The Sea Hunters

  The gun crew quickly rammed a two-inch shell into the breech of their weapon and aimed it at the schooner. Schwieger reached for a megaphone and shouted across the foggy surface of the water. "What ship are you?" he asked, noting the British cross of St. George flying from the halyards.

  "Earl of Latham, " the surprised captain answered, staring wide-eyed at the menacing submarine.

  "Prepare to be boarded," Schwieger instructed him.

  The five-man crew of the small schooner assembled on deck as the submarine's inflatable boat rowed across, and Schwieger's first officer, Raimund Weisbach, climbed on board. "Where is your manifest?"

  Weisbach asked the captain.

  The captain silently walked below and returned, holding out a single sheet, which listed the schooner's cargo. "Mostly potatoes and bacon, en route from Limerick to Liverpool. Nothing worth concerning yourself about." "Food for your troops," guessed a shrewd Weisbach.

  "Make to your boats. We are sinking this vessel."

  As the crew of Earl of Latham lowered their boats and pulled for the shore, only three miles distant, Weisbach returned to U-20 and reported to Schwieger. "Potatoes and bacon. Since we still have plenty of potatoes, I suggest we help ourselves to the bacon."

  Schwieger smiled. "Please do so, Leutnant. But be quick about it.

  We can't risk being found by a British warship."

  "Shall we scuttle or burn her?"

  "I think it faster if we use grenades and the deck gun. She certainly isn't worth wasting a torpedo on."

  After fifty pounds of bacon had been carried on board and lowered into the hull, the submarine's crew lobbed grenades into the hatches of Earl of Latham. Then the deck gun opened up, blasting three holes below the waterline. The crew of the schooner looked back and watched sadly as their ship rolled on her beam ends, sails hanging limp from the yards, and plunged below the waves.

  Two hours later, U-20 sighted a steamer, fired a torpedo at her, and missed. The ship steamed on, her crew blissfully unaware of how close they had come to being blown up. Then Schwieger spotted the Norwegian flag flying from the ship's mast and called off the attack.

  So far, the voyage of U-20 was coming up hollow. They needed a real target. Something worth using their last torpedoes on. Then Schwieger got lucky. In quick succession, he torpedoed the passenger liner Candidate and the freighter Centurion. Miraculously, all passengers and crews of both ships were saved.

  Schwieger was down to his last torpedo. He decided to linger, for another day in hopes of adding to his score before turning about and heading for home port in Germany to refuel and refit.

  Fog lay thick across the sea as Lusitania, on her voyage from New York, neared the rugged southern coast of Ireland. Captain William Thomas Turner prowled the bridge of his ship, staring into the dense mist, listening for an echo from his foghorn that signaled the presence of another vessel. Watching from the bridge window, he saw the crewmen on the forward deck appear and disappear like phantom apparitions as they went about their duties.

  Never stepping more than a few paces away from the helmsman, Turner stayed close in case he had to shout the order "Full astern" if another ship suddenly appeared from the curtain of gray. He gazed into it as if attempting to see through to the other side.

  "Keep a sharp eye to avert a collision," said Turner to the officers peering through the wheelhouse window. "We're not the only ship in the Sea."

  "Better another ship than a German U-boat," muttered the junior third officer, Albert Bestic, under his breath.

  Turner overheard and replied caustically, "No submarine can find us in this soup, Mr. Bestic. Any blind man can tell you that."

  "Sorry, sir, I was only thinking out loud about reports of German torpedoings." "All this talk of submarines and torpedoing," Turner snorted. "No submarine I ever heard of can make twenty-seven knots."

  Bestic wasn't about to continue his argument with the Lusitania's master. It was an argument he could not win, especially if he wanted a good efficiency report on his record with Cunard Lines. But it was no secret among the crew that because of a shortage of stokers, many of whom had been inducted into the Royal Navy for the duration of the war, and the high price for coal caused by scant supplies, Lusitania was running at less than two-thirds her normal speed. With six of her twenty-five boilers unlit, Lusitania was making only eighteen knots.

  On a good day, if all her furnaces were properly fired, her engines could generate seventy thousand horsepower, which swirled her four great bronze propellers, thrusting her through the sea at thirty knots, enough speed to outrun any torpedo fired at her.

  A seaman approached Turner and handed him a radio message that read, "Steer midchannel course. Submarines off Fastnet." Fastnet Rock, off the southern tip of Ireland, was a prominent landmark for mariners. This message had been repeated throughout the night.

  Turner seemed unimpressed. He jammed the message into his coat pocket and said nothing. Will Turner was a tough old salt. He had gone to sea as a deck boy on sailing ships, and over the course of thirty-seven years had worked up to master of Cunard Lines' biggest and most prestigious ships. A strange old duck, as one officer remembered him, Turner never liked to mingle with the passengers. "A lot of bloody monkeys," he once called them. Shipwrecked on one occasion, he was later commissioned a commander-in the Royal Navy by King George himself.

  The messages came fast and furious the rest of the morning: "The British Admiralty recommends using a zigzag course when approaching areas of danger," followed by "Submarine active in southern part of Irish Channel... " Still another warning: "Submarine five miles south of Cape Clear proceeding west when sighted at 10 A.M."

  Crumpling the paper, Turner tossed the latest warning in a receptacle.

  "Damned management," he grunted. "If the main office would allow me to fire all the boilers, we could simply outrun the damn U-boats and their torpedoes."

  Why Turner, an experienced mariner with almost four decades as a trusted ship's master with Cunard, ignored the warnings and failed to act on their instructions is still a mystery today. It was almost as if he tried to put Lusitania directly in the path of Walter Schwieger and his Unterseeboot, U-20, sister submarine to Otto Hersing's U-21.

  In less than an hour the two men and their commands would meet in a way neither expected.

  In one of the luxurious first-class staterooms of Lusitania, Charles Frohman, the famed theatrical producer, lounged in an ornate flocked chair. Dressed in silk pajamas and robe, he paused from reading a manuscript by a composer of musical plays, and wiped his reading glasses with a handkerchief.

  "How do you find it?" asked his valet, William Stainton.

  "With the right musical numbers, it has possibilities."

  Unlike most servants, Stainton enjoyed his employer's company.

  Over the years he had worked for the producer the men had become close. Frohman treated his valet more as an assistant than a servant.

  Instead of speaking only when spoken to, Stainton never hesitated to question his employer to determine his needs.

  "Will you be taking lunch in the dining room, or shall I have food brought to the suite?" valet Stainton asked.

  "I'll be dining with friends in the saloon," answered Frohman as he began dressing in the freshly pressed blue suit Stainton had laid out on the bed for him.

  Stainton poured several pills onto a silver tray and set them alongside a glass of tomato juice. The producer suffered from arthritis that affected his leg joints. "I had the ship's doctor prepare some pills that will ease the pain in your knees."

  "Is it that obvious, William?" Frohman said as he swallowed the pills.

  "I couldn't help noticing you limp when you awoke and walked to the bathroom," Stainton said with concern as he handed Frohman a cane.

  "You can remain here if you like."

  "If it is all right, sir," said Stainton as he opened the door leading to the deck, "I would like to accompany you to the dining room and make sure y
ou are seated properly."

  "As you wish," Frohman said, smiling as he made his way down the passageway before stepping into the heavy mist outside the suite, his cane tapping lightly on the polished teak deck.

  Wealthy socialite Alfred Vanderbilt entered the dining room and made his way to the table near the window he had requested from the purser.

  He was dressed in a charcoal pinstripe suit with a blue polka-dot bow tie, his head covered in a trendy tweed cap. In his pockets he carried no money or identification. He was so well known and so rich the mere mention of his name was all that was required to throw open doors and lay out red carpets.

  The only object that Vanderbilt carried on his person was a pocket watch, a custom shared with most of the passengers, including the women, who generally wore smaller models around their necks. He opened the ornate solid gold timepiece and stared at the face. The hands on the Roman-numeral dial read 12:42.

  His valet, Ronald Deyner, pulled the chair back, seated Vanderbilt, and then stood off to one side. "Please see if any radio messages came in for me," he asked Deyner- Then he turned. "Good morning," Vanderbilt said pleasantly, as a waiter held out the luncheon menu. He held up a hand and refused the menu. "I'll have whatever your head chef recommends."

  Charles Frohman walked by Vanderbilt's table and paused. "Good afternoon, Alfred."

  Vanderbilt noticed the producer's limp. "Injure one of your legs, Charles?"

  "Arthritis." Frohman shrugged resignedly. "It plays hell with my joints."

  "Have you tried sulfur baths?"

  "And just about every other chemical bath known to man."

  "Are you traveling to the Continent for business or pleasure?" asked Vanderbilt.

  Frohman smiled. "My business is pleasure. I'm seeing what the London revues have to offer. Always on the lookout for good material and talent, you know."

  "I wish you luck."

  "How about you, Alfred? What are your plans?"

  "I am examining some horses in London for my stables," answered Vanderbilt.

  "I wish you an enjoyable trip. When you return, please have your secretary call my office and I'll send you tickets to my next production."

  "I'll do that, thank you."

  Frohman nodded courteously and made his way to his table in a corner, where he could observe the other diners, many of whom were celebrities of their day. There was the eccentric publisher and author of A Message to Garcia, Elbert Hubbard. Acclaimed playwright and novelist Justus Forman. Famed suffragette Lady Margaret Mackworth.

  Theodate Pope, noted architect and psychic.

  Frohman and Stainton smiled at seeing the six young children of the Paul Cromptons of Philadelphia. They were boisterous and totally ignoring a frustrated nanny, who was failing miserably at making them sit quietly around a table. Mr. and Mrs. Crompton took it all in stride and seldom reprimanded them.

  Frohman and most of the people seated in the dining room around him had no forewarning that this was to be their last meal on earth.

  As if exiting a steam bath, Lusitania's bow suddenly broke into bright sunlight. Captain Turner looked up from the log book as the sound of the automatic foghorn ceased its monotonous blaring. Gazing astern, he saw the big funnels, their red Cunard color painted black for the war, slip from the fog like hands from gloves.

  Luncheon over, passengers filed outside, some settling in deck chairs, others strolling the open decks still wet from the heavy mist.

  Excitement arose as they sighted the rugged coast of Ireland in the distance.

  Confused as to his exact position because of the dense fog, Captain Turner was surprised to find he was so close to land. He should have been at least forty miles further out in midchannel.

  The chairman of Cunard, Alfred Booth, appealed personally to the Admiralty to alert the passenger liner to the loss of the Candidate and Centurion just hours earlier. But the message somehow became watered down, and Turner, as he did with the others, simply ignored it.

  Lusitania sailed on, unsuspecting of her fate.

  Schwieger did not have a particular course in mind. U-20 cruised aimlessly on the surface, her commander unable to sight a victim through the fog. He waited patiently for it to clear in hope of finding an opportunity. He did not have long to wait.

  Suddenly, the lookouts found themselves under blue skies and a bright sun. Running blind during the last hour had brought the submarine nearer to land. Standing below in the control room, Schwieger turned at the shout from First Officer Weisbach on watch in the conning tower.

  "Ship to port."

  Schwieger rushed topside and peered through his binoculars. The vessel was large, sported four big funnels, and was making good time.

  He guessed she was about twelve miles distant. He turned to Weisbach and sighed. "She's too far away and too fast for us. We'll never catch her."

  "We're not going to try for an attack?" asked Weisbach.

  "I didn't say we weren't going to try," said Schwieger. "Prepare to dive." The dive bell clanged harshly as the crew began twisting a row of valves that flooded the ballast tanks and dropped the boat beneath the surface. Keeping a practiced eye on the polished brass depth gauge, the diving officer waited until reaching periscope depth before leveling U-20 on an even keel.

  "Come to heading zero-seven-zero," Schwieger said quietly.

  "Periscope depth," reported the diving officer.

  Peering through the scope, Schwieger saw that the situation was hopeless. There was no way U-20 could maneuver into position before the big ship showed him her stern. At their maximum speed of nine knots underwater, it was an exercise in futility to think they could overtake a fast passenger liner. He gave a Turn at the periscope to Weisbach, who studied the distant ship.

  "At least twenty-five thousand tons," he reported. "Probably an armed liner used for troop transport."

  "Can you make an identification?" asked Schwieger.

  Weisbach began thumbing through a ship-recognition book. "A number of British liners have four stacks," replied Weisbach. "Judging from her superstructure, she belongs to Cunard. Could be either Aquitania, Mauritania, or Lusitania. Too many ventilators showing on her top deck for the first two. My guess is Lusitania." "A pity," said Schwieger wearily. "She would have made an easy target."

  Then abruptly, as if guided by the devil, the ship made a Turn to starboard.

  "We've got her!" Schwieger cried suddenly. "She's come about directly toward us."

  Turner recognized a lighthouse perched on a high cliff protruding from the sea and knew he was off the Old Head of Kinsale. He motioned to his first officer. "Alter course to starboard and put us on a heading for Queenstown."

  Lusitania was less than twenty-five miles from a safe harbor, but now only ten miles from U-20 and heading directly toward the submarine.

  No spider ever had a more cooperative victim. The web was spread and waiting.

  Schwieger could not believe his luck. If the great liner kept to its new heading, he would be set up for an ideal broadside shot.

  In the lives of many men some moments are etched in time. Motion and thought seem to merge, the event takes a life of its own.

  Schwieger watched in awe as the ship in the lens of the periscope grew until it was framed like a picture postcard.

  Tension smothered the interior of the submarine. By now, the entire crew were aware that they were stalking a giant ocean liner. A mixed bag of emotions ran through their minds.

  "Ready torpedo," connnanded Schwieger.

  Charles Voegele, U-20's quartermaster, stood fixed as if in a trance.

  In a moment that defied discipline and tears at men's souls, he was unable to pass the order onto the forward torpedo compartment.

  "Ready the torpedo," Schwieger repeated sharply.

  Voegele remained motionless. "I'm sorry, sir, but I cannot bring myself to destroy a ship with innocent women and children on board.

  Such an act is barbaric."

  To ignore a captain's
order at sea during wartime was tantamount to treason. Voegele would later be sentenced to prison for his refusal to take part in the tragedy.

  An ordinary seaman relayed the instruction. In the torpedo compartment, the order was carried out. Back came the acknowledgment.

  "Torpedo ready."

  The anticipation of the next few seconds seemed to hang like mist.

  Schwieger was calm and relaxed. He was the only member of his crew who was pessimistic. He doubted that he could sink a vessel the size of Lusitania with his one and only remaining torpedo. Time and again, German torpedoes had proved insufficient, striking vessels and failing to explode. And quite often, when they did explode, the resulting damage was not enough to sink their intended victims. He had already written in his log that he thought that his torpedoes could not sink a ship whose watertight bulkheads were secured.