Andrew Williams - The Poison Tide

Father John looked a little white. The queues at the gangways were shorter than before the war. No one was making the trip for fun. Wolff glanced at his watch. It was five o’clock. She would sail at seven, her lights blazing to distinguish her as a friend to all: there was just time. ‘See to my luggage, will you?’ he said, pushing his trunk with his foot.

Christensen scowled but said nothing. Things were different now they’d left Germany. But Nicholson was alarmed: ‘Are you going? What can be so… there isn’t time.’

It was a personal matter, Wolff said, and no, it couldn’t wait. He would be aboard before she sailed, there was no need to fuss. And coat in one hand, briefcase in the other, he walked quickly away from the pier. He knew C’s man, Tinsley, had an office above a warehouse somewhere in the docks. He had little more than an hour to find it.

Dilger was at the Rotterdam ’s rail in time to watch him leave. There were only twenty passengers in first class and they were already comfortably settled topside. He’d left the case in his cabin, relieved to be free of it for a time, and found a place on the promenade deck with a view of the pier. The priest was easy to spot, fussing over his luggage, the circle widening round him and his exasperated companion. Steerage was still filing aboard when de Witt returned an hour later. Dilger watched him approach the gangway, lost for a moment among the flat caps and ready-to-wear suits, Dutchmen for the most part, their new lives in cardboard suitcases. He walked with a regular, purposeful stride, like a soldier trying not to march, still carrying the briefcase but not his coat. Strange, the Count hadn’t described a careless man.

Dilger saw him again at dinner. He had the blond Norwegian in tow but not the priest. They were shown to a table beneath the gallery at the opposite end of the dining saloon. Dilger was closer to the ship’s orchestra, too close, caught between a loud New York banker and a charmless textiles manufacturer from Lille, and as soon as it was decently possible he made his excuses and left. It was a clear night with a fresh breeze from the north-west, the last of Holland twinkling on the port side. He took a turn about the deck, stopping only to help a woman from the American Peace League with directions to the Palm Court. She was touchingly grateful but too plain and earnest to be worth engaging in conversation. Her scent reminded him of his Frieda. He wasn’t labouring under the illusion she was just his , of course; he wasn’t a fool.

He flicked his cigarette over the side, the tobacco glowing brightly as it swept to stern on the breeze. Somewhere — perhaps in the ballroom — a band was playing rag tunes. Such a pity, he liked to dance.

In his cabin the war felt closer. He found it difficult to keep his eyes off the case. Struggling out of his shirt, untying his laces, carefully folding his trousers — he’d had to dispense with the services of a valet — he even glimpsed it in the mirror while he was washing his face. He climbed into bed and switched off the light but he could still sense it there in the rack at his feet. Damn. It would be such an easy thing to drop it over the side, and wouldn’t his conscience be clearer? He followed its arc: smack on the surface, phials splintering, spilling their poison into the ocean. Yes, the Dr Dilger who refused to bring war to America. But wasn’t it too late? He would be casting so much of his life away with the case. Duty, conscience, he was weary of worrying about a choice he’d already taken and impatient with himself. I want to dance with a pretty girl, he thought, turning on his side, and he tried to imagine her fingers touching the back of his hand as they swept about the floor, an adoring look in her eyes.

He was woken by an urgent knocking at a door and raised voices in the passageway. No, they were banging on more than one door. Switching on the cabin light, he glanced at the case, then at the clock. Half past two in the morning. Something was wrong. The ship was barely moving. He jumped out of bed and reached for his trousers. The Lusitania had sunk in minutes. He was doing up his laces when someone knocked sharply: ‘Andersson, sir. You must get up.’

It was the young Swede who’d settled him into the cabin.

‘What is it?’ he shouted, stumbling towards the door. ‘Are we sinking?’

‘No, sir,’ came the muffled reply. The steward was smirking when Dilger opened the door.

‘First class to the library, sir.’ He turned to rap at the cabin door opposite. ‘A British cruiser, you’ll see her on the port side. No need to worry, sir.’

‘What do they want?’

Either Andersson didn’t hear him or wasn’t able to say.

Stay calm, remember, the British won’t be looking for someone like you, the Count had advised.

‘Come on, don’t just stand there.’ It was an old lady in a lobster-green silk dressing gown and a life preserver, her grey hair caught in a net. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ she huffed, pushing past with her elbows. Further along the passageway a young woman was trying to arrange two bleary-eyed children in her arms and he recognised the New York banker, struggling into a coat.

‘Do you know your way, sir?’ a steward asked.

In the end, Dilger left the case sitting in the middle of the table in his cabin. If they found it hidden in a cupboard they would examine it more carefully. If they knew what he was doing, his number was up anyway. How could they know?

The British were aboard. A young lieutenant with a ‘rules-the-waves’ air was sitting at a table in the library, the passenger list in front of him, two marines with revolvers at his back.

‘American,’ he said, glancing up from Dilger’s passport. ‘On the way home, from where?’

‘Germany.’ Nadolny had instructed him to tell the truth.

‘Your business there?’

‘Family business,’ he replied. A few weeks with his sister and now he was returning to his practice in Virginia.

The lieutenant considered him carefully for a few seconds, then slid his passport back across the table. ‘All right, please take a seat.’

Everyone looked bored, everyone looked weary, and the little textiles manufacturer was wearing a hole in the rug, restless with anger at the affront to his dignity, a Frenchman, an ally. Dilger stood at the green marble mantelpiece with his back to a fire. Stewards glided about the room with drinks and saucissonages and he accepted a glass of water, but only minutes after draining it his mouth was sticky with anxiety again. They’d been waiting half an hour when the lieutenant rose from his table. No regrets, no apologies, with the superciliousness of an Empire Englishman he informed them that the Rotterdam had been taken under escort; that they could return to their cabins to finish dressing but they were to gather in the library again in half an hour, and that was all his orders permitted him to say.

‘They’re looking for German stowaways and spies,’ the steward informed Dilger at his cabin door.

‘But the ship’s on her way to America.’

The Swede shrugged philosophically. The same thing had happened to the Noordam a few weeks before, he said; forced to anchor off Ramsgate while some of her passengers were questioned ashore. ‘It will add at least a day and a half to the journey,’ he grumbled.

‘Where on earth is Ramsgate?’ Dilger enquired.

First-class passengers were permitted to take the air at daybreak, the coast just visible through a grey sea mist, the cruiser a few cables to stern. At seven o’clock they were served breakfast in the dining saloon, the captain and the first officer drifting between tables with words of reassurance. No more than a day or two in Ramsgate, they said, and while they were anchored the passengers would stay aboard.