In all, eight members of the Naiad’s crew planned to jump to the Lusitania. History is silent on how the Naiad’s captain felt about this. Captain Turner, however, had no reservations about taking the men on and probably did not ask many questions. He needed all the crew he could find.
THE WAR RAISED other challenges as well. Turner readied the ship in a milieu suffused with fear and suspicion. Every merchant ship that left New York Harbor had to be inspected before departure to make sure, to the extent possible, that all cargo in its holds was identified on its shipping manifest, and that it wasn’t armed, in violation of American neutrality laws. Turner received a visit from the port’s “Neutrality Squad,” under the supervision of Collector of Customs Dudley Field Malone, whose office was empowered to search all ships. Malone was said to be a dead ringer for Winston Churchill, so much so that years later he would be cast as Churchill in a film, Mission to Moscow. The squad conducted its inspection quickly, and Malone issued to Captain Turner a “Certificate of Loading,” which allowed him to take the ship to sea, though Malone later conceded it was a “physical impossibility” to check every parcel of cargo.
Malone’s office released the Lusitania’s preliminary manifest, a single sheet of paper that listed thirty-five innocuous shipments. As it happened, these shipments were just a fraction of the consignments that were already aboard the Lusitania. A more complete list would be released later, well after the ship had departed, the idea being to keep the information out of German hands as long as possible. For German spies and saboteurs, under the guidance of the German Embassy, were known to be at work along New York’s wharves.
These spies seemed to have a particular interest in the Lusitania and had long monitored the ship. A report from the German naval attaché in New York, dated April 27, 1915, four days before the Lusitania’s departure, stated, “The crew of the Lusitania is in a very depressed mood and hopes this will be the last Atlantic crossing during the war.” The report noted as well that the crew was incomplete. “It is difficult to service the machines adequately. Fear of the U-boats is too strong.”
A real possibility existed that German saboteurs might attempt to harm the Lusitania. Cunard took the danger seriously enough that it placed a Liverpool police detective, William John Pierpoint, on board to keep watch during voyages. He occupied stateroom A-1, on the boat deck, and kept to himself. Captain Turner took to calling him “Inspector.”
THROUGHOUT the day and night, the Lusitania’s crew came aboard, in varying states of sobriety. Leslie Morton and his brother and the other refugees from the Naiad climbed the gangway, still suffering the effects of their previous night on the town. If Morton expected luxurious accommodations aboard the Lusitania, he didn’t get them. He was directed to a bunk three decks down, in a chamber he likened to a “workhouse dormitory.” He was heartened to find, however, that his bunk was right beside a porthole.
A junior crew member—a bellboy, or “steward’s boy,” named Francis Burrows, age fifteen and a half—was met at the terminal gate by a guard, who told him, “You’re not going to get back this time, sonny. They’re going to get you this time.”
Burrows laughed and continued on to his berth.
That evening a group of steward’s boys, under orders not to leave the ship for any reason, decided on a diversion to ease their boredom. The boys, including one Robert James Clark, made their way to a small cargo compartment, known in nautical parlance as a lazaret, and there “began doing something we shouldn’t have been doing,” according to Clark.
Clark and his accomplices found some electrical wires, then stripped off the insulation and spread the wires on the floor. The boys lay down and waited.
The ship had many rats. In fact, exactly one year earlier rats had caused a small fire in one of the ship’s public rooms by chewing away the insulation on electric wires running through a wall, thereby allowing two bare wires to touch.
The boys waited with delight. The rats soon emerged and began following their usual routes through the chamber, unaware of the wires in their paths. “They got electrocuted of course,” Clark said, “that was our pastime. That was Friday night.” In later life, Clark would become Reverend Clark.
Whether out of professional pique or some instinct of fear, the ship’s mascot—a cat named Dowie, after Captain Turner’s predecessor—fled the ship that night, for points unknown.
CAPTAIN TURNER also left the ship that evening. He made his way to Broadway, to the Harris Theater on Forty-second Street, and there caught a play, The Lie, in which his niece, a rising actress named Mercedes Desmore, had a starring role.