When the ladies required the stateroom to themselves, Matthew Vane knew of places to go. The First Class reading room on the Boat Deck was the best-stocked library on the Atlantic. Its plush chairs sat grouped informally under painted glass skylights showing the Four Seasons, depicted as aerial nudes after the manner of Boucher…a quiet place to write letters home and catch up on recent, if not up-to-the-minute, journals.
But for Matt this morning, the library was a place to brood. He expected his new friend Alma to reveal all her secrets to him anytime now. But…what then? Until he knew what she had on Jim Hogan— and what he had on her— it was all but useless to wonder how a reporter might deal with it. Best to think of other things.
Today, posted on the board just inside the library door, was the Cunard Daily Bulletin. The broadsheet was intended to keep passengers updated on world events, aided by the miracle of Marconi telegraphic news transmission. The main headline read, “Steady Allied Gains at the Front,” and the accompanying story painted a decidedly rosy picture. To Matt’s way of thinking, all the paper’s war-related articles reflected a similar pro-Allies slant. There was bland, breezy coverage of England’s Gallipoli invasion in Turkey, which Matt had seen described elsewhere as a bloody stalemate worse than France, if smaller. And in this nautical journal he found no mention of sunken ships, mines or U-boats.
“Things must have taken a turn for the better since we left home,” a voice at his elbow said. “That is, if you believe Cunard’s news-hounds.” Matt turned to find the naval architect, Fred Gauntlett, standing behind him.
“Maybe they don’t want the passengers getting frightened,” Matt answered good-naturedly. “And then, say, ganging up to turn the ship around.”
“Well,” Gauntlett said with a wink that barely ruffled his mutton-chop whiskers, “I just hope things don’t get too nice and peachy before I’ve had a chance at signing a production contract with the Brits.”
“Not much danger of peace breaking out, I suppose,” Matt said, feeling resigned. “I’m certain to get my crack at war reporting, too. Say, Fred,” he added, “I’ll understand it if you can’t talk openly about weapon secrets–or trade secrets, for that matter.” He did his best to sound innocently curious. “But just for the sake of my background knowledge, off the record, I’m interested in this new aspect of submarine warfare.” Smiling, he tried to hold the man’s suddenly restless gaze.
“For example, what could England want with more submarines, with the entire German navy and merchant fleet pretty effectively bottled up in port—no port-wine pun intended there—and her partner Austria-Hungary almost landlocked to begin with? Except for their Austrian U-boats, of course—what’s left for an Allied sub to sink?”
Gauntlett looked reluctant, as if torn between the military requirement for secrecy and the more basic American instinct to promote his product.
“Well,” he offered at last, “there’s always a danger the German High Seas Fleet could break out into the North Atlantic. They’d try to challenge the Royal Navy’s supremacy, or else scatter far and wide to do even worse damage to Allied shipping. In that kind of sea combat, submarines would be vital. And they can do even more damage by slipping undetected into ports or naval bases and sinking enemy ships at anchor.”
“Yes, the sneak attack— but then, the Central Powers are constantly trying that as well. Aren’t there adequate defenses, nets and mines and patrol boats, to keep it from happening?”
“Well, it’s a very active part of the war,” Gauntlett said, still cautious, “even though not much reported on. Submarine reconnaissance, sub-hunting, mine-laying and detecting–it started with armed fishing trawlers, and now we have Churchill’s Q-ships, the armed merchants and Mystery Ships, whether they’re real or just talked-up for propaganda purposes. The author Rudyard Kipling has done a whole series of stories about it, called the Fringes of the Fleet. It’s good propaganda to enlist young sailors, but that’s about all you’ll find on the topic, stateside at least. This war’s still new and changing, with plenty of room for fresh ideas, just ripe for American know-how.”
“What new ideas?” Matt prompted, eager to keep up the flow.
“Oh, lots. Take a look at this.” Gauntlett led him across the room and handed him a book from one of the shelves that lined the walls. It was a bound volume of London’s Strand Magazine. Matt took it and sank into an armchair, pleased to see the other man take an empty seat opposite him. Opening to a page that had been bookmarked, he saw a fiction story by H. G. Wells entitled “The Land Ironclads.” The illustration showed strange wheeled battlewagons advancing on foot soldiers, firing cannons at them and mowing them down under steel tire treads.
“See, there…and that issue’s a few years old. But we could certainly use something like that now, to break the deadlock in the trenches. It’s the harsh necessities of war that bring out new technology.”
“Necessity’s the mother of invention,” Matt said, setting the book down. “So what’s next? Submarines that crawl out onto the land?”
“Well, maybe.” Fred laughed. “I’ll make a note of that one. In the long run, in war, a new idea can save lives as well as take them, whether you see it as being offensive or defensive.”
“What’s this, Freddy?” a third voice abruptly put in. “Are you still pushing your Rube Goldberg schemes?”
The British shipowner Charles Bowring had arrived, evidently to join Gauntlett. He came up and saluted Matt as well, settling into a nearby seat.
“Watch out for this fellow,” he told Matt. “Some of his ideas are a bit over the edge.”
“Not really,” Gauntlett said, looking mildly annoyed but also challenged. “Just consider, if a big merchant vessel like the Lusitania sights a U-boat, or is attacked by one—if it, or a whole convoy of ships, were protected by a defensive submarine, one that could ram the attacker at any depth, say, or tag it with an explosive mine—why then, that U-boat would have no choice but to run. With a threat like that deployed under the sea, it wouldn’t dare hang around. Maybe not even long enough to launch a torpedo.”
He turned to Matt. “U-boats are very fragile, you know, with their thin metal skins under heavy pressure. In time, the threat of such a defense could scare them out of the shipping lanes entirely.”
Matt couldn’t stay out of this controversy. “Still,” he said, “that leaves the problem of finding the U-boat underwater. How are you going to chase it through dark, cloudy seas?”
“Well, I hear there’s some work being done with hydrophones.” Gauntlett sighed, frowning. “But yes, that’s the shame of it all. If not for that one detail, we might be onto something really big.”
Matt tried asking about the hydrophones but got no reply. It surprised him how easily Fred seemed to abandon his pet idea. From his sudden change of mood, one might almost suspect that he had a solution in mind, but felt obliged to keep his methods secret. Had he been just toying with his questioners all along?
At that moment, two more men entered the library and came directly over. Both were puffing on cigars, and the air around them was immediately filled with pungent smoke.
“I see we have our foursome for cards,” Gauntlett remarked. “Sorry, Vane, but I’m afraid you’re the odd man out.” Nevertheless he introduced the new arrivals.
“Matt Vane, this is Isaac Lehmann, the big cheese around here in war supplies and munitions, and here’s Frederick Stark Pearson, Consulting Engineer. I’m sure that you, as a reporter, have heard of them.”
Matt had indeed heard of both men and was quick to engage them while he could. “Fred Gauntlett here was just laying out some ideas on military strategy,” he said, keeping it open-ended. “Sounds like more wonders are still ahead.”
“Well, if you’re contemplating naval affairs,” the engineer Pearson said with a wink, “the coming thing is petroleum. The English will be needing more of it soon to drive their fast destroyers, and the new fast battlecruisers with the heavier guns.”
“What’s wrong with coal?” Matt asked. “We’re running on it now, and Lusitania’s the biggest, fastest liner on the pond.” He politely waved a hand to decline the cigar that Pearson offered him.
“Not fastest at the moment,” Lehmann said. “Because of wartime coal costs, and the shortage of crews to shovel it in, we’re running on three-fourths of this ship’s boiler rooms.”
“That’s it,” Pearson said. “Oil is easier to load aboard on land or sea, and it requires less manpower and crew space. If this vessel were converted to oil, it would have a longer cruising range, like a battleship, and far more cargo or ammo capacity, instead of a few hundred coalers to feed, house, and pay.”
“Oil practically pumps itself,” Gauntlett pointed out. “It just gushes right out of the ground, and it flows by gravity.”
“And it’s lighter,” Pearson added. “Oil floats, coal sinks. Why, this very ship, on her last voyage to England, sailed with a load of oil pumped into her double hull space, with no one the wiser except her captain and a few of the crew. But don’t worry, there’s none on this trip,” he added with a wink to the others. “I think they were afraid a torpedo might set it on fire.”
Matt was good at hiding his surprise. “Well, I know we’re building oil-burning ships in America, both merchant and navy ships,” he said. “Haven’t the British started yet?”
“No need. Steamships can be adapted from coal to oil. This one could easily be, and probably will someday. The problem is, supply…their problem, not ours,” Pearson said. “The British Islanders have plenty of coal, but no petroleum to speak of. If they want to float their Royal Navy on oil, their vast fleet that makes them lords of a worldwide empire—they’ll have to come to us, their former colony, or else find another reliable source overseas for their petrol.”
“It’s not safe enough for them to rely on the international markets, I suppose,” Matt said tentatively.
“Oh, no indeed, not for the long run,” Pearson said. “Markets change and prices are volatile. Pipelines can break or be shut off.”
Lehmann leaned forward confidingly. “The inside word, my boy, is Persia. The British Crown has influence in the Middle East, with all their troops in Afghanistan, and this fellow Lawrence of Arabia stirring up desert tribes on the Arabian Peninsula. There’s oil there, plenty of it, under the deserts and right around the ancient city of Baghdad, and our British friends have their eye on it. In a month or so from now, they’re planning a conference to pinpoint an oil supply, and that’s likely to be their target.”
“Is that so?” Matt asked, wishing that he dared to take out his notebook.
“Sounds right, young man,” Pearson added. “If you want to do some real war reporting, go and visit Mesopotamia, the place they’re now calling Iraq. Things’ll be heating up there soon.”
“Well, there you go, Vane,” Bowring the shipper said. “My insider friends here have given you your inside scoop.” He reached in his pocket and drew out a deck of cards. “But now, if you’ll excuse us, I believe it’s time for some bridge.”
“Yes indeed, that’s our game,” Lehmann agreed. “Just so long as it’s contract bridge,” he added with a wink.