the ship that something was horribly wrong and his inescapable fault.
He shook his head violently, clearing his mind. This alarm was ringing only on the bridge. If a general alarm was to be sounded throughout the ship, it would be up to him to activate it. He snatched up the intercom receiver and rang the engine room.
Brinker, the chief engineer, was not present. A subordinate, Berthold Ohms, answered sleepily.
“Where is the fire?” Kees asked.
“What? What is that you say?”
“This is Kees, on the bridge. There’s an alarm! The panel shows E deck. One of the circulating pumps, I think.”
“All is normal here, Kees. You may have a short circuit or something in the alarm panel.”
“Check the pumps, all the circuitry.”
“I can’t. I have strict orders to stay here and monitor the gauges constantly. I’ll send someone. But I see no sign of fire. There is no fire. No smoke. All is well.”
“I’ll check the pumps myself. Get a crew ready with fire extinguishers.”
“As you say, Kees.” He paused. They were friends for some time. “Sir.”
Kees ordered a reduction in speed to half ahead and instructed Karl Poeder to maintain course exactly. Then he tore through the curtain at the door and hurried down the passageway, abruptly stopping with a slight skid.
He was by the door to the captain’s cabin. It was imperative—a company rule and a requirement of the emergency—that van der Heyden be wakened and told of everything. Yet Kees hesitated. Finally, with a grimace, he turned and slowly opened the cabin door.
He could see little in the darkness, but could hear the captain snoring, and smell the faint, smoky aroma of Bols gin.
Kees pulled the door closed and hurried down the stairs. He dared not call the first officer. That would mean the end of the captain. Kees would have to deal with this all alone.
Edwina had drunk so much that the alcohol worked on her nerves through the night, causing her to wake after only a few hours’ sleep, her brain pulsing from the accumulated chemical. She was in her bed in the smaller bedroom of the Mountbattens’ suite and had forgotten she was aboard ship. For an instant its rolling movement terrified her. She sat up, sweating with fear, then remembered and calmed herself. In habit, she smoothed her hair.
She rose from the bedclothes, naked as she always was in slumber, the tingling feel of the cool air against her bare skin arousing, as always. She was alone. It was a rare night that this was so.
Edwina went into their sitting room, which had one dim lamp left on above the bar. She turned it off and tottered barefoot to one of its two portholes, looking out into the gloom. There was nothing to see but a few white flecks of whitecap, but it gave her a better sense of the ship’s passage. A royal passage, the vessel ennobled by the presence of the heir to the throne of the very greatest and grandest nation that there ever was. With Edward as passenger, no matter where it went, this ship had high purpose.
Edwina giggled at herself for the absurdly overblown thought. She ran her hands down her sides and over her buttocks. The coolness had vanished and she was feeling warm. Taking a deep breath, she felt woozy, though still incapable of sleep. She didn’t want another drink, but she needed something to do. An odd sentimentality had come over her.
She crossed to the door of her husband’s sleeping room, hesitating, feeling unusually affectionate—in part from loneliness and sexual need, but also from a genuine if half-forgotten fondness. She and Dickie Mountbatten had indeed once been a “golden couple,” theirs the “wedding of the century,” as some of the papers had put it.
Edwina remembered a letter he had written her, before their engagement, on the eve of his sailing for India with Prince Edward on a royal tour in 1922. “You will be my ‘guiding spirit,’” he had said. He had closed with: “Bless you, Edwina, my own darling, I just love you with all my heart.”
Provoked by whim, ardor, and rebellious impulse, she had taken ship to India herself, intercepted him there, and secured their engagement. At the time, his income was a little more than £600 a year, a not inconsiderable sum for a naval lieutenant. But her grandfather, Sir Ernest Cassel—the richest man in England and the best friend of the late King Edward VII—had left her a fortune of £2.3 million, which she had shared with Dickie gladly. There was more than enough for the two of them, more than enough for a dozen fashionable people to live comfortably. He was the only naval lieutenant on Malta with a cream-color Rolls-Royce, with Noel Coward a frequent guest in his destroyer’s wardroom.
She had a duty to tell him of the letter from Edward that Wallis had shown her—to warn him of its unpleasant if not dangerous implications, of the folly of pursuing this royal friendship any further. Dickie’s true friend was Prince Edward’s awkward, stuttering younger brother Albert. Quite possibly now Albert would soon become king and his doughty Scottish wife Elizabeth queen, his decorous little daughters heirs to the throne. Edward might well disgrace himself in this fatal fashion even before he could even assume the throne upon the expected passing of his father.
If hardly faithful, Edwina was instinctively dutiful. She’d never let Dickie muck his career. Never, no matter how furious or bored she might at times be with him. She turned the knob. The bloody damn door was locked! She kicked it hard, hurting her toe. No sound came from the other side. She swore, then she laughed again, somewhat drunkenly. Edwina didn’t feel drunk, but she was thinking bloody drunk indeed. She sat down in one of the upholstered chairs and turned to look at the portholes, which were limned with a faint gray light now that seemed to have no source.
He was probably sleeping in his naval uniform, lying perfectly still so as not to crease or wrinkle his clothing. The ass.
Edwina swore again, rose, and went to the bar. After turning on the small light just above it, she poured herself some vodka into a crystal glass. A mildly exciting thought struck her. The odd autumn heat was still with them, aggravated by an increasing humidity. It was a little past four A.M., and there would be no one about. Their suite was just one door from the exit to the sun deck. She had never before been naked at sea.
Her bare skin atingle, she peered out into the passageway and then, hearing no sound but that of the ship’s engines and its heaving thrust against the sea, tiptoed a bit farther. Still hearing no human stirring, she stepped out into the corridor and hurried to the exit and out onto the deck. It was colder than she had expected and there was a visible mist, but she found being there wonderfully thrilling. She went to the rail and raised her glass, then took a happy swallow, coughing.
A movement to the left caught her eye. A seaman who had been standing idle on the deck stared at her a few seconds, then hurried away. She almost wished he hadn’t. She pressed her belly and breasts against the metal of the railing, and drank. When her glass was empty, she found herself nervous about her nudity and suddenly very, very tired. Weaving and bumping into the walls, she returned to their suite. As she opened the door, she glimpsed another figure—a woman this time, dressed in a maid’s uniform—coming toward her along the passageway. She was struck by the woman’s long unkempt hair and large, haunting eyes. The maid hesitated for an instant, but otherwise paid little attention to Edwina’s nakedness. Edwina hurried inside the suite, quickly closing and locking the door behind her.
“This voyage,” she said to herself and Dickie’s bedroom door, “is going to be far from quite divine.”
Nora Gwynn
e bolted from her bed and rushed to her bathroom, choosing to throw up in the wash basin rather than the toilet, the thought of which only made her feel more ill. She had ignored the German count’s advice and now was paying the price. She should have trusted him more.
He had intrigued her. Though stiff, formal, and possessed of the aristocratic bearing and extreme self-confidence she had encountered only in museum portraits and motion picture directors, he had a certain gentleness, a sad, lonely, and vulnerable man vaguely discernible beneath the Prussian correctness. He was in some pain because of his old injuries. Perhaps it was that.
Perhaps it was her own newfound infatuation with nobility. The French and English aristocrats she had met on this tour were none so proud as the Count von Kresse. He had given every sign of genuinely liking her, and she had been thrilled. And for all his ailments and scars, he was very handsome.
But she could not imagine herself sleeping with him. Bringing pleasure to such a damaged and tortured man required more skill and knowing methods than this Catholic schoolgirl from Toledo could ever hope or want to possess. And she found the count’s sister positively spooky. By dinner’s end, she had the clear impression that the sister would want to join in whatever activity she and the count might conceivably have agreed to.
Happily, there was not even the suggestion of any. Before dinner was quite done, the count had risen and kissed her hand in farewell, then limped away, the nervous sister hastening to follow after, taking his arm.
Still, Nora was not averse to a romance on this return voyage, if only as compensation for the horrible time she had had in Europe—as compensation for the wretched, exploitive love life that awaited her on her return to California, that was the unfortunate lot of every actress.
She noticed the daylight when she returned from the bathroom. She had a full day before her—almost a week of them. Time enough, she supposed, for all sorts of romantic possibilities. She had seen a number of handsome men aboard this ship.
Nora lay down upon the bedcovers, closing her eyes again, and thought of the Count von Kresse in the sky in his roaring airplane, high in the blue, a thousand miles high.
Von Kresse was in the sky in his own dreams. He was killing Englishmen, his sleep jarred by intermittent images of British pilots dying from his guns, machine-gun bullets exploding heads and shattering limbs, producing sprays of blood and engine oil, and flaming engines.
The dream produced a dozen or more airplane crashes, one after the other in quick succession—thud, thud, thud. Then a plane was falling that never crashed, spinning down through the air toward a whirling patch of earth that came ever closer but never near. The plunge was terrifying, and endless. The pilot was condemned to a limbo devised in hell, to a permanent horror, the worst a pilot could imagine for himself.
The pilot was himself. The plane was his Fokker D VII. He had had many such moments in the war, but they had always passed quickly. This was the last moment of life, the first moment of death, prolonged interminably.
He awoke, calling out. His back and leg were hurting very badly. A sharp pain ran up his thigh to the base of his spine when he sat up.
Dagne sat up also, then quickly ran from her bed and to the edge of his. She was wearing her favorite blue silk nightgown.
“Das verdammt Schmerz,” he said, with a slight groan. “It started at dinner. Sometimes I wish they would just cut those nerves and let me live the rest of my life numb in a wheelchair.”
She lowered him back to the pillow.
“Turn over, bitte, liebchen bruder. I will help you.”
It disturbed him when she did this, but he hurt so much now that he welcomed her ministrations. Rolling over onto his stomach, he lifted himself on his elbows as she pulled back the sheet. With one hand, she worked the muscles alongside his spine. With the other, she kneaded his calf and thigh.
“Nicht mehr dann das, schwester. Nur das, bitte.”
“Sehr gut, liebchen bruder. I felt so sorry for you tonight.”
“Last night. It’s almost sunrise.”
“Yes. I think we shall accomplish something today. Perhaps we may even enter the royal circle. That Duff Cooper kept looking at our table.”
“He was looking,” von Kresse said, halting to groan again as she touched a particularly painful spot, “at our tablemate, the beautiful lady from Hollywood.”
“He looked at both of us damen. In any event, I think we shall be invited to join them today. It would do well for us to stay with Fräulein Gwynne as much as possible. If she will permit us.”
“She seemed friendly enough. But I should remind you that our interest here is the Prince of Wales, not this Duff Cooper.”
“He is a trifle plump and has a silly mustache, but he has a lovely face and such marvelous eyes.”
“He is irrelevant, Dagne.”
“Not at all. He is a protégé of Winston Churchill, and a confidant.”
“Of course you would know that, Dagne.”
“Of course. I know many things that you will never learn sitting off in Ortelsburg, reading your decadent books.”
“As a matter of fact, I learned that interesting fact from a dossier supplied me by your dear friends in the S.D. But I do not feel comfortable about what we are doing. I don’t feel at all sanguine. I almost think we should leave these people be and just sail on to America, and never come back.”
“You are a Prussian officer. You would not permit yourself to do that.” She struck the most painful spot with great determination, causing him to cry out. “And that is something I would not permit you to do in any case.”
Lady Cunard slept little but remained abed late. She felt terribly isolated and lonely, though she had stayed up late with her companions and would be joining them again very soon. Nancy had done nothing to contact her—not a word since they had left Le Havre. Several times Emerald had had the impulse to call her daughter’s cabin, but could not find the courage. She feared that the Negro would answer. She had never spoken to him, not even in that dreadful encounter at her daughter’s house in France, and could not imagine what she would ever be able to say. “Good morning, Mr. Crowder. Is my daughter in your bed?” Preposterous.
She succumbed instead to another impulse, dialing the stateroom of the Coopers, just down the passageway.
A very sleepy Lady Diana answered. “The king is not here,” she said.
“Don’t you mean the prince?” said Emerald.
“The prince is not here either.”
“I didn’t ask for the king,” Emerald said. “Or the prince.”
“That was clever of you, because neither of them is here.”
“Diana, come down to my stateroom. I’ll order some pick-me-ups. I simply can’t face the day without one. And certainly not the sea.”
“Oh, Maudie sweet, I’m afraid it’s simply impossible for us to face the day under any circumstance. And we’re quite beyond being picked up. Poor old Duffie can’t even lift his chin. He’s snoring over there looking like a lovely beached walrus.” She made a kissing sound. “I adore walruses, especially beached.”
“Diana, I’ve no doubt His Royal Highness is going to require a full day of us. We should prepare ourselves. And I must confess I’m bored. I’ve been by myself for hours and hours and I never realized I was so utterly boring.”
“You’re not boring, Maudie darling. But we certainly are at the moment. I think we may even be dead. We’ll do whatever His Royal Highness requires of us, but I’m afraid we’ll have to do it without waking up. Bye-bye, darling. I’m asleep.”
Silence followed. Emerald called the Mountbattens. No one answered after seven rings, though she knew that did not necessarilly mean no one was there. She’d seen Edwina talk on through almost continuous ringing of her telephone while paying it absolutely no attention at all.
Her Ladyship then rang Fruity Metcalfe, and then Lord Brownlow, but neither responded. That would definitely mean they weren’t in their cabins. Likely they were outside th
e prince’s suite, with the Scotland Yard detective.
Emerald did not dare call up the prince or Mrs. Simpson. One simply did not risk irritating him, for sometimes he became quite angry about the telephone.
She took a long, deep breath and then reached for the phone once more. Nancy didn’t answer, but the wretched black man did, almost incoherent with sleep, or something else. “What is it, Mr. Crowder?” she might have asked. “Drugs, drink, or my daughter?”
Instead she quietly asked for Nancy. Crowder mumbled something, and then Nancy came on, very sharp and crisp, almost brittle.
“Mother dear,” she said. “How sweet of you to call.”
“Nancy. I want you to come up here at once.”
“No, no. Quite, quite. Much too terribly busy. Henry and I are thinking up ways to get our picture into the New York papers when we arrive. I thought perhaps I might have him carry me down the gangplank.”
“Nancy!”
“‘The English Lady,’ they’ll write, ‘borne by her black brute.’”
“Nancy! I want you up here. Not just for the moment but for the rest of the voyage.”
“I’m more than content here, mother. These are far better accommodations than I’m used to in my travels. Quite, quite.”
“I’m paying for those quarters.”
“Is that a problem, mother? I heard your investments were in trouble. Perhaps Henry and I had best move down to third cabin. There aren’t many there, I daresay. There’s hardly anyone at all aboard this ghastly ghostly ship.”
“Please don’t be so difficult.”
“Can’t be helped. As Michael Arlen said, I’m just a more beautiful version of you.”
“Nancy. I had hoped—I’d intended—that this be a reconciliation, and you won’t even come up and talk to me.”
“Not while your surrounded by all those toffs.”
“Don’t use that vulgar, lower-class word.”
“Come down here, Mother. We can meet in the second-class lounge. I bet you’ve never seen one.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Nancy.”
“There are some very nice sorts down here, Mummy. I was with an extremely nice gentleman last night, in fact, and he gave me an extremely nice and very gentlemanly fuck.”
Dance on a Sinking Ship Page 17