This starboard lot of deck hands, stewards and galley cooks were on their fifth lifeboat since dawn. They’d likely be at it all morning. But they were practiced enough now to do the job with minimal confusion, so the captain turned away.
Looking forward in the flat dawn light, he saw only featureless ocean under the climbing sun. There was nothing visible to tell him this was a danger zone, except lines chalked on the maps in the chart room. He knew his ship’s position, too, from the morning sextant reading. But even that wasn’t quite knowing.
Only when he finally made landfall would he be able, after thousands of miles of open water, to truly pinpoint his ship’s course in relation to the dangers ahead—the shoals and currents and fogs, a rocky lee shore, and the countless lethal hazards of the Great War.
Sightless as he was, with the war zone extending an unknown distance out into the Atlantic, he had to prepare. For now he’d ordered the portholes shut, most of the watertight doors between below-decks compartments sealed, and the lifeboats readied for lowering.
The early morning commotion and the sight of dangling boats would set the passengers murmuring, of course. But he was confident of his ability to quell any panic. Some of them were already in dread, whole families bundling themselves in blankets to sleep on the deck lounges rather than spending the night in their rooms below.
Yet what more could be done? Short of England and their destination, Liverpool, there was only Ireland. In any event, the Admiralty might order him into port there at Queenstown, in County Cork in the south. Had they not done so earlier this year for the Cunard liner Transylvania, steaming then under his own command?
His ship’s course could also be diverted around the north coast of Ireland, if the danger should appear too great at the south end of St. George’s Channel, running between England and Ireland. That too had happened on the former Captain Dow’s final voyage in Lusitania, back in February.
But Turner would rather not fare north along the ragged western fringe of Ireland. That route was now frequented by U-boats en route to and from England’s home waters. And there, even if his ship were only immobilized by guns or torpedoes, he might have to watch helplessly as she was driven onto some rocky strand by wind and current, while his passengers and crew struggled to abandon ship in rough, treacherous ocean. Far better, he thought, to risk a straight run eastward through sheltered seas toward England, and then north between the sister isles and across the Mersey River bar into Liverpool harbor.
Such a standard run would require close timing, even if not interrupted by Admiralty orders or his own assessment of danger. The tide tables indicated that the water would be deep enough to cross the Mersey sandbar at four a.m. on Saturday the 8th, the morning after next. With sunrise not until 5:44, that bode fair for a night approach, running without lights to foil any lurking periscopes.
But the crossing should be before five a.m., he decided, to keep his ship from being silhouetted as a target against the false dawn light in the east. Submarines could lurk inside the bar.
Turner would accordingly slow the ship soon, so as not to arrive early and have to linger and wait in dangerous waters for the tide to rise. He should be just enough ahead of schedule to allow for any small detour or evasion. And of course, he would have to keep the boilers warm for a burst of steam needed to escape danger, or to make up any time lost.
Then there was the question of his escort promised by the Royal Navy. If it was on schedule to meet him, it would wait south of Fastnet Rock, the lighthouse off Cape Clear at the southwest tip of Ireland. It would be a battleship or a couple of cruisers, he assumed–probably Juno, the flagship of the small, almost laughable Queenstown defense fleet. Juno was a stately antique, too old and slow for the line of battle in this age of dreadnoughts and battlecruisers, good only for escort duty. If she were the one, his Lusitania would have to slow down even more to let her keep pace. Or, worse, the vessel might simply deliver an order, confidentially by semaphore, to redirect his course.
For a rendezvous, the trick would be to find one another without open radio contact. Encoded wireless signals were permitted, but both ships had to be in possession of the right codes and passwords. This had led to a bitter comedy of errors on the Lusitania’s recent crossing, a royal cock-up in which the two cruisers designated as escorts had been unable to contact her then-Captain Dow by radio. Instead they had tried, by radio-telephone via the land, to get the passkeys from the captain for an encrypted conversation about where to meet. Dow had quite rightly refused, not knowing whether he was being phoned up from the German Embassy or the deck of a U-boat. Meanwhile, his route had already been diverted north of Ireland without the escorts’ knowledge, so they never did make contact. Dow ended up racing into Liverpool under his dubious ruse of an American flag, which he no doubt felt entitled to fly because US President Woodrow Wilson’s personal assistant, Colonel House, was aboard on his current peacemaking mission to Europe.
No matter; the international furor caused by the Germans and Yanks meant not the least to Fairweather Dow, since he at once resigned his command of the Lusitania.
Did that make old Fairweather a coward, Turner mused? Or had his faith in the Admiralty just been too badly shaken? Or, was he too chummy and cozy with the passengers, a bunch of jibbering landlubbers, to hold such a post in time of war, with everything doubly at risk?
A tough job, ferrying civilians through a war zone, and not every captain had the salt for it. But Turner knew the challenge, and it was one that his career had readied him for. He hadn’t fought his way up from the lowly rank of seaman to turn down a posting now, much less an Admiralty command. His past reputation as captain of the Lusitania was based on these same factors—planning, reliability and trouble-free journeys, swift Atlantic crossings and swifter turnaround times in port. Those years of experience had brought Cunard a steady stream of income, while making Lusitania the safe, reliable, and even carefree Atlantic shuttle. This element of wartime survival, now…it had only recently been added, but it made his qualifications even more vital: knowledge of this ship and these waters, courage, calm and confidence. He was fit for it. With the backing of the Royal Navy, he did not suppose he could come to grief.
* * *
Winnie stood on the boat deck astern, watching as the lifeboats were swung out over the water. The crews had started at the front of the ship and were just now working their way back past the Verandah Café. They were none too official-looking, in their assortment of uniforms from different parts of the vessel. But their actions, though far from expert under the gruff commands of a deck officer, had a determined, businesslike air. It drove home the fact that this was life-and-death.
Not that she found it overly troubling. Everything seemed life-and-death lately, with the war, Alma’s flight from her big-shot New York oppressor, the men’s desperate doings below decks, the spies and stowaways…she knew of these things because Flash, in his sweet, intimate hours with her, had confessed more than his boss Matt might want him to. But anyway, finding love in the midst of all this peril, fleeing on shipboard toward a continent at war…it all seemed somehow natural, part of her heightened sensations on coming of age, entering the great world. For wasn’t love, too, a matter of life and death?
And yet, she could have no sure expectations. A shipboard dalliance in a war zone was no way to find a husband. Anything could happen, and probably would.
But for now, as far into the future as her mind and heart could see, Flash seemed like the perfect one for her. If his male feelings of devotion could run as deep as hers, if he remembered the vows and confidences they’d exchanged, and if no disasters intervened, then maybe, just maybe….
“Is all of this really necessary?” Winnie suddenly heard Hazel’s unmistakable girlish voice piping up behind her. “I bet they’re just trying to impress us.”
“Maybe it’s only a drill,” Florence’s innocent tones answered. �
��They haven’t sighted any torpedoes yet, have they?”
“It’s because we’re getting near Europe,” Winnie announced as she turned to meet the two younger nurses. “There’s probably a rule that says they have to be ready.”
“Oh, Winnie, you’re looking fine,” Hazel cried, running up to embrace her. “In that lovely new coat, too, I barely recognized you. It’s been an age since we’ve seen you!” She stepped aside to let her sister Flo deliver a hug. “How are things going in the stateroom? Has there been any trouble, with anyone snooping after—you-know-who?”
“No trouble at all,” Winnie said, making sure no one else was in earshot. “Things have been just heavenly. How about you girls?”
“We did think someone might have been nosing around our cabin,” Florence responded. “Some of my personal things were mussed up. But we haven’t seen that creeping steward lately. Oh, Winnie, you are looking so nice,” she added, keeping hold of her friend’s hand.
“Life with bachelors is good for her,” Hazel added slyly. “How is Alma doing these days?”
“Alma is just fine,” Winnie said, feeling suddenly discreet. “She should be along to speak for herself soon. Where’s Miss Hildegard?” she asked with a watchful glance astern. “Has she gotten her sea legs back?”
“Yes, her mal de mer was only mid-Atlantic,” Florence said. “She’s her old self again. She promised to meet us.”
“Oh, good,” Winnie said—though not entirely sure that it was, in case the head nurse still had her old mind-reading ability.
“So, how’s life in Saloon Class, with the men?” Hazel prodded her. “Made any new friends lately?”
“Oh, it’s very…civilized,” Winnie said in a measured way. This new discretion of hers was an odd feeling, not at all like her younger self. “I told you girls all about the party. I took you to the cabin and the Grand Dining Saloon, so you’ve seen it all. It all becomes just everyday and boring. The food in Second Class is just as good, really, and ever so much easier to pronounce—Oh, look,” she added, finding a distraction. “Here they are!”
They all turned to see Alma approach, svelte in a blue satin dress and feathered wrap, walking arm-in-arm with Matthew Vane on one side and Flash on the other. Matt tipped his hat to the nurses as the three came up, and Flash, detaching himself from Alma, went him one better. He swept up each sister in a hug, with a peck on the cheek for both in turn. He then took his proper place with an arm firmly around Winnie’s waist.
“Now, you young ladies, that’s enough horseplay,” a familiar matronly voice declared from astern as Hildegard came up to join them. “Remember, you’re in the uniform of the United Nursing Service League…some of you, at least. Mr. Vane, hello, and hello to you, too, Flash,” she said to the men. “I hope that my young pupils haven’t been too much of a burden.”
“No, not at all,” Matt said, replacing the hat he’d lifted to Hildegard. “They’re a sheer joy.”
“They can be that, I know. But thank you, even so, for taking such good care of them.” She surveyed Alma and Winnie in their finery from Alma’s trunk, plus their new acquisitions from the First Class boutiques. “Ladies, what complete disguises! I never would have known you for hard-working, dedicated nurses. How have things been going for the two you?”
“Going…they’re in love, can’t you see?” Hazel gaily shrilled out, taking everyone by surprise. “I thought Winnie was acting a little odd at first, trying to hide something. But then the men came up, with Alma in tow, and it’s perfectly clear! It’s love, the real thing, and there’s no denying it. See how they dote on each other!”
“Why my dear, how rude!” Hildegard said at once. “What nonsense are you prattling about?”
“Oh, she’s right,” Florence chimed in, for once standing up to the head nurse. “I thought so too, but now it’s for sure. Look, see them blushing!”
It would indeed have been hard, Winnie guiltily knew, to ignore the interesting range of colors given off by the two couples. Flash, with his red hair and freckled skin, was especially gratifying to watch. Still the two pairs stood together and she clung to Flash, waiting out the jeers and stares. There was nothing any of the four could say.
“See how they coo and cuddle like doves,” Florence teased. “They’re not afraid of lifeboats, or torpedoes or anything!”
“Well, they’re quite right not to be afraid,” Hildegard said, ill at ease if not alarmed at the previous subject, and obviously wanting to change it. “Those boats are just a precaution, nothing more. They’re being put out to reassure us, not frighten us.”
“Someone should tell her that,” Winnie said. Having disengaged from Flash and cast about for a new distraction, she pointed aft to a woman standing with two small children, clutching her husband’s arm and shrilly questioning him as the next boat in line was swung out. “She doesn’t look reassured.”
“Really,” Hazel gravely added, “a lot of these people have been acting as if there’s no danger at all, and now that we’re near port they suddenly seem terror-stricken. The women, mostly—a lot of the men won’t discuss it at all.”
“The Ostrich Club,” Winnie agreed, “with their heads stuck in the sand. Flash and I met a young Scots nobleman who was very concerned about needing life jacket drills.” She looked to Flash, who nodded his assent. “We even went to see the captain about it, the real Captain Turner, I mean, but I don’t think anything was done.”
Flash put in matter-of-factly, “I just heard a couple saying they were going to sleep on deck in case of an attack. But I don’t think the danger is so great at night, with the entire ship blacked-out as they’ve been doing.”
“Yes, they’ve even warned the men not to light their cigars on deck after dark,” Alma said. “They’ve designated special indoor smoking areas. It’s hard to believe, that even that little bit of light could give you away, or just striking a match.”
“I don’t suppose we should sleep out on deck,” Hazel casually announced. “I’m sure all of us will be much cozier in our beds, don’t you think?” she added with a wily glance to Alma and Winnie.
“Now, my dears, don’t be naughty,” Hildegard scolded. “It’s foolish to be worried about a little thing like lifeboats, when there are such great things ahead of us. The old world of Europe, and the war…there is untold suffering right now, but we shall have a wonderful chance to relieve so much of it, and eventually help restore civilization. The things we’ll see…well, I’m sure it will be worrisome, but all in a good cause. And Mr. Vane here, and Flash, they can print fine stories and pictures about the war and help to set things right. It’s just a short way now to our destination, and then our work, our real lives, can begin.”
They talked on in that vein, about their ideas and plans. They didn’t talk about love, but it was in the air. No one in the group questioned it, everyone sensed it, and in its glow the future seemed positive and hopeful.
Chapter 31
Kaiser William
If only they had treated me with true respect,” the Kaiser said to his wife, gazing out over the broad lawns of his ancestor Frederick’s New Palace. “That my own people should be divided and skeptical, even of me! Yet so it has been from the start.”
William paced restlessly before the tall windows of his drawing room. He preferred this monumental Baroque pile as his family home, because it displayed the power and history of his German dynasty. Built in Potsdam, just two dozen kilometers outside Berlin amid lakes and lesser palaces, the newly refitted mansion gave him ready access to his government, and this without constant, wearying encounters with bureaucrats, politicians and General Staff officers that might appear to diminish his authority.
And yet lately, with his underlings wholly absorbed in the daily conduct of the war, he felt almost an outsider. It was as if his last order that had any force or significance in this struggle had been his very first one: the order
to mobilize and send his troops racing according to plan, across uninvolved Belgium toward belligerent France. It was an order he’d given reluctantly under staff pressure, and had later tried to cancel without success. Too late to recall the troops, his Chief of Staff von Moltke had told him. Once set in motion, the necessities of war dictate everything.
And so it went. His Prussian generals controlled the troops and the information he received, and his attempts to direct military affairs were treated merely as rubber-stamping approval, or else dangerous trifling.
But had the generals really needed him as supreme commander to give that first mobilization order, or only as a scapegoat to take the blame if things went wrong…as they were clearly going now, with wartime demands and shortages, and with heavy, unimaginable troop losses in spite of heroic victories in the field?
Der Kaiser addressed his wife at last. “Nothing short of unquestioning loyalty is due a national leader in wartime. They never would have doubted my grandfather, Wilhelm the Great.”
“It was the vile English all along,” the Kaiserin Augusta Viktoria remarked, knitting in an antique chair by his side. “They tried to control you, and when you would not yield, they undermined and slandered you before the world.”
The Empress Augusta was well known to dislike the English. That included her own in-laws, William’s British mother and his grandmother, the sainted Queen Victoria. William did not mind this, since it was his own bitter disputes with the family that had in part brought on this Great War.
“Oh yes,” William told her, “the bastard English press, and those Foreign Office petty aristocrats who dictate to my poor stupid cousin, George V. But, our own good Germans have a part in our troubles, too,” he added, recalling other causes for woe. “These whining politicians, you cannot escape them! From fat old Bismarck at the very start of my reign, they all wish to steal away my power. Whenever I try to rally the will of the people, the true soul of Germany, how they howl in outrage! That speech of mine years ago, when I invoked the dreaded spirit of the Huns, out of that they made a circus show! It certainly was never really what I meant, to call our brave soldiers ravaging Huns! It was only against the Chinese, an inferior race. And then later, that press interview where I tried to speak directly to the English people…just because I said that ordinary Germans are not overly fond of England, and tried to point out the various problems…”
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