In Queenstown, Admiral Coke was quick to learn of the attack. Standing vigilant in his Royal Navy office overlooking nearby Cobh Harbor, he had within one-half hour a full picture of the event. Watchers along the seacoast—golfers, fisherfolk and other ordinary subjects of His Majesty’s Irish dominions—had seen the approach of the vessel Lusitania, by now so familiar and beloved for its frequent stops at Queenstown. They witnessed the plume of the exploding torpedo. They heard the two distinct detonations, and three faint blasts of distress from the ship’s whistle. From the tranquil shore they saw her gray-black shape heel over in the noon sunlight and tilt steadily down by the bows, stern rising under a smoky pall.
Those loyal subjects with access to telephones had promptly notified the Royal Navy chief in Queenstown, with his small fleet of vessels there in the harbor. Others with boats in the tiny coastal town of Kinsale, and in even tinier Courtmacsherry, made ready to put to sea and rescue survivors, should the unthinkable happen and the great liner actually sink. All of this had been conveyed to Admiral Coke. Seeing that something must be done, he was quick to respond.
“Signal the cruiser Juno using secure naval code,” he told his wireless officer. “She has only just arrived, and can get up steam quickly. Order her out to the aid of the distressed ship, say in code, twelve miles south of Kinsale.
“No need for coordinates on a clear day like this,” he added as the man began to tap on his Morse key. “Instruct Admiral Hood to proceed carefully. He is to pick up survivors and protect any other rescuers from submarines that may be lurking nearby. With Juno’s speed, it’s no distance at all. I’ll expect her to be there inside an hour, tell him. Also alert any smaller vessels that can make it out by nightfall. Then notify the Admiralty.”
As he gave his commands, the Admiral gazed through his open office window at the warship herself, anchored there in Queenstown harbor—the venerable cruiser Juno, with her knifelike prow canted out for ramming, and her two tall masts with their broad round battletops meant to survey the fight. She might see glory yet.
He soon saw activity soon aboard the flagship, the anchors raised, puffs of steam from the pair of smokestacks at the center. Already there was bustle in the sleepy harbor–sails unfurling, men swarming onto the piers carrying extra oars, and engines snorting to life as the few diesel boats warmed up. This ancient town was always ready to aid any distressed vessel. And most especially old Lusi, she that had put into port here so frequently over the years.
Yet this time there was no Admiralty order to divert Lusitania to Queenstown, just Coke’s own broad invitation in his recall signal to another MFA-class tugboat. Which, in any case, it was now too late for poor Captain Turner to heed.
And there’d been no escort either, once Juno was withdrawn. The only protection for Lusi had been…no protection at all, really, apart from his own laughable Gilbert-and-Sullivan fleet of nearly unarmed patrol boats, derided in navy circles as a comic opera farce.
Now, when the final crisis came, he had one dubious asset left to throw at it, the old-style steamer vulnerable to torpedoes. There was nothing else, since the Admiralty was so stingy with their new and incredibly fast destroyers, the 35-knot ships based in Milford Haven up-channel.
Well, they’d done it now, with their stubborn indecision, their neglect of duty and their warnings sent twenty hours late. Back there in London, heaven only knew what they were playing at. Here in the War Zone, with innocent lives at stake, there remained little choice. To save the women and children and toffs and neutral Yanks aboard the Lusitania, he must do whatever he could.
* * *
Aboard Juno, Rear Admiral Horace Hood had read the swiftly decoded message and given orders to get the antique cruiser underway. His tenure as commander of Admiral Coke’s flagship, and his only real warship, had been brief, since March when he’d come down from his Dover Straits command in the navy’s eastern sector. The transfer had been a demotion for him—a grave injustice, as others would someday come to understand. He had strengthened the wartime defenses of the English Channel with nets, mines and patrols, enough to make it impassable to any German submarine, much less to the surface raiders that had been so feared in the first year of the war.
Yet the Admiralty under Lord Churchill had blamed him for U-boats slipping through to the south of England, and for the sinking of merchant vessels in these very shipping lanes off Ireland.
He’d tried to tell them—and soon enough they’d see the truth of it—that to get this far, or to Liverpool, German subs had no need of creeping through the Channel. The U-boats now had sufficient range and seaworthiness to navigate around the northwest tip of Scotland, and around about Ireland too if they wished. They didn’t even need extra fuel for the return trip. No amount of protection east of Dover would keep them away.
But the Admiralty chiefs, landlubbers like young Winston and old fire-breathers like Jackie Fisher, were slow to admit the danger, He was made scapegoat for their ignorance. It was a temporary station, he hoped, far from the main fleet at Scapa Flow, and from any likely big-ship actions. But the irony of it was, to counter the threat to western shipping that they still saw as slight, they’d placed him here at the front line with nothing, as part of a laughable force of patrol boats led by one aging cruiser. And now, in this emergency, this outdated ship, without underwater armor and with side coal bunkers ready to fill up with sea, was just as vulnerable to torpedo attack as the giant Lusitania. His mission of mercy, to go out and possibly face one tiny U-boat, could amount to a death sentence for his ship and crew.
Still, he could hardly shirk any order. To rebuild his reputation at the Admiralty, just such a show of courage as this might be needed, with many more to follow.
So be it. As the offspring of a long line of revered admirals, Hood felt confident that this unending war would give him many opportunities to distinguish himself in service to the Crown.
* * *
On the Juno’s foredeck, Seaman Albright’s station was in the bows, there to stand ready with a firehose. He wielded it as the anchor was raised, spraying down the heavy chain links with fresh seawater. That would remove any weed and harbor debris that might foul the mechanical windlass or cause rust.
As they got underway, swerving wide in the sunlit anchorage to turn and making the smaller vessels rock in their wake, Albright kept busy cleaning and tidying the foredeck. They would be picking up passengers from the sinking liner, so he was told. This deck space might be needed to sort out the living from the dead.
“A ter’ble pass, this torpedoin’, ain’ it?” he remarked to Hollis, the forward watch. “How could the blighty Huns do it? But good ol’ Lusi won’t sink, will she, bein’ so big an’ all.”
“Well, that depends on how many fish the sub put into her,” Hollis replied. “An’ if they’re saving any for us.”
“Well, I ’ope they are,” Albright said with feeling. “If they’re waitin’ out there, we can run ’er down, cut that U-boat right in two and send ’er to the bottom. We’re fast enough an’ we has the ram.”
“Yes, well, we were fast enough running away from submarines this mornin’ into Queenstown,” Hollis said. “Now we’ll be runnin’ back toward ’em just as fast. I only hope we zigzag.”
“We’ll ’ave a tough time zigzaggin’ while we lower boats pick up survivors,” Albright said. “An’ the more so after we put old Lusi in tow, too, if it comes to that.”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Hollis replied. “There she is.”
As the cruiser passed between the forts on the headlands and left the mineswept channel behind, the view out to sea was vivid but not encouraging. Even seen from twenty miles off, the huge ship was obviously in trouble, with her bow-end sloping down into the sea. The hull was angled up astern and also tilted well away from shore. Her dark red under-paint showed above water on the landward port side, with her four leaning stacks trailing out smoke and steam.
“Most of the port lifeboats are still in place,” Hollis observed. “Tough job launching ’em with that steep of a list.”
“Can we even tow her like that, down so far by the bows?” Albright wondered aloud. “We might ’ave to pull from astern. Not much chance of savin’ ’er, if you ask me.”
Albright was soon back to work clearing the foredeck, shifting heavy gear up and down the companionway stairs. As he toiled, from time to time he would hear stray shouts coming down from the foretop.
“Survivors and boats are in the water.”
“Still underway and trailing out wreckage!”
“She’s goin’ down fast.”
All of a sudden in the bright daylight, he felt the deck sway beneath him as Juno heeled in a sharp turn to port. Seaman Albright looked around in surprise. There had been no zigzagging so far, so it seemed strange now.
“What is it, Sir?” he asked a passing deck officer. “Did we sight a U-boat?”
“Not yet, Seaman,” the officer answered with a bitter look, as if the words tasted bad. “But no need to worry, you can stand down from your duty. We’ve received Admiralty orders sending us back to Queenstown at once. The danger is too great.”
“Aye, sir!” He saluted, with a glance over his shoulder at the tilting passenger liner poised to sink. Aye-aye sir, though it ain’t right, he wanted to add. But he didn’t dare speak such a thing aloud.
Moments later they were on a straight course back to harbor, speeding through the gaggle of slow, ill-assorted work and pleasure boats that had set forth from Queenstown to aid the Lusitania.