9 “The old-fashioned able seaman”: New York Times, Nov. 21, 1915.
10 “They are competent enough”: Testimony, William Thomas Turner, June 15, 1915, “Investigation,” 7.
11 He also had two tattoos: These details were listed in Morton’s “Ordinary Apprentice’s Indenture,” a four-year contract that obligated Morton to obey the commands of his captain and the captain’s associates “and keep his and their secrets.” It stipulated further that the apprentice could not “frequent Taverns or Alehouses … nor play at unlawful games.” Above all, each apprentice agreed not to “absent himself … without leave.” In return, apprentices received an annual salary of ￡5 in the first year, which increased to slightly more than ￡10 in the last year. They were also guaranteed room and board and “Medicine and Medical and Surgical Assistance.” Each got ten shillings to do his wash. “Ordinary Apprentice’s Indenture,” Morton Papers, DX/2313, Merseyside; “Continuous Certificate of Discharge,” Morton Papers, DX/2313, Merseyside.
12 “We were still looking upon war”: Morton, Long Wake, 97.
13 “What a sight”: Ibid., 98.
14 “What are you boys looking at?”: Ibid., 99.
15 Malone was said to be a dead ringer: Bailey and Ryan, Lusitania Disaster, 108.
16 For German spies and saboteurs:
Some British officials even had concerns about the loyalty of the men employed by Cunard in its New York office, which was run by Charles P. Sumner, manager of all the company’s operations in America. Cunard’s own Captain Dow was said to distrust Sumner “on the score of intimacy with Germans,” according to a telegram from Britain’s consul general in New York, Sir Courtenay Bennett. Sir Courtenay too was convinced the office was under the sway of Germany. He saw proof of this in the number of employees with German-sounding last names, such as Fecke, Falck, Buiswitz, Reichhold, Brauer, Breitenbach, and Muller. Sir Courtenay’s countryman Sir Arthur Herbert, a former diplomat, believed likewise. Their repeated inquiries made these already tense times all the more trying for Sumner, a skilled manager who kept Cunard’s ships sailing on schedule and had the full confidence, verging on friendship, of Cunard’s chairman, Alfred A. Booth.
Sir Arthur was so convinced that something sinister was afoot within Cunard’s New York operations that he hired a private detective to investigate without telling Sumner. The detective lacked subtlety and behaved in a manner that caused Cunard’s employees to suspect that he might be a spy. As Sumner recalled, “This man excited my suspicions so much that I put our Dock Detective on to the work of watching Sir Arthur Herbert’s detective.” Sumner sent a report to Sir Arthur about the private eye’s odd behavior, thinking he would be interested. “Instead of being pleased at what I had done,” Sumner wrote, “he [Sir Arthur] flew into a terrible passion and said that he had never been so insulted in his life.” Sir Arthur went so far as to accuse Sumner of spying on him and seemed so distressed that Sumner began to wonder if the ex-diplomat might in fact be harboring secrets of his own. Sumner wrote, “It really excited some suspicions in my mind that something might be disclosed by watching his movements.”
“Confidentially,” Sumner wrote, “I think I may safely express the opinion that Sir Arthur Herbert is a little ‘peculiar.’ ”
On that point at least, even Sumner’s other antagonist, Sir Courtenay Bennett, seemed to agree. On one occasion Sir Arthur paid a call on Sir Courtenay. An altercation arose, Sumner wrote, during which Sir Courtenay told his visitor to “ ‘go home and teach his mother how to suck eggs.’ ”
Sumner wrote, “While I cannot help thinking this was a somewhat undignified procedure … it affords the only funny incident that I have experienced in all my dealings with the two men.”
Telegram, C. Bennett to Alfred Booth, Nov. 30, 1914, D42/C1/1/66, Part 2 of 4, Cunard Archives; “Salaries of New York Office Staff,” D42/C1/1/66, Part 3 of 4, Cunard Archives; letter, Charles P. Sumner to D. Mearns, Dec. 29, 1914, D42/C1/2/44, Cunard Archives; letter,
Charles P. Sumner to Alfred A. Booth, Aug. 4, 1915, D42/C1/1/66, Part 3 of 4, Cunard Archives; telegram, Richard Webb to Cecil Spring-Rice, May 11, 1915, “Lusitania Various Papers,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK.
17 “The crew of the Lusitania”: Telegram, April 27, 1915, Box 2, Bailey/Ryan Collection.
18 “You’re not going to get back”: Francis Burrows, interview, Lusitania, BBC Written Archives Centre.
19 “began doing something we shouldn’t”: Robert James Clark, interview, Lusitania, BBC Written Archives Centre.
20 In fact, exactly one year earlier: Memorandum, May 7, 1914, D42/PR13/3/14-17, Cunard Archives.
21 He made his way to Broadway: Preston, Lusitania, 110; Ramsay, Lusitania, 51; New York Times, March 30, 1915.
22 He went to Lüchow’s: Preston, Lusitania, 110.