“Sounds pretty serious,” She stepped behind the cabin’s oriental screen to don a bathrobe. “This must be an important meeting for you.”
“Big stuff,” Matt affirmed, tying his shoelaces. “It could be the journalistic payoff of this entire voyage–aside from your revelations, of course. That’s a windfall I never really expected.”
“As your secretary, I should go along,” Alma said. “You may need some notes taken, or an extra pair of eyes and ears.”
“Well, thank you, my love,” Matt said, giving her another peck on the lips, “but I don’t think this individual would be too pleased at anyone else knowing his identity. Or hers, yes, of course.” He smiled. “But don’t worry. It’s a he, I’ll admit that much.”
* * *
With Alma following close behind, Matt slipped out of the cabin through the darkened parlor, where their shipmates lay asleep in a huddle of blankets. He envied them the luxury of a morning together and had no wish to disturb them. Yet here he was, denying the same blessing to Alma, his newly devoted love who, after her recent hardships, was so much more in need of comfort and security. What kind of a man was he to leave her just now? Frowning, he suppressed a sigh. Like so many others in this modern mechanized world, he was a man who believed in his work, a man with a job to do.
The two navigated the ship’s electric-lit corridors in silence, not daring to hold hands. A few other passengers had begun to stir, probably roused by the foghorn. For speed and privacy, Matt led Alma straight to the upstairs mezzanine of the Grand Saloon, where breakfast was being served from a long buffet table. Matt requested the eggs shirred over crayfish tails, and Alma the delicate French crêpes with fruit and cream. The white-clad waiter took their order. Matt chose a table hidden behind a pillar, and the food came to them with almost no waiting.
He took time from his breakfast to admire Alma, framed against the ballroom’s electric-lit dome. She was no fashion plate this morning, having put on knits and flat shoes, probably in the vain hope of accompanying him.
But with hair hastily pinned up, her face was still radiant—with love for him, it thrilled and pained him to realize. Here they were together, surrounded by the clink of crystal and silver and the pleasant murmur of voices. How much longer, he wondered, could this tranquility last? Not long, at the speed the ship was going. His thoughts turned to the immediate future.
“Getting clear of the port will be our biggest challenge,” he told her. “If Liverpool is like New York, it’s full of watchers—smugglers, spies, customs agents and cops, some of ’em crooked. Someone with Big Jim’s pull might even bribe a petty official to detain you on false pretenses, turn you over to his henchmen, or deport you back to New York.”
“I’d rather die than go back,” Alma whispered, her romantic glow instantly fading. “I’d rather face a torpedo here and now than one of Jim’s…human torpedoes.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be too concerned about it. If Jim had agents aboard this ship, I’d worry about them keeping you on board and stowing you away below decks for the turnaround trip to New York…drugged, maybe, or locked in one of the empty Third Class cabins. But without having to fret about that, we should be able to get through the port. Getting you off Lusitania is only the first hurdle.”
“Wherever I go” Alma said glumly over her crêpes. “I’ll have to worry about being shanghaied like a drunken sailor. White slavery is no joke.”
Matt tried to comfort her. “It shouldn’t be so bad once the heat is off, as the crooks say. You were right to change your hair. Beautiful as it was, those blonde tresses drew attention.”
“They drew yours from the start, I could tell.”
“I couldn’t take my eyes off you. But now it’s not so bad. You’re just another lovely girl, and they’re a dime a dozen. To really hide, you should grow a mustache.” He smiled, ready to duck in case she flung a crêpe at him. “But seriously, once we get on the train in England, we can go anywhere. We’ll split off together as a couple, if it seems safer—just make sure you know where to join up with your nurse friends. Or else stay with me. I may actually be needing a secretary.”
Alma’s gaze met his, but her voice sounded dubious. “That would hardly be laying low,” she pointed out. “Not with you in the news spotlight. If we have to separate, you and I, it will be difficult, but I can do it.” She spoke deliberately, and Matt could tell it was a hard prospect for her to face. “I do have a decent livelihood ahead of me now, thanks to Hildegard and the Nurse’s League. Actually,” she picked up after a moment’s pause, “I’m more worried about Winnie and Flash. These few days have been such a life-changing experience…life-saving really, dear, for me.” She reached out and laid her hand on Matt’s beside his plate.
“We can work something out.” Discreetly he clasped her hand. “Flash and Winnie are mature enough to handle things. If we two have to split off, I’ve told Flash we’ll offer to help you to your destination. Then we can decide. There’ve been a lot of partings in this war, and there’ll be more.”
Withdrawing his hand, he took out his pocket watch. “Speaking of which, I have to go right now. Can you make it back to the cabin on your own?”
“I’d rather go with you,” she appealed to him. “I have a feeling that you’re off on another one of your secret explorations, and I don’t like to think of you doing it alone.”
“Now, don’t be silly,” Matt said, rising to avoid further interrogation. “I just have to go meet someone. The worst that could happen is losing the camera for the rest of the voyage, if Inspector Pierpoint turns up.”
Taking Alma’s arm, he led her through the saloon’s mezzanine entry. “We’re all better off if I go alone. And I’ll stand a chance of really learning something.”
“Where is this meeting supposed to be?” she asked, trying not to be petulant. “I promise not to spy on you.”
“We’re to meet on the Boat Deck forward, portside,” he said with a peck on her cheek. “But from there, we’ll certainly go somewhere out of sight.”
Turning fully to her in the now-vacant corridor, he enfolded her in a brisk embrace. “I plan to be back at the cabin by noon. But give me another hour after that before you start to worry. Promise?”
“I promise.” She sealed the vow with a lingering kiss. “All right,” she said, letting him go at last. “Good luck.”
“Good luck to us all.” With mingled regret and relief, he strode off down the passage.
* * *
After watching Matt disappear, Alma turned toward the stairway to their cabin. There must be danger, she told herself, or he would have given her the name, if only in a sealed letter. Assuming that there was some name, and that he wasn’t lying…trying, as ever, to protect her.
Well, he could take care of himself, that seemed clear. And a good thing, too, if he planned to survive the war. But of course it troubled her. She had so looked forward to their morning together, and to their whole final day. Was this to be all she would have of their new, joyous love, just a few precious hours?
Matt’s offer to take her with him in England had seemed sincere, and a part of her yearned to accept. But did he really understand himself that well? Would he be able to sustain it, or would he lose interest in her? Already he was off on his own, more in love with his job than with her. Or maybe it was a tie, a photo-finish as Flash would say.
Even marriage, in wartime, was uncertain, and she didn’t think she dared go from one impossible situation straight into another. She would not risk becoming a burden to the man she loved. Better to prove, first, that she could sustain herself, and to have something to fall back on, even if it meant the risk of losing him.
How dismal. Their talk over breakfast had turned her thoughts to the future, to their parting and the dim, terrible times ahead. Would her pure happiness of this morning ever return, or would she now live in dread, vainly wanting to cling t
o Matt and hold back time itself? Had the grieving already begun?
Consumed by such thoughts as she drew near their stateroom, she was slow to recognize what stood before her eyes in the corridor. It was a man, large and ungainly, clad all in filthy gray-black, his face and hands hideously smudged with soot. It must be one of the coal stokers, the Black Gang as they called them.
But no, as he came near, that wasn’t the gang she knew him from.
It was Knucks, Big Jim’s henchman, the one she’d eluded on the pier. No doubt of it…in spite of all the soot, the ugly leer taking shape on his face made him familiar.
“Well, Missy, fancy runnin’ into you,” the specter said, showing his yellow teeth in a grin. “If it ain’t little Maisie, right here to greet me…in your new hair and all. Is that a wig? C’mere, Maisie Thornton, you!”
In a heartbeat Alma turned and ran. She dashed away down the corridor, hearing the hoodlum’s heavy steps start up behind her. It was still early, and no one was out in the passage. Nobody to hear, no door standing open. She ran forward a few dozen paces, and then up the stairway…heading toward Matt, who knew this threat and had dealt with it before. Better, in any case, that she led Knucks away from their cabin and the innocent lovers inside. Luckily, her nurse’s shoes were fit for running.
But on the stairs, her first burst of panicked speed was already wearing off. Each breath seared her lungs as she climbed, and her legs lost their impulsive strength. Behind her the mobster’s clumping footfalls consumed two or three stairs at a time, relentless. She could even hear Knucks’s coarse breaths, like the impatient rasping of a lion on the hunt.
Reaching the stairway’s end, she burst out the door into fog, thick and swirling, rolling aft against the ship’s motion. She lunged forward into its flow, flinging the stair door behind her. But it never slammed, caught instead by her pursuer. She dashed past lifeboats, swung outboard now with ropes and oars ready. She thought of hiding in one, but the fog wasn’t thick enough, and her nemesis was too close. Had it been a mistake, she wondered, to come out on deck? She sensed that when Knucks caught up with her, he would fling her straight over the rail, without even time to plead for her life.
“C’mon, little missy,” she heard him panting behind her, “Wait up for me, I won’t hurt you! I just want the money back, and the other stuff you took. Maybe a little kiss, too, that would be nice!” After his taunts came the grating blast of the foghorn, which startled her, almost making her stumble.
No one was there on the fogbound deck to see or hear, no strollers idling in the damp chill. The officer’s bridge was still out of sight, no telling how far ahead. Anyone above on the Marconi Deck might see the chase, but they’d be helpless to interfere. She had no breath left to call for help. Running was all-important.
“Atta girl, Maisie,” her pursuer taunted, “slow down and let me nab you! A fast little runner you are, but pretty soon you’ll run out of ship.”
It was hopeless, she knew. She could actually feel the impact of his steps on the deck underneath her pelting feet, could almost feel his hands on her and his hot breath on her neck. Then she felt it, one big fist scuffing her shoulder.
In a sudden, futile impulse of defense, she spun around and struck him across the face with the back of her hand, even as he collided with her and bowled her backward down the deck. “Get away from me,” she heard herself gasping. “Leave me alone!”
“You little hussy, you’ll pay for that.” Looming tall and barely brushing the side of his face where her blow had struck, Knucks darted out one hand and seized her shoulder. He pinned her painfully by it as she tried to twist free, and clamped his other hand over her mouth. “Now honey, don’t you bite!”
Just then from inboard, other footsteps came racing. “That’s enough, Knucks! Let her alone!”
It was Matt, and he didn’t wait for the hoodlum to obey. Rushing in with fists cocked, he struck Knucks on the face and body. The goon was forced to defend himself, letting Alma pull free.
“Go ahead, run,” Matt called to Alma over his shoulder, darting in like a prizefighter to deliver more blows. She staggered back a few steps, but stayed to watch, utterly exhausted and still captive.
“It’s you, the lousy scribbler,” Knucks growled. “You’re no Jack Dempsey!”
Without even bothering to go for a weapon, the big ruffian seized hold of his attacker in both long arms and wrestled him over to the rail. “I got no time to mess with you, Vane,” he said, applying his full size and leverage against the flailing reporter. “If anybody’s goin’ in for a swim, it’s gonna be you first!” Snarling his threats, he bent the lesser man back over the water.
Alma, instead of running, used the one thing she’d learned in all her days with the gangsters. Coming up behind Knucks as the two men grappled, she aimed a kick straight up between his legs with the toe of her sturdy nurse’s brogan. She felt it connect.
“Why, you rotten floozy!” Knucks yelped. He faltered with the pain, but still pinned his male assailant off-balance against the rail with one arm. The other hand he whipped around his back, pulling a pistol out from under his grimy coat. “I’ve had enough of fooling with you!” He pointed the gun at Alma, but then said, “Nah, yer boyfriend first.”
He pressed the muzzle against Matt’s chest, waiting for…what?
The foghorn blast came then, and in the same instant the gunshot hammered out, the report dulled and dislocated by the fog and shuddering noise.
To Alma, in a much deeper fog of horror, it all seemed unreal, impossible…as if the shot had come from nowhere, from somewhere outside. She watched the unfolding tableau as the big figure of Knucks, not Matt, grasped his chest, dropped the gun, and turned paler underneath his soot. Suddenly from behind her, a figure brushed past toward the giant and, with Matt’s help, shoved him back against the rail. Then Knucks went over, his big, thrashing shoes the last thing to disappear in the fog. The two men stood looking down as a faint splash sounded, and then turned back to her. Beside Matt stood the well-dressed Mr. Kroger, the German spy, pocketing his own pistol. While brushing off and straightening his fur-trimmed coat, he glanced down and kicked the gangster’s fallen weapon overboard after its owner.
“Somebody might have heard that shot,” Matt said, even as Alma flew into his arms, sobbing with relief. “And the body will wash all the way astern—someone could see it. We’d better get going.”
“Come along,” Dirk Kroger said in his gruff accent, leading the way. “I’ll take you where no one would ever look.”
Chapter 35
Envoy
Palm fronds scraped their jagged edges together as Colonel Edward Mandell House pushed his way through dense jungle foliage. Occasional cool drops fell onto his hatless head from the trees that arched high above in humid stillness.
The profusion of green sprays and bright blooms, orchid and palm, fern and cycad, dazzled him. But Colonel House, raised on dry Texan plains, found the foliage damp and suffocating, until at last his small party broke through into sunlight.
“Quaht a display, Suh Edwuhd, ah must admit,” he told his guide, Viscount Sir Edward Grey. He thankfully followed the British Foreign Minister’s coat-tails toward the exit of the sweltering greenhouse. He’d seen enough of this Crystal Palace, built for the Great Exposition of 1910.
“All it needs now,” House said, “is some of your rayuh birds to flap their braht wings about, and liven it up a bit.”
“My ornithology collection, you mean,” Grey said with a polite smile to his guest. “Since this war has broken out, I fear it is sadly neglected. You’ll find most of my feathered friends at the British Museum–stuffed and mounted, I’m sorry to say.”
The Viscount paused as a liveried attendant opened the temperature-sealed door. He then led his American guest out onto the broad walkways of Kew Gardens in the London suburbs.
“An amazing place, Suh,” H
ouse said, looking back at the mountainous glass domes of the botanical garden. “These exhibits show off the wonders of your British colonies all round the wuhld, and to fine advantage. I wish ouah President Wilson could be here to see it.” He felt Grey place a hand on his shoulder, an un-British familiarity that showed his eagerness to please.
“Colonel House, I hope that you, as your President’s confidant, will convey to him my personal invitation to come and see what small wonders we have to offer, anytime. I would love to go to America once again and witness your country’s latest marvels. But this war will keep me occupied awhile, it seems.”
“I understand, Suh. In these dark days, as you so eloquently put it, the lights have gone out all over Europe.” Accompanying the impeccably clad Foreign Minister down the walk, House saw fit to further echo Sir Edward’s already famous words. “Do you really think those lights will not be lit again in our lifetimes? Won’t there be peace?”
“Yes, peace, quite likely,” Grey said, “but what kind of peace after such terrible, total war? The losses have already been so great on both sides! But an end to it must come eventually. Perhaps your President Wilson can travel here someday to have a part in making the peace.”
“I’ll tell him,” House said. “I think the President would like that. He very much prefers peace, of course, Suh. And he’s managed to keep us out of this war, so far at least.”
“Well, we’d best be getting you to the palace,” Grey said, stopping at the waiting car. “I daren’t make you late to see His Majesty.”
At their approach, the chauffeur in gray livery had gone to the front of the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost and hand-cranked the engine. Now, with the motor briskly chugging, he held open the rear door for his passengers. When they were comfortably in place, the driver seated himself before the steering wheel at the right front.
As the open motorcar rumbled out onto the road across Kew Bridge over the Thames, the two Edwards spoke freely. For House it was a welcome chance to take out a Carolina cigar.
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