The Lost Choice (24 page)

The rudder of the submarine kept her in place despite the strong current. The U-20 hung at exactly thirty-six feet as Commander Schwieger tersely called out coordinates. “Range is four thousand feet and closing to our starboard. Estimated speed of target . . . seventeen knots. Weisbach?” The answer was not quick enough.“Weisbach!”

“Yes, Commander!”

“Arm the torpedo. Set depth to ten feet.”

“Yes, sir.”

Schwieger, sensing a person close by, looked away from the periscope for a second and saw Charles Voegele standing there with Gerta under his arm. In actuality, he had just captured the dog as she was about to run between the commander's legs. Schwieger, however, misunderstood the boy's presence and assuming he wanted to look through the periscope, spoke sharply.“This is not the time,Voegele! Quickly, look.”The boy started to explain, but Schwieger snapped fiercely, “Do it! Do it now!” So, he did.

The commander turned to double-check Weisbach's work, touching and mentally listing the settings on the torpedo hydroplanes and rudder.“Lanz!” he called.“Speed?”

“Current drift, three knots, sir. Holding steady.”

“Excellent,” Schwieger said as he stepped back to the periscope. Gerta, on the floor for some reason, jumped against his leg. He clenched his jaw and ignored the distraction of the puppy, which was now running free in the control room. She barked once, then again, as the commander said,“Voegele, get the dog.”

“
Nein
,” the young electrician answered.

No
was a word not often heard on a German submarine, and it was doubtful whether Commander Schwieger had
ever
heard it. The word, spoken aloud, produces a simple sound, short and easily duplicated, but with a power all its own. Everyone heard it. And despite the tension and immediacy of the moment, everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at Voegele. He still gripped the handles of the periscope though he was no longer looking into the viewfinder. The blood had drained from his face.

“What did you say?” Schwieger asked in stunned disbelief. Then, realizing he had but moments to act and knowing he would be able to deal with the incident later, he didn't wait for an answer. Instead, he ordered, “Move, Voegele,” and received the same response.

“
Nein
.”

This time, there was no hesitation. With the back of his hand, Commander Schwieger hit the boy across the face, tearing him loose from the periscope and sending him flying into the wall of the control room, where he slid to the floor. Grasping the handles and pulling the periscope into place, Schwieger found the target in the eyepiece and said, “Range is twenty-four hundred feet. Speed is still—”

“It is a passenger vessel!” Charles Voegele croaked from where he had landed. “There are women and children aboard. I saw them.”

Lanz and Weisbach, confused, looked from their commander to the electrician, who was now bleeding from the nose, and back to Schwieger,who called out,“Twenty-one hundred. Prepare to fire.”

“We cannot do this!”Voegele screamed as he struggled to his feet.“I saw a baby. There are mothers with babies on that ship!”

“Sir?” It was Weisbach, the torpedo officer. He said the word with the barest question in his voice.

In one continuous, fluid motion, Schwieger pointed at Weisbach, hissing,“I said,‘Prepare to fire,'” and then grabbed Voegele by the shirt front and savagely ran his head into the steel wall. Dropping him unconscious to the floor, the commander gripped the periscope yet again.

“Range, eighteen hundred.
Los!”
Shoot! A tremor ran through the U-20 as the torpedo left the bow tube.

“Torpedo away,”Weisbach reported.

“Time, Lanz. Log the time, please,” Schwieger requested. “2:09, sir.”

ALFRED VANDERBILT WAS SEATED WITH CHARLES Frohman and Staff Captain Anderson by a window on the starboard side of the first-class dining room. Having finished their meal, the three were joined by Elbert Hubbard, who had eaten with his wife, Alice, at another table. She had retired to their suite for a nap, leaving the men to enjoy the afternoon together—a last hurrah before they arrived in Liverpool that evening.

The orchestra in the front of the dining room was playing “The Blue Danube Waltz.” As they talked and drank coffee,Vanderbilt was amused to notice a boy at the next table—seven or eight years old—who had become fascinated by a tiny spot of reflected sunlight that was bouncing around his table and the column next to it. Alfred quickly realized that the reflection was a product of the sun beaming through the window and catching the cuff link of his left sleeve. It produced a bright, pinpoint reflection that Vanderbilt was able to control by tilting his wrist slightly this way or that.

The boy, who reminded the millionaire so much of his older son, was mesmerized by the dancing dot of light. When at last he figured out what was happening and who was teasing him, the boy broke into a broad grin. Vanderbilt laughed out loud.

“What's so funny, Alfred?” Hubbard asked, seeing the boy laugh as well.

“The sunlight caught my cuff link. I was teasing the boy by . . .” Vanderbilt frowned. Mentioning the sun, he had glanced over his left shoulder, giving his peripheral vision a split second to register a disturbance on the smooth water in the distance. He turned in his seat and held a hand to his brow, shading his eyes, trying to find the object that had captured his attention a moment earlier.

“What is it, sir?” the staff captain asked.

“I don't know. I saw something . . . there!”Another man, two tables beyond them, but also next to the window was standing, pointing out the same object to the people at his table. Moving steadily, it was three hundred yards or so away—too far to see clearly or identify.

All four men were standing. “Is it a dolphin?” Frohman asked. No one answered. “Is it a dolphin?” he asked a second time.

“Is that . . . whatever it is . . . is it paralleling us?” Hubbard askedVanderbilt.“Or is it . . .you know . . .”Then to Anderson, “Do you see it?”The staff captain nodded.

Everyone in the dining room stood now. The orchestra had stopped in the middle of their performance and was crowding the starboard windows with everyone else. The object was about 150 yards away when Staff Captain Anderson suddenly gasped,“Dear God!” and wheeled away.

At the same instant, a woman shrieked the word
Torpedo!
and as if someone had flipped a switch, the place was bedlam. Screams and curses filled the air as people pushed and punched, desperate to exit the dining room.

Calmly, as if watching the story line of a great Broadway drama unfold, Vanderbilt leaned his forehead against the glass. The torpedo was moving in a swift, straight line, throwing a white wake as it bubbled along the surface, now only fifty yards away.

From where he stood inside the dining room,Alfred was unable to watch the final few yards of the torpedo's track. It appeared to him as though the missile had simply disappeared under the ship. He had actually considered this possibility—the moment of impact—several times during the past six days. In his mind's eye,Vanderbilt had always conjured a scene reminiscent of the
Titanic,
which had involved a relatively silent ripping of the ship's hull.

Newspaper accounts of that tragedy revealed that most passengers had actually needed to be informed that they were sinking.To most of them, the physical evidences of danger were almost undetectable for nearly an hour, and as word had spread through the ship, people took time to pack, to write letters, or to listen to the orchestra, which had continued to play. In total, it seemed to Vanderbilt that the
Titanic
disaster had been, everything considered, a rather orderly affair. After all, she had taken more than four hours to sink. Even had Vanderbilt somehow gained foreknowledge of the events that were about to play out, it would still have been inconceivable to him that the
Lusitania
would sink in less than eighteen minutes.

When the torpedo found its mark, it did so between the second and third funnels—slightly ahead of the
Lusitania
's dead center. Michael Byrne, an accountant from Philadelphia, described the impact as “a million-ton hammer hitting a steel boiler.” The subsequent explosion threw water, wood, and hot steel a hundred feet in the air. But a mysterious
second
explosion, following the first in the blink of an eye, actually lifted the bow of the ship out of the water.

Debris showered the decks, injuring many of the panic-stricken passengers, most of whom had been enjoying the sunshine and blue skies of the last afternoon of their cruise. For most of them, it would be the last afternoon of their lives. Captain Turner ordered the lifeboats lowered to the promenade deck.“Make certain that the women and children get aboard first,” he instructed.

Bob Leith, the wireless operator, had begun transmitting an SOS with their location, but knew that the electricity was failing. He had hopes, however, for the emergency generators. His assistant had fled his post as soon as the explosion occurred.

Making his way along the promenade deck,Vanderbilt was intending to go to his suite. When the torpedo had struck, his first thought had been of his family and the favorite photograph of his boys that was on his bedside table. Having traveled with it for years, he was determined to save that, at least. The medallion on the shelf in his closet was also on his mind.

Vanderbilt saw Frohman standing by the rail, out of the way of the stampeding people. Dodging across the deck, Alfred reached his older friend. “Are you all right, C. F.?” Vanderbilt asked.

“Yes, thank you,Alfred.” Frohman had the barest hint of a smile. “What would you say the list is at present? Ten degrees? Fifteen?”

“Fifteen, C. F., and she's tilting more by the second. Come with me. We need to get the life jacket from your suite. I
did
read the instructions after your little speech yesterday. Hurry now.”

“No, my boy,” Frohman smiled, “I shall be fine right here. Thank you though. After all,‘why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure that life gives us.'” Seeing the odd look on his friend's face, the theatrical producer added, “Peter Pan!” as if Vanderbilt should have recognized the quote.

At 2:14, the electricity, including all generators, failed completely, plunging the interior of the ship into total darkness. The steel-caged elevators stopped as well, most between floors and packed with screaming passengers who could not see or escape. Only four minutes had passed since the torpedo had detonated, but the catastrophe was well underway.

Many of the men trapped in crew elevators had been specifically trained in the operation of the complicated lowering of the lifeboats. Their inability to free themselves ensured the deaths of many, in addition to their own.

As Vanderbilt left Charles Frohman, he saw men attempting to board a lifeboat and being held away by a crew member with an ax.“Not yet!” the sailor screamed.“Not yet!”

Alfred sidestepped neatly to avoid the terror-stricken mob of running people and ducked into the dark hallway near his suite. He ran squarely into Dr.Tate and Ronald, his valet, who were being pushed from behind by the steward, young William Hughs. Each of them held an armload of life jackets.

Quickly, they helped one another into the jackets and tied them tightly.“I need to get to the suite,”Vanderbilt said. “I'm sorry, sir,” Ronald replied.“The explosions were on this side and must have damaged the balance of the walls. The doors are jammed.”

“We even took an ax to them,” Hughs added.“No use.”

“I insisted we try the ax, sir,” Ronald said. “I knew you would want the photograph of the boys.” Giving his boss a knowing look, the valet added,“And I thought you might want the purple box.”

Vanderbilt blinked, then said softly, “Very well, then.” Taking some life jackets into his own arms, he turned and led them out into the chaos of the deck.

By 2:17, Chief Purser McCubbin was beginning to ignore the danger in which the ship's condition placed them all. He had become more concerned with the immediate safety of several of the
Lusitania
's more prominent passengers—for he thought he might kill them himself! More than a dozen people crowded around him, demanding that he proceed without delay to his office—where the ship's safe was located—and retrieve their valuables. Speaking to a woman who wore a life jacket over her fur coat, McCubbin said, “Madam! If we make port, you may claim your jewelry at that time. If we do
not
make port, it won't really matter that much, will it?”

About half the people Vanderbilt passed had their life jackets on incorrectly. With their heads through armholes or backwards and upside down, passengers seemed incapable of properly fastening a life jacket, and many, unable to get to their cabins, did not have the jackets at all. Fights broke out among some of the more desperate. One officer, having told a woman, “Get your own life jacket! It's every man for himself,” was beaten badly by her husband, who took the man at his word . . . and took the officer's life jacket as well.

Vanderbilt, Ronald,Tate, and William had begun to help with life jackets when the first of several rumors inexplicably swept the
Lusitania
at 2:18. “The ship has been saved!” people reassured each other. “Pumps are now discharging the water she has taken on and soon the electricity will be restored.” Passengers and crew alike actually stopped, straightened, and began to smile and shake hands, congratulating themselves and laughing nervously about the stories they would have to tell when they got home. But Vanderbilt looked to the front of the ship and, seeing her bow almost underwater, knew it was not true. Within the space of seconds, so did everyone else, and the pandemonium that had been oddly halted by a brief, civil interlude, continued. Calmly, Alfred picked up another life jacket and looked for someone on whom to place it.