‘You don’t mean—’
‘Yes, Jack. I mean exactly that.’
Jack was stunned at the revelation. He recalled Cubby Hubbard’s words about Rosemary climbing out of the window. ‘Is that how she met Hubbard?’
‘Well, what do you think?’ she shot back.
‘He struck me as more decent than that,’ Jack said, rubbing his face. He was tired after his busy two days in Scotland and his mind was reeling. ‘As for Rosemary—’
‘As for Rosemary, I did not go through so much sacrifice to raise a slut.’
‘Please don’t talk like that about her.’
‘A girl who goes to bars, looking for alcohol and sex? What else would you call her?’
Jack sighed. ‘I have to leave for London. Dad’s waiting for me. There’s nothing I can do to stop Hubbard from getting on the Manhattan with you. We’re going to have to deal with him when we get to the States.’
‘I will deal with him long before that,’ Mrs Kennedy said.
The Western Approaches
Out in the North Sea, a hundred miles west of the British coast, where the shipping lanes converged, Kapitän-leutnant Jürgen Todt had ordered U-113 to heave to. The submarine was within range of British aircraft sweeping from the mainland, but it was the end of the day and the light would soon be gone. A heavy swell was rolling. The air was cold and salty, and the crew crowded at the rails, hawking and spitting up phlegm, or cupping cigarettes in the palms of their hands.
Todt’s number two, Leutnant zur See Rudolf Hufnagel, stood beside him, gratefully inhaling the clean air. Less than a month out of port, U-113 already stank. Not only were there no washing facilities for the men or their clothing, but the provisions were swiftly deteriorating. The onions, dried sausages and loaves of black bread, which were stuffed between pipes or in ducts, were sprouting white mould – rabbit’s-ears, as the crew called them – and spreading a dank smell of mildew. The single usable privy (the other was stuffed full of eatables) was a malodorous swamp, outside which was always a queue of sailors waiting to empty their bowels.
The crew, most of whom were by now sporting straggling beards, were bundled into sea-jackets, except the diesel officer Ludwig, who was obsessed with vitamin D, and who had stripped to the waist. He was baring his chest to the lurid yellow sunset, apparently impervious to the icy spray, his arms upraised to catch any benefit from the fading rays.
Morale was high. There was laughter, some of it at the expense of ‘Mad King’ Ludwig and his sun worship. Eccentricities were prized in the early weeks of a submarine’s voyage, sources of entertainment. Later, Hufnagel knew, they could become intolerable, but they had yet to experience that.
For all the good humour, Hufnagel saw that there was a perceptible barrier around the captain. None of the crew stood too close to him, or involved him in their banter. It was not that he was a martinet, or even an unpopular officer. Rather, there was an aura of coldness around him that precluded idle conversation. They knew little about him. The camaraderie, even informality, which grew around other U-boat captains, sometimes deepening into affection, had not established itself in U-113.
But the boat was new and the crew was new. Most of them had been selected for the service and were not volunteers. Hufnagel would have preferred more experienced men. But this crew had been hastily assembled by a submarine command which had known that war was imminent. They had all been together only a few months, most of those spent in exercises in the Baltic Sea, stalking dummy targets, practising loading torpedoes and launching attacks, testing the ship’s motors, radio system and deck guns.
They had been in port in the Elbe during the last week of August. The day after the declaration of war, they had slipped out to sea again and had headed west into the Atlantic, to the hunting grounds assigned them by Admiral Dönitz. They had yet to sight an enemy vessel.
Hufnagel glanced at the skipper. The dying light which bathed Ludwig’s skinny chest and gilded the death’s-head painted on the conning tower also glowed in Todt’s blonde fringe. Todt’s pale eyes and flaxen hair had helped his progress through the ranks of the new Kriegsmarine, which counted an Aryan appearance – and membership of the Nazi Party – as considerable advantages, advantages which Hufnagel did not share.
Todt, unlike Hufnagel, had been a member of the Nazi Party almost since its inception, and was a devoted follower of its leader, who had promised to expunge the humiliation and treachery of 1918. He had been swiftly promoted, while Hufnagel, though his senior in age and experience, was only second-in-command. Hufnagel’s indifference to Nazism had counted against him, as had certain other errors.
The light was failing fast. Even Mad King Ludwig had acknowledged it and was buttoning up his shirt. An immense darkness had started to spread across the sky. But the many vigilant pairs of eyes on the conning tower had caught something in the last gleams and there were excited shouts.
Todt saw it too through the high-powered bridge binoculars, a smudge on the distant horizon, glimpsed from the top of a swell before U-113 slid down into the trough again. He yielded the binoculars to his First Watch Officer. ‘What do you see, Hufnagel?’
Hufnagel peered through the Zeiss lenses as U-113 rose again. ‘Smoke,’ he said. ‘Bearing fifteen degrees to our east.’
‘A convoy?’
‘A single vessel, in my opinion.’
‘Good.’ Todt turned to his crew, his pale eyes alight. ‘Everyone below.’
Le Havre
Up on the bridge, the captain of the Manhattan, Commodore Albert Randall, was thinking about the Athenia, a thirteen-thousand-tonner of the White Star Line, built in Glasgow, with all the latest navigation equipment, torpedoed at night in the Western Approaches on the first day of the war.
He, who had himself been torpedoed by a German submarine in the last war, and had barely escaped with his life, could imagine the scene all too well. The screams of terror, the surge of water into the engine room, the inevitable slide into the depths. And then the chaos in the lifeboats, some sucked into the Athenia’s own churning propellers, others capsizing in the heavy seas. Passengers crushed against the hull, drowned in the icy water, freezing to death in their flimsy nightgowns. The brave crew sacrificing their own lives for those who’d bought hundred-dollar tickets.
It was, if nothing else, an indication of how this war was going to go. No quarter asked or given.
A large, bluff man with a determined chin, Commodore Randall had seen his share of maritime disasters and had played a gallant role in many of them. He’d saved the 274 passengers of the Powhatan in 1920. Then there had been the schooner Reine de Mers in 1922, foundering amid mountainous seas off Newfoundland; and the Coast Guard cutter blown out to sea in a gale in 1924 off Nantucket. The crews of both those vessels owed their lives to him. And there had been a dozen rescues since.
As a result of these actions, he had been given the soubriquet ‘Rescue’ Randall. He was proud of the fact that his name was known to thousands and was seldom mentioned in the press without the word heroic attached to it. Though cultivating a reputation for modesty, he relished his fame and he knew how to capitalise on it. He liked being – like Manhattan herself – an emblem of American derring-do and enterprise in a world which he felt was sliding into darkness.
However, he didn’t want any dramatics on this trip. Especially not since it was his last crossing, with a well-earned retirement at the end of it. And especially not with the distinguished passenger list he would be carrying. He had been applying his mind to avoiding the fate of the Athenia. There would be an unmistakable message to port and starboard. He stood at the window, solid as a polar bear, and looked down with satisfaction at the hoardings which had been erected on either side of the Manhattan’s hull.
Arturo Toscanini stood on the quayside, leaning on his cane among the bustle of stevedores and longshoremen, looking up at the great bulk of the Manhattan, which towered above him like a cliff face. She was the largest ship ever built in th
e United States, over seven hundred feet long. On each side was a hoarding painted with American flags and the legend:
MANHATTAN
UNITED STATES LINES
The idea, Toscanini presumed, was that this message, visible across miles of ocean, would deter German submarines from torpedoing the ship, as they had done with the unfortunate Athenia. He was not so certain that any such compunction would hinder the Nazis. Thinking back over his long and bruising battle with Mussolini, much of it fought in the sacred precincts of La Scala, he could not recall a single occasion when mercy had been shown – or conscience, or compassion, or generosity of spirit.
His dearest friends had been driven into exile, had thrown themselves out of windows, had endured arrest and torture. He himself had been beaten in the street by Mussolini’s thugs. He had seen his country sink into a welter of brutality and bombast. Longing for Italy as he was, he could no longer go home without risking his life.
It would be ironic if he were to meet his fate at the hands of a U-boat crew. In May of 1915, he had been booked on the Lusitania, but had cut short his schedule at the Met and chugged home early on an old Italian steamer. He’d arrived in Italy to hear that the swift and glittering Lusitania had been sunk by a German submarine, with the loss of twelve hundred lives. Someone else had died in his cabin.
‘Good morning, maestro!’
A dapper man, he tipped his fedora to the group of excited women who had recognised him. Doing so revealed that although the famous, curled-up moustaches were still dark, his hair was now white and sparse. He was used to being recognised. His portrait had been put up in every shop window. He had been hailed as the age’s greatest conductor. Complete strangers greeted him, though sometimes (overexcitedly) as ‘Mr Wagner’ or ‘Mr Beethoven.’
Toscanini pulled his fob watch out of his waistcoat pocket and consulted it. It was past noon. He hurried up the gangplank, back on to the Manhattan, where he made his way to the ship’s radio telegraph office. It was crowded with passengers frantic for news of wives, husbands, children, lovers. The postmaster spotted Toscanini’s diminutive figure behind the wall of customers at the counter. He waved the conductor over and leaned down to murmur through the gap under the glass window.
‘Very sorry, Mr Toscanini. There’s nothing for you today.’
‘Sure?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘Thank you.’ Toscanini tipped his hat, hiding his dismay. He felt faint as he pushed his way out through the throng. Where was she? Why had she not sent word?
Outside the telegraph office he pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. He ached for Carla’s steadying hand on his arm.
Communications with Lucerne were wretched now. They had stayed far too long in Kastanienbaum, lulled by the autumn beauty of the lake, shutting their ears to the rumble of mobilising and approaching conflict. War had surprised them.
He’d rushed on ahead to secure their passage on the Manhattan; Carla was due to have followed, but days had passed and he had heard nothing from her. He did not even know if she had left Switzerland. For all he knew, she was still in Kastanienbaum, closer to Munich than to Paris.
Ancient creatures they were now, he and Carla, married forty-two years. Like two old trees, bent by storms and beaten by suns, that leaned on one another for support. She had told him to leave without her if she did not make it to Le Havre. But he could not leave France without her. If Carla did not arrive in time, he would renounce their cabin and wait for her. And who knew when the next passenger ship would sail for America? Perhaps Manhattan was the last.
He stared out across the harbour. Le Havre was a gracious city, extending around the bay in pleasant sunshine. What would be left of it when the Germans had done with it, he wondered? Short-sighted as he was, he could see that the port was busy, crowded with ships of all sizes, loading and unloading, the black hulls streaked with rust. The banks of cranes swung to and fro against the pale blue sky. There was a frenetic haste to everything these days, a scramble, a stampede.
Toscanini noticed two of the ship’s officers standing at either end of the deck, scanning the skies with binoculars. They were keeping watch for German warplanes, he realised, which might appear at any moment, spewing bullets and bombs. He felt sick. Grasping his cane, he stumbled down the companionway.
In their cabin that evening, Masha and Rachel Morgenstern were exchanging confidences as they prepared for dinner. There was much about one another that they did not as yet know, but they wanted very much to be friends, intimate with each other.
‘Have you ever been in love?’ Masha asked Rachel shyly.
‘I can see from your face that you have, my dear cousin.’
Disconcerted, Masha turned her back quickly on Rachel. ‘Can you fasten my hooks?’
Rachel smiled to herself ironically as she obliged her cousin. ‘Who is it? Some nice, serious young man selected by Rabbi Moskovitz?’
‘Not exactly.’
Rachel could see the skin at the back of Masha’s neck flushing pink among the soft curls. ‘Not exactly? What, exactly? Don’t keep me in suspense.’
When Masha turned, the flush had spread all across her pretty face. ‘It’s not much of a story.’
‘I am breathless with anticipation,’ Rachel replied. ‘I must know everything.’
Masha sat on the bunk, laughing awkwardly. ‘You’ll be very disappointed then, because it all came to nothing. I’m too ashamed to even tell you.’
‘Do you want me to resort to Gestapo methods?’
Masha clasped her hands in her lap. ‘Well, then. When I was seventeen, I had a beau.’
‘I knew it! Proceed.’
‘He was a young man called Rudi Hufnagel. He was in the Navy, in the Ubootwaffe. He came to see me every weekend in Berlin.’
Rachel raised her eyebrows. ‘A Gentile?’
‘An Aryan.’
‘What did your parents say?’
‘At first they were all against it. But Rudi was so polite, so charming – and so glamorous in his uniform! He had been all over the world, even to America. I think they fell in love with him quite as deeply as I did.’
‘He must indeed have been a seductive fellow,’ Rachel said dryly.
‘Oh, no, you have the wrong idea completely. He was absolutely honourable.’
‘He didn’t take you to bed?’
‘How can you ask me such a thing?’ Masha demanded indignantly.
‘Well, it has been known,’ Rachel said, ‘from time to time in human history.’
‘That was not the case with us!’
‘Not even a stolen kiss?’
Masha’s stiff expression softened. ‘Of course there were kisses.’
‘And cuddles?’
‘And cuddles,’ Masha conceded.
Rachel sat next to her younger cousin. ‘Now we’re getting to it. How far did you go?’
‘Really, Rachel, you ask the most dreadful questions!’
‘Oh, come on. You can tell me. I’m not the rabbi.’
Masha’s face was flushed, her eyes shining. Rachel thought she had seldom seen a prettier young woman. ‘There was one evening . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Rudi got us a box at the opera,’ Masha said softly. ‘Just the two of us, in the dark, hidden by the velvet curtain, and the music so lovely. And—’
‘And?’
Her voice was almost inaudible. ‘He put his hands—’
‘Where did he put his hands?’ Rachel enquired, eagerly leaning forward.
‘He put his hands everywhere,’ Masha whispered.
‘Good boy,’ Rachel said, half-closing her eyes as though inhaling some fine perfume. ‘Did he know what he was doing?’
‘Of course.’
‘Those Navy men are always reliable.’
‘Oh, Rachel, it was divine!’ Masha exclaimed. Her reticence had gone completely. ‘I’ve never known such feelings!’
‘Better than listening to Stravinsky’s Rite
of Spring?’
‘Quite, quite different,’ she said firmly. ‘He took me to heaven.’
‘So it didn’t feel like the electric chair?’
‘If you laugh at me, I shan’t say another word.’
‘Forgive me. I know I am on sacred ground.’ Rachel was smiling, but tenderly. ‘However, you can’t tell me that after such a divine night at the opera you never repeated the experiment?’
‘Perhaps once or twice,’ Masha admitted, lowering her eyes. ‘You must understand that I fancied myself very much in love.’
‘It sounds like more than just fancy,’ Rachel said gently.
‘The difficulty was in finding places,’ Masha confided.
‘It always is. But you managed?’
‘We went out together every weekend, to the Zoo or to the Ku-Damm, sometimes to concerts or plays. If we got the chance, we would kiss and hold each other and—’
‘And do what lovers do.’
‘Yes. When my friends saw me on his arm I felt I would burst with pride. The Navy dress uniform is very smart, you know. Dark blue, with gold buttons—’
‘Very uncomfortable at the wrong moment, I’m sure.’
‘—the gold silk eagle on the breast, the braid on the cuffs—’
‘Never mind the uniform. Stick with what was inside.’
‘We told each other we would get married when he got his Captain’s sword.’
‘Despite the race laws?’
‘Despite everything. The race laws weren’t being strictly enforced yet. It was 1936. Rudi was sure we would get permission to marry because he was a submarine officer. We were floating on champagne. Two silly fools with stars in our eyes.’
‘What happened?’
‘It was silly, at first. We started to notice that there were two men always following us around the town. Not just once or twice, but everywhere we went. Rudi was amused. He called them the Two Eggs because they were so alike. He liked to mock them, pretending to make their life easier by saying in a loud voice, “Come on, Masha, let’s go and have a cocktail at the Kempinski.” Or, “Let’s go and see the new American picture at the Universum.” And then, sure enough, we would find them there when we arrived. He thought it was funny.’
The Ocean Liner Page 3