Dead Wake
Authors: Erik Larson
ALSO BY ERIK LARSON
In the Garden of Beasts
Thunderstruck
The Devil in the White City
Isaac’s Storm
Lethal Passage
The Naked Consumer
Copyright © 2015 by Erik Larson
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
CROWN is a registered trademark and the Crown colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Larson, Erik, 1954–
Dead wake : the last crossing of the Lusitania / by Erik Larson.—First edition.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Lusitania (Steamship) 2. World War, 1914–1918—Naval operations, German. 3. Shipping—Government policy—Great Britain—History—20th century. I. Title. II. Title: Last crossing of the Lusitania.
D592.L8L28 2015
940.4′514—dc23 2014034182
ISBN 978-0-307-40886-0
eBook ISBN 978-0-553-44675-3
Maps: Jeffrey L. Ward
Frontispiece: Mary Evans/Epic/Tallandier
Jacket design: Darren Haggar
Jacket photography: Stefano Oppo/Getty Images
v3.1
For Chris, Kristen, Lauren, and Erin
(and Molly and Ralphie, absent, but not forgotten)
CONTENTS
Lusitania: The Old Sailorman
Washington: The Lonely Place
Lusitania: Sucking Tubes and Thackeray
U-20: The Happiest U-Boat
Lusitania: Menagerie
Room 40: “The Mystery”
Lusitania: A Cavalcade of Passengers
Room 40: Blinker’s Ruse
Washington: Lost
Lusitania: Under Way
U-20: Toward Fair Isle
Lusitania: Rendezvous
Room 40: Cadence
U-20: “The Blind Moment”
Lusitania: A Sunday at Sea
Room 40; Queenstown; London: Protecting Orion
U-20: A Perilous Line
Lusitania: Halibut
U-20: The Trouble With Torpedoes
Lusitania: Sunshine and Happiness
Room 40: The Orion Sails
U-20: Frustration
London; Berlin; Washington: Comfort Denied
Lusitania: The Manifest
U-20: At Last
Sighting
Room 40: Schwieger Revealed
Lusitania: Helpful Young Ladies
U-20: Spectacle
Lusitania: Life After Death
U-20: Change of Plan
Lusitania: Messages
London; Washington; Berlin: Tension
U-20: Fog
The Irish Sea: Engines Above
London; Washington: The King’s Question
The Irish Sea: Funnels on The Horizon
Lusitania: Beauty
U-20: “Treff!”
Lusitania: Impact
First Word
Lusitania: Decisions
U-20: Schwieger’s View
Lusitania: The Little Army
Telegram
Lusitania: A Queen’s End
All Points: Rumor
Lusitania: Adrift
U-20: Parting Shot
Lusitania: Seagulls
Queenstown: The Lost
London: Blame
Washington; Berlin; London: The Last Blunder
MINING SUSPENSE
(A Note to Readers)
I
FIRST STARTED READING
about the
Lusitania
on a whim, following my between-books strategy of reading voraciously and promiscuously. What I learned both charmed and horrified me. I thought I knew everything there was to know about the incident, but, as so often happens when I do deep research on a subject, I quickly realized how wrong I was. Above all, I discovered that buried in the muddled details of the affair—deliberately muddled, in certain aspects—was something simple and satisfying: a
very
good story.
I hasten to add, as always, that this is a work of nonfiction. Anything between quotation marks comes from a memoir, letter, telegram, or other historical document. My goal was to try to marshal the many nodes of real-life suspense and, yes, romance that marked the
Lusitania
episode, in a manner that would allow readers to experience it as did people who lived through it at the time (although squeamish readers may wish to skip the details of a certain autopsy that appears late in the narrative).
In any event, I give you now the saga of the
Lusitania
, and the myriad forces, large and achingly small, that converged one lovely day in May 1915 to produce a tragedy of monumental scale, whose true character and import have long been obscured in the mists of history.
E
RIK
L
ARSON
S
EATTLE
A
WORD ABOUT TIME
:
To avoid confusing myself and readers, I’ve converted German submarine time to Greenwich Mean Time. Thus an entry in Kptlt. Walther Schwieger’s War Log for 3:00
P
.
M
. becomes 2:00
P
.
M
. instead
.
A
S FOR
B
RITAIN
’
S
A
DMIRALTY
:
It is important always to keep in mind that the Admiralty’s top official was the “First Lord,” who served as a kind of chief executive officer; his second-in-command was “First Sea Lord,” essentially the chief operating officer, in charge of day-to-day naval operations.
The Captains are to remember that, whilst they are expected to use every diligence to secure a speedy voyage,
they must run no risk which by any possibility might result in accident to their ships. They will ever bear in mind that the safety of the lives and property entrusted to their care is the ruling principle which should govern them in the navigation of their ships, and no supposed gain in expedition, or saving of time on the voyage, is to be purchased at the risk of accident
.
“R
ULES TO
B
E
O
BSERVED IN THE
C
OMPANY
’
S
S
ERVICE
,”
THE
C
UNARD
S
TEAM
-S
HIP
C
OMPANY
L
IMITED
, M
ARCH
1913
