The dire announcement brought a gasp from Sophie. She clutched the diamond choker glittering at her throat. B.B. nearly fell off the sofa arm where he sat holding her other hand. Others in the crowd reacted with degrees of concern ranging from mild to panicky.
“In response we have adjusted our speed downward and altered course so as to clear Fastnet by a margin of more than twenty miles. Further, in the morning you will see an armed Royal Navy cruiser alongside, our escort to Liverpool.
“Meanwhile, you will have noticed that we took certain precautionary measures immediately we had the message. All lifeboats were swung out on their davits, canvas covers removed and provisions checked. Stewards have already blacked out portholes of your cabins. We ask your indulgence in showing no unnecessary lights, particularly on the open decks.
“It is also my unpleasant task to recall that we conducted a lifeboat drill shortly after we left port, as required by maritime law. Although the drill is mandatory for all passengers, my officers who checked off names reported to me that half of our guests did not bother to attend. While I anticipate no need for emergency use of lifeboats, I urge you most strongly to find your station if you did not participate in the drill.” B.B. had gone, but Sophie hadn’t, preferring to sleep late.
A man raised his hand. “Captain? We hear Lucy was refitted with defensive cannon and ammunition lockers, down on F Deck where once there were cabins. Now you can’t get down to F Deck because of steel doors.” B.B. had picked up the same rumor: a dozen six-inch guns mounted on gun rings and concealed behind removable armor plate on both port and starboard sides. He hadn’t told Sophie.
The captain looked as though he’d like to barbecue the questioner. “I cannot comment on that, sir. I must return to the bridge now. If you have other questions, kindly consult one of the officers. Thank you for your attention and cooperation. Please resume and enjoy your activities for the evening.”
A few guests remembered themselves and applauded. Bowler Bill was already gone. B.B.’s dinner sat badly in his gut. He wasn’t worried for himself, only Sophie, who looked pickle-faced with fear.
“Benny, are we in danger?”
“Definitely not. Hun subs are after merchant ships carrying ammunition and such stuff. Nobody attacks a floating hotel like this.” His sweeping affirmative gesture nearly knocked aigrette plumes off the head of a passing grand dame.
“Suppose something did happen. Would we get off?”
“No question. I personally did an inspection hike around Boat Deck before dinner.” Sophie worried a lot, so he’d memorized particulars. “This ship carries twenty-two regular wooden lifeboats and twenty-six collapsibles. Plenty for the passengers we got on board. Now, stop fretting. Want to go dancing or play cards?”
Sophie wanted to do neither. B.B. helped her to their royal suite, the ship’s finest accommodation. It consisted of a drawing room, dining room, and two bedrooms; the unused one stored their twelve pieces of luggage. With Sophie settled in bed he returned to Promenade Deck, staring at the star-flecked sky over the Atlantic and enjoying the balmy May air.
B.B. said, “Say, Alf, what’s that funny white line in the water?”
Alf Vanderbilt, the richest man on board, was one of B.B’s new pals from first class. Vanderbilt peered at the bubbly streak lengthening under the surface as it sped toward the hull. The two gentlemen were taking the air on the starboard side of Promenade Deck. Sophie was resting.
It was a few minutes past two in the afternoon of May 7, Friday. The air was clear and warm. Stewards had opened portholes in the white and gold Louis XVI dining saloon, where B.B. and Vanderbilt had lunched on the balcony, exchanging anecdotes and arranging to meet for tea at the Ritz Hotel when they reached London.
An air of relief and anticipation had infused the ship during the morning. Although there was no sign of the promised cruiser, the Irish coast had been visible to starboard for some hours. B.B. fancied he could see a smudge representing the Old Head of Kinsale, a famous promontory. He did wonder why the captain wasn’t taking evasive action, a zigzag course, in submarine waters. He supposed Bowler Bill knew what he was doing.
Vanderbilt craned over the rail as the white streak neared the ship just forward of midships. “That is very odd, Benny. My God, you don’t suppose it’s—?”
The explosion shook the ship from bow to stern. B.B. fell against the rail. Righting himself, he lunged past Vanderbilt to the nearest door. Alarms began to ring. People ran wildly and shouted questions. Someone at the rail pointed. “It’s a huge hole. Water’s pouring in.”
The vessel listed to starboard. Deck chairs slid. A second, stronger explosion rocked the ship as B.B. lurched into the elevator lobby. All the electric power went off. An elevator pointer stopped between floors. People trapped in the cage started screaming.
Air ventilators in the wall suddenly gushed smoke. B.B. ran to the stairs. Alarms kept ringing, the seven short and one long that signaled disaster at sea. Another lurch to starboard hurled him against the wall of the stairwell. He gripped the hand rail and stumbled downward, then ran like a madman along the corridor because of a horrible certainty. Lusitania was already sinking.
A man from a neighboring cabin pulled his swooning wife into the corridor. The man was young, blond, British; B.B. had played whist with him. The tilt of the ship threw him against B.B., and he hit B.B. with his fist. “Out of the way, you fat kike.” He dragged his wife on toward the stairs.
B.B. twisted the handle of the cabin door. Stuck. He kicked the door open with strength he didn’t know he possessed. He bolted into the room as the liner listed more. The motion threw him face first onto the carpet. Sophie shrieked, then helped him up as drawers fell out of the sideboard. Glassware and a decorative vase toppled and broke.
“Sophie, we got to get to the boats.”
“I’m ready.” She’d dressed for shore, in a dark brown dolman wrap with mink collar bought especially for the trip. Her eyes were huge and dark under her black velvet hat with long willow plumes.
“Leave the hat, it’ll only get in the way.”
“Benny, I paid twenty dollars for—”
“Leave the hat.” He didn’t mean to yell, or grab her wrist so roughly, but his heart was pounding. Screams were multiplying in the corridors, the ship listed more steeply every few seconds. He flew into the corridor, pulling her with him. “Stay behind me.”
He ignored a sharp pain in his chest and bowled toward the stairwell like a football lineman. He was overweight, out of shape, but he was determined. If they reached the boat deck they’d escape. Boat Deck, Station Two, port side, that was his goal.
Smoke and soot from ventilators blinded them on the stairs. Passengers shrieked and fought each other, but the strength of desperation kept B.B. moving forward. He gripped Sophie’s hand as she stumbled upward a step at a time. With a feeling of elation he burst through the doors to Boat Deck.
Chaos! The port lifeboats, many of them half full, couldn’t be lowered because the list to starboard swung them inward, over the rail. People scrambled into the collapsible boats anyway, though frantic deck officers shouted that the boats couldn’t be raised and launched until the regular boats were in the water. All around him B.B. heard terror:
“Not enough life jackets.”
“Where are they?”
“They’re supposed to be stored here.”
“The bow’s going down!”
The slanting deck hurled everyone forward, tumbling them among loose deck chairs. A lifeboat cable snapped at the pulley. Lifeboat Two dropped, crushing the passengers in the collapsible boat beneath. B.B. saw blood, arms and legs broken like match wood. Violently, he pushed Sophie back to the doors. “We can’t get off this side.”
Soot-covered chefs and stewards and stokers milled in the elevator lobby while more came pouring up the stairs, as terrified as any passenger and just as frantic to escape. B.B. fought his way through to the starboard deck, saw a half-filled lifeboat to the left
, dragged Sophie toward it. He forced her to climb the ship’s rail. With a hand on her wide seat he boosted her into the boat. A few courageous officers struggled to free collapsibles from their deck chocks and raise their canvas sides. Smoke and soot kept spewing from the ventilators.
Lusitania listed again. The lifeboat swung outward from the ship as B.B. climbed up onto the rail. He teetered like a high-wire artist, windmilling his arms to keep his balance. Sophie stood against the lifeboat gunwale while other passengers screamed for her to sit down and the deck officer shouted, “Number two boat, lower away, lower away, goddamn it.”
“Benny, jump,” Sophie cried. B.B. jumped.
For a moment he seemed to float like an aerialist above the sunlit sea. Then he fell into the boat, nearly knocked out when his forehead struck one of the thwarts. Sophie caught him by the belt and dragged his legs in.
B.B.’s vision cleared. He saw Alf Vanderbilt still on the deck, smoking a cigar and watching the spectacle with unnatural calm. Perhaps six feet separated the lifeboat from the ship. B.B. waved his arms. “Alf, come on.”
“Too far, Benny.”
“Get a life belt.”
“Aren’t any.”
“Then jump.”
With a sad shrug Vanderbilt replied, “No use. Can’t swim.”
The ship took another huge lurch forward, burying its prow in the waves. The lifeboat tilted seaward at a sharp angle. Those not hanging on tumbled out at the bow. B.B. grasped a thwart with one hand and reached for Sophie with the other, but she flew past him and dropped from sight.
“Sophie!”
He tried to reach the bow through a tangle of arms, legs, pummeling fists, wild eyes, shrieking mouths. The lifeboat tilted again and a pulley gave way. B.B. cried, “Oh-oh,” just as he fell out of the boat and dropped through space into the glinting green water.
Dazed, choking, he kicked and flailed to stay afloat. Like an enormous steel fish, Lusitania was slowly diving bow first into the sea. Her stern rose high in the sunlight. Her hull stood nearly vertical. Passengers and crew continued to fall or jump, landing in the midst of furniture and wreckage.
An old man clinging to a sofa floated by. A little farther on, a ship’s officer and a female passenger rested on top of a grand piano that had somehow escaped from the public rooms. In the wake of the vessel a whole fan of debris, chairs, tables, lamps, oars, smashed planks from lifeboats, bobbing heads, spread out in the sunshine. B.B. recognized a man wearing a Lusitania life belt, an opinionated pro-German from Pittsburgh.
“Hey, Rupert. Some hero you got, the kaiser. A murderer.” Rupert drifted on, his eyes glassy.
The water was hellishly cold for spring. B.B. felt faint. He bit his lips till he tasted blood. He had to stay awake, find Sophie. Never a strong swimmer, he somehow found strength, dog-paddled and kicked while he shouted repeatedly, “Sophie? Sophie?”
He saw her, holding her head out of the water by grasping a dining table. The sunny sea resounded with a continuous grind and roar as the ship sank. She was already half submerged with her prow sunk in the sea bottom. Her aft section billowed black smoke. Unbelievably, some passengers still peered from cabin portholes. Others jumped, striking the water with an impact that surely broke their bones if it didn’t kill them outright. B.B. saw Captain Turner clinging to a life ring.
“Sophie, hang on, I’m coming.” He nearly choked as a heavy wave threw nauseating salt water into his mouth. He spewed it out and swam hard, his soaked clothes dragging on him and slowing him. He was within ten yards of Sophie when she raised one hand to wave at him.
“Benny, hurry, I got awful cramps.”
“Don’t let go,” he screamed, his throat raw. She kept her hand in the air, waving. B.B.’s strength was failing; he wasn’t a young man. Somehow Sophie didn’t understand that she needed to hold onto the table with both hands. Her gray hair hung over her eyes. Her twisted face bespoke agony.
“Oh, Benny, it hurts.” She thrust both hands under water, to her middle. A wave washed over her. Gasping, she hunted for the table, but it floated out of reach. She fell back and sank while he was still six yards away.
“Sophie!”
With a final great roar and rush of water, Lusitania’s stern disappeared under the waves, leaving a foaming whirlpool and a sea of drowning passengers and crew. The ship sank eighteen minutes after the torpedo struck. Sophie Pelzer disappeared with her.
81. Marching
A flotilla of fishing boats and tugs from Queenstown rescued 761 people from the Irish Sea. Of 1,198 aboard Lusitania who died, 124 were American citizens, many of them notables: the theatrical producer Charles Frohman, Alfred Vanderbilt, and Mr. and Mrs. Elbert Hubbard.
Germany celebrated it as a great victory; the kaiser declared a national holiday. A wave of outrage swept the United States. The Nation condemned “a deed for which even a Hun must blush.” Editorials called the embassy’s warning advertisement “the death notice.” Germany was guilty of “wanton murder,” “a slap in the face of humanity,” “the worst crime of a government since crucifixion of Christ.” Some editorialists wanted an immediate declaration of war.
German-Americans nervously avoided public scrutiny. In some cities, bakeries, taverns, and sausage shops owned by first-and second-generation Germans had their windows smashed and defamatory slogans painted on their doors. At Brauerei Crown an unknown vandal set a small fire at night, destroying one delivery wagon and damaging a truck before the local fire brigade arrived.
Liberty rushed Racetrack Nell to the exchanges, but Fritzi was much too concerned for B.B. to worry about its fate. She wept for an hour when she heard the news of Sophie Pelzer’s death.
Professional nurses hired by the studio brought B.B. home from England. He was too devastated to travel by himself. Doctors placed him in Haven Hill, a private hospital located on ten acres surrounded by the orange groves of Riverside. On the first Sunday after his arrival, Fritzi and Hobart drove out there with Schatze.
The dirt roads were washboards. As Fritzi steered around a gaping chuck hole, Hobart said, “Seems a rather long way from town. Surely there are other hospitals closer.”
“Kelly chose the place. He said the important thing was the best care.”
“Perhaps he was more interested in its distance from the studio,” Hobart said dryly.
At the sanitarium Fritzi tied Schatze’s leash to the gear lever. After a couple of plaintive yips the wiener dog settled down, and Fritzi and Hobart went into the main building. An attendant took them out a rear door, where they found B.B. sitting alone on a bench beneath a palm tree, blankly staring at four patients in bathrobes playing croquet. A hose sprinkler shot a fountain of water onto another section of the dry lawn. The croquet balls clicked in the silence.
B.B.’s curly gray hair had turned white. A light woolen blanket covered his legs. The front of his gown bore coffee spots and food stains. Fritzi was distraught to see him so listless and slovenly. “Hello, B.B.,” she said gently. “How are you?”
“All right, how are you?” He noticed Hobart standing in the shade, nervously twisting his black beret. “And you,” he added in a vacant way.
Fritzi took B.B.’s hand and pressed it between her palms, as he used to do. He didn’t react. “Are you comfortable here?”
B.B. shrugged. “It’s all right.”
“We’re all so terribly sorry about Sophie. She was a fine lady.”
“Sophie.” His eye drifted past the tan stucco buildings to the low hills covered with rows of orange trees. He pressed the fingers of his right hand to his brow, his classic worry pose. “Poor Sophie.”
The conversation limped and lurched for another ten minutes. When Fritzi could stand no more she said, “Hobart, we must go.” She patted B.B., kissed his pale, freckled forehead. “We’ll come see you again.”
His eye followed a croquet ball through a wicket. He said nothing. Fritzi fought tears as she took the old actor’s hand and hurried them away.
&nb
sp; Before they left Haven Hill, they met with the director, Dr. A. B. Gerstmeyer, an alienist. He was a small man with odd eyes. The irises were streaked with variegated color—green, dark blue, gray. One eye tended to wander distractingly every minute or so.
Gerstmeyer’s office was cool and dark. Diplomas from Heidelberg and Harvard hung behind his desk. Venetian blinds painted slat patterns on the white wall.
“I am terribly concerned about Mr. Pelzer,” Fritzi said to him. “I’m not sure he knows us.”
“To the contrary, he recognizes all his visitors. Mr. Kelly called on him yesterday, and afterward Mr. Pelzer identified him by name. It isn’t a lack of memory or recognition. The patient is intensely focused somewhere else. He is a captive of those few moments in which his wife drowned. He goes over and over them, seeking ways in which he might have saved her. He can’t leave the scene of the tragedy, at least not yet.”
“He and Mrs. Pelzer never had children,” Fritzi said. “Are there other relatives who might help him pull out of this?”
“I asked the same question. There are only two distant cousins whom he never sees. You must understand, Miss Crown, this kind of grief is common when one partner in a strong marriage passes away. Mr. Pelzer’s sense of personal guilt only increases his need to inflict punishment on himself.”
“By shutting out the world?”
“And reducing his life to nothing as penance.”
“Will he recover? He’s a brilliant man. Kind, decent—we all love and respect him. What’s more, the studio needs him.” She thought of Al Kelly, unusually solicitous of late. Why not? B.B.’s hospitalization made him sole operating head of Liberty. He could enforce every edict without fear of a veto, pinch every penny until it howled.
“Recovery is entirely possible, provided the call of Mr. Pelzer’s work becomes sufficiently strong.”
“Can you say how long it might be until that happens?” Hobart asked.