“No surfacing, Herr Kapitan?” The question came from Voegele, sitting beside the wireless operator.
An impertinence, this questioning of one’s captain, and the other crew in earshot waited to see what would happen. But for morale’s sake, Schwieger merely chose to reply. “Nein, most certainly not.”
To knowingly expose the frail U-boat to another armed merchant would be suicidal. The rest of the crew knew it by now anyway, and would undoubtedly feel relieved at his answer. No further question was raised.
The torpedo shot was easy, straight in amidships from 300 meters. A satisfying explosion was visible in the periscope, with an immediate settling at the bows. As the ship slowed its progress and the crew scrambled for the lifeboats, Schwieger ordered another torpedo loaded, an old bronze one to finish the job. This time he held back until the crew was off.
After the second fish struck home, with Centurion’s portholes blowing out spray and steam spouting from the hatchways, he didn’t surface or stay to witness the ship’s final moments. Still four torpedoes left, and more hunting to be done.
Chapter 33
Landfall
The ship’s foghorn sounded its baleful note, deep and penetrating in the pre-dawn hour. Captain Turner had been reluctant to order it, since it would further disturb the passengers and, in effect, proclaim their ship’s position to all in hearing. But it was necessary to prevent a collision with some unlucky vessel. By night a U-boat or surface raider would have little chance of following them, much less aiming guns or torpedoes in this murk. Sounds were elusive and menacing in the fog, easier to avoid than to follow.
In the night’s gloom, so he calculated, they must have passed Fastnet Rock, the southwestern beacon off Ireland, without seeing it…no great concern to one such as himself, who had crossed the Atlantic hundreds of times by dead reckoning. He knew that he must be passing south of any shoal or other fixed hazard by at least twenty miles. The fog merely forced him to slow his ship, as he’d intended to do anyway.
The troubling thing was, he might also have missed his Royal Navy escort in the dark. Should they hear his foghorn, they were to respond with a distinctive note his crew would recognize, and by mutual effort the two could maneuver into blinker-signal range. But failing that, there seemed little chance of a rendezvous. He would just have to push onward and hope.
One thing certain: at some point he would have to get a definite visual fix on a landmark or known beacon light. That might not come until later, probably well after dawn when the fog burned off. Landfall was the key point of any ocean crossing. It served as final confirmation of a ship’s position, and the final measure of a captain’s skill at navigation.
It had been a long night, and a troubled one. Even during his forced attendance at last evening’s dismal charity concert in the main salon, he could tell his ship was freighted with fear.
Immediately after the music he conducted a question-and-answer session in the Men’s Smoking Room. He’d had to announce to them the vague warning he’d just received from the Admiralty, worded merely “Submarines active off the south coast of Ireland.” Trying to dispel the passengers’ murmured dread, he’d assured them that they’d soon be safe in the hands of the Royal Navy. He hoped it was no lie.
Then, going back at the bridge, he’d received a second coded message to all British shipping: “Submarine off Fastnet.” That was a serious concern, since he’d expected to arrive there in a matter of hours. Good that he’d be passing the rockbound lighthouse by night, twenty miles out to sea. And better yet if he was going to meet his escort there on schedule.
Then the fog had descended, blotting out the U-boat threat, the light, and any likelihood of a rendezvous. A relief, after all, permitting him to retire to his bunk in good conscience and sleep soundly…only to be awakened six times during the night for the same coded Marconi warning, repeated hourly as the ship steamed onward. “Submarine off Fastnet.”
Now it was almost daylight. Once the fog lifted, he expected to see land, the emerald green of Ireland far off their port bow. One more day at moderate speed, and he should make Liverpool by this time tomorrow.
Another successful, uneventful voyage, God willing. Or, perhaps, Gods willing…in this case Neptune and Mars, the less merciful gods of sea and war.
Chapter 34
Fog of War
Knucks pushed open the door to get a breath of morning air, but instead he inhaled damp fog. It reeked of sea stink too, like back home by New York harbor. And the smoke pouring down from the same lousy chimneys. Just like home, without even a breeze to blow away the soot.
A sudden, shuddering blast of the ship’s foghorn made him edge back into the stairwell. Nobody in sight, but then the fog shrouded everything. Straight off to the side, he could see the ship’s rail and nothing else, just blank grayness. Craning his neck fore and aft, he saw a dozen feet of empty walkway fade away into nothingness. The damp air stuck rank and heavy in his throat, almost as bad as the coal dust and sweat down below decks.
Still, he decided, fog could be an advantage. For the job he had to do, this was better than nighttime. He could find his way in the murk, but if anyone spotted him he could just disappear. With the decks deserted and the few sailorboys on lookout for ships and rocks, he had the run of the place. Fog muffles sound. The long drawn-out noise of that blasting foghorn would cover a lot, like a smothered yelp of somebody being snatched, or a body splashing down over the side–but only if it was timed just right.
Now to find Smyte. The little rat wasn’t here up top, where he was supposed to be, and Knucks wasn’t gonna waste any time waiting around. The steward must be hiding out in his cabin astern, down in steerage. That meant diving back into the smelly, noisy rabbit warren he’d gotten so sick of on this rotten trip. It was worse than the tenements back at Red Hook in Brooklyn. At least those old shacks didn’t bob and dance around and make you throw up all over the place.
The sounds grew louder as he descended—no foghorn down here, just the thrum of the churning propellers a few feet below him, and those jolting engine vibrations you could never get used to. The rooms on this stern deck were tiny and cramped, as Knucks knew from his previous visit. But a lot of them were empty, with most of the doors shut. Smyte, not one to mix in the stewards’ bunkroom, had taken over a cabin in this deserted section. Knucks didn’t want to knock and draw attention. He just twisted the latch and stepped in.
Smyte, lying on one of the cots, looked surprised. “Knucks, hello! You’re early; I was just going up to meet you on deck—”
“Early, hell! I’m sick of waiting around for you.” Knucks strode into the middle of the cabin and stood there, his balding skull brushing the low ceiling with each sway of the ship. He stared down at the little Limey’s shifty eyes.
“This ferryboat ride is nearly over, and you haven’t gotten me what I want. This is when we’re going to settle things, right now! You know where that dame is, right, where she sleeps?”
“Yes,” the Englishman stalled, “but it’s difficult.” He twitched nervously on his bunk. “It’s forward in First Class, and it’s not easy for me to get up there—”
“So you haven’t gotten inside, right? And you don’t have what I asked for, the book? Do they even have it?”
“Well, they didn’t sign anything into the ship’s safe, I can tell you that. But I haven’t gained access to the room yet, I’m afraid.” The white-clad steward shifted uneasily in the big gangster’s looming shadow. “I’ve watched the place for hours, and gotten a passkey, but with the four of them coming and going, there’s always someone in there.”
“What? Four nurses, you mean?” Knucks felt his temper rising. “Don’t they go out together for meals?”
“No, it’s two couples, and one of the pairs generally stays in when the other goes out. It makes it hard—”
“Couples, what? Now Maisie is living with two men
?”
“Well, yes, it’s this Maisie, or Alma Brady as they know her, another nurse, and the two fellows who booked the First Class cabin.”
Crum, so that’s how it stood with the little tart! Serious business maybe, and not just dame stuff. Knucks felt an icy chill settle over him. “What cabin is it?”
“It’s 34, on B deck,” Smyte said, sounding nervous.
“These men, who are they?” He bent over and gripped the shoulder of the steward’s unbuttoned white jacket, hauling the little man toward him. “What’s their names?”
“Well, they seem to be press correspondents. Alma’s beau is signed on as Matthew Vane, and the other girl keeps company with a Lars Jansen…”
“What, the reporter and that red-headed pest of his?” Knucks could hardly believe his ears. “It’s Matt Vane and his buddy they’re palling around with, and sleeping with?”
“Yes, well, he is red-haired, the other one.”
Knucks felt his temper going through the roof, a blind rage building. “Why didn’t you tell me all of this before now?”
“Well, I only found out yesterday,” Smyte said, brushing feebly at the hard fist jammed against his shoulder. “Please, Knucks, let go. You’re getting coal dust on the coat.”
Knucks ignored him. “You’re telling me that this dumb floozy, the one I’m supposed to keep quiet, has been living with a reporter for a New York paper, sharing his crib, spillin’ out her heart to him? And his sidekick too, a photographer? Not to mention the other little trick staying with her, and all of their friends? All this time they’ve had the goods I wanted, for them to read, take pictures of and show to people! And you’re only telling me now?”
The steward writhed in the hoodlum’s iron grip. “You’re right, Knucks, it’s a difficult situation, almost impossible. I don’t know what we can do—”
“Do?” Knucks threw the steward back down on the creaking cot. “I know what to do. I’ll have to kill them all, at least the four of ’em. That’s the only way to keep a loudmouth reporter quiet. He saw me on this boat, didn’t you know that? If anything happens to his girlfriend, if he or his friend gets to a wire, it’ll be all over the New York papers, with my tintype next to it.” He swiped both his fists in the air in a fury. “Holy bleeding Jesus, when I get my hands on that little strumpet!”
“Knucks, now let’s think about things,” Smyte said shakily. “How in God’s name are you going to do away with four people on a ship like this?”
“How? I’ll shoot ’em, that’s how!” Reaching behind his back, he whipped the pistol out of his belt. “Bam, bam!” He jabbed the air with his reliable little Colt. “Then I’ll throw the bodies overboard.”
“All right, but wait,” Smyte said, trying to wave Knucks quiet with his palms up before him. “What if there are witnesses? You can’t put four bodies over the rail.”
“No witnesses,” Knucks said, feeling determined. “I’ll do it in the cabin when the foghorn blows, so no one hears, and then shove ’em out the porthole. If only two of them are there, I’ll wait for the others to get back.”
“A human body doesn’t fit through these portholes,” Smyte said with a nervous glance over his shoulder.”
“It doesn’t, eh?” Knucks said keeping the pistol in his hand. “So what do you suggest?”
“Can’t we just forget it, and go on with our lives?”
“Are you kidding?” Knucks said. His professionalism was insulted by the Englishman’s tone. “I was given this job to finish one way or another. If I double-cross who I’m working for—no names—I’ll be the one who ends up in the drink!”
The little Limey was thinking fast. “Well then I’d say, we just take what we want and threaten them to silence. Even a press story is no good without proof, once we take the book and their photo plates. If your boss back at home is so all-powerful, he can just have the girl picked up after we get ashore. I’m sure he must have plans for that, in case you fail.”
“Fail?” Knucks grunted, outraged. “I didn’t spend no week scuttling coal just to fail. Not like you did, you little runt! In my line of work if you fail, you don’t get to live to regret it. I’ve got to shut that blonde up…or black-hair, or whatever she is now. I won’t mind putting a few slugs into that smart guy Vane either, him and his little punk.”
“Well, I don’t know, Knucks,” Smyte said, pulling back carefully and swinging his feet off the bunk. “I didn’t really sign on for any killings. Once you get your hands on the girl, what you do with her is your business. But I don’t want any part of a bunch of bloody murders.”
“Then gimme the key.” Knucks stretched out his hand, the one not holding the gun. “The pass key for room 34!” he added when Smyte hesitated. “Hand it over.”
Reaching into the pocket of his smudged, rumpled coat, the little Brit produced the key and surrendered it into Knucks’s big hand. “Don’t lose it, and don’t get caught with it, if you please. I don’t want it traced back to me.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Knucks said, looming over the steward. “There won’t be no tracin’ nothin’ to you, not for long. Remember how you were so worried about witnesses? Well, there’s gonna be one less witness, right now.” He slipped the key into the pocket of his coal-blackened gray coat.
Smyte froze back against the wall, still seated in the bunk. “You can’t shoot me! There are stewards in the cabins around us. They’d hear.”
“You’re right,” Knucks said, reversing the pistol in his hand. “But guns are dangerous. They can kill people lotsa ways. Especially smart little Limey bastards like you.”
Whipping the gun down against the side of Smyte’s skull, he stopped the cry for help before it was more than a moan. His left mitt emerged from his pocket wearing the shiny brass knuckles, his trademark, and now he worked the little man over, viciously but silently, left, right, left. There was no sound but thuds and the squealing of bunk springs, until the Brit lay limp on the blanket.
“See, you were right,” he whispered over the body. “No witnesses.”
The crummy little steward turned out to be right about something else, too. A dead body, even one as scrawny as his, couldn’t fit out through the porthole…at least, not without some last-minute folds and adjustments.
* * *
The repetitive noise of the foghorn brought Alma slowly to wakefulness. Its patient, relentless blasts vibrated through the cabin, as if the ship itself were the instrument, a giant tuba afloat on a foggy sea. The monotonous noise vexed but also comforted, assuring her the ship was smothered in a soft blanket, and they were under protection. To feel even more secure, she gathered the covers around her and snuggled up against the warm bulk of Matt in their bed.
“Mmm. Looks like morning.” He opened his eyes, blinking at the faint gray light coming in through the bedroom’s gilt-edged porthole.
“The morning of our last day at sea.” Alma said regretfully. “Unless we lie here fog-bound for days, that is.”
“We’re still making way,” Matt observed. “Not anywhere near full steam, but I can feel it.”
“Too bad,” she said. “Right now I wish the voyage would never end.”
“Be careful what you wish for.” He said it in his wry comedic way, taking her in his arms as he did so. “But really, I know what you mean.”
“Well, what could be better? We’re here together, happy and with our friends, cut off from war, politics and crime, all the world’s troubles.” She sighed and stretched herself in his relaxed embrace. “Why go any farther? What’s ahead of us that‘s better than what we have right here?”
Matt shifted his embrace. “We’ve plenty to think about, besides the state of the world. Like getting safely ashore at Liverpool, not being spotted, and hanging onto our luggage.”
“All the baggage from my old life,” Alma sighed. “I’m not sure it’s worth keeping.�
�
“It is,” Matt assured her. “Mine, too, especially my war journal and Flash’s pictures. They could be at risk in port. Not everyone would be pleased with what we’ve been doing on this trip. That reminds me.”
Rolling away from her, he consulted his watch on the bed table. “The best may be yet to come. I have to go soon, right after breakfast.”
While he sat up in bed, Alma yawned and stretched. “An early breakfast, you mean? I could second that. I seem to have developed quite an appetite this trip.” Rolling after her lover, she twined her arms around his silk-pajamaed middle. “That is, if you don’t want to order up room service and lie here all morning.”
“I’d love to.” He turned to stroke her black-dyed hair and plant a kiss on her upturned face. “But we’d better get a quick bite below. I can’t risk missing this appointment.”
“Sounds important.” She sat up with a sheet draped about her. “Who’s it with–or should I say whom, to a writer?”
“Sorry, dear, I can’t say,” Matt delivered a firm kiss to her already-pouting lips. “I hope you’ll understand, my darling,”
Turning to the wardrobe, he added, “You must know, a reporter’s sources often insist on remaining confidential. And if today really is our final day at sea, it’s definitely my last chance to get the information. It may take me a couple of hours.” He took out a dark brown suit and a pair of well-worn shoes.
“I don’t know,” Alma said, dragging her sheet with her as she rose from the bed. She’d known she would have to deal with this again, and yet when surrendering herself to Matt, she’d resolved to respect his professional privacy. “I might get Winnie up. Will Flash be going with you?”
“No,” he said. “If there are pictures to take, I can snap them.” As he spoke, he took the discreet-looking satchel with his camera gear out of the closet. “I’ve already told him to look after you ladies, and to be at your disposal while I’m occupied.”
Lusitania Lost Page 24
