Lusitania Lost

by Leonard Carpenter

  “Why do you think I signed up as a nurse?” Winnie said. “I don’t suppose they’ll give me a gun, so it seemed like the next best thing.”

  “Well, sure,” Florence put in. “It may be years before America gets into the war, and meanwhile we’ve got to do something to save civilization.”

  “I’ll definitely grab a gun if one of those Huns comes after me,” Hazel added defiantly.

  “I see,” Flash said, amused by their ferocity. “You ladies certainly have a lot of spunk.”

  “May I remind you girls,” Hildegard declared, “that our nursing service is over there to help people, not shoot them! America hasn’t taken sides in this war, and neither have we. You very likely could be called upon to treat the wounded from both sides.” She cast her chin upward in a noble pose. “Mercy is our watchword.”

  “Yes, sure, I’ll treat them,” Hazel said. “But do I have to treat them nice?”

  The others laughed at this, and the skirmishing seemed to be over. As milder and more ladylike banter resumed, Flash drew Winnie aside.

  “Say, Win, I have an idea, and it sounds like you’d be up for it. Why don’t I do an article, an interview with you and the other nurses? But focusing on you, I mean.”

  “Am I that newsworthy, Flash?” Winnie’s look at him was forgiving, even teasing. All she needed was a parasol to twirl over her shoulder.

  “Well, yes, a typical American girl—and the whole nursing mission, this voyage, facing danger to help others—the readers eat that stuff up. I’m talking about a feature story, maybe for next Sunday, if I can get it to a wire in England soon enough. With a few good pictures, we’ll have it made.” Stepping back in the bright sunlight, he raised his camera and snapped her profile.

  “I thought Matt was the reporter,” she said. “Will he mind getting scooped?”

  “I can write too, and the photography leaves me lots of time. I’ve got to break into reporting eventually.” Changing camera slides, he lined up another shot. “Anyway, Matt was interested in this story when we first met, obviously. But now he’s onto bigger things.”

  “Alma’s secrets, you mean, and getting the goods on Boss Hogan.” Her voice became hushed and discreet. “But what about Alma? Won’t a story like this endanger her?”

  “Nah, we don’t have to mention her at all,” Flash said, shooting his picture. “And it won’t be printed until sometime after we reach port. Nothing much is going out from the ship’s Marconi because of radio silence. We’ll have to cable the story and photos from Europe.”

  After reloading the camera and slinging it over his shoulder, he took a pencil and notebook from his jacket pocket. “Now, then…”

  “Since you put it that way,” Winnie said, “where do you want to start? I was born in Concord, New Hampshire, in 1895…”

  Chapter 13

  Gallipoli

  Reggie preferred the nights to the days here in Turkey. The invasion beachhead looked almost lovely by night, a cluster of bright electric lamps stretching below his post, instead of just a mass of dugouts on a hill. Down the brushy slopes on the night breeze wafted the scents of wild coriander and thyme—fragrant Mediterranean herbs trying their best to sweeten the foulness of war.

  True, the night sky would intermittently be lit by gun-muzzle flashes and shell bursts, garish fireworks blazing in silence, until their thudding reports echoed back across the darkness of Anzac Cove. Australia–New Zealand Army Corps, that was, the awkward English initials given to an ancient, foreign strip of water. The shells would hit mainly ashore, but at night you could hardly see the effects, the rubble and dust and tumbling bodies as men dove or were blasted to earth.

  “How goes it, Reg? Is Johnny Turk coming down tonight?”

  “Not so far, Willie. Nothing moving out there yet.”

  The nights were cool on the coast, so you didn’t feel the thirst. You could go a long time between sips, making your water ration last, and the Tommies could wrestle up fresh barrels along with ammo and biscuit and bully beef. You could move supplies up in the dark, or go to the tank to refill your canteen, without being so worried about snipers.

  “I don’t know why we’re just sittin’ here,” Willie the Aussie newcomer said. “We should push inland to Constantinople.”

  “Onward and upward, eh?”

  Upward, indeed. You couldn’t see the impressive landscape at night, the tall, rugged coastal ridges. There was no joy in scenery anyway, knowing that every hill and ridgetop was controlled by the Mustafas, and that sooner or later you’d be ordered to go up and capture a crest, very likely getting yourself killed in the bargain.

  “You Pommies have it easy,” the Aussie said. “Barely here a week, and already you’re dug in, set. No initiative.”

  “So, you think it was easy digging these earthworks?”

  “Well, you won’t need ’em much longer, now that enough Anzacs have landed. We’ll be movin’ you in off the beach just as soon as the order comes.”

  “Could happen,” Reggie said. “Maybe tonight.”

  It could indeed, he knew. The only trouble with the nights here in Turkey was that most of the infantry assaults, British and Turkish alike, came at night.

  * * *

  Word came up the line later that evening. Attack at midnight, relying on surprise, without any naval bombardment. Straight up the hill, and swarm the trenches before Johnny Turk could wake up.

  “Trench warfare, they’re calling it,” Willie muttered to Reg, pulling out his hip flask and taking a swig for courage. “Here at Anzac, we don’t have trenches, just ledges.”

  He waved his flask at the camp below, crowded with new men filing into place. “These goat trails, cut into the hillside with a few cubby-holes dug in…but don’t dig too deep, or it’s your grave, ain’ it? Crikey, I can’t wait to see the last of this place. Here, let’s have a drink to it!”

  Reggie took a pull from the flask. Having dug some of the trench lines in far-off Belgium and fought in them too, he had to agree. When they pulled him out through France, and he gladly boarded the big four-stacker troopship in Calais harbor, he never would have believed it could be taking him anyplace worse than Flanders.

  “And the no-man’s-land,” Willie was saying. “Here it’s bad, because you don’t charge across it. You climb it, up these jolly hillsides steeper than attic stairs.”

  Reg handed the flask back, also delivering solemn counsel. “For every foot ahead, you’ve got to clamber a foot up, and dodge machine gun sprays, bombs and rocks rolling down, not to mention your own fallen mates.” He passed the flask back. “Stay low if you can.”

  “Right enough,” Willie said, taking his final nip. “Now we just wait for orders from godly General Godley.”

  * * *

  The attack went off on time, except for some New Zealanders who were delayed getting into position, lucky blokes as it turned out. The whispered command passed down the line, and the troops heaved themselves up the embankment to clamber along the slope.

  Rifle butts scraped on rock, boots crunched gravel, and it wasn’t long before the machine guns woke up. Over shouts from the Turkish trenches and scattered rifle fire, the German Spandaus hammered here too, stitching industrial death into the ragged Allied lines.

  Reggie pushed on ahead as his mates fell on either side. In the darkness lit by staccato gun flashes, Willie was nowhere to be seen. Reg ran alone, stumbling and staggering upward, his lungs burning with effort after a dozen steps. The Turkish trench was close, so close; already Reg was past the deadly arc of the machine gun. Falling on one knee, he felt a bullet pluck at the shoulder of his coat, shock but no pain, and he fired his rifle at dim figures ahead.

  Then he was up, lurching into someone in the dark. The heavy stink of Turkish tobacco told him it was an enemy. He shoved the man back, leveled his rifle waist-high, and jabbed savagely with the bayonet fixe
d to the end. The man groaned and fell at the edge of the trench, pulling the rifle barrel downward.

  Another enemy shape rushed down out of the dark, the wide-mustached face lit by gun flashes. Reggie wrenched free his Enfield, but the second Turk fired first, striking him in the hip. As he toppled into a chasm of pain, the man lashed out with his rifle butt, knocking Reg back downslope. He rolled, tumbled, and sank into the blackness of night.

  * * *

  Weeks later, the days and nights were measured only by sun yellowing the olive drab canvas of the hospital tent. Hot summer gusts and occasional sea breezes blew through the field hospital on Lemnos, out in the Aegean. The staging island was safely removed from the battle, so far away that only an occasional thundering of naval bombardments could be heard. Life, likewise, was quiet and far off, the time’s passage clouded by pain, morphine, and laudanum to bring sleep.

  The staff was mostly Aussies and Canadians. The male orderlies and female nurses were patient and understanding with the few Brits in their midst. One Saturday morning, three of the men came in and rolled Reg, over his protests, onto a stretcher.

  “What is it, another surgery?” he mumbled vaguely, flinching from the fear of the pain even though it was dulled by narcotics.

  “The surgery you need is in England,” the lead nurse told him with a smile. “We saved your leg, but if you want to use it, it will take better than we can provide. You’re being invalided out, now that transport has arrived.” She patted his cheek in gentle farewell as the stretcher-bearers carried him out into blazing daylight.

  “What ship is it?” he asked, shading his eyes. “I heard a whistle out in the bay last night.” Cocking his head up and craning his neck, he could see a vast gray shape anchored in the harbor before them, the four tall stacks getting up steam. “Looks like the same one I came over on from England.”

  “Why, it’s the Mauretania, mate,” one of the medics told him. “She’ll have you home in no time. A regular luxury liner, she is.”

  “Aye,” the other stretcher bearer agreed. “And the fastest ship on the ocean, speedier now than her sister Lusitania ever was.”

  Chapter 14

  Deck Games

  Matt had resolved to be patient with Alma. Keeping company with her was pleasant, certainly, and she was easy enough to get along with. There’d been none of the moodiness or scheming he might expect from someone with her past. But there was also a feeling of unfinished business, and it was more than just his reporter’s instincts at work. He sensed that her secrets and past fears were obstacles that held her back from him as a person, and from any close relation they might have. Whether it was mere secrecy or outright deception, he had yet to learn…if, indeed, she knew the difference.

  On the other hand he allowed that, after what she’d been through, it must take him time to win her trust. And all the more so her intimacy. Could a seven-day sea voyage possibly be enough?

  For strolling, Alma said she favored the forward areas of First Class where she felt less likely to be recognized. The two of them didn’t join in the deck entertainments that were held there, such as the three-legged race and the egg toss. But they did, in their roles as professional journalist and secretary, watch from a discreet distance.

  With her new dark tresses, she seemed at ease in public. She even ignored the admiring second looks from passers-by, which Matt knew were inevitable. Her seemingly unlimited wardrobe included a tailored brown waist jacket and a slightly daring mid-calf skirt—worn with plaid knee socks to protect her pretty legs from intrusive ocean breezes, or so he speculated. But the prevailing winds blew from home, out of the west, so the effect of Lusitania’s eastward progress was to cancel most of their force and make the spring days mild and pleasant.

  “Have you seen the ship’s pool?” he asked, idling with her by the port rail.

  “A swimming pool?” Alma marveled. “Where, below decks?”

  “No,” Matt laughed, “it’s a betting pool in the Grand Saloon. Every morning, you can write down the distance you think the ship will travel that day and place your dollar bet. Next day, the most accurate guess wins the pot.”

  “Hmm, in miles or knots?” Alma asked.

  ‘Nautical miles,” Matt said. “Knots are a measure of speed, not distance.”

  “Well, a knot is just over a mile an hour,” she said. “So, at top speed, twenty-four hours times twenty-five knots would be, let’s see, six hundred miles.”

  Matt nodded, genuinely impressed. “More than land miles, too. A nautical mile is over six thousand feet instead of 5,280–at least ten percent farther,” he calculated.

  “Oh, is it?” Alma asked, meeting his challenge. “But then, I guess you’d have to allow for that, too.”

  She pointed astern and upward, toward the smoking funnels that rose behind them.

  “Are we at full power, do you mean?” he asked, following her gaze to the smoke plumes. “That looks like quite a head of coal to me.”

  “Yes, but don’t you see,” she insisted, “none of it’s coming out of the rear stack. Nothing at all, so far on this voyage. In news photos of the ship, I’ve always seen all four chimneys smoking.”

  Matt looked again and saw that it was true. The mingled smoke and steam that billowed from the funnels was driven along with the ship by the westerly breeze in three blackish-gray columns braiding skyward. The fourth funnel by itself gave off only the faintest wisp of vapor.

  “By damn,” he said, puzzled. “I’ll have to ask the crew about that. Maybe they’re cleaning the boilers or something.”

  He turned back to Alma. “I’ve got to hand it to you, that’s pretty darned observant.”

  “It’s not like the Titanic,” she explained patiently. “The fourth stack there was just a dummy, a ventilator. I read about all of that after the sinking.”

  “Oh, was it?” Matt sobered, remembering her tragic family story. This special knowledge of hers seemed to confirm it.

  “Well, it’s hard to see how we’re making full speed on three boilers.” he said at last, leaning back against the rail. But then he saw Alma glancing over her shoulder. “What is it?”

  “Behind me, but don’t stare…the man we met at departure.” She rolled her eyes back to indicate a stout, mustached fellow. He was approaching among the passengers scattered in deck chairs and along the rail. “It’s the Dutchman who was talking to Miss Hildegard. He might recognize me. Should we let him see us here?”

  “Well, if he’s in First Class, he’ll run into us at meals,” Matt said. “You’ve changed your look, and we have a cover story. Here’s our chance to try it out.”

  “Do you think he’ll suspect anything?” she asked, edging slightly away from Matt along the rail.

  “We’ll soon find out.” He winked. “I’ll keep him busy. You can take off if you want, and wait for me on deck. I won’t be long.”

  Straightening up from his slouch against the rail, Matt stepped forward and held out his hand as the man’s steps angled toward the couple. “Good day, sir, I’m Matthew Vane. We met yesterday, but we weren’t introduced.”

  “Mr. Vane.” The man took Matt’s hand in his elegant gray-gloved one. “I am Dirk Kroger of Holland. You are American, yes?” At Matt’s assent, he added, “I’ve been on a trading visit to your country, buying some of the finest furs from your Great Lakes and Canada.” He touched his top hat, stylishly low-cut for travel, made of brushed sable.

  “New York, of course, is still the great trading center,” he added with a smile aside to the lady, “ever since it was founded by my Dutch ancestors three centuries ago.”

  “You can call me Matt. I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Kroger.” Matt spoke to reclaim the man’s attention, which was wandering to Alma.

  “Thank you, Matt,” the Dutchman told him cordially. “Call me Dirk if you like, in your informal American fashion.” He glanced po
intedly again to the woman by the rail.

  “Dirk, this is my secretary, Miss Brady.” Matt said, indicating Alma. “She was just leaving, I’m sorry to say.”

  ”Miss Brady.” Kroger tipped his hat, making a small bow.

  His urbane smile didn’t hint whether he recognized her, though Matt guessed it would have been hard for an alert gentleman not to.

  “Good day.” Barely nodding to the Dutchman, Alma turned and headed away forward.

  Kroger looked after her, still smiling. “A lovely lady, but I regret that she has changed her hair since yesterday.” He turned his gaze on Matt. “At home, too many of our pretty tow-headed Dutch girls want to look like the raven-haired songstresses of Paris.”

  “Anything for fashion,” Matt said, dismissing the matter with a shrug. “I’m a reporter for a New York paper, so I’m always on the track of interesting people. Will you be able to get back home to Holland from England, do you think?”

  “Yes, I expect so. Traffic from Britain to the Netherlands has just opened up again. A terrible thing, this war. Will you cover the fighting in France?”

  “I hope to, yes,” Matt said. “I might even travel to Germany and report from their side. Would it be possible to go through Holland, do you think, Dirk?”

  “I don’t see why not, though you might be the first. It would help you give the news fairly. I salute you as a fellow neutral.” Kroger shook his head in concern. “I must say, some of your press coverage in America seems biased toward England.”

  Matt smiled tolerantly. “With the language difference, and all the traffic between America and Britain—this ship, for instance—” he waved at the deck around them— “it’s hard for an English-speaker to be impartial. But American opinion is still very much divided.”

  “And this American opinion, as you call it…is that the thoughts of ordinary Americans, or is it the cleverly worded preaching of a few opinion leaders, with various goals in mind?”