The Ocean Liner

by Marius Gabriel

  ‘Married! To whom?’

  ‘Heinrich Vogelfänger. He’s a professor at the academy. He’s pursued her for years, but of course she was never interested.’ Rachel folded the letter mechanically. ‘The Gestapo have told her that if she marries and becomes pregnant within a year, they will leave her alone. Otherwise she will be sent to the women’s concentration camp in Ravensbrück.’

  Masha laid her hand timidly on her cousin’s arm. ‘Darling, I’m so sorry,’ she repeated helplessly.

  ‘What choice does she have? It’s what women like us have done for centuries,’ Rachel replied, her expression hard. ‘And the Fatherland needs children. The authorities prefer to save a healthy Aryan woman for reproduction. A few blonde children, and she will be spared. Else she is of no use to the state.’

  Masha tried to comfort Rachel, but Rachel shook her off. Her face remained stony, as though the letter and its contents had meant little to her. ‘A lot happens in three months,’ was the only further comment she would make.

  Later in the day, however, Masha found her crying bitterly in their cabin. The young Hungarian woman with whom they were sharing was attempting futilely to console her, talking loudly in her own language. Masha shooed her out and gathered Rachel in her arms.

  ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry my darling,’ she whispered.

  ‘I will never see her again.’ Rachel wept like a woman who wept seldom, saving up her grief until it broke all walls. Her severe façade was gone, her prettiness, such as it had been, destroyed. Her tears poured out unchecked. ‘Up to now I had some hope. But it’s all gone, Masha. All gone.’

  The third deputation to the Commodore was much smaller, but promised to be more effective. It came in the shape of Mrs Joseph P. Kennedy, holding her youngest son, Teddy, by the hand. They arrived on the bridge shortly after lunch. She was wearing a pale-green twin-set and pearls, both of which set off her eyes, which seemed to have taken on a softer hue in the Irish sea. The boy, in an obvious compliment to Randall, was wearing a sailor top in navy blue and white, complete with a square collar knotted under his chin.

  ‘Might I have a word, Commodore?’ she asked.

  Groaning inwardly, Randall forced himself to smile. ‘Of course, Mrs Kennedy.’

  ‘It’s about our unfortunate fellow Americans who are stranded here in Cobh. I hope you don’t think me too forward, but their plight touched me deeply, and I took the liberty of calling my husband in London.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘He replied, of course, that this is a matter entirely for you to decide.’

  ‘Quite so.’

  She gave him a charming smile. ‘But he has asked me to beg you, dear Commodore, to do everything you possibly can to help these poor folk. They are truly in a sad plight.’

  Randall spread his large paws. ‘But Mrs Kennedy, you know how overcrowded the Manhattan already is. And I’m sure you know what happened on the Iroquois.’

  ‘The Iroquois was an old tub. The Manhattan is an awfully big ship.’

  ‘The size of the ship has no bearing on the number of passengers it can conveniently carry. Manhattan was designed to offer a luxurious experience. She is not equipped as a troopship might be. Almost every possible space has been used. Extra cots have been put in all the cabins and staterooms. People are sleeping in the public areas. It’s already taking many hours each day to feed them all. How can I take more? We’re crossing the Atlantic. Three thousand nautical miles!’

  ‘I do remember a little geography,’ she smiled.

  ‘We’re risking serious problems of food, water, ventilation, hygiene, comfort, movement around the ship, fresh air, risk of infection—’

  ‘But isn’t the distress they face on shore even greater than any discomfort they may face on board?’

  Commodore Randall, baffled by Mrs Kennedy, noticed that her young son was staring around the bridge. ‘Would you like to drive the ship, sonny?’ he suggested amiably, indicating the control room, where the gleaming brass telegraph signals stood like golden sentries.

  ‘The ship isn’t going anywhere,’ Teddy pointed out with cold logic. ‘It’s stopped.’

  ‘Well, you could pretend.’

  Teddy frowned. ‘What for?’ he asked.

  ‘Wouldn’t you be able to stretch the limits just a little,’ Mrs Kennedy wheedled. ‘Just to, let’s say two hundred? My husband would take it as personal favour.’ She laid her fingers on the heavy gold bar on his sleeve, looking up at him. The beauty of her youth had faded somewhat, but she could still be very appealing. And she was the wife of the influential Joseph P. Kennedy. ‘As for myself, I could ask you no greater favour – Rescue Randall.’

  Commodore Randall produced a groan somewhat like a harpooned walrus. ‘Oh, very well, Mrs Kennedy. To please you – nobody else, mind – I will take two hundred.’

  She beamed and blew him a kiss. ‘I’ll see you get a medal for this.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘We’re all in your hands, you know, Commodore. You are our guardian angel.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he sighed, ‘I know that.’

  Leaving the bridge victorious, Mrs Kennedy suggested to young Teddy that he get some exercise and warm his cold legs by seeing how fast he could run three times around the great forward derrick. Although this did not seem a very appealing prospect, he knew better than to defy his mother, and he set off at a reluctant jog.

  In his absence, Mrs Kennedy unfolded the letter which Mr Nightingale had given her. She read it through again. It was from Cubby Hubbard to Rosemary, and it was a thoroughly contemptible document, with its protestations of love couched in the most clichéd forms (the boy was steeped in the language of popular music) and its bold invitations to his ‘honey’ to ‘give everybody the slip’ and rendezvous in New York. In the hands of an attorney, this would be enough evidence to ensure a conviction on the grounds of criminal seduction, particularly as there was clear evidence, from certain passages in the letter, that sexual intercourse had already taken place. And that further sexual intercourse was envisaged. She uttered an exclamation of disgust.

  Going to law, however, was no longer needed. Joe, in his clever way, had solved the problem. Joe always solved the problem. He could be relied on for that.

  She tore the letter carefully into small pieces, walked to the rail, and scattered them into the sea.

  Two hundred extra voyagers had somehow been squeezed aboard the Manhattan. That brought her passenger compliment up to almost nineteen hundred. Together with the crew and the extra help they’d taken on, the ship was carrying well over twenty-three hundred souls. She was overloaded and she felt overloaded.

  Commodore Randall had not involved himself in the decisions as to who would sail and who would stay, but he understood that there had been acrimonious arguments on the subject. Nor was he surprised that the Reverend Ezekiel Perkins had made sure that he was one of the saved, rather than staying to shepherd his remaining flock in Cobh – and was, in fact, one of the first on board, where he soon struck up a close alliance with Dr Emmett Meese of New York.

  The ship had been re-provisioned, and the overworked kitchens had welcomed a score of new cooks, which promised to speed up mealtimes as they crossed the wide Atlantic.

  Following the example of his old friend Captain Chelton, Randall had the baggage of the new arrivals examined thoroughly, and conducted a careful search of the entire ship, including the trunk hold, for anything suspicious. He was feeling uncharacteristically nervous about his last crossing. But when the searches were complete, and Manhattan found innocent of explosive devices, there was no reason to postpone sailing any longer.

  To guard against any unpleasant last-minute incidents, he cancelled permission for any of the passengers or crew to go ashore, and had the pursers make sure that all visitors were ushered off the ship by noon.

  The next morning, Manhattan left Cork Harbour, accompanied by all the good wishes of the ships around her. By evening, the wild cliffs of Ireland w
ere fading dim and violet behind her, and she turned her bows to the cold Atlantic.

  The Western Approaches

  It was U-113’s youngest crewmember, a hydrophone operator, who first picked up the sound of a four-screw ship. He sent for the First Watch Officer.

  ‘A destroyer?’ Hufnagel asked, holding the earphone to his ear.

  The operator shook his head. ‘She’s still too far away to tell. Around twenty miles. We need to submerge and stop engines to be sure.’

  ‘Very well.’

  Hufnagel went to Todt’s cabin with the request. Todt got out of his bunk and gave the order. U-113 submerged to twenty meters and turned off all her engines. Hanging motionless in the dark sea, the U-boat’s crew were silent while the hydrophone and radio operators listened to the swishing in their headphones and made careful calculations.

  After fifteen minutes, they had an answer. ‘It’s not a warship. We think it’s either a tanker or a liner.’

  Furthermore, they had triangulated the position and bearing of the other vessel as lying almost directly on the U-boat’s track. Four screws meant a large vessel, at least fifteen thousand tons. The atmosphere on board changed. Emerging from his sulk, Kapitän-leutnant Todt ordered the torpedomen out of the engine room and into their natural habitat, to check over the monsters and ensure that this time there were to be no errors.

  Hufnagel, too, felt the thrill of excitement. To return with at least one major prize might redeem his career.

  He and Todt went up on to the bridge. U-113 was now making full speed to intersect with the target vessel. She surged through the swells as though eager for the appointment. The night was foggy and very dark, with no moon. They were heading closer to the enemy coast with every minute that passed.

  ‘We’ll reach her at about 05:00 hours,’ Todt said. ‘My intention is to get this done in darkness and be gone before the British can respond.’

  ‘I agree.’

  Todt hugged himself against the intense cold. ‘Make no mistake, Hufnagel. This is our chance.’

  Hufnagel nodded but said nothing.

  SS Manhattan

  Manhattan’s kitchens, stimulated by the fresh cooks who had joined at Cobh, provided a gala dinner for everyone aboard, complete with Irish crabs and lobsters and crates of Irish stout. After dinner, fortified by the alcohol, the passengers arranged an impromptu entertainment in the Smoking Room.

  Hoffman’s Midget Marvels started the proceedings with a scene from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The prettiest one, whom Teddy Kennedy admired, played a sleepy Snow White in a very short slip and a paper crown. The other seven played the Dwarfs. They sang ‘Whistle While You Work’ in husky voices, wearing beards made of cotton wool, and took turns to kiss Snow White, lifting her slip to peer under it and share what they found with the onlookers. Their antics and bawdy remarks caused much hilarity among an audience wanting to blow off some steam.

  Thomas König, viewing this performance with acute discomfort, found himself wondering whether the World’s Fair was going to be the sober, scientific symposium that he had imagined. This mockery of things he held sacred was giving him an intimation of America as a land of brash vulgarity and crude sexuality, very different from the chaste German romanticism he had been brought up with.

  He watched, bemused, as Miss Elizabeth Taylor clambered on to the stage and sang ‘Some Day my Prince Will Come’, with her violet eyes raised heavenward, to loud applause. Her proud mother announced to everyone that she had performed in front of the King and Queen of England, information which seemed to surprise young Elizabeth herself.

  Mrs Dabney then launched into a recitation of When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, Walt Whitman’s elegy for Abraham Lincoln, which people around Thomas murmured was very apt for the time and place, though it went on somewhat long, and was perhaps imperfectly remembered here and there.

  Thomas leaned over to Masha and whispered, ‘Won’t you play something, Fräulein Morgenstern?’

  ‘It’s been months since I touched a piano,’ she replied. ‘I’m so out of practice.’

  ‘You cannot be worse than this,’ Thomas pointed out, as Mrs Dabney groped for her next lines.

  She giggled. ‘That’s true.’

  ‘Won’t you play?’ He blushed. Rachel had scorned to attend the entertainment, and he felt bold in her absence. ‘For me. I have never heard you play.’

  She smiled. ‘Very well, if it will please you. For you, Thomas.’

  Masha went to the piano and sat to a scattering of applause. After a moment’s reflection, she began to play Träumerei by Schumann. An absolute silence fell as the wistful, touching melody drifted through the room. Masha played without flaw, and with a delicacy of touch that made several people in the audience begin crying.

  Among those who wept was Thomas, who felt with every note – as perhaps others did – that his tarnished dreams were being brightened again, that his hurts were being healed, that his dying hopes were being rekindled. He had kept the handkerchief she had given him like a precious relic. He pressed it to his mouth now, inhaling the faint scent that still clung to it. It was Masha’s particular scent: vanilla and apricots, it seemed to him at times; at other times, something darker, aloes and musk.

  Masha finished to rapturous clapping, and took her seat next to Thomas again.

  ‘Thank you,’ he whispered.

  She saw his wet cheeks. ‘I didn’t mean to make you sad,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not sad. It was very beautiful.’

  Katharine Wolff, perhaps not wanting to be outdone, followed Masha at the piano, and played a medley of national anthems, the French, the British, the American and a fourth which caused some puzzlement until it was revealed to be the Irish national anthem, otherwise known as ‘A Soldier’s Song’.

  There was more applause as Miss Fanny Ward looked in on the proceedings, glassy-eyed in a magnificent gold lamé gown with a cascading, beaded headdress in the style of ancient Heliopolis. But she declined to perform, other than to smile lopsidedly at everyone around her. And the two great musicians on board, Stravinsky and Toscanini, both kept out of the way.

  The highlight of the evening was provided by a mysterious, svelte and exquisite woman, hitherto unnoticed by anybody on board, who appeared in a grass skirt and a coconut brassiere, accompanying herself on the ukulele while she sang ‘My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua’ in a sultry contralto, getting all the Hawaiian words right and shaking her hips in the most provocative way.

  It was whispered excitedly that this must surely be the Mexican actress Dolores del Río, who it was assumed must have been keeping to her stateroom to avoid the press of admirers. But astonishingly, at the end of her song the sultry lady pulled off her wig and revealed herself to be none other than Mr Nightingale, the senior steward, who in addition to all his other talents, was seen to have very good legs. He used them to make a sensational exit, hula-ing around the room, swishing his skirt and leaving a section of the audience open-mouthed and another section stamping and wolf-whistling.

  It took some time to restore order after this. Members of the ship’s crew, watching from the wings, were especially vociferous in their appreciation. One was heard to say it was ‘Naughty Nightie’s best ever’.

  The Reverend Ezekiel Perkins of the Nordic Tabernacle now got on to the stage and announced that he felt it incumbent upon him to offer a little lecture on ‘Improving the Health of the Next Generation’. This apparently involved the sterilising of Negroes, Jews, Mexicans and abnormal individuals such as Mr Nightingale and Hoffman’s Midget Marvels, to prevent them from contaminating the nascent American race.

  Masha became agitated at this flood of urbanely expressed hatred, and rose to leave. Thomas walked her to the exit. Several of the audience followed suit, either because they were also offended by the Reverend Perkins’ address, or because it was not as short as he had promised.

  At the door, Thomas touched Masha’s hand. ‘Thank you again for tonight
.’ He gazed into her face, feeling that he was more deeply in love than ever. ‘I will never forget it.’

  Masha laughed, disengaging her hand from his. ‘In Yiddish we call that sort of music schmaltz. Dripping with sentiment, you know? But it’s a sweet piece. I’m glad you enjoyed it. Goodnight, Thomas.’

  She slipped away. Thomas leaned against the wall dreamily as the Smoking Room emptied and the stewards cleared up and turned off the lights.

  U-113

  The ship was a dim silhouette in the pre-dawn darkness, but she was showing lights that revealed her outline. Todt, trembling all over, had the silhouette recognition chart open, his forefinger skimming along the list.

  ‘I have her,’ he whispered, as though the British crew could somehow hear him across two miles of sea. ‘She is the Duchess of Atholl.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘As sure as my life. Over twenty-four thousand tons gross. My God. Look at the size of her.’

  Hufnagel knew that he was whispering partly because the prize was so great. It was the roll of the dice that recoups all the gambler’s losses. The stag that steps out of the woods just as the hunter shoulders his rifle to return home empty-handed. To go back with a bag like this was the dream of every U-boat captain. It would lead to commendations, medals, promotions, parades, the covers of magazines.

  But there was no record of the Duchess of Atholl having been converted as a troop carrier. Hufnagel studied the silhouette chart with his pocket flashlight.

  ‘She’s a passenger vessel,’ he said quietly. ‘We can’t sink her without warning. There will be terrible loss of life.’

  ‘Causing loss of life to the enemy is the purpose of war,’ Todt retorted.

  ‘She isn’t armed. There will be women and children on board. The rules of war—’

  ‘Don’t lecture me about the rules of war,’ Todt said.

  ‘We must signal her to launch her lifeboats.’

  ‘You are mad.’

  ‘You are mad if you think sending hundreds of civilians to the bottom will do you or the Reich any good. For God’s sake, man. Think! Remember the Lusitania.’