SOS Lusitania (9 page)
Authors: Kevin Kiely
W
hen I burst in the door of the wheelhouse Dad was looking out one of the windows on the bridge, facing the funnel that had slanting cables holding it in place. All four of the chimney funnels had similar cables along the full length of the liner towards the stern. I noticed the
New York Times
lying on the ledge beside the liner’s wheel and it was folded in two, showing the page with the warning notice. They must have been discussing it, but nobody said anything to me about it.
I handed the charts to Officer Lewis, who took them without even glancing in my direction. He opened them up under a bright lamp on his desk and began studying them.
‘The Kaiser and his Huns don’t scare me, wasting their money on ten-cent-a-line propaganda in the
New York Times
,’ Captain Turner announced to a man wearing a blue pinstripe suit and a bowler hat who was sitting on a chair next to the captain. ‘Detective Inspector William Pierpoint, this is Captain Kennedy, Officer Lewis, and our youngest crewman, Finbar Kennedy,’ said the captain. Dad shook hands with the detective who hardly looked at me. His face was pale and serious with dark patches around his eyes.
‘What you call ten-cent propagandists, Captain Turner,’ Detective Pierpoint said with a nasal American accent, ‘I have to take seriously line by line. These ten-cent writers of propaganda threaten our lives since they make or break public opinion. Opinions printed in newspapers in time of war are just as dangerous as bombs.’ He took a pipe out of his pocket and gestured with it as he spoke. ‘Now I have an announcement to make,’ he said. ‘No one except high-ranking members of the crew must be allowed to send telegraph messages during the voyage in case anything is transmitted by Morse Code that might end up in the newspapers and draw attention good, bad or indifferent to the
Lusitania
. All passengers’ telegrams will have to be checked by me in case they contain some coded message. All right if I smoke?’ he held the pipe in the palm of
one hand and stuffed it with tobacco, then lit a match, puffed on the stem and smoke soon encircled his face.
‘Captain Turner, if you sign the cargo documents I will make ready to set sail.’ Dad bristled with activity. ‘We have received a report from the engine room. All good.’
‘Everything is in order, then, Captain Kennedy?’ Captain Turner too became more official as the moment for departure came closer. ‘The weather is glorious for the start of May, almost a hint of summer.’ He stared out towards the bow of the great liner and then up at the sky.
‘We should sail out of New York without a ripple,’ Dad said as he took measurements on a chart with his ruler and dividers.
‘Well, I hope the voyage goes without a ripple.’ Pierpoint pulled the pipe out of his mouth and poked at the bowl of it with a used match to stir up the fading tobacco flames.
‘I have outrun many U-boats since the war began, Mr Pierpoint. Damn this threat of torpedoing the
Lusitania
! No one could catch our
Lucy
. She is the fastest of all the ships at sea.’ Captain Turner spoke confidently as he looked through his binoculars. ‘Besides,’ Turner’s voice suddenly frightened me, ‘we have hundreds of lifebelts and over a thousand to spare. And the thirty lifeboats can carry up to seventy passengers
each. There are also twenty-six collapsible boats for the crew.’
‘Detective Inspector, you will have to leave the wheelhouse now as we’re ready to get under way. It’s eleven-twenty, and we expect to cast off at eleven-forty. We trust you’ll be taking care of any spy situation on board,’ Dad said.
Pierpoint stood up. ‘Let’s talk tonight at dinner.’
Captain Turner nodded and began to examine one of the weather maps that I had delivered, smoothing down the edges with his hand. ‘Finbar,’ he bade me come forward with a gesture as he called out orders on the liner’s tannoy system, ‘take this to the chief engineer pronto.’ He handed me a sealed yellow envelope marked: Engine Room. ‘This is very important. Make sure it gets to him personally. Keep on the alert, Master Kennedy,’ he warned, ‘we are all working for a safe voyage.’
I saluted and he saluted in return. Dad was busy in another corner so I left, unable to ask directions to the engine room. I would find it myself. On the top deck I pushed the letter into my pants pocket, slung myself down the stairs the way sailors do – holding the rails, tipping off very few steps – and I landed a deck below. ‘Where’s the engine room?’ I shouted to a steward carrying luggage, and he shouted out directions. I ran off.
Suddenly the liner came alive with vibrations. The vast engine room was divided by iron grating with gaslights flickering at different levels amidst the stir of powerful machinery. There was a smell of hot metal, the heat of burning coal and a mist of steam, making the atmosphere unbearably hot. Pressure clocks, fuel tanks and giant pistons were continually pumping, while the crewmen on a steel floor below me wore rough military clothes, goggles and helmets.
‘Don’t let the crew above deck fool you, son,’ shouted one of the crewmen. He startled me with his coalblack face. ‘We’re the ones who really make this ship go. Without us, this liner will go nowhere.’ He began telling me about the coalbunkers that held six thousand tons of Eureka coal. The persistent shattering noise made it difficult to hear all of what he said and I grew impatient, coming out in a sweat, and shouted back that I needed to see the ‘chief engineer pronto’, using Captain Turner’s words. He directed me and returned to shovelling the loose lumps of coal that were everywhere as I headed off.
Fire-hoses, axes and crowbars were in open cupboards everywhere and there were many DANGER signs in black on a backdrop of red. Steam vapour and the deep smell of crackling, burning coal filled my nostrils. As I walked up a ladder towards a platform to reach the engineer’s den I saw
squads of firemen with sooty faces shovelling coal into the open furnace doors. The coal plopped in among the dancing flames and red-hot coals, while sheets of flame billowed out, licking the edges of the furnace doors, making the firemen recoil and wipe their brows. This was a scary place. Suddenly I wanted to scream at the immensity of the liner, the war, and not knowing what was going to happen.
The chief engineer took the yellow envelope that instantly turned into black soot in his hands as he pulled out the note from Captain Turner and read it quickly.
‘Tell the Captain,’ he scrunched the paper into a ball in his fist and bellowed into my face, spraying me with spittle, ‘tell the Captain, we are ready for every emergency, come what may.’
His message scared me and I began to repeat it so I wouldn’t get it wrong: ‘Every emergency, come what may.’
I rushed up onto the top gallery and heard the boilers rumbling below with hundreds of gallons of scalding hot water in their innards. Slowly, the huge turbines began to turn the four mighty screws linked to the propellers in the stern that displaced water in the sea below the liner, making waves of foam. I was relieved to reach the top step of the last staircase in the engine room.
From the top deck, I saw that the liner was ready to set sail like some giant sea monster with four huge black tusks on its head. The chimneystack funnels belched out smoke and sparks as the smell of coal mingled with the fresh sea air in the harbour. Seagulls formed above the ship in clusters, shrieking and screaming. On the open deck and the top deck, known as ‘the hurricane deck’, passengers waved and shouted ‘Goodbye’, ‘Happy days’, ‘See you soon’ to people on the dock as the gangplanks were lowered. Trios of sailors twisted winches and the thick tow-ropes were wound slowly around the deck bollards as the anchors and ropes were hauled in.
The liner began to move like a huge, dark phantom. The eight-hundred-foot-long magnificent ship made a
three-quarter
turn in the water, showing the high rump of its stern, proudly displaying in sunlight the name LUSITANIA in curving gold lettering. The four funnels let out thick smoke that swept around four dragon-like clouds in the blue sky, and seemed to say ‘Beware!’ The liner emitted many blasts of its whistle as the flags high on their mastheads fluttered in the gentle breeze.
After a short time, the liner was rumbling loudly and the pier disappearing into the distance with the other vessels tied up in the docks. I felt a bit sad leaving New York and wondered
when I would see it again. But the oral message from the engine room had to be delivered, which I did pronto, and then stood outside the wheel-room awaiting further orders.
As the liner’s course proceeded smoothly over the water, passengers walked along the decks, heading for lunch, which was being announced by the galley stewards. Children played games in the enclosed decks, supervised by other stewards. As the
Lusitania
passed the Statue of Liberty, I stared at the lady in flowing robes with the crown of spikes on her head, holding up a torch with her bare right arm, and I whispered my farewell to Lady Liberty and New York.
I
loved my work, bringing messages in yellow envelopes to and fro between the bridge and the Marconi Room and delivering service orders from the bars and restaurants for passengers in their cabins. The good thing about that was the tips. I quickly learnt from the other bellboys to be first, fast and friendly. That was our motto. We laughed, saying, ‘FFF’ as we passed each other in the corridors.
There was a lot of work, but it was also good fun, and my energy was boundless for running up and down flights of steps to the upper and lower decks. The deck floors had narrow strips of pale wood that looked beautiful. I passed lifeboat bays, each with a boat on hoists, with chains and ropes that swung slightly and rattled noisily, but not as loudly as the liner itself.
These lifeboats often set me brooding, but keeping busy made me forget about them. My journeys took me to every part of the ship and would have been a total joy but for the gnawing feeling, deep down, that something was not right. There were large deck lights showing up parts of the vessel, especially the funnels that seemed to touch the dark clouds high in the sky before dusk. When I came to the deck rail, there in front of me was the vast expanse of sea, with its billowing waves, and below me the steady throbbing of the liner and the hiss of the seawater. The sea air was almost overwhelming because it was so fresh – it seemed to almost suck my life out.
In the Verandah Café, on the first night, the orchestra struck up a lively melody entitled ‘The Lusitania Two Step’, and there were couples dancing. It was almost seven o’clock and I was still in uniform as I ran towards the games room so as not to be late meeting Penny Mayberry. She was on her way too, and we met by chance in front of a poster announcing a ‘Sunday Afternoon Concert’. Her blue blazer had a crest with an eagle on the pocket that I hadn’t noticed on our first meeting. She told me it was her school uniform and asked me where I went to school. I said that I went to Queenstown school. She asked me if it was a good school, and I said yes, and that Chalky Dempsey was very strict. I didn’t mention her brother John in
case she might go and fetch him. We walked over and back on the promenade deck because Penny was cold. I turned down two FFFs for passengers, saying that I was off duty. It was my first time ever alone with a girl and I really liked being with her.
In one of the cafés, as night descended, we ordered
ice-cream
sodas and toffee cake. I paid the bill and felt like my father, flashing my money around – nearly everything I had made on tips during the afternoon. But I didn’t care. We sat at a round table amidst the crowds in an enclosed deck that was a lot cosier than walking in the cold. It had grown very chilly outside and a gale had begun to blow up.
‘Let’s face it, Finny, this situation is critical,’ Penny stated. She called me ‘Finny’ because she said the name ‘Finbar’ sounded like a place that sold beer. Penny was very bossy at times, I discovered, and that made me want to be bossy too. ‘Critical’ was a word she used a lot. ‘Something critical is going on that I want to tell you about. Mom has a second sense about these things. You can’t visit with me and my Mom. She’s minding John and stays in her cabin. Mom is not very well and that’s why we’re going to England – to stay with her sister there for a few months so that she can have a lot of rest – and recover.’ I could see that she really needed to talk to someone and that she relaxed in my company.
‘C-C-Critical about what?’ I asked, trying to say the word correctly. I stared into Penny’s eyes, and that made me forget what I wanted to say next.
‘Okay, Finny, I will tell you.’ She flicked her hair away from her face, and leaned forward, pushing away the soda glasses. ‘Mom read the critical notice in the
New York Times
, the warning from the Germans about attacking liners that fly the British flag, and Mom feels that something will happen. She thinks we should have got off in New York, but Dad persuaded her that it would all be okay, that the notice was just cheap propaganda.’ She stared at me intently. ‘But I know something is going to happen.’
I gasped because Penny was expressing my own deepest fears.
‘Look, Finny,’ she continued, ‘I’ve met senators, politicians, FBI people and all sorts of big people. I know about stuff through my folks. I think the
Lusitania
is carrying millions of dollars worth of gold in the cargo and arms for Britain. I’m sure of it, but you must help me find it and be absolutely certain. You can go into the cargo area and I can’t.’ I stared at her. ‘It’s difficult not to hear secret stuff when your dad is a senator. And Mom knows Pierpoint, the liner’s detective; she calls him a pipe-smoking cop.’ Penny laughed and then
became serious. ‘Mom thinks Aleister Crowley is a buffoon, but that notice of his scared her.’
I could have listened to her voice all night she was so amazing and suddenly she touched me on the knuckles and I put out my hand and touched hers.
‘What are you doing,’ she said, pulling back from me. ‘Have you got a little princess in Queenstown?’ She laughed and I felt my face going pale, and she began to look the same way. ‘Let’s go somewhere on our own,’ she said. ‘Let’s go to the games room since there will be no kiddies there at this time of night.’
She got up and I walked beside her. She was silent the whole time and when I glanced at her, she looked crossly at me, but also laughed wildly. The games room was shut but there was a porch leading into it where there were two slatted benches. We sat down near a huge pane of glass that looked out on the dark night-time sea, with a view of waves because the lights of the liner lit up some of the seascape nearby. I told her everything about my time in New York, what I knew about the Baroness and the German codebook, about Crowley’s gun cane, and my dreams of the shipwreck. I talked and talked, and when I had finished she looked at me solemnly.
‘We were so stupid to get on this ship,’ she said sadly, in
a way that scared me. ‘We should have stayed at home.’ Her face was so white it shone. I placed a hand on her cheek and she smiled as we held hands for a special moment. Then we walked along the decks towards her cabin.
‘My dad knows how the world works, Finny. He is a senator, as I’ve told you. He knows President Woodrow Wilson,’ she said, explaining that Wilson was the American president. ‘My dad feels we are safe because the British Navy will protect the
Lusitania
because there are Americans on board, and maybe he’s right, especially if there’s gold bullion and arms on board too for the war.’ She went silent then, and I wished that she would talk all night. ‘We must find out, Finny.’
‘How old are you?’ she asked suddenly. ‘I will be fifteen in June,’ she said, running her fingers through her hair.
‘I-I-I am fourteen,’ I lied, feeling young and stupid all of a sudden.
‘Right,’ she said, ‘you look fifteen, actually. How come you were a stowaway if your father is the Staff Captain?’ She grinned at me.
‘Well, I ran away from home after my father, but he didn’t know until I was found in the cargo deck on the liner. The police in Ireland were searching for me. I left a note under my pillow at home …’ I didn’t finish my story.
‘Really,’ she chuckled. ‘You are an adventurer, aren’t you Finny!’ Then she told me about getting time off school while they were in England.
‘Finny!’ she whispered, ‘we must be very careful. We sort of know a lot of dangerous stuff about spies, codebooks, weapons, gold and the war. And you’re going to check it all out.’ Suddenly she began to sound anxious. She said she had to go check up on her Mom and her tone of voice told me that I should not walk her to their cabin door.
That night I stole down to the cargo hold. The crewman on duty was kept busy helping himself to the sandwiches I had brought him. I told him I had been sent down to get something. I crept quietly along the passageway behind him to the point where Dad had stopped me, and there I saw packing cases marked
Remington Rifle Cartridges 1000
. Others were marked
Shrapnel Cases 500, Explosive Fuses 750
. These were arms! Then I counted six crates of gold bullion, each marked
Fort Knox
and
$1 Million in Gold Bar
. This was amazing. Penny was right.
I stayed awake until Dad arrived in our cabin for bed. ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘I saw the ammunition and gold in the cargo room.
What is it for? I’m scared, Dad.’
‘Okay, Finbar, that’s dangerous information and I’d prefer if you didn’t know it. You must realise how important it is. You must tell nobody. I am sure I can trust you totally. It’s all very simple.’ Dad looked sharply at me. ‘The gold is for the Bank of England from the Bank of America and the US Treasury. War funding,’ he said quietly, leaning across to me. ‘War costs a lot of money and this is American help with the war effort.’
I blinked. This was crazy. What was I caught up in? What was my dad caught up in?
