Seven Days in May

by Kim Izzo

  Sydney was relieved when she learned that several of her new acquaintances had survived: Lady Mackworth had also been picked up by the Bluebell; her father, Mr. Thomas, made it as well, as did Charles Hardwick, Jessie Taft Smith and Angela Papadapoulos, although her husband and the Kesers had drowned. Edward’s valet, Maxwell, had been plucked from the ocean by a trawler and was at his sister’s home in Taunton convalescing. Frederick must have perished but his body wasn’t found. The worst had been finding Hannah and her mother’s name on the missing list. She hadn’t seen the little girl at all that last day. She hoped that whatever had happened to her she hadn’t suffered. Then there was Alfred. No one knew what happened to him or Ronald. Final sightings were as Sydney had witnessed—Alfred without lifebelt, helping others. His body was never recovered.

  Sydney wanted to call on Walter in Elland before heading to Rathfon Hall in Somerset. She needed some distance from Edward and his family. The sinking had left her in shock and the idea of being welcomed into the stately home like she was some sort of heroine for not drowning when so many had wasn’t something she could tolerate. Neither was Edward tolerable. He had been loving and supportive but she had sent him on another train home. She couldn’t bear seeing him break the news of Brooke’s death to them. Nor was she sure she could marry Edward any longer. Brooke’s death changed everything for her.

  She arrived at the town house in Elland to find Walter’s wife, Alice, and daughter, Muriel, waiting to greet her in the small foyer. She was a lovely woman, strong and sturdy with a no-nonsense manner. “To think that I argued with Walter about sending me and Muriel ahead on another ship,” Alice told Sydney. “He was right to insist. Those rumours were all true.”

  His little girl, Muriel, was adorable and was singing a lullaby to her teddy bear—apparently Walter had bought the bear in Queenstown before returning home to Elland. She hadn’t realized it was the child’s birthday.

  “Come along, Miss Sydney,” Alice said. “Walter will be happy to see you.”

  Alice led Sydney to an upstairs room where Walter lay in bed. He had been in this bed in this house ever since he’d arrived from Queenstown. He was still very weak and had only been allowed downstairs for supper on two occasions. His doctor was amazed he had survived as many hours in the water as he had done. Walter claimed he didn’t know how long it was in the end. Time lost all meaning after the ship sank. But his best guess was about eight hours. His face lit up at the sight of Sydney.

  “You look better than I expected,” she said, and sat down in a chair.

  “You as well,” Walter said. “This is a nice surprise.”

  “I wanted to see you, make sure you were okay,” she said.

  “I need to get well so I can get to the base for training camp,” Walter said.

  “Don’t be in such a rush to get to the front,” Sydney told him patiently. “You’ve seen enough of the war by now, surely.”

  He studied her a moment. “What about you then? You going to see that chap Edward?”

  Sydney picked up a newspaper off the floor. On June 15 the Admiralty was launching a public inquiry into the sinking. Captain Turner would be testifying.

  “Sydney?”

  She placed the paper in her lap. “I don’t know how I feel about him or his family now,” she admitted.

  “You still love him?” he asked.

  She tilted her head. “I never told you that.”

  “Don’t need to be told it. It was obvious. And he loves you. Now with your poor sister passed away I suppose you’re free to marry him.”

  If only he knew that had been decided before the torpedo strike. “How can I, Walter? It seems wrong.”

  “Would it have been right had Brooke survived?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ll never know. At least I would have seen her happy with another husband. Now that she’s gone . . . how can I be happy with Edward?”

  Walter and Sydney sat in silence a moment. “You’re overcome with grief. I see that. And Brooke is dead and that’s a horrible thing. But you’re alive and you must live your life,” he told her. “If Edward can make you happy then you can’t feel guilty about it. We all deserve love, Sydney. Even survivors of great tragedies.”

  Sydney wiped away tears and held his hand. Neither sure if what he said was true. Walter sat up in the bed.

  “There’s a local reporter coming to interview me for the paper. I’m something of a celebrity,” he said with a slight grin to change the subject. “Alice told everyone about me surviving the sinking.”

  “How do you feel about giving an interview?” Sydney hated the press and had avoided it so far but she knew she would be swarmed in New York. From Walter’s expression she gathered he felt the same.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “I prefer to lie in bed with Muriel beside me singing to that bear. She’s a happy girl. Loves to sing.”

  “Like Hannah,” Sydney said.

  As if on cue little Muriel rushed into the room. She sprang onto the bed to cuddle with her father. He stroked Muriel’s fine blond hair. Like Sydney she had large hazel eyes. “You want to be a singer when you grow up?” he asked her.

  She nodded enthusiastically, which made him and Sydney laugh. “I knew a girl, a little older than you, who wanted to perform onstage,” Sydney said. “Her name was Hannah. She was very good.”

  “Hannah,” Muriel repeated gamely.

  Walter and Sydney looked at each other.

  “Walter!” Alice called up from downstairs. “Are you ready? The man from the paper is here.”

  Walter wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Yes, Alice. Show him up.”

  Sydney listened to the footfalls on the wooden steps. How different was the sound they made from the metal steps she had run up and down on the ship. A tall reedy man with a disturbingly lopsided moustache appeared in the doorway, pen and paper in hand, Alice behind him.

  “I’m John Goodson,” he said, and the men shook hands. “You’ve been through quite the ordeal.”

  Walter’s smile was strained. Sydney could tell he really didn’t want to talk about it.

  “I mean it’s bad enough being hit with one torpedo, but two,” Goodson exclaimed.

  Walter shook his head. “There was only one torpedo,” he said.

  The reporter seemed puzzled. “The official word is that the submarine fired twice,” he said.

  “I was there. I know what I saw.” He was becoming agitated.

  “He’s right. There was only one torpedo,” Sydney confirmed.

  “There wasn’t a second explosion?” Goodson asked.

  “There was,” Walter admitted. “Perhaps one of the boilers exploded, or . . .” His voice trailed off a moment. Sydney knew what he was thinking. The ammunition the ship was carrying had exploded. “I’m not a naval expert by any means. But it wasn’t a torpedo. Whatever caused the second explosion came from within the Lusitania herself.”

  Muriel took this opportunity to burst into song and Walter was pulled from his misery. She could carry a tune and Sydney began to hum along quietly. But his wife had other ideas.

  “Muriel, come with me. Your father has business to do with this man.” Alice held her hand out and looked at Sydney. She could take a hint and stood to follow the little girl out of the room.

  “Perhaps your mother has baked you a birthday cake,” Sydney said. Muriel beamed.

  “I want chocolate cake,” she said.

  Alice smiled and Sydney and nodded. It was chocolate.

  “Save me a piece,” Walter said. Sydney looked at him. They would probably never see each other again but they would never be strangers—they’d shared too much.

  “Good luck to you, Walter,” she said, and gently kissed him on the head. “I wish you a happy life.”

  “You as well, Sydney,” he answered. “Remember what I said.”

  She nodded and with a slight wave left him behind. She headed to the train station and on to Rathfon Hall. Whet
her she could accept Edward’s love or not, she could put off seeing him no longer.

  MAY 12

  Isabel

  The world was still reeling from the loss of the Lusitania. The papers printed the shocking statistics: Of the ship’s 1,959 passengers and crew only 764 survived, which brought the death toll to 1,195. Only 6 out of the 33 babies on board lived. And to fuel the international crisis there were 123 Americans counted amongst the dead. As expected the United States was in an uproar but so far President Woodrow Wilson had not been roused to declare war.

  Despite the displeasure of the Admiralty, the local coroner in Kinsale, a man named John Hogan, conducted his own inquest. He felt justified because five of the dead had been found in his district. So on Saturday, May 8, Captain Turner was placed on the stand where he broke down in tears. The coroner’s final verdict was that the submarine crew and indeed Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany had committed “willful and wholesale murder.”

  While the coroner in Ireland did not place blame on Turner, the Admiralty in London had other ideas and would pursue them at its own official Board of Trade investigation in June that was to be presided by a Lord Mersey. As Isabel had anticipated, the entire affair had become the talk, unofficially, of Room 40.

  “He blatantly ignored the Admiralty’s directions,” Curtis insisted. A small group was huddled around the codebooks engaged in a heated debate. Isabel and Dorothy among them. “He was warned about the submarines in the area and told to steer a mid-channel course and at full speed. The bastard didn’t even zigzag.”

  “Turner was overly confident, that was his undoing,” Norton added. “He wouldn’t trust the Admiralty to make decisions on how he should navigate his ship. The instructions were just a pile of paper to him.”

  “But the ship’s fourth boiler wasn’t even operational,” Anstie pointed out. “And that was an Admiralty order to conserve fuel. She couldn’t get to top speed.”

  “She was doing eighteen knots when she was struck. That’s fast enough to outrun a submarine.”

  “Turner took a four-point bearing off the Old Head at Kinsale,” Rotter pointed out. “He waited too long. They were lying in wait. Then he steered toward the bloody U-boat.”

  “He couldn’t have known!”

  “What’s a four-point bearing?” Isabel asked.

  “It’s used in navigation to confirm the distance a ship is from an object . . .”

  “But that second explosion . . .”

  Isabel had heard enough. Everyone seemed to want to pin the tragedy on Captain Turner. Indeed the desire to place the blame went all the way to the top. She had managed to see notes Churchill and Fisher had exchanged; in one Churchill wrote, We will pursue the captain without check. She turned her back on the group and looked into the basket for new transcripts. She picked up a freshly arrived tube and opened it. “Gentlemen! We have new secrets to uncover.”

  She was trying to sound light but it wasn’t working. Nerves were frayed. The group split up and Rotter retrieved the transcript from her. He sat down at the codebook and began to decipher. It didn’t take him long but when he’d completed transcribing he dropped his pen.

  “My God!” he exclaimed, which brought everyone to his desk.

  “What does it say?” Anstie asked.

  “It’s from Captain Schwieger to his command,” he said.

  “He’s back in range of his home port,” Curtis said. “At least he’s out of our waters.”

  “For now,” Isabel added.

  “The bastard confirmed he sank the Lusitania but that’s not all,” Rotter continued. “He said it was sunk by means of one torpedo.”

  “That’s impossible. Every survivor spoke of a second explosion.”

  “But not every survivor said it was a second torpedo,” Isabel pointed out.

  “A few survivors swore they saw another,” Dorothy added.

  “There was a lot of confusion and debris flying around,” Curtis said. “You can’t necessarily trust their accuracy.”

  “What else could cause an explosion like that?” Anstie asked.

  “I heard coal-dust fire,” someone added. “Or a boiler explosion.”

  “Let’s not forget the contraband ammunition she was carrying either.”

  “At the inquest Captain Turner thought it might have been the main steam line,” Isabel declared. “I prefer to believe him, a lifelong seaman and an experienced captain.”

  “She’s right,” Rotter said. “If water flooded the first boiler room it would trigger the main steam line to rupture and that would cause a large explosion.”

  Isabel was pleased the naval officer had backed her up. “And now with this latest intelligence from Schwieger, we know the truth. It wasn’t a second torpedo.”

  “I think Churchill needs to see this,” Rotter said.

  “I’ll be glad to take it to him,” Isabel said.

  Churchill’s secretary was out when she arrived. But his office door was open and he beckoned Isabel inside. He noticed the paper in her hand immediately.

  “What have you got there?” he asked.

  She gave him the transcript and waited. Churchill had returned from Paris after the sinking. She couldn’t help but wonder if since his return he weren’t locked into negotiations with the Americans to bring them into the conflict. He had studied the transcript for a long time when at last he asked, “Who has seen this?”

  “The men in Room 40,” she stated. It seemed an odd question. No one outside of the “great mystery” ever shared what they knew, and that was on Churchill’s orders.

  “Captain Hall?”

  “Not yet. He and Commander Hope were meeting elsewhere.”

  Churchill smiled. “Very well. Thank you, Miss—?”

  He never remembered her, which was annoying to Isabel. “Nelson, sir.”

  “Miss Nelson. That will be all.”

  Isabel knew she had to leave but she couldn’t do it. That letter. And now that such a catastrophic event had occurred she needed to know. “Sir, I have a question . . .”

  He looked at her quizzically. “And what might that be?”

  She swallowed, working up the courage. “Did we allow the Lusitania to be sunk so the Americans would come into the war?”

  There, she’d said her piece. But from the look on Churchill’s face, he was not in impressed by her bravery. “What on earth is your meaning?”

  “It’s a rumour, sir. Something I’ve heard.”

  “Well, you heard wrong. We need the Americans to continue to do what they are doing—supplying us with ammunition and food. If they were to enter the war now we’d practically starve. The Lusitania was a tragedy but it was the fault of an irresponsible captain.”

  “Not of the submarine, sir?”

  His eyes popped open wide. She could see his breathing had grown heavy. He was seething. “Are you looking to be sacked, Miss Nelson?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You’re lucky you are a woman and a civilian. If you were in the navy you’d be disciplined immediately.”

  “Sorry, it’s just that I read the transcript. It clearly says it was one torpedo. At the Irish inquest many people, including some from the Admiralty, thought it was two. Now we know the truth.”

  “I don’t care what a German submarine captain says. It was two.”

  Isabel scowled. “But sir—”

  Churchill walked around his desk so that he was standing facing Isabel. To her surprise he smiled and when he did his entire face softened.

  “My dear,” he began. “I appreciate your concern and your diligence. But you must understand that as the First Lord of the Admiralty I know what I’m doing. Go back to your post.”

  She did as she was told. Once back inside the safety of Room 40 she asked to speak confidentially to Denniston. They found a corner in the far office and sat down. She had to share what had happened. Churchill had all but confirmed he was going to publicly claim there were two torpedoes when he knew it was false. She co
nfided all of this to Denniston, including her insubordination with Churchill. When he had recovered from the shock of what she had dared to do he told her it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

  “You must understand, Isabel, that to use what we just found out, to make it public that we know for certain that Schwieger only fired one torpedo would be to tell the world—and most important, the Germans—that we are intercepting their communications. We can’t even let them know we uncovered the name of the U-boat’s commander, let alone which submarine did the job. It makes matters clearer if the world thinks the Germans fired two torpedoes.”

  “The holy of holies,” Isabel whispered. She understood at last. Churchill had his reasons for concealing the facts.

  “Exactly,” he said. “The mystery would be revealed and then they’d change the key and the codebooks and we’d be back to square one. We’re not winning, you know. It’s going to be a long war.”

  She looked at her hands folded in her lap. Maybe she wasn’t so clever after all. She should have known it. Even Churchill’s letter was a sort of red herring.

  “Churchill’s no fool,” Denniston added. “We can’t let the enemy know we know.”

  “But doesn’t the public have a right to know what really happened?” she insisted half-heartedly.

  “History will decide that. But for now we must focus on defeating the enemy,” Denniston answered. “Forget what you read.”

  Isabel returned to her typewriter. There were piles of decoded messages waiting for her. She threaded the paper into her machine dutifully and began to type. But with each keystroke her eyes began to fill with tears. Dorothy, seeing this, came to her side.