SOS Lusitania (10 page)

CHAPTER 20

S
PIES
AND
L
IES

I
returned from a service cabin call to the first class saloon with a tray of plates, glasses and cutlery. The saloon was crowded with passengers dining and the orchestra was playing music in the background. I was told to polish glasses that had been drying until they shone. When this was done, I could knock off duty.

Suddenly, two of the liner’s officers, Bestic and Lewis, along with Dad and Mr Pierpoint, marched through the crowded saloon, zigzagging around tables where people were chatting and enjoying their food. Dad went over to the man playing the piano, who held up a hand, and the orchestra stopped playing. Then my father, with Bestic and Lewis by his side, called out the names of two passengers – Mr Stahl and Mr Koenig –
who sat at a table with their drinks. Stahl was smoking. The two men stood up in alarm when Pierpoint held up a gun. Then, to my great surprise, my father pushed one of them to the ground and pointed a gun at his head. Everyone went silent and began to gape.

Pierpoint and my father leant against a table to steady themselves against the motion of the ship as they pointed their weapons. A jug of water fell over and I heard the trickle of the water because everything was so quiet, except for the ship’s engines humming. Bestic produced two sets of handcuffs and snapped them on Stahl and Koenig. Dad held the gun menacingly in front of the two handcuffed men as Captain Turner and some other crew rushed in. The men were led out in handcuffs by Bestic and Lewis while Pierpoint walked behind them, holding his gun. It was quite a scary sight.

As soon as the door closed, the saloon came alive with gossip as to what the men in handcuffs might have done, and the word ‘German spies’ was on everyone’s lips. Captain Turner went up to the bandstand and put his hand up for silence. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, please do not be alarmed. We have arrested two suspects, as you have witnessed. I am sorry we had to do this in front of you. For your safety these persons will spend the remainder of the voyage in the cells, under lock
and key, and they will be handed over to MI5 in Liverpool. Anyone who would like a drink at the bar, please come and get one with our compliments. I am declaring a happy hour. Now let the music continue.’ He smiled and everyone clapped with relief as the orchestra started to play again.

Dad came over to me and told me to report to the
wheel-room
as soon as I was off duty in the saloon. So I rushed there later and Dad, Captain Turner and Mr Pierpoint were sitting in the map room across from the liner’s operations centre. I never got access to the operations centre because in there the elite crew steered the
Lusitania
across the Atlantic. The map room was a calmer place and the green baize table was lit from above by a gas lamp.

‘Crew, our task is to get the
Lusitania
across the Atlantic safely.’ Captain Turner plopped three lumps of sugar into the cup of tea I had brought him, and sipped from it. ‘We must all be on extra alert. Every crew member has an important part to play in maintaining our safety. Finbar, may I remind you to make sure that all telegrams other than
Lusitania
business have been read by Mr Pierpoint. Okay? Show everything to Mr Pierpoint before you deliver it to McCormick.’

‘Yes, Captain,’ I said, feeling that I had a very important role to play.

CHAPTER 21

P
ENNY'S
W
ARNING

A
fter my work was over I went to the Mayberrys' cabin and knocked. There was no reply for ages. Then Penny, looking sleepy and dressed in her pyjamas and dressing gown, opened the door.

‘I can't talk, Finny,' she said in a loud whisper. ‘You need to go away. Mom is worried to distraction…' I heard Mrs Mayberry's voice calling her. ‘No! Wait here a few minutes,' she said, shutting the door. I walked up and down the corridor, ready to run if any other door opened, in case I might be seen loitering about while off duty and get reported. At last, Penny opened the door. ‘Come in quickly,' she whispered. ‘I told Mom a little white lie that I have ordered hot chocolate to help me sleep.'

‘I can go and get you hot chocolate,' I insisted, but she put a hand to my mouth to stop me talking, and said: ‘No! Ssshh!'

‘In here, Finny.' She beckoned me forward. I crept quietly into her room where her bed was neatly made up and the book
Little Women
lay on the pillows. There were two chairs, on one of which was a bulky suitcase. The curtains were drawn across the window and the liner made great thudding noises while the ocean boomed and hissed outside. She put the suitcase in a closet, moved the chairs side by side and we sat down. I think she moved the chairs together so we didn't need to talk out loud which might have woken her mother and John.

‘If Mom calls, you can hide. She is so tired she won't notice anything. What did you find out, Finny?' She looked at me and her neatly combed hair seemed longer over her dressing gown that had the same crest as her school blazer, of the eagle in pine-trees. When I looked at her feet she pushed them into fluffy slippers. I stared at her eyes, forgetting her question for a moment, but it soon came back to my mind.

‘There
are
guns and ammunition and gold on board,' I said. ‘I saw them in cargo. Dad told me not to tell anyone.' I felt bad betraying him, but I just had to tell Penny. ‘I am having bad dreams,' I went on. ‘One about a submarine below in the ocean. I saw it fire arrows at a liner.'

‘Was it
our
liner in your dream?' Her eyes seemed to glow with specks of fire as she asked me. ‘Was there a shipwreck?'

‘I don't think it was our liner. Maybe it was, I don't know,' I also remembered dreaming about
her
, but did not mention this.

‘Mom thinks it is all very critical. She is fearful …' she moved closer so that her face was at my shoulder and I could feel the scent of her breath that reminded me of apples. ‘Mom thinks that the Germans might attack us.'

Too much was going on for me all of a sudden: German spies, British spies, the codebook, the weapons and ammunition and American gold for England's war.

‘Listen, Finny, it's getting a bit complicated,' Penny said seriously. ‘Mom says that there's a conspiracy, and that people are saying that we Americans are a target not only for the Germans but for the British too! If this liner is attacked it will be seen as an attack on America. And that means America will enter the war. So each side wants the
Lusitania
attacked!' She paused to let me catch up.

‘But why? And how?' I must have seemed very stupid, but she simply smiled, held my hand, and then for a moment put her head on my shoulder while she gave a little yawn.

‘Look, the
Lusitania
is full of VIP Americans and British
– we are the cheese, Mom says, for the big mouse: either Germany or Britain. Germany wants to attack us because America supports Britain in the war, even though we're not actually fighting in it. Britain might want us attacked to force us into the war. That's what Mom said anyway. I don't know if she's gone a bit crazy, Finny.' She sat straight in her chair once more and smoothed her dressing gown.

‘Britain would never let the Germans blow up one of her own liners – that's mad! And the British Navy will be there to protect us. That's what Dad told me,' I said forcefully. ‘And what about the passengers and the crew? What about you and me, Penny?' I was afraid of what I was thinking all of a sudden.

She looked intently at me, her eyes seeming to be fixed on something in the distance, and then, as if she was sleepwalking, her lips moved towards mine and she kissed me. My whole body shivered. She withdrew then and we both smiled. I longed to kiss her again like that, but she stood up, with a finger to her lips.

We left her room and walked up and down in the corridor for a while, holding hands. The only sounds were of the
Lusitania
plunging through the ocean. Finally she stopped in front of her cabin.

I couldn't think of anything to say, but I wanted to say
something before she went in.

‘Thanks for telling me so much, Penny. You know more than the
New York Times
.'

She laughed. ‘Good night, Finny.' She gave a slight nod of her head and shut the door behind her, locking it with a click from inside. I waited and listened, and wanted to knock and go back in, but withdrew and ran to my bunk for a night's rest before work in the morning.

That night the liner rolled and pitched quite a bit, snagging back with a shudder sometimes that made it hard for me to get any sleep. Dad was on night watch in the wheel-room. I sat up in my bunk and stared out the porthole window, drawing back the curtain noisily on its rail. The glass was speckled in water drops and beyond it the menacing sea swirled crazily. I longed to be home in Queenstown, but felt it was so far away. Even after reaching Liverpool, Dad and I would have to catch another boat home to Queenstown. It seemed such a long journey. Five hundred miles and more, I'd heard in the captain's den. Hurry on, liner, and keep us safe, I prayed. I had heard too much and understood too much now because of Penny. I just wanted the journey to be over.

CHAPTER 22

T
HE
T
IN
F
ISH

T
he German naval Kapitän, Walther Schwieger, was in the depths of the ocean in the German submarine, U-boat 20, buttoning his black tunic against the cold. He was a
thin-lipped
, small man, with fair hair and a deep scar across one cheek, slanting from the left eye to under his ear; the scar came from a knife fight he’d had with another sailor when he was young. He patted his dog, Hooper, a white
dachshund
, and fondled the animal’s soft ears. There were four officers and thirty-one men on board the U-20, as well as the dog. Schwieger had smuggled Hooper onto the submarine – it was against German naval regulations to have a dog on board but Schwieger thought that Hooper would be good for morale. He glanced at a magazine press-cutting wrapped in grimy
cellophane on a shelf. In the photograph was Monika von Leiditz in her wedding dress standing beside her eldest sister, Baroness Leonie von Leiditz. Schwieger stood proudly, his arm linked with Monika’s, glancing at her with a smile. The marriage had been a news item in the society pages of the press, and Schwieger was proud of it.

The crew were careful how they treated Hooper as they feared Schwieger’s continuous outburts of anger since leaving the German naval base of Wilhelmshaven. Their mission was to destroy British battleships, and orders from Berlin arrived in code. The book used to decode the messages was in a steel container the size of a lunch box.

The U-20 was on a course on the Irish Sea, passing the coast of County Wexford and heading south. Rations were low, and, besides, it was poor food. The fresh-water supply was also dwindling. When the cold, dry sausages and biscuits were passed out amongst the crew, even Hooper did not beg and pant as usual, but sniffed the air and looked around.

Life on board was cramped. The walls of the submarine were awash with condensation. It was like being in a damp cellar day after day and never being able to get any fresh air. When the sailors were off duty, they lay in their bunks almost as lifeless as the torpedoes which were stacked in steel
racks like huge shelves, just off the gangway of the U-boat. Sometimes they woke up coughing up mucus as if they had a heavy cold, and they had to drink castor oil to keep their stomachs from erupting.

Secrecy, silence, especially radio silence had to be kept, sometimes for hours in case British battleships and U-boat destroyers on the surface discovered the presence of the U-boat below. This could easily happen when the U-boat was at periscope depth, only twelve feet down, which was the depth they had to stay at, waiting and watching for ships in order to sink them.

‘Kapitän Schwieger,’ called out the radio operator suddenly. ‘I have a message for decoding.’ Schwieger passed him the key to the steel box which the operator opened; then he took out the codebook and began ‘translating’ into readable words: ‘
Lusitania
in your zone from 7 May. Take up position to sink
Lusitania
. Return to base if you fail. By orders of Admiral von Tirpitz.’

‘When did you get this?’ Schwieger yelled at the man.

‘Just now, Kapitän,’ the operator stuttered. ‘I can seek further orders if you wish, sir.’

‘I will give the orders now. The
Lusitania
is the fastest liner on the high seas. It can go three times as fast as we can. But we
will go after it. We will fulfil the order from high command.’

‘But, Kapitän Schwieger, it is a passenger liner!’

‘Any British ship that enters the war zone is the enemy. We must destroy every enemy of Germany if the German people are to avenge the wrongs done to us by our enemies. Do we all understand?’

‘Yes, Kapitän,’ shouted the crew.

‘We will keep awake. We will keep watch for days. Our stomachs may creak with hunger, but we will wait. We will sink the
Lusitania
as instructed. And I will get my iron cross for doing my duty for Germany and for the Kaiser.’