Saturday, May 1st, 1915
It had been eight years since she left for her maiden voyage and aside from other modifications, the streaks of paint remained unaltered. The china remained the same. The old sheets were still being slept in. Lusitania was called the Greyhound of the Seas. And she was, she really was...
In New York City's Pier 54, Lusitania's superstructure rose mountainously above the dock with it's black colored funnels standing against the sky like the pillars of Solomon's Temple – and big enough to hold all his wives. Crewmen moved across the deck, dwarfed by the eight year old scale of technology. Boxes and crates were loaded into the hull without any notification of what they contained, some like auto parts and furs, notions, confectionary, silverware...and even one thousand two hundred and seventy one cases of contraband ammunition.
On the pier, horse drawn carriages, motorcars and trucks moved through the dense throng as a father and his daughter watched the ship from a safe distance on the port side. Others waved farewell "bon voyage" to friends and relatives leaving their lives forever...or temporarily.
A silver-grey 1914 Locomobile Berline Town Car, leading a blue colored Detroiter Model B1 Touring of the same year pushed through the crowd, leaving a wake in the press of people. People around the handsomely beautiful cars streamed to get on board the ship, jostling with seamen, stokers, porters, pursers, trimmers and Cunard officials.
The Locomobile pulled up next to the ship and the driver, a burly man with brute strength, opened the right passenger door for a 15 year old boy with fair hair and a stunning back suit with a bowler hat that had a light green band wrapped around it. His name was Adrien Agreste.
Adrien was born to one of the very best families in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania with an eye for attending St. George's School in Middletown, Rhode Island when he would turn eighteen. But his plans for college were altered to the University of Paris when he became engaged a month earlier to Chloé Bourgeois, daughter of a French politician who claimed to be the daughter-in-law of France's current president Raymond Poincaré. Intelligent, poised, and handsome, Adrien had been schooled since childhood to be everything a young man was expected to be: a model in the field of photography and fashion in his family's company that rivaled female designers like Lucille, Lady Duff-Gordon or Jeanne Paquin and his betrothal to Chloé was considered to be an admiral catch, a perfect pairing of wealth and position. But underneath his scheduled lifestyle, he was unhappy and wanted a chance to see and do more than meet the daily quota of his sheltered life, a spirit that rebelled against the rigid confines and expectations of Edwardian society controlling his destiny.
When Adrien looked up at the Lusitania, he wasn't too impressed, believing it to be as small as the Caronia and not as big like the Olympic or the Deutschland or even the newest Cunard liner Aquitania.
"I don't see any excitement for a decade old ship," he said to Chloé. "It doesn't look any smaller than the Titanic."
Chloé, a girl of just about Adrien's age, was beautiful, rich and spoiled beyond meaning. She had the same hair color as Adrien, but had it wrapped in a ponytail with eyes that were bluer than the sea. For the occasion of sailing day, she wore a honey-yellow coat over a black and white summer day dress. As a scion to the French Republic, she aspired to sophistication and insisted on propriety, finding Adrien as a suitable young man to fill the role of husband in her aristocratic future, and she presented him to her peers with the pride of ownership, basking in others' reaction to his handsomeness and pedigree.
"Adrien, honey, I know you don't act too enthusiastic over some things, but Lusitania is not one of them. She may not be as luxurious as the Titanic, lacking a Turkish bath, Parisian café and squash courts, but it's still a luxury liner."
Adrien's father, Gabriel Agreste was a famous fashion designer from one of the most socially prominent families in Pittsburg. After the death of his wife, the family fell on hard times, but he was determined to achieve financial salvation of his company through his son's yet-to-be made proposal to Chloé. A man who ruled his household with an iron will, he was intolerant of Adrien's rebellious nature, and found in Chloé an ally in his efforts to control his son, including one time when he tried to attend Peabody High School unannounced. Gabriel was very anti-semitic towards Jewish people, especially Germans, Russians and those of lower class education. He came out of the Locomobile, wearing a cream suit with a blood necktie. The sunlight reflected on his face showed that his appearance with Adrien's was very much alike.
"So this is Cunard's marvel of the last decade," Gabriel smiled at the leviathan.
"It was back then," Chloé snapped back. "Now it's the essential equivalent of yesterday's news."
The entire entourage of upper class American-French socialites had impeccably turned out to represent a quintessential example. Behind them were the staff, Chloe's best friend and valet Sabrina, Gabriel's assistant Nathalie Sancoeur, the aforementioned chauffeur commonly nicknamed "The Gorilla" and the houseboy Nino, a Turk-Indian orphaned by the Italo-Turkish War who was also Adrien's friend, but barely had the time to be his friend given his position.
A Cunard porter scurried towards them, observing the large amount of luggage, steam trucks and a steel safe.
"All passengers must check their baggage through the main terminal."
"Oops," said Chloé holding her right hand over her mouth flirtatiously. "Sabrina, you know what to do."
Sabrina, a mousey red-head who seemed to be very bright (at sometimes bubbly), escorted the man over the trunks.
"The trunks from the Locomobile here, twelve from the Detroiter and the safe to the port side Regal Suite B-46, 48, 50, 52, 54 and cabin B-56 at mid-ships."
Chloe checked her watch as the cargo-handlers carted the trunks away. The hour of departure, originally scheduled for 10:00 AM, was now changed to noon. Weather conditions they said it was, but the Admiralty's requisition of the SS Cameronia led to a transfer of forty one passengers and crew to the Lusitania.
"We'd better hurry," she told her future in laws.
Nino, carrying three of the boxes that were too delicate for the baggage handlers, scurried behind Adrien, who had a curious thought enter his mind.
"Do you have my coat?" he asked.
"I've got it, friend," Nino smiled nervously.
Chloé soon stopped at the advertisement under the Lusitania's by the wall of the pier, curious out of the blue as she always kept up to date with important notices, especially from her father's proclamations. It read:
"NOTICE!
Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on the ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.
IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY
Washington, D.C. 22nd April 1915"
"German swine," she muttered to herself. "Apparently, they have no class."
Or at least that was what she assumed. For it was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria at the hands of Serbian terrorists, a blank check and an ultimatum to the Austro-Hungarian Empire last July that led into a serious conflict between the two nations after being unable to fulfill the forty-eight hour time limit held within the ultimatum. Tsar Nicholas II of Imperial Russia, Serbia's allies, declared full mobilization of his country's armed forces against Germany and Austria in retaliation. Germany demanded Russia to stop the mobilization by noon of August 1st or face war. They went with the latter anyway and Germany warned France to make it's own intentions clear within another forty-eight hours. After no reply, Germany declared war on France and invaded Belgium. This led to the United Kingdom declaring war on Germany as well, for according to the 1839 Treaty of London, Britain was bound to guard the neutrality of Belgium and the Germans violated it, especially after King Albert I refused a safe passage for the troops on their way to France. Because of these events that led to a heated war of nations, Chloé had lost all trust of foreign people, except for the Americans, the British and her native France. Now she was on her way back from her American studies and hour long English classes that took up most of her hobbies like shopping and gossiping.
"Cheer up, Adrikins," she said to the poor boy with his head bowed down. "I've booked us on a grand ship and you act like you're going to your mother's funeral."
Adrien, a little sensitive about his mother's passing, had a different reply.
"I feel like wearing black."
"Not on sailing day, you won't!" she teased, her right index finger tickling his nose. "At least we won't be alone, you and I will be sharing the Regal Suite with Lady Marguerite Allan and her daughters while your father stays with Mr and Mrs. Bilicke."
Sure enough, about five feet away, was Lady Hugh Montagu Allan (formerly Marguerite Ethel McKenzie), her teenage daughters Anna and Gwendolyn and their two maids, Emily Davis and Annie Walker. Gabriel greeted the noblewoman with a courteous bow and a kiss to the right hand.
"My Lady," he said, impressing her with his best attempt at a Quebec English dialect.
Adrien seemed like his father had unintentionally taught him how to be proper for the umpteenth time, trying to impress a woman of good family and her daughters. It wasn't until four seconds later when Adrien felt his left cheek being prodded by Lady Allan's right white glove.
"Adrien, dear. When I heard we would be sharing a suite with you and your fiancée, I took matters into my own hands to see that we would help make the journey more comfortable. You can dine with us at our table, my daughters will keep you company and you can have my baby Peek-a-Boo to play with."
Adrien looked carefully at Lady Allan's devoted pet Pekingese dog of white fur named Peek-a-Boo, who looked vicious amongst strangers, but was very kind and gentle towards his mistress. The girls Gwendolyn and Anna were just about as silly as the Agreste's neighbors Alberta and Catherine Crompton from Philadelphia, who were also travelling onboard with the rest of their brothers, their parents and their governess Dorothy Allen. Mr. Crompton was shipping sheepskin accouterments on Lusitania for the British Army. Two more Philadelphians, Frank and Alice Tesson had also booked their tickets on D-Deck. Frank, an assistant manager of John Wannamaker's shoe department, was also heading to Paris, but on a shopping trip rather than an arraigned marriage. Harry Keser, Vice President of the Philadelphia National Bank was also on the line to board with his wife Mary, his son Floyd unable to attend for some reason.
Must be due to school. Adrien thought, but it wasn't like he would miss his company. He had only known Floyd through several dinner parties and they didn't have too much fun about it. He moved along the line towards the first class gantry leading to C-Deck, where the first class passengers entered into the Grand Staircase.
Sure enough, the Agreste and Allan parties were joined by the Crompton family on the gangway and with slow steps, they were engulfed by the black wall of the ship.
Once Adrien was settled in his small cabin on the right behind the first funnel, he took out his well-possessed dairy and wrote the latest entry.
"Dear Diary,
I have just boarded a ship known as the "Greyhound of the Seas" to everyone else. But to me, it is a slave ship taking me to France in chains. Several of Father's friends and neighbors; the Cromptons, the Allans, the Keser couple are also onboard and I don't know what else to do anymore. Even though I am everything a well brought up boy should be on the outside, I am screaming internally. All I ask for in return is an exciting life, maybe one where I can strike gold someplace way out west and let all the other miners have their share of the prize.
I hope my family will appreciate the Corot landscape I bought from Sir Hugh Lane of the National Art Gallery. He's onboard too. I will write more after second service dinner.
Adrien"
Across 13th Street on a sidewalk café, two girls and two boys dressed in working class clothes were playing a simple game of poker. Crew members and dock workers crowded the place as well.
Marinette Cheng, a gorgeous Chinese girl of 15 with navy blue hair and a rumpled pink dress, exchanged a glance to her friend, a southern Indian named Alya Césaire. Orphaned at the age of 10, she worked a variety of jobs. After a stint as a seamstress, she went to Calais, where she drew portraits on the pier for ten cents apiece and sold her own hats and dresses for bypassers. Working her way from place to place on tramp steamers and similar accommodations, she went to New York via Teutonic, where she studied art, fashion and how to speak English. Subsequently, she was going to find herself able to return to her native land in the grandest style possible onboard the Lusitania. But without any money for travel, she went her way through various casinos, finding Alya along the way.
Alya had brown hair and a brown beauty mark above her forehead inherited from her mother. She was on her way back to Pondicherry, where an account of affairs involving revolutionaries were taking shape and her father was one of them. Their competitors, the son of a gymnasium instructor named Kim and his friend, a poindexter of an Afro addressed only as Max, continued their sullen argument.
"I can't believe you bet on our tickets, Max."
Kim, wanting to fight alongside the British against the Germans, felt like he was perfectly fit in size and build to take on whoever came his way. Max, however was on his way to college in Edinburgh, then to a health school in Whitehall where he would become a doctor. If the war lasted that long, he would be on the front lines treating soldiers who were getting sick from diseases rather than lead poisoning of guns. He looked at Kim and spoke with the voice of reason and common sense to his arrogant friend.
"You lost the money. I'm just trying to get it back and if you don't like it, why don't you just file for bankruptcy?"
Instead of starting his own personal war over money, Kim graciously removed a card from his left hand and resumed the game. Marinette, a jaunty girl who sometimes acted clumsy beyond her compassionate and selfless actions towards others, snarked the older boy as her eyes met his above the cards she was holding.
"When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose. Hit me again, Kim."
Complying, Kim gave a queen to Marinette and slipped it into her deck. In the middle of the table were bills and coins from four countries, indicating that the game had been going on for a while. Sitting on top of the money were two third class tickets for the Lusitania.
Marinette looked over the tickets again and spoke with feistiness in her voice.
"The moment of truth boys. Somebody's life's about to change."
She took a quick inaudible draw of breath and asked.
"Max?"
Max laid three cards down.
"Kim?"
Kim placed two. Marinette knew she was the one who's luck was about to change...in the most unexpected way.
"Uh-oh, two pair," she said solemnly. "Sorry, Alya."
Alya looked furious. Her eyes squinted with suspicion and the knack of ranting out at the last minute in her native Hindi.
"What, me? Sorry? Girl, you just bet all of our money-"
Marinette cut her short-lived rant, but her voice was aiming at Kim and Max.
"Sorry, but you boys won't be seeing war for a long time...CAUSE WE'RE GOIN' TO PARIS!"
Max bowed his head in defeat as the girls whooped with laughter and started to gather the money and the tickets into their grubby hands. But Kim, more enraged than his friend, balled a huge right farmer's fist, grabbing Marinette by the collar of her top.
"Fucking bitch," he muttered under his breath.
"Do you realize you are speaking to a woman?" Marinette asked in a lady's tone.
And she thrust her right knee towards his pelvis. Kim feel backwards onto the floor and lay there, muttering into a rapid harangue of his stupidity. Marinette kissed the tickets, then jumped on Alya's back and rode her around the table. It was like they won the lottery.
"Yes! And now we go to Paris, then back home to Pondicherry!" the Indian girl shouted excitedly.
"Well you'd better hurry," said a dock worker from nearby. "Ol' Lucy's gonna leave in fifteen minutes."
Marinette and Alya picked up their belongings, wrote Kim and Max's tickets under their names with her pen and rushed to the pier.
"We're gonna ride in high style!" the Chinese girl cheered. "Like all those royalties up in first class!"
"As much as I would like to join you in Paris," Alya shouted after her. "I still have my family back home in Pondicherry."
"Won't they miss you if you stayed with me?"
"I haven't seen them for two years! Not even before the war started!"
"I thought India was neutral!" Marinette felt her voice bounce as she ran.
"When you're allies with England, you need all the help you can get against the Germans!"
At last they reached the gangway to the third class entrance on E-Deck. Junior Third Officer Albert Bestic was just about to close the door when the girls came up to him, shouting.
"Wait, we're passengers!"
"Have you been through the inspection queue?"
"Of course," Marinette lied. "Anyway, as women, we don't have any lice...both of us that is."
She handed the altered tickets to the officer. He inspected them for a second, then looked up and said.
"Right, come on board."
And they ran in, nearly bumping into the ship's typist Sadie Hale, along the way.
"Next time," she called after them. "Try to be more careful!"
As she turned back, continuing to write her report for the Cunard Daily Bulletin, she could almost hear Marinette shouting.
"We are the luckiest bitches in the world, you know that?"
Sadie chuckled and went back to writing those words in her report just as the door closed.
Marinette and Alya burst through a door onto the aft well deck. They ran across the deck and up the steel stairs to the poop deck. When they got to the rail and Marinette started to yell and wave to the crowd on the dock.
"Goodbye! Au revoir! Zài jiàn!"
"Do you know somebody?" Alya asked.
"Of course not, silly! That's the whole point of a great farewell! Besides, I feel so...attached to this country. Saying good-bye to everyone down below is tantamount to saying good-bye to America."
At the stroke of noon, Lusitania raised anchor for the last time, reversed her engines away from the pier with the help of two tugboats, steamed down the Hudson River and made her way to the open sea on her one hundred and first eastbound crossing. There were over three hundred and seventy three men, women and children in steerage, six hundred and one in second cabin and two hundred and ninety travelling in saloon. They came from over a dozen lands, returning to their families, attending business meetings and even enlisting for the war, the polar opposite of a seventy year wave of immigrants seeking a better life in the new world.
On F-Deck, Marinette and Alya found their cabins, F-34 in the bow of the ship right by the cargo hatch. Travelling all that way through the narrow corridors with other groups of single men and their families felt like a foreshadowing of college with numerous dorm rooms. Entering the cabin, a modest cubicle with four bunks, a port hole and two other kids filled the area, their names were Ivan, a strong obese young man with a streak of blonde hair, and Alix Kubdel, a tomboy with red-pink hair and a silver pocket watch as the only memento of her father, who had gone to serve the British army out of his own patriotic support to fight in the war. Alix, like any neutral American, stayed behind and took a job as a waitress at the Delmonico Restaurant on 2 South William Street to earn herself enough money to buy a ticket. After eight months cleaning the dishes and serving calamari from the sea, she had saved enough money to book two tickets on the Lusitania with her brother Jalil, who was on his way to the University of Southampton for a special course in history. But Jalil had already booked passage on the Hamburg-American Liner Cincinnati about a month ago, leaving her to spend some of her extra money on a ticket for Ivan, whose love for a fellow orphan girl named Mylène Haprèle brought them back together when she told him that she would not be seeing her again for quite some time due to monetary and family issues. Eventually they found each other on the ship just before it departed with a hug and a kiss to the forehead.
"Marinette Cheng, nice to meet you."
Alix was interrupted by her right hand being shaken by Marinette's left, taken aback by her odd posterity. Alya threw herself on the top bunk on the left, clutching her luggage.
"Who says you get the top bunk?" Marinette said furiously, wanting it first.
"Well I wanted to have one the moment we got the tickets!"
Alix turned to Ivan.
"Where is Kim?" she asked him.
Ivan did not have a clue, his thoughts entirely focused on Mylène from across the hall. Marinette and Alya kept the origin of the tickets to themselves for the remainder of the journey.
In comparison to the third and second class accommodations, the Regal Suite on the port and starboard sides were in the Petit Trianon style and comprised of a dining room, drawing room, two bedrooms, bathroom and a toilet. The occupants on the port side, Albert and Gladys Bilicke, were distant friends of Gabriel and owners of the Hollenbeck Hotel in Los Angeles. Due to an illness of some sort, Albert needed abdominal surgery and his doctors suggested that he should take a vacation for some much needed rest and relaxation. Nathalie had already unpacked and found Gabriel in B-52, the back of his head facing her, staring out the port hole at the disappearing sight of New York City.
"I see you found the sitting room, sir," she said with dry humor in her voice. "Will you be requiring anything?"
"No thank you, Nathalie," Gabriel replied bluntly. "I was just going to take a stroll around the promenade deck before lunch."
Adrien shared his cabin, B-56, with 44 year old Jewish-American Herman Myers, head of the feather importing house of H. & E. & S. Myers on 684 Broadway back in New York. Although his father was anti-Semitic, he thought it best to keep Mr. Myers' religion a secret. He was looking over the Corot landscape, asking Mr. Myers as to where to hang it.
"Would you like it by the wall close to the door?" Mr. Myers asked him.
"I'd rather have it above the bed," Adrien told the man.
The painting by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot seemed like an abstract work of art, with a vista of six thin trees amongst a grassy field populated by cows. It was called The Lyrical Landscape. Adrien's love for animals, his favorite species being cats, were something he could not afford as his father felt that pets were too much of a responsibility.
Sabrina stood by the regal suite on the port side, watching the 19 year old baggage handler Herbert Fleming push the cart with the safe towards her.
"Put it in the wardrobe on the port side please," she instructed him.
As he did, Chloé came from the starboard side with a tulip glass of Hiedsieck cuvée called Diamant bleu vintage 1907 in her right hand, dismayed by the painting.
"God, not that finger painting again," she said scornfully through the doorway. "Sir Hugh Lane certainly wasted his time and money selling you that thing."
"Well, I like it," said Adrien, nothing bothering to face her with a light scowl. "The difference between your taste in art compared to mine is that I feel like I'm in a fantasy."
"What is the name of the artist?" asked Mr. Myers.
"Jean Corot," replied Adrien looking over the canvas. "He died about forty years ago."
"And considering the fact he's dead is a perfect time for me to say his works were crude, almost nothing compared to photography," Chloé resumed. "At least it was cheap."
Nino came in to hang up some of Adrien's clothes, feeling the soft sheets of the bed.
"Just think," he said excitedly. "I'll be the first to slip under the covers tonight!"
"Actually," Chloé spoke abruptly. "I'll be the first."
Nino blushed at the innuendo and edged around the girl to make a quick exit. Mr. Myers, sensing the couple's need for a private moment, left as well. Once they were alone, Chloé placed her arms on Adrien's shoulders, lifting her right foot as she did.
"Yours...the first and only forever."
She puckered her lips into a kiss and Adrien reluctantly returned the favor like he was performing an exercise of futility. This was a bleak prospect on how the remainder of his life was going to be: the husband of a boorish Frenchwoman whose only interests were money, money, money.
Second service lunch was announced when Vernon Livermore blew his bugle to the tune of trilling quarter notes, the song in question possibly having been "The Roast Beef of Old England". Now they were ready to explore this floating palace of the last decade. Gabriel took his party to the first class dining room, then later on to the Verandah Café at 4:35 near the stern for a pre-dinner snack. Meals were the perfect social event of shipboard life to catch up with old friends or make new ones, from the famous to the unknowns in the array of lounges, smoking rooms, dining rooms and other places to congregate. Third class had fewer options, but all had free access to a designated deck space on the Shelter Deck. Entering the mouth of the Atlantic Ocean through a heat wave, the passengers were eager to ignore the war around them entirely and sail into the peaceful waters...despite several premonitions and cancelling's of the passage by several people.
Most of the other first class passengers joining Lusitania were wealthy Americans, Britains and Canadians accustomed to the luxury they were about to experience. Millionaire Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt and his valet Ronald Denyer were travelling to a meeting of the International Horse Breeders' Association in London, braced to offer a fleet of wagons for the British Red Cross. Silent film actress Rita Jolivet, active suffragette Lady Margaret Mackworth, writer and philosopher Elbert Hubbard and his second wife Alice, businessman Ogden Haggerty Hammond, playwright Charles Frohman, architect Theodate Pope Riddle-the list goes on. They were the royalty of the gilded age, the who's who of high society. The ship's Captain William Turner and his officers would greet them all personally. These were the people on whom Lusitania's image was built.
Many of Lusitania's second class passengers were overbooked. These included were educated middle class people like Ian Holbourn, a vacationing laird from Foula returning for the publication of his greatest project the Fundamental Theory of Beauty. There were families en route, such as the Aitkens from Merritt, British Columbia who originally booked passage on the Cameronia, but the voyage was cancelled due to the ship being acquisitioned by the Admiralty. Their accommodations on Lusitania included a less regal version of the first class dining room, a library for ladies and a smoking room decorated with mahogany paneling. The third class dining room, on the other hand, was furnished with polished pine and was equipped with a piano provided for it's passengers. Like second class, the dining room also had long tables and in two sittings. The cabins felt small and rude, but they took it with maturity as any other person would expect on such on a large ship.
Even at sea, Lusitania's passengers could still send and receive telegrams. A powerful Marconi wireless set-up put them in contact with their world. Most liners who offered this service had a single operator at the Morse key, but Lusitania had two telegraphists on the job for twenty four hour service. Robert Leith and David Craig McCormick like many men over the last few years, have seen the future in wireless communication and attended a special Marconi school to learn this exciting new trade. Using Lusitania's call letters MSU, they would broadcast the words of her passengers five hundred to fifteen hundred miles beyond the flat horizon. However, due to the war, the Marconi Shack located on the Sun Deck was mostly being used to receive messages instead of sending them, to prevent the Germans from divulging their location.
The journey was off to a perfect start...but the sea was not without it's dangers, like harsh weather, rogue waves, rocks, icebergs...and submarines. On April 30th, a day before Lusitania's departure, one particular submarine, an Unterseeboot designated U-20, left Emden, Germany for the North Sea. Her master was Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger of the Kaiserliche Marine, a professional in the field of his country's navy. British Naval Intelligence in Room 40 of the Admiralty became aware of her presence two days later while tracking the activities of enemy submarines. Lusitania's officers however, had other concerns to deal with. Three Germans had stowed away onboard the ship and were found in the port side pantry shortly after the departure. Apprehended by Detective-Inspector William Pierpoint, they refused to answer any questions and were kept in a cabin near the master-at-arms' office. John Neil Leach, one of the ship's waiters was a known German sympathizer and he later believed that the ship was armed after sneaking into the hold the night before departure.