Six

Midwinter was already in his office when they arrived. Horrocks tossed a signal to the desk. ‘From the Embassy,’ he said. ‘Picked up by the Royal Navy in Ireland. It’s from the Lusitania. “Come at once. Big list. Ten miles south of Old Head Kinsale.” Originated 2.14. p.m.’

‘Scheele?’

‘Even Scheele couldn’t sink something as big as the Lusitania.’

‘A submarine?’

‘There aren’t any submerged rocks round there.’ Horrocks tossed more signal forms to the desk. ‘That one’s from the wireless station at Valentia. “Lusitania in distress off Kinsale.”’

Midwinter scowled. ‘Well, the bastards warned everybody. They put an ad in the papers telling people not to travel in her.’ He tossed a newspaper across his desk. Beneath the advertisement for the Lusitania’s sailing there was a small black-edged inset notice. ‘Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies.’ It was signed ‘Imperial German Embassy, Washington, DC, 22 April 1915.’

‘The British Consul-General says the Cunard offices here are full of German spies,’ Horrocks pointed out.

Midwinter frowned. ‘He may be goddam right.’

Slattery spent the morning trying to find out more details at the Cunard office. Cunard were insisting that everybody had been saved but by afternoon they had learned that an estimated thousand dead were expected.

‘Jesus,’ Midwinter breathed.

No official announcement had still been made and the chief story from Europe was of the struggle against the Turks in the Dardanelles. When the specials finally appeared on the streets New York went into a frenzy of horror. As they saw the words flashed on the bulletin boards above the newspaper offices, numbed men and women began talking in the streets to total strangers, unable to believe it. The Lusitania was familiar to all New Yorkers and they had seen her come and go so many times it seemed impossible she could simply have vanished.

Queues formed at the Cunard offices, anxious relatives and friends storming the counters where harassed clerks were working overtime to answer hundreds of long-distance calls. By evening they had more details. A hundred and twenty-four Americans were among the dead and they included internationally-known names such as Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, the multi-millionaire sportsman. The casualty list seemed endless.

In Manhattan’s smart German club, German officers in the city on their country’s business were hailing the sinking as a masterstroke and toasting Der Tag, and when they went to Lüchow’s to eat they found it crowded with German-Americans singing ‘Die Wacht am Rhein’. A large noisy party had draped a red, white and black German naval ensign with its Iron Cross insignia alongside a blue flag with a yellow cross, over a palm near their table.

‘Swedes,’ Midwinter growled. ‘If I uncover any of ’em who had anything to do with this, I’ll have the bastards sent home.’

He had his men on the streets immediately, watching the German Consulate, the German clubs, German firms, the homes of German officials and German sympathisers. There was a great deal of activity to be seen, with cabs coming and going all the time, their occupants hurrying in swift strides across the pavements, clutching canes, gloves and homburgs, their faces wearing expressions of grim determination mixed with a sort of unholy glee.

The news began to come in thick and fast. The Lusitania had sunk within sight of the Irish coast and already the illustrated magazines were appearing with dramatic drawings of men in the sea trying desperately to support drowning women and children. Information arrived that the Germans were talking of striking medals, of the sinking being applauded in Sweden, and of children in Germany being granted a holiday from school. With a thousand dead civilians, many of them women and children, it all seemed in incredibly bad taste, and the German ambassador, who had arrived in New York from Washington, had become a virtual prisoner in his suite and had deemed it wiser to stay away from a special performance of Die Fledermaus at the Opera House on behalf of the German Red Cross. Fearing trouble, the management had detectives in the theatre and the German flags, which had been decorating the boxes, had disappeared abruptly with the announcements about the singing of ‘Deutschland Über Alles’.

The headlines were unanimous about the disaster:

 

World Aghast At Germany’s Atrocity

Huns’ Most Cowardly Crime

 

The British were lying low, doing their best to appear as innocent as possible, and as the fury came to the surface, German sympathisers were being insulted and attacked, and the German attaché, who had taken the place of the German ambassador at the Opera House, was jostled and pushed in the foyer. One other unexpected result appeared as Slattery was driving down Broadway in a cab. As usual, he glanced at Moore’s Theatre for the progress of Der Zigeunerbaron and immediately spotted the red-lettered strips pasted over the new posters – CANCELLED.

Pushing his way into the theatre, he found the cast and orchestra sitting in the stalls in groups. They looked stunned and Magdalena’s expression was shocked.

‘It’s been withdrawn because it was written by Strauss,’ she said.

‘Strauss was a Viennese.’

‘In New York that’s the same as a Berliner.’ She gave Slattery an agonised look. ‘It’s really because Charles Frohman’s one of the dead from the Lusitania. Nobody knows what to do.’

‘It’ll be all right, Magdalena,’ he said. ‘Something will be sorted out.’

‘Will it?’ Enormous eyes stared at him. ‘On my door last night when I got home there was a notice. It said “Hun”. That’s all. “Hun”.’

‘Then it’s up to you to issue a statement to say you’re American. If I send a bunch of newspapermen round, will you do that?’

‘I couldn’t face them.’

‘Magdalena–’ He gestured at the singers and musicians and the group of frightened chorus girls. ‘Think of these people. If you say firmly you’re American, somebody might think again about the show. And take the train to Philadelphia on Sunday. There’s to be a meeting there, of newly-naturalised Americans. The President’s going to address it. Let yourself be seen there – being American.’

‘Will you come with me?’

‘I have to stay in New York.’

The flash of anger was abrupt but it soon died. ‘I’ll get Hermann to take me,’ she said. ‘He’s due in New York. He’ll be glad to.’ She sniffed. ‘He’d like to marry me, you know. He once asked me.’

Despite her doubts, she did as she was told and the story appeared the following day: Graf Denies German Sympathy. Grieves For Bereaved. I’m an American and Nothing Else, She Says.

It was a timely appearance because, with the revulsion that was being shown, after their first gleeful celebrations the Germans were now keeping very quiet and everybody was wondering what America would do. Even German-Americans had come round to the thought that the disaster might precipitate America’s entry into the war, and suddenly Horrocks began to cheer up.

‘Wilson hasn’t uttered a word,’ Slattery reminded him sharply.

Midwinter snorted. ‘There won’t be one,’ he growled. ‘They want the German Mid-West vote for 1916.’

Two days later, Hermann Stutzmann turned up at Slattery’s hotel. He was understandably nervous.

‘What are you up to?’ Slattery demanded at once.

‘Nichts. Nichts.’ The tenor put his hands to his face, his splayed fingers pushing the flesh out between them in folds. ‘I come to look after Magdalena and I discover there is nothing to look after.’

‘Where’s Fausto Graf, Hermann?’

‘Himmelherrgott, I don’t know.’

‘You’ve seen him often enough.’

Stutzmann sighed. ‘He says I don’t do enough for Germany and I must work with him. Herr Paddy, I am scared of him.’

‘Stay that way, Hermann,’ Slattery advised. ‘It’s safer. What’s going to happen to Magdalena?’

‘I came to ask you that, Herr Paddy. It’s expensive in New York and she can’t afford to stay here without work.’

 

By this time, the figures for the Lusitania’s casualties were being accepted as complete. One thousand one hundred and fifty passengers had had to be assumed dead and British soldiers were digging huge graves at Queenstown in Ireland. President Wilson had been expected to express the outrage of the United States by declaring war at the meeting of the newly-naturalised Americans but it had proved a damp squib.

‘He talked of peace!’ Midwinter looked shocked. ‘Said there was such a thing as being too proud to fight. When I was at school that meant the guy was scared.’

Wilson’s stance had started a new round of infuriated charges in New York, with the British, American and German port officials each accusing the others. In a shaded corner of Cunard’s main office a table had been spread with photographs of the bodies that had been recovered, in the hope that they might be identified. It was a grisly business, because they included children, a mother clasping her dead baby in her arms. Groups of people stared endlessly at them.

A huge reward had been offered for the recovery of the body of the millionaire, Alfred Vanderbilt, and last tributes were paid to Frohman at crowded ceremonies in different cities. The cast of Der Zigeunerbaron had been told nothing and, with no apparent future, were on the point of splitting up. The statement in the paper insisting Magdalena was American seemed to have done little good, while nobody seemed to have noticed her at the meeting in Philadelphia. They ate a gloomy supper at the house she had rented. She was angry with Slattery for not going with her to Philadelphia but he suspected her anger wasn’t genuine, and the conversation was one-sided, with Slattery doing all the talking and Magdalena’s mind far away.

Then the telephone rang and Jesús appeared in the doorway. As Magdalena headed for the hall where the instrument was situated, there was a long silence then Slattery heard a shriek.

‘What! María, Madre de Dios!’ There was a shout of amazement and delight, a few babbled words in German he couldn’t catch, then she reappeared and flung her arms round him.

‘Fitz! Fitz!’ Her happiness swept him along. ‘That was Hermann! It’s happened! Telegrams have been sent to everybody in the show! It’s on again.’

He was on his feet, as delighted and excited as she was. ‘No, no! Not The Gypsy Baron. Another one. Auber’s Bohemian Girl, Charles Frohman’s brother’s forming a company to manage his brother’s stars, but they feel Strauss isn’t the thing just now. They feel it’s best to have someone who isn’t German. Auber was Irish, so that should please everybody. It’s going to be nothing but rehearsals from now on. I shall get corns on my vocal cords. How marvellous it is!’

As she flung herself at Slattery again, he whirled her round, her feet off the floor.

‘We’ve all got to be at the theatre tomorrow! Hermann will be there. So will Daniel Frohman. He’s going to explain everything. He wants his brother’s name to be remembered, and he says this is to show the world what he would have done. And they want me! They saw that statement in the paper, and someone saw me in Philadelphia.’

She kissed him enthusiastically and waltzed away, calling for Jesús, for her dresser, for everybody in the house to come and help. For a long time, Slattery stood near the abandoned meal, watched by the housemaid who had appeared to clear the dishes, then he shrugged, picked up his hat and headed for the door.