Andrew Williams - The Poison Tide

Christ. Here we go again ; and he set off across the street, checking for just a second to avoid a passing carriage. Only three blocks more to the hotel; and if the bastards came for him, he’d fire one over their heads. They were sober now all right, keeping step through one junction, and the next, and past the pumping station, men on the graveyard shift smoking at its gates: They won’t take me here. But a few more yards and they made their move, breaking across the street towards him. Turning smartly, steadying himself, he took aim: ‘Halt.’ For a second they did, but only for a second, edging forward step by step like children in a playground game. To be sure they knew these were his rules, he yelled: ‘Another and you’re dead.’ But the larger of the two seamen kept coming. Have it your own way then ; he was close enough to be sure he’d hit something. He squeezed, the revolver kicked, the seaman crumpled, the shot echoed for ever — or so it seemed because at that moment he felt a searing pain in his shoulder. A scream locked behind his teeth, and he spun round to confront a man with a bullet head and blue eyes, his mouth slightly open and his knife raised to strike again. Wolff tried to level the gun but he felt weak and someone was holding his arm. There were more men — three — a tangle of arms and fists and boots. Then an agonising jarring in his chest, and through a blinding kaleidoscope of shapes and lights he fell. I’m going to die. He was lying on the cobblestones and he’d never felt colder. I love you, and I’m sorry. He tried to shape the words but couldn’t move his lips. That’s it then — over, over. Hadn’t it all been a bloody waste.

MASEK WAS FOUND floating in the harbour. They left Wolff where he fell. The doctors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital did all in their power, without hope. The blade passed within half an inch of his heart and he’d haemorrhaged too much blood to recover, or so they said.

Beyond the bright white confines of the hospital, the thick cotton sheets, the perfect bed corners, the laboratory coats and starched aprons, a dirty little battle was fought over his body in the press and on Capitol Hill. The Baltimore Evening Sun broke the first story. The stabbing in our streets of a Dutch engineer united the sympathies of the citizens of this city , its columnist, Mr Mencken, observed; but this newspaper understands that the unfortunate Mr de Witt is neither Dutch nor an engineer. He is a British spy . The newspaper’s well-informed source was also able to reveal that a Norwegian sailor called Christensen had told the authorities in Berlin that the same spy had tried to induce him to betray the Irish patriot, Sir Roger Casement .

The answering shot came in the New York Times under the headline: ‘Germans attack America again’. The newspaper had seen incontrovertible evidence implicating German diplomats and respectable American businessmen in another sabotage campaign. Using the ships and premises of the Norddeutscher Lloyd Line as cover, ruthless men have sought to undermine this country’s interests and security , its editor wrote in an opinion piece. German Americans must now show where their true loyalty lies. A few days later the New York World was able to reveal that police were investigating shocking claims that German agents in America were using a terrible new biological weapon. With help from sympathisers in this country, German agents are infecting animals with anthrax in the hope of striking at Allied soldiers and their supply lines on the battlefields in France. In the course of this attack, at least one American dockworker was infected and had died, the paper claimed, and it printed a picture of a prominent Baltimore businessman with the caption: Mr Paul Hilken has denied any role in the campaign.

By April, Congressmen were debating it on the floor of the House and a senator called on the presidential candidates to pledge that they would do all in their power to end ‘the secret war’ being waged by Britain and Germany on American soil. Finally the German diplomat, Dr Albert, was asked to leave the country and efforts were made to arrest his associates. For a time the police search for the guilty men pushed the glad tidings of record-breaking export sales to the Allies down the page, and the slaughter on the battlefield at Verdun inside.

Wolff knew nothing of his celebrity. Later, when he thought of the weeks he had spent at Johns Hopkins, he could remember only disparate images: a nurse with eyes a little like Laura’s lifts a cup to his lips; a fly struggles in a single thread at the angle of the ceiling; hushed voices, the yellow shaft of the morning sun through a chink in the curtains they never seemed able to close; and in the afternoons the shadow of a maple tree dancing tirelessly on the wall.

Then, as conscious minutes became hours, Thwaites’ valet reading in a bored monotone at his bedside: ‘ There pass the careless people / That call their souls their own… ’

‘Oh Christ, have some pity,’ he mumbled, and White jumped up, excited: ‘Them’s your first words,’ and he made Wolff smile: ‘You shouldn’t blaspheme, sir, not after what you’ve been through.’ And after that they all came. Gaunt paced his room, barely making eye contact, a quip about nurses’ ankles, a promise to ‘see to Hinsch’, and a present of The Life of Horatio, Lord Nelson by Southey. Thwaites refused to tell him anything but left a small bottle of brandy, and Wiseman brought some letters from home, and the news of the Easter Rising in Dublin. ‘Army wasn’t ready — in spite of our warning,’ he said with a resigned shrug, ‘but the rebels didn’t have enough support anyway.’

‘Were there German soldiers?’

‘None, and the Navy intercepted the guns they’d sent — oh, and that damn fool Casement was captured by a local bobby almost as soon as he stepped ashore.’

A nurse brought Wiseman coffee and he joked and flirted with her as she rustled about the bed in her well-starched uniform, refolding corners, plumping pillows. When she had gone he reached into his briefcase and lifted a stained sheet of paper. ‘Remember this? You should — you spilt your blood for it.’ It was the list of ships Wolff had taken from Hilken’s office. ‘We found it in your jacket,’ Wiseman explained. ‘Bloody fools didn’t look, or didn’t have time to. Anyway, we identified the sailors. Their captains detained them as soon as they left American waters, and we had a reception committee waiting for them in France. They didn’t have much idea what they were doing — thought it was just an attack on our animals.’ He paused, patting the mattress in a show of applause, then said with feeling, ‘Well done, really, old chap. Well done. Only sorry it ended for you in hospital.’

Wolff smiled weakly. The whole damn business made him feel low.

‘You’re tired,’ he said, rising, brushing the creases from his trousers; ‘thoughtless of me.’

‘No, no, I’m sorry.’

Wiseman gazed intently at him and for a second their eyes met. ‘Is something troubling you?’

‘Yes. Roger Casement — you said they’d taken him?’

Wiseman couldn’t quite conceal his surprise. ‘Yes, we have,’ he said with careful emphasis. ‘He’s being held in the Tower of London of all places — makes more of him than he deserves, if you ask me.’

‘And after that?’

‘He’ll go on trial for treason. Does that concern you?’

‘Yes, it does.’

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Well, you should know, the other Irish leaders were shot.’