Lusitania Lost
Page 27
Slim indeed, now that he had abandoned the rich hunting grounds of the Irish Channel and pointed his craft westward, back toward the Atlantic. The fog, at least, allowed them to cruise on the surface and restore their batteries and air, with less risk of being sighted from the south coast of Ireland.
But that ended in mid-morning, when the thinning mist revealed a trawler heading out to sea. Schwieger ordered a dive, since you couldn’t tell nowadays whether such a fishing boat might be cruising in service to the Royal Navy, carrying a wireless set or a 2-pounder gun.
He then kept U-20 on their westward course, but submerged. And wisely so, for within two hours they heard the thudding engines of a large, fast vessel passing overhead, possibly a destroyer or something bigger.
Could it be Lusitania? The temptation was delicious. Schwieger ordered the sub to maximum periscope depth, clambered up into the conning tower, and raised the tube. As its lens cleared the bright, calm surface, he saw tall smokestacks and masts bearing two massive crow’s nests. Those were gunnery control stations set above the smoke of battle, he knew, not tourist lookouts. It was a warship, a cruiser of respectable size built late in the last century. That kind of vessel would make an easy target, providing she was torpedoed from beneath the surface and unable to bring her gun batteries into play. Otto in U-9 had sunk three of these white elephants in an hour’s work last September. The Aboukir, Hogue, and Cressey were now names that echoed Germany’s naval might.
Elated at the prospect of an easy kill, Schwieger ordered a course change in pursuit, and he called Lanz up to identify the target. The new Obersteuermann Voegele was nowhere in sight, but there was no time for that now.
“An old cruiser, Eclipse class, top speed 17 knots or so, Herr Kapitan,” Lanz reported from beside him.
Following around with his periscope to compensate for the U-20’s turn, the pilot spoke assuredly.
“Must be Juno of the south Ireland fleet, likely running back into Queenstown. A poor torpedo shot from this angle.” Lanz surrendered the scope back to Schwieger.
“Yes, and they know we’re in these waters,” the captain said with a sigh. “Maybe that trawler spotted us and got off a wireless message. They certainly have news by now of the two Harrison Liners we sank.”
This Juno was heading for port at top speed, and after a moment it became clear that she was zigzagging as well. A giddy experience for the warship’s crew, Schwieger thought, swerving at high speed. Yet such an evasive tactic made it all but impossible to plot a torpedo track that would intercept the ship’s course at the proper angle. He could not waste his last three “eels” taking pot-shots, so he called off the chase and resumed his westward course.
They’ll all be running for shelter now, he thought, keeping his disappointment to himself. A dismal voyage ahead. Warships, cruise ships, freighters and dairy boats, all have reason to fear us.
Chapter 37
Deck Watch
Winifred and Flash were delighted to see the fog lifting. After a late breakfast and a leisurely stroll astern, they lingered on the covered promenade to watch the morning vapors scatter.
“The others should be up by now,” Winnie said. “I wonder what they’re doing?”
“What’s the hurry?” Flash placed a sheltering arm around her shoulders. “Let’s stay and enjoy our time together.”
Before the two lovers’ gaze, the Atlantic played a tantalizing game of hide-and-seek. Here through the parting mists shone towering bastions and floating galleons of dazzling white cloud. Meanwhile over there opened out a patch of sunlit sea, a beckoning corridor between islands of fogbound mystery. As the couple stood at the portside rail with arms enwrapped, they saw in that changing seascape a reflection of their own formless hopes and of their mingled tender, indefinable feelings. Even the last remnant of nighttime chill was welcome, providing them an excuse to huddle tightly together.
“Oh, look, I can see the land,” Winnie cried. “Right there, it’s so green!”
She pointed to a brief ribbon of verdant horizon that unrolled before them, soon again to be swallowed up by drifting mist.
“It’s the Emerald Isle, good ol’ Ireland,” Flash proclaimed with spirit. “That green is solid shamrocks, you can bet. I’ve heard the four-leaf clovers grow like crazy in the spring.”
“And here comes the blarney too, already,” Winnie chided him. “Don’t try to beguile me with gab, you red-headed leprechaun.” She planted a kiss on her companion’s lips.
“Mm, begorrah,” Flash said, dipping his head back in for another peck.
“Oh, and listen, do you hear it?” Winnie burst out suddenly, making her lover look up and attend to the silence. “The foghorn, I mean. It’s stopped.”
“Why yes, it has,” he realized. “It must be clearing up ahead.”
The two leaned out over the rail to gaze forward, shading their eyes. Their magical ship seemed to be racing on through the patchy gray into dazzling whiteness.
“The future looks bright,” Flash remarked, holding Winnie tight to keep from losing her.
“I love it bright,” she said, turning down the floppy brim of her hat to shade her eyes. “I love it dark, too, late at night in our room! I love you,” she added, ending with another kiss.
They stayed there in perfect union, hugging the rail and each other. With the ship’s steady progress, the rags and fringes of fog seemed to rise up before them like a tattered playhouse curtain, to vanish astern, forgotten. What remained was a broad expanse of twinkling blue, bordered by a low, flat, green coastline.
“How lovely,” Winnie said, cuddling close. “A cheerful day.”
Other passengers who’d emerged on deck to see the fog burn off were revealed now in the morning light. They warmed themselves in the sudden brightness, but most didn’t seem elated. Instead of sighs and laughter, many spoke in hurried murmurs, with an occasional shrill note of anxiety ringing out. One family with bags and blankets appeared to have slept all night in the deck chairs. A bald man wandered past, his shape distorted by the impossible bulk of a life jacket strapped on beneath his loose overcoat.
“Why do they seem so unhappy?” Winnie asked, glancing lazily around. “It’s such a beautiful morning.”
Flash stayed in their embrace, barely shrugging. “I guess they’re afraid it’ll be a beautiful day for submarines, too.”
“Well then, I hope the submarines are very, very happy,” Winnie proclaimed. “Everyone should be happy, I don’t care.” She hugged him tighter. “Really, Flash, I wouldn’t mind if a torpedo hit us right now! It’s worth it just to be here, the two of us together. It’s like heaven.”
“We have this moment, this snapshot in time,” Flash affirmed, holding her tight. “What else can matter?”
One cheerful voice did chime out on deck behind them. “Oh look, here they are, the lovebirds!” It was Hazel addressing her sister. “They’re not worried about U-boats, mines, or anything. Isn’t it adorable?” Coming up behind the couple, the young nurse stood on tiptoe to give them each a peck on the cheek.
“So tell me,” Florence appealed, following after. “What do we do if we see a periscope, anyway? Shoot it?”
“Just smile and pose for the picture,” Flash answered mildly. “Not much else to do, except pour on a full head of steam and run for port.”
“Well, if one comes, I want to be the first to spot it,” Florence declared, taking the rail beside Winnie. “I’ll go and tell the Captain myself!”
“Where’s Alma?” Flash asked, looking around. “Is she with Hildegard?”
“No,” Hazel said. “Miss Hildegard should be along any minute now, but we didn’t run into Alma.”
“Oh, is that so?” Flash said, disengaging from Winnie. “She never came back from breakfast. I thought she’d be with you.” He turned to Winnie. “Did you see her at all this morning, my darling?”
“Well, Matt had an assignment to go to. I’m supposed to look out for Alma while he’s gone. I imagined she’d be with the group.”
“She probably just went along with Matt to his meeting or…what was the assignment?” Winnie asked.
“No, Win, I doubt it.” Ignoring her question in the mixed group, Flash gazed fore and aft along the promenade. “I’ll have to check the cabin.”
“It’s not as if anything could have happened,” Hazel reassured them all. “We’re far away from New York and all that mess. And Alma is so happy these days, she wouldn’t let anything interfere with it.” The young nurse sighed in envy. “She’s probably walking around on a cloud, just like the two of you.”
“As long as she doesn’t try walking on water,” Flash said. He turned back to see their chaperone approaching. “Miss Hildegard, good morning! Have you seen Alma?”
“Why no, not since yesterday,” the chief nurse said. “You men are supposed to be looking after her,” she added sternly.
“Well, if you see her, hang onto her,” Flash said. “We should all stick together on this last day of the voyage. Winnie, you wait here with the group, and I’ll go to the stateroom. She’s probably there.”
“Shouldn’t I come too?” Winnie appealed in a whisper. “It’s not more cloak-and-dagger, is it?”
She looked positively distraught at the idea of being separated from Flash, and he turned to embrace her for a long moment.
“Don’t worry, darling,” he murmured in her ear. “She’s right, though, we do have to look after Alma. It’s hard to tear myself away, but I’ve got to go, my love. I’ll hurry right back.”
As he left, Florence called brightly after him, “Be sure and knock first! You wouldn’t want to walk in on anything.”
But he was already gone down the companionway.
“It’s always a mistake to depend too much on men,” Hildegard grimly declared as he left.
To this there was no reply, but when Winnie came wordlessly to her side, the elder nurse wrapped her in a motherly embrace that she found comforting.
Before they’d been alone long, the women were deep in a conversation on what was uppermost in everyone’s mind, the threat of U-boats. On the subject of the bloodthirsty Huns, Winnie found she’d had a softening of the heart.
“I don’t see why everyone is so upset,” she observed. “This morning I heard a gentleman saying in the lounge, very firmly, ‘What creature that calls himself a man would send a torpedo into a ship full of women and children?’ And I agree with him. I don’t think any sea officer, British or German, would do that.”
“The Germans wouldn’t do it?” Hazel demanded. “Look what they did to little Belgium!”
Nurse Hildegard added, “My dear, one thing you’ll learn as a nurse in our modern time is that personal cruelty is slight, almost meaningless, against the impersonal cruelty of shells, bombs, jagged wire, and now poison gas and who knows what! It doesn’t take individual cruelty any longer to do terrible things to people.”
But Winnie was stubborn. “The Kaiser might give the order to torpedo us,” she defended stoutly. “The British Lords of the Admiralty might dare him to go ahead and do it. But the sailors wouldn’t take the command, the sub-mariners would disobey. There would be a mutiny and a trial. If it became enough of a scandal, it could bring this whole silly war to an end.”
“A ship’s mutiny on a submarine under the ocean?” Hazel asked. “It would take quite a reporter to sniff that one out. I doubt if even your boyfriend could cover it.”
“Well, if Flash was there with his camera, we’d all see it on the front pages soon enough.”
Sometime after being mentioned, Flash returned to the group. “Did you find her?” Winnie asked, running to his side.
“No,” he said gravely, shaking his head. “No note there for us, either. It doesn’t look as if anything has been disturbed since we left. I don’t think she’s been back to the rooms.”
“So, then,” Winnie reasoned, “she’ll certainly be with Matt. Let’s just go and find them both to make sure. Do you know where to look?”
“Well,” Flash admitted. “I know his meeting was going to be on the Boat Deck forward, port side. We can go up and see. Do the rest of you mind staying here?”
“No, not at all.” Miss Hildegard, who’d taken possession of some deck chairs, spoke up decisively. “The view of the land is so comforting, after all this time at sea, I think we’d love to sit and watch it unfold.”
“Yes,” Hazel said. “It seems so close you could almost swim to it.”
“And look, there’s a lighthouse,” Florence added, pointing ahead to a black-and-white banded tower on a broad headland. “How pretty, welcoming us across the ocean.”
“All right, then, we’ll go,” Flash answered, steering Winnie away. “You ladies stay here, but be on the lookout.”
Chapter 38
Bearings
Captain Turner instantly recognized the lighthouse that the fog unveiled to port. The black-and-white banded tower, rising out of low castle ruins on a broad Irish promontory, was the Old Head of Kinsale, a landfall familiar to countless generations of seafarers.
He now knew their location. Not perfectly, perhaps, but he no longer needed to worry about the submarine reported last night off Fastnet Rock, which lay well astern. It was all but certain that his ship had passed any such danger in the fog. At the speed Lusi was traveling, no submarine yet invented could overtake her.
Just now at eleven bells, a new Admiralty message had arrived, this one in a more secure code requiring sign and countersign. Once a mutual cipher was established, the transmission began: “Make certain the Lusitania gets this.”
This promise of real news, after the vague, general warning that had been broadcast all night, was tantalizing, and Captain Turner hurried into the chartroom to decipher the text. It read, “Submarines active in the southern part of the Irish Channel. Last heard of twenty miles south of Coningbeg lightship.”
That definitely seemed promising, although a part of the promise was of future trouble. Coningbeg lightship, at the very mouth of St. George’s Channel between England and Ireland, lay at least a hundred miles ahead. If the submarines had just been spotted there, they could hardly be in his immediate vicinity. The message seemed practically to guarantee his ship’s safety, for the moment at least.
Of course, there could be even more U-boats than those reported. There was no absolute certainty. To maintain his lookout for periscopes, Turner had already ordered the watch doubled. He now conveyed a message to his crew to report anything suspicious, even a broomstick. And he kept their course bearing east by northeast, inward toward the coast, to raise the horizon line and obtain a definite landfall.
Then, just after lunch at thirteen bells, a second cipher arrived, stating, “Submarine five miles south of Cape Clear, proceeding west when sighted at ten a.m.”
More good news, since Cape Clear lay even farther astern than Fastnet. The U-boat that had been haunting the western sea lanes during the night had given up, its course taking it off around the Atlantic side of Ireland.
Now, with their position known, Turner could dare to feel confident. No Royal Navy escort was yet in sight—but perhaps Juno was off somewhere chasing after the marauding subs.
The best indication of there being no imminent danger was that the Admiralty hadn’t ordered him into Queenstown harbor, which lay just ahead. The port was well-defended, with forts, patrol craft and a frequently mine-swept channel entrance. They could still send him in, of course, if trouble arose in the next hour or two. Turner and the RMS Lusitania were no strangers to the place, having stopped in there many times when Queenstown was a
regular port of call for the Irish immigrant passage. He had also been diverted there in January while commanding the passenger liner Transylvania. A submarine terror was then underway, with three ships sunk in one day. The Cunarder, transporting four giant 14-inch guns strapped to its foredeck, complete with Bethlehem steel turrets for the Royal Navy, had been considered a vulnerable target. Luckily the ship, passengers, and vital cargo had all been saved.
As the Captain, on whose shoulders the final responsibility for his ship’s welfare rested, Turner could even take the Lusitania into port by his own order. But the Admiralty certainly knew best and could surely guess his whereabouts. If they saw no need to run for cover, neither did he.
All that remained, then, was to get a precise fix on his ship’s location, to navigate the coastlines or possibly that mine-free channel. And here was his chance. After ordering a turn to eastward following the coast, he assigned his new second officer Bisset, or Bestic, whatever his name was, to take a four-point bearing off the Kinsale light. This series of three time-readings, taken as the ship’s course reached angles of 45, 90 and 135 degrees to the striped tower, would require the ship to steam in a straight line for some time at a constant speed. But the course data thus obtained would prove essential to avoid the perils ahead—in night and fog, perhaps, and whatever his ship’s final destination.