The Lost Empress

by Steve Robinson

  Alice arrived later than agreed. She had waited until the ship had picked up speed again after the navigation pilot had alighted at Pointe-au-Père, indicating that the Empress of Ireland was now on her way out to sea. She moved further into the room and saw Henry and Herr Albrecht sitting in a pair of armchairs that were facing an upright piano. They were the only people there, most other passengers having turned in for the night. Both men rose, and Henry smiled. Herr Albrecht, now in a fresh three-piece suit that was almost white, did not. He checked the time on his pocket watch.

  ‘I was concerned you were not coming, Mrs Stilwell. It is now close to one thirty.’

  ‘I’ll make no apology to you, Mr Albrecht. Here, I have your notebook.’

  Alice was no longer concealing it. She stepped closer to Albrecht and saw his eyes grow bright with anticipation as she handed it to him.

  ‘Now you have what you want,’ she said. ‘I trust you’ll leave my husband and me alone for the remainder of the voyage?’

  Albrecht did not answer right away. He flicked through the notebook, and Alice thought he looked pleased with what he saw. A moment later he stepped back and slipped it into his jacket pocket. When he withdrew his hand again it was holding a Luger semi-automatic pistol.

  ‘Now wait a minute,’ Henry began, but Albrecht cut him short, aiming the pistol at him.

  ‘Silence!’ Albrecht waved the muzzle of his pistol towards the door. ‘Move! Both of you!’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Alice asked.

  ‘Outside for some fresh air.’

  They passed no one as they were led the short distance out onto the promenade deck, where the foggy night air was bitterly cold. At that moment the ship’s horn sounded three short blasts, momentarily drawing everyone’s attention. The Empress appeared to slow, but Alice was afforded no time to wonder what it meant.

  ‘Stand by the rail, both of you!’ Albrecht ordered. ‘That’s it. Now turn around and face me.’

  Albrecht’s Luger was trained on Alice now, and his intentions could not have been clearer. He was going to shoot her and throw her body into the cold St Lawrence River. Alice knew then that she had made a grave mistake somewhere, but she could not fathom where. The copy she had made of Saxby’s notebook was supposed to protect her, and yet here she was facing certain death at Albrecht’s hand. The only possible answer came to her then, and it made Alice feel so light-headed she thought she would faint. She turned to Henry.

  ‘Tell me you’ve not told him where the other notebook is.’

  There was no need for Henry to answer. As soon as Alice finished speaking, she knew in his eyes that he had. She had been betrayed, and by the one person she should have been able to trust implicitly. Now, with the location of the second notebook known to Albrecht, it would be a simple matter to send a message via the ship’s Marconi wireless system. Long before the Empress of Ireland reached Liverpool, Alice had no doubt that the packet she had left in Quebec with Phoebe would be on its way to Frank Saxby. And then what of Phoebe?

  ‘You’ve killed us both,’ Alice said under her breath. Confusion engulfed her. She wondered how she could have been so foolish as to trust anyone. But Henry? How could he? She stared into his eyes. ‘Running away from Albrecht earlier,’ she said. ‘Going to my cabin where we could be alone to talk . . . that was all just an act to have me tell you where the copy of Saxby’s notebook is?’

  Henry gave a solemn nod, and Alice stepped away from him, no longer feeling the cold, but shaking nonetheless from the shock of this unforeseen development. Everything that had happened since Holland flashed through her mind.

  ‘So you’ve been in on this from the beginning? You’re one of them?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Alice.’

  Alice shook her head, disbelieving even now in the face of her husband’s own admission. ‘But why?’ She had to ask the question, even though she knew no answer could ever be justified.

  ‘I never told you this,’ Henry said, ‘but my father was born in Stuttgart, as was his father. My grandparents moved to America when he was just a small boy, to save their business. My family’s allegiance has always been to Germany.’

  ‘So all this was for Germany?’

  ‘Yes, for Germany. And for you and the children, Alice. We were all going to live such wonderful lives in my father’s land, come the day.’

  Hearing those words from Henry’s lips made Alice feel sick to her stomach. ‘Don’t say that, Henry. Not you. I can’t bear it.’ She wondered how this man she had loved could have become so deluded and so arrogant as to suppose she wanted any of this—that everything he had put her through was ultimately for her own good. ‘Was our marriage all just a part of Saxby’s plan? It was his plan to get my father to spy for the kaiser, wasn’t it? Tell me you didn’t instigate this.’

  ‘I married you because I love you, Alice. Frank Saxby may have made the introductions, but—’

  ‘Don’t say any more, Henry. You’ve already said enough.’ A bitter tear fell onto Alice’s cheek, and she felt a rage like nothing she had known before rise from within her. ‘Poor Archie is dead because of you. They poisoned our son, Henry! Our own son! They might have killed him, too!’

  ‘Chester would not have been harmed.’

  ‘Really?’ Alice glanced at Albrecht, and then at the pistol he still had trained on her. ‘And I suppose I wasn’t meant to be harmed either? You clearly don’t know these people as well as I’ve come to.’

  ‘It was never supposed to be like this, Alice. Really it wasn’t. You have to believe me.’

  ‘I don’t know you any more, Henry. You’re a monster! How could you?’

  ‘This is all very amusing,’ Albrecht cut in, ‘but I really must insist you both stop talking now.’

  ‘This wasn’t part of the plan,’ Henry insisted.

  ‘The plan changed, Mr Stilwell.’ Albrecht turned to Alice. ‘If you had only carried out your instructions and nothing more, I am sure it would not have come to this. Now I am afraid I have my orders.’

  ‘Albrecht, please!’ Henry pleaded. ‘We can work something out.’

  ‘You know it is for the greater good. She knows too much.’

  Albrecht aimed the Luger more precisely at Alice. Then as he went to pull the trigger Henry ran at him, and both men crashed onto the deck. The crack of the pistol’s report was accompanied by the sound of two more blasts from the ship’s horn, and it seemed to Alice that time had frozen around her. The Empress had stopped moving altogether now and was dead in the water, wrapped in the clinging fog.

  ‘Run!’ Henry shouted, but Alice could not move.

  There was blood on the deck, and she knew at once that it was Henry’s. He had stopped the bullet that was intended for her. She watched him grapple for the pistol, throwing punch after punch at Albrecht, who seemed to take the assault without so much as flinching. Another shot was fired, and this time it was followed by the sound of splintering wood. Alice could not bear to watch, yet she was unable to take her eyes off the two men as they wrestled and fought for control of the Luger, like two wild animals fighting over their kill. A second later, Albrecht smashed the butt of the pistol hard into the side of Henry’s head.

  ‘Henry!’

  The blow instantly gave Albrecht the upper hand, and now Alice knew she had to move before it was too late. She ran along the promenade deck until she could barely make out who was who through the thickening fog. She found a door and opened it, and then she stopped as the crack of another gunshot rang out between the decks. She turned to see the veiled silhouettes of both men now standing just a few feet apart. She saw Henry stagger to the rail. Then just as Henry was about to collapse, she watched Albrecht lunge at him with both hands, sending his limp body over the side of the ship.

  Alice looked on in shock, just long enough for Albrecht’s eyes to find her in the gloom. She was mesmerise
d by his white suit, which was now covered in Henry’s blood, and the sight of it seemed to make Henry’s death real to her, as if what she had just witnessed had only now registered. Her eyes filled with tears. Then Albrecht raised his pistol towards her as he came after her, and without thinking Alice found herself running again, into an open vestibule area, and then along one of the many narrow passageways. She was desperate to find a member of the ship’s crew. She had to raise the alarm, but where was everyone? She turned a corner and ran into one of the ship’s stewards. He grabbed her arms as they collided.

  ‘Steady on, miss!’

  ‘Please, you have to help me,’ Alice said, breathing hard. ‘There’s a man chasing me. He has a pistol. He just killed my husband!’

  ‘Now take it easy, miss. You’ve had a bad dream. That’s all it is.’

  ‘I wasn’t dreaming. Now let go of me. You must get help.’

  ‘I can see you’re upset about something, but I’m sure—’

  ‘Look, there he is in the passageway,’ Alice cut in. ‘Let go of me!’

  She tried to pull her arms free, but the steward’s grip was too strong. They began to struggle.

  ‘I told you to take it easy, miss. Now if you’ll just wait until the gentleman arrives, I’m sure we’ll soon have all this sorted out.’

  ‘Why aren’t you listening to me?’ Alice yelled.

  Albrecht was almost upon them, walking at a steady pace now and smiling as if there had indeed simply been some misunderstanding on Alice’s part. The steward’s expression changed to one of fear, though, when he saw the blood on Albrecht’s suit. His grip lessened and Alice kicked him in the shin as she pulled herself free. They were close to a staircase that led down to the main deck. She took it just seconds before Albrecht arrived, shoving his way past the steward.

  Alice ran wildly along the first passageway she came to, having no idea where it led. There were cabins to her left and she thought to bang on the doors, hoping someone would come to her aid, but with Albrecht so close behind her, she knew that any help would come too late. She tried anyway, and as she did so the entire ship seemed to shudder and roar with a sound that was like nothing Alice had ever heard. She used the handrails to steady herself—she almost fell down. Looking back, she saw that Albrecht had stopped. He was looking around as if wondering, as Alice was, what had just happened.

  The cabin doors began to open then, and people in their nightclothes started pouring into the passageway, expressions of confusion hanging on their faces.

  ‘What was that?’ someone said. ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘I felt it all right,’ another man said.

  Alice kept going, pushing past the other passengers now as she tried to stay ahead of her pursuer. The sleeping ship seemed to have come awake now, and Alice recalled the blasts she had heard from the ship’s horn earlier. She thought the Empress of Ireland must have run aground—that a navigational error had been made since the pilot who knew the St Lawrence River had left the ship. She took another passageway, and further ahead she heard a call that contradicted her thoughts.

  ‘Everyone on deck! The ship is sinking!’

  It was one of the crew, alerting the passengers. Alice looked back for Albrecht. Beyond the half-dozen or so passengers between them, she saw a man with a suitcase, blocking the passageway as another man tried to fight his way past. She saw Albrecht further down and knew that the commotion would hold him back. Her immediate concern now turned to finding a life vest. She had to get out onto the main deck.

  ‘This way! Keep coming!’ someone called.

  Alice continued to move with the crowd. No more than a few minutes after impact, the ship listed to starboard, and people began to scream. Through an open cabin door, she saw someone trying to escape through a porthole. Then without warning, the Empress of Ireland was plunged into darkness.

  ‘Stay calm!’ a voice in the distance urged, but by now the frightened passengers were in a state of sheer panic.

  Alice felt an elbow thrust into her side as someone scrabbled to get past her in the darkness. The shouting and screaming masked any useful instruction. She had no choice but to move with the masses, and she had no idea how long it was before she felt the first blast of cold air on her face. Her hopes lifted. There had to be a doorway close by that led onto the deck. She had no idea where any life vests were. There had not been time to acquaint herself properly with the ship or the correct procedures to follow in such an event. She supposed her own life vest was in her cabin, but what use was that to her now. She had seen the lifeboats, but the ship was listing so fast now that she supposed there might not have been time to launch them all.

  Alice had no idea how she made it out onto the main deck, and with nothing more to guide her through the darkness than the person in front of her, but she was glad to be there. She gasped for breath as soon as she felt the damp night fog against her skin again, but she understood that she was by no means out of danger. The cold river could not be survived for long, and the fog would surely hinder any rescue attempt.

  She found one of the pillars that connected the main deck to the shelter deck above, and as the ship continued to roll onto its starboard side, she held on for dear life. All around her and beneath her were cries of panic. Below the wailing, she could hear a constant rumble as though gallon upon gallon of water was surging throughout the entire ship. She had no further concern for Albrecht. He would neither follow her nor find her now—if he made it out of the ship at all.

  She climbed the port side rail as it continued to rise beside her, and suddenly the deck slipped away beneath her. The screaming intensified then until the night was filled with the sound, and Alice was thankful that she could see little of what was happening in the near darkness. She climbed further until she was able to sit on top of the rail, and she gasped as she felt someone grab her ankle. Then a split second later that person was gone.

  Alice sat there for no more than a minute. The Empress seemed to shift violently, and Alice knew the ship was about to go down. She clung ever more tightly to the rail, knowing she would soon have to jump, and at the same time she thought she might be sucked down with the hull if she failed to time it right, or perhaps there was no right time. A moment later all decision was taken from her as the entire stern of the ship rose out of the water and something unseen came at her out of the darkness. It caught her on the side of her head and she was thrown into the icy river.

  Then, for Alice, the darkness was absolute.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Present day.

  In the Wheelwrights’ restaurant at the Historic Dockyard Chatham, Jefferson Tayte had become so immersed in his research into the Empress of Ireland disaster that he’d completely lost track of time. He looked up from his screen and pinched his eyes, noting as he did so that there were now very few people there, the lunchtime trade having long since dissipated. He picked up his coffee cup and went to take a sip, but it was empty, the cup stone cold in his hand. He was currently reading a particularly harrowing newspaper extract from the Chicago Tribune dated 1 June 1914, the headline to which read ‘FRANTIC CROWDS VIEW LINER DEAD.’ It carried the subtitle ‘Body of Sir Seton-Karr Identified at Quebec from 188 others. MANY NOT RECOGNISED.’ He put his cup down again, still too engrossed to get another refill, and continued to read.

  Women Victims Found Stabbed; Men with Knives Gripped in Their Hands.

  Quebec, May 31.—[Special.]—The British flag was at half mast and the city was in mourning when the 188 bodies of victims of the Empress of Ireland disaster recovered from the St. Lawrence river reached here from Rimouski today.

  The coffins were placed in a pier shed. They formed three rows. All day long the identification went on. Frantic relatives were on hand to do their mournful task. Upon many of the crude coffins was written ‘Do not shed tears over me,’ but hundreds wept nevertheless.

  Whi
le there were more than 125 bodies that had not been identified, many survivors and relatives of victims left here tonight. They gave up hope of finding the bodies. They telegraphed relatives that the bodies they sought were not recovered. A few, however, went to Rimouski in the hope that more bodies might be picked up and that they might find the ones for which they were looking.

  Women Victims Found Stabbed.

  A glance at the bodies taken in a walk along the line revealed the story of the collision and the incidents following.

  Almost every body bore marks of violence inflicted by contact with parts of the wrecked ship or in struggles in the water. There were bodies of women whose heads were split open or gashed. It is possible that women running from their staterooms in the darkness following the collision ran against stanchions or were hurled against the walls of the sides of the alleys. The wounds also indicated that some of the women had been crushed when the collier buried its steel nose in the side of the Empress.

  Officers in Rimouski have said also that the bodies of the women showed that several of them had been stabbed, that bodies of men had been found with knives in their hands. At any rate, it was apparent by a glance at the shrouds that had been placed on the bodies of both the men and the women that there were other wounds not disclosed on the faces.

  Charges Brutality to Sailors.

  Victor Vancoster, a Belgian, who was aboard the Empress, charged today that sailors who were in the life boats kicked him in the chest when he tried to climb in.

  Walter Erzinger of Winnipeg, a first class passenger, also said he saw fighting between sailors and second or third class passengers in the water.

  In the pier shed this morning were black, brown, and white pine coffins containing the 188 bodies, less than one-fifth of the victims of the collision between the Empress of Ireland and the collier Storstad. Twenty five of the coffins contained the bodies of babies.