Lusitania Lost

by Leonard Carpenter

  Schwieger hoped the searchers hadn’t noticed his U-20 yet, and wouldn’t spot it during the nervous moments it took to dive. He watched the nearest destroyer in his attack periscope, then swung the heavy apparatus to glimpse two others before the lens submerged. There was no evident change in their course, so very likely the mists had concealed the low profile of his Unterseeboot.

  He wouldn’t dare raise the scope back to the surface anytime soon, much less launch a torpedo. He wasn’t particularly afraid of the enemy’s explosive depth charges, which hadn’t proven effective so far in the war. But if the English knew that he was in the vicinity, they could spread out and wait for his air and battery power to run low. Then if he tried to surface they would ram him, or just scuttle his fragile craft with shellfire. And without mercy—these Englanders weren’t known to accept surrender or take any prisoners from U-boats.

  Now the crew sat silent as they settled toward the sea bottom. Listening, they heard the heavy thrashing of a pair of steam-driven propellers overhead, with others churning nearby. The noises reached a peak, then subsided. Strange; it was almost as if the British had known they would be here.

  Soon afterward came the slight thump and shock as their own keel grounded in North Sea sand. With electric motors stilled, they listened, hoping—but the churning of the destroyer engines did not cease; it merely changed pitch and frequency. The enemy ships were turning, ending their patrol perhaps, or searching for a known target. There was no telling how long they would hunt the sea lanes off this heavily trafficked promontory, the easternmost tip of Scotland.

  What brought his U-boat so far north, halfway to the Arctic Circle, was caution and the harsh necessity of war. In the early months of the blockade, it had been easy to set a course due west from Germany, then dip south around England into the rich hunting grounds of the eastern Atlantic. But of late, with the English Channel heavily mined, chained off with anti-submarine nets, and patrolled by sub-hunting trawlers, the risks were too great. It was necessary to detour farther north, through chillier waters around the desolate tip of the British archipelago.

  And now, with anti-submarine warfare heating up the Irish Channel too, Schwieger had half a mind to circumnavigate Ireland as well and pass down the Atlantic side of that island. He wasn’t sure that Fregattenkapitan Bauer back in Emden would entirely approve of the detour. But then, his commander always championed the absolute freedom of U-boat captains to make independent choices.

  Schwieger knew he’d better come up with something. The previous day and night had brought them nothing except a load of fish purchased from a passing German trawler. It had all been easy surface cruising, except while sneaking past the approaches to the port of Edinburgh. They had sighted one small steamer there, but the weather was too rough to plot a proper attack.

  So now began this tiresome skulking underwater. When the destroyers’ engine noises gradually faded, Schwieger ordered his officers to raise U-20 off the bottom and cruise due north at ten meters depth, going at a mere six knots to nurse his batteries. The rest of the crew he advised to go to sleep and save air. He and his pilot would stay awake and steer the boat through the subsea dangers ahead, past Moray Firth and the Orkney Isles, which guarded the menacing British naval anchorage at Scapa Flow. His mission, after all, was to find and sink troop transports–or, failing that, to choke off Britain’s vital sea commerce by destroying merchant traffic.

  Near the day’s end, Schwieger raised his periscope and saw nothing—no targets, no warships. A good thing, with his batteries almost discharged and air depleted.

  Surfacing, he went topside and scanned the horizon from the tower. Against the sun’s dying light, he was able to confirm their landfall in the desolate Orkneys. Now it was time to run on the surface and recharge batteries on diesel power, westward and then south, toward the rich hunting grounds along the Atlantic approaches to England.

  With the crew wakeful, and without risk of being overheard on the open ocean, he entertained the ship over the loudspeakers by playing one of his favorite gramophone recordings, Die Meistersinger, The Master Singers of Nuremberg, by the national favorite composer Richard Wagner. The music’s vaulting crescendos and plunging descents, reminiscent of the wildly romantic landscape of the Alps, might help to relieve the strain of this long and arduous hunt. And they were particularly well-suited to the heights and depths of submersible voyaging.

  Chapter 12

  Outward Bound

  Steaming into the first sunrise of the voyage, the Lusitania didn’t take long to awaken. Crew and passengers soon began to venture outside in the bright morning, to find the early sun warm and the trailing breeze mild. The great ship lay on the blue-gray sea like a compass needle pointing steadily east, with the smoke from her funnels rising and dissipating in the dawn sky.

  Flash, after a quick shave with his new Gillette safety razor in the public lavatory, tried to capture the sea scene in a photograph. Still aglow from the evening hours that he’d spent with his brand new sweetheart Winnie, he felt invigorated and restless. Even so he’d been in no hurry to disturb his sleeping cabinmates, but had taken his camera out on a walk instead.

  Flash understood about shipboard romances, being himself the product of one. His father and mother, on their respective immigrant journeys from Sweden and Norway, had met in steerage on the White Star Line’s Germanic steamship some two dozen years ago. Fleeing the hardships of the Old World, they’d been full of hope and, evidently, passion for the new one. While they both claimed to have pledged their love on Ellis Island, during the long wait for resident status, Flash had reason to suspect that their union had come earlier on shipboard. But with discreet Scandinavian vagueness about arrival and anniversary dates, they’d always managed to turn aside his guesses.

  To young Lars as a newsman, their broken English made it frustratingly easy for them to dodge his questions and pretend uncertainty. But even so he was grateful. Since English was his parents’ one common language, he himself had learned only American speech as a boy. In an age when being One Hundred Percent American was in fashion, he wasn’t burdened in life with a heavy foreign accent and old-world beliefs. His first name Lars was an impediment, but he’d been able to shake that off. And without his “pure” Brooklyn-ese, he might not have been able to land such a plum job as news reporter and photographer–and now, a war reporter.

  The current object of his affection, Winnie, was an all-American girl too, a real plum. He didn’t have to ponder as yet whether their flirtation would lead to love and marriage. Unlike his parents, he and she were outbound from America. They met on the verge of travel and adventures that would certainly separate them in the very near future. For the duration of this war, it seemed to him, there could be no thought of settling down.

  In view of this, Flash had no intention of bringing a nice girl to ruin. But then, Winnie was a modern like himself, a city kid with a nurse’s knowledge and a matter-of-fact outlook. Keeping her sweet smile always in mind, he was interested in seeing how far it could go–maybe a week, maybe forever. For now, with her snugly asleep, he could warm himself on the sun-bright deck, take in the blue sky and sea, and feel alive.

  When he returned to their cabin, the others were already rising. Matt on his settee, bachelor-like, was folding and smoothing his blankets for concealment in the Louis-the-Sixteenth lowboy. Accordingly Flash tidied his sleeping place on the lounge. The two women could be heard bustling about and murmuring in the bedchamber, and soon they opened their door to allow their hosts access to the private bathroom.

  “Well, the men are up,” Winnie’s cheery voice greeted them. “Oh, and see how tidy! They make such good housekeepers! All we need now is breakfast.”

  By mutual agreement, Flash traded his First Class meal ticket for Alma’s in Second. That way she would avoid going astern and possibly being recognized by anyone in the pay of Knucks and Hogan. Flash could dine with the other young
ladies–but when he and Winnie left the cabin, they agreed to go separately. He felt that his red hair made him too memorable as an associate of Matt’s. Besides going his own way, he wore a visor cap to partly conceal his carrot-top.

  Flash found the Second Cabin dining hall to be a two-level, slightly less spacious version of the Saloon Class eatery he’d seen last night. The room’s cutaway mezzanine was circled by the same white Greek columns, but lacking the rich gilded trim. The décor was white paint set off by green-patterned carpeting and swivel-chair upholstery, behind white tablecloths without the lace. Flash didn’t much miss the mirrors, rose-tinted wall panels, or the hovering paintings of semi-nudes lining the central dome in First Class. His own four nymphs seemed to him just as beautiful and far more animated.

  As Winnie joined her nurse friends in the dining lounge, Flash kept apart and let them reunite. Taking a seat at the next row of tables alongside some neatly-dressed male passengers, he gave the men his nickname and joined in their casual talk.

  “A war correspondent, eh?” said one lanky mustached bloke, a Canadian and proud of it. “Well, keep your eyes peeled for me in the trenches. I’m headed off to Brixton for Army officer’s academy. I hear the training period has been shortened before they send you off to the front, so it may not take long.”

  “You don’t seem too worried about it.”

  “What, the front lines? Hell, no! The sooner the better, I say, to thump these arrogant Krauts and teach them a lesson. I’ll see you out there. What about you gents?” he asked the men across the table. “You joining up?”

  “No thanks, no front lines, the shorelines is good enough for me!” The speaker, seated to Flash’s left, was a short fellow in a motorman’s cap. “I’m a steamfitter, so I’ll go where the money’s good. Right now that’s Liverpool an’ the shipyards. Better pay than Biloxi, where I’m from.”

  “Well, at least you’re behind the war effort. And you?” The Canadian dubiously eyed a skinny Irishman across the table on Flash’s right.

  The man gave him back an elfin wink and said, “Nay, I’ll not be a-seein’ you at the front, sorry to say. I’m only off to County Cork for the summer, to visit me dear ol’ mum. And your English lords won’t be a-draftin’ o’ me neither, ’cause I’m a Yank now.” He patted his tweed suit’s breast pocket. “I have here me papers as a full-fledged citizen of the US an’ A.”

  The Canadian eyed him. “Made it good in the States, did you?” he asked skeptically.

  “Good enough,” the man winked. “Boston’s the place. And dare I say that on the River Charles docks, lumpin’ cargo, I’ve done as much to support your war as any man here. Though I don’t much care which side the stuff goes to,” he added pertly.

  “Hmmph.” The Canadian, visibly provoked by the Irishman’s attitude, muttered aside to the others, “Just listen to this little Mick, was his mother a Hun?” He sneered. “Nah, he’s just one of Sir Roger Casement’s Sinn Fein traitors, trying to throw in with Germany.”

  The Irishman shrugged it off, speaking to no one in particular. “These second-hand English Canooks are surely true to their empire. But it matters little to me, since I’m no longer a subject of His Royal Majesty.” Finishing his breakfast, he rose from his seat and departed, to a farewell snort from his adversary.

  Once the threat of fisticuffs had receded, Flash followed the table talk with half an ear. His nurses, meanwhile, were having a jolly time, issuing frequent shrills of laughter even under Hildegard’s stern eye. He couldn’t help glancing their way, as did the other admiring males at his table. Watching Winnie’s lighthearted manner with her friends, alternately gay and demure, knew he’d found something special.

  “And what about you, Red?” the pushy Canadian was asking him over breakfast. “Any chance you’ll catch the bug and enlist?”

  Flash smiled. “Not likely, as a war reporter, not on either side. The news business makes me too cynical for that. But I can do a lot to inform people, and maybe even shorten this war. There’s a growing fashion, some call it photo-journalism, of combining words with live, action pictures that don’t lie. They make cameras now, collapsible and light, that record dozens of photo negatives on a roll of celluloid film. It all fits into a tiny canister instead of bulky glass plates. The Germans and Austrians are ahead of us right now in camera design. But pictures can be sent by wire too nowadays, using the telephotograph. And motion pictures…did you notice, there was a movie crew on the dock yesterday, using special naphtha lights for close-up shots. They recorded our departure from the top of the Cunard shed. The trend is to photograph actual news events as they happen, and I plan to get in on the ground floor.”

  His enthusiasm suitably awed and silenced the Canadian. The others soon turned to discussing the vibration of the ship at cruising speed, which could not only be felt through the fixed dining table, but seen in concentric rings inside their teacups. Flash knew this was limited to the Second Class quarters astern over the propellers, but he couldn’t share his knowledge, lest he be accused of slumming. After finishing his ample breakfast, he rose to follow his nurses out.

  The deck bridge forward was unguarded, so they contrived to meet again amidships, well out of sight of Second Class. Flash and Winnie had independently agreed on a protocol, in diplomatic parlance a double entente: if they passed each other in mixed company and wished to get together alone, each would go and wait for several minutes at the same spot on the opposite side of the ship, port or starboard, for a rendezvous.

  But this morning all five of them, Flash, Winnie, Hildegard and the two sisters, felt safe going forward to the sunny starboard rail of the Boat Deck, just past the Verandah Café. The promenade there was less crowded, frequented only by the best class of stroller.

  “Well, Winnie,” Hazel was innocently saying to her friend as Flash arrived, “you and Alma are getting along in the world. Just one day at sea, and you’ve already made it up to First Class!”

  Winnie gave her a wan look, with a worldly glance to the others. “Yes, it’s true,” she confessed, affecting boredom. “It’s all just a race to see who can finish up the voyage in the Captain’s cabin. Alma’s already setting her cap for First Mate.”

  “Now, girls, don’t you tease,” Hildegard warned as she caught up with the group.

  “No indeed, Hazel,” Florence chimed in, scolding her sister. “You watch that kind of talk! Our Alma isn’t some cheap baggage who runs off with men!” She looked around indignantly, then suddenly appeared flustered. “And neither are you, Winnie,” she added, blushing and hardly daring to look up at Flash.

  “Well, how is it up in First, anyway?” Hazel continued, examining the well-dressed people on the upper promenade. “Is everything up here gold-plated?”

  “Well, I haven’t gotten to see the Grand Saloon yet,” Winnie said. “The stateroom is darling, two rooms really, with lots of paint and decoration. And no double beds,” she added with a prim look at Flo. “The parlor has couches that serve very nicely as berths, single ones. Don’t they, my dear?” she inquired playfully of Flash.

  “Fairly comfortable,” he agreed, laughing. “But you have to curl up to fit, and if the ship rocks too much, it could dump you out on deck.”

  “Even so,” Winnie went on grandly, “the lamps and curtains are adorable, and the plumbing is simply divine. Maybe sometime we can sneak you girls in for a look.”

  “Oh, that would be delightful,” Florence said, perking up.

  “Let us please save the visit for the last day of the voyage,” Hildegard declared. “We don’t want to call any unwanted attention to Alma, and spoil the whole trip for everyone.”

  “No–or have that nosy steward hanging around anymore,” Hazel said.

  “We’ll wait until we’re almost there, safe in English waters,” Florence agreed.

  “Well, all right,” Winnie said. “But I’d hardly call it safe, when there�
��ll be German U-boats lurking all around. Not to mention floating mines, aeroplanes and Zeppelins coming after us.” She huffed in disgust. “We could all be sunk to the bottom, and if we do make it over to the Continent, we’re just as likely to be caught and raped by Huns.”

  “Winifred Crocker, what a thing to say!” Nurse Hildegard waxed indignant. “The United Nursing Service League is better organized than that,” she haughtily added. “Besides, we shan’t be anywhere near the front, not if we’re assigned to a convalescent center or a refugee hospital.”

  “Well, what does that matter?” Winnie challenged back. “The Huns raped all of Belgium, didn’t they? That’s a whole country, even if it was just a little one—burning cities, poisoning wells, putting babies on bayonets!”

  “Now, Winnie, don’t exaggerate and frighten the others,” Hildegard admonished. “And don’t you give in to this war hysteria. The Austrians and Germans aren’t savages, after all.”

  “Well, it was the Kaiser who first named them Huns, not me,” Winnie said. “They do terrible things wherever they go.”

  Flash felt obliged to step in. “Some of those war atrocity stories are overblown,” he said. “The babies on bayonets thing, nobody’s ever photographed that. And raping a whole country, that’s just propaganda.”

  “Well, what about sinking passenger ships? I’ve seen pictures of that! And machine-gunning the survivors in the water, and in lifeboats? Isn’t that real?”

  “Wasn’t that after the ship tried to ram the sub?” Flash was facing Winnie, leaning on the rail and trying to be easy-going, not wanting to start another tedious fight. “Bad things happen in war. Are you really that down on the Germans?”