CHARLES LAURIAT, the Boston bookseller, now climbed the gangway, accompanied by his sister, Blanche, and her husband, George Chandler. “I was surprised that access to the steamer was allowed so freely,” Lauriat wrote. He found it odd that his sister and brother-in-law “were allowed to pass aboard without question.” Other passengers likewise noted the ease of access for friends and family who came aboard to see them off.
Chandler carried Lauriat’s briefcase and valise; Lauriat carried the extension suitcase containing the drawings and Dickens’s Carol. Chandler joked that the contents of that one were so valuable he “preferred not to touch it.”
The three walked to Lauriat’s room, B-5, the cabin closest to the bow on the starboard side of B Deck. Though seemingly a prime location, it was an interior stateroom, with no portholes. Lauriat was accustomed to traveling like this. One of the first things he did was place a matchbox in his room within easy reach, in case the ship’s electric dynamo failed. He had crossed the Atlantic twenty-three times so far, mostly on Cunard ships, but this would be his first voyage on one of the celebrated “greyhounds.”
Lauriat saw that the trunk and shoe case that he had checked at the station in Boston were already in his room. He tested the locks on his various bags, and then he, Blanche, and Chandler went back out on deck, where they remained until all visitors were asked to leave the ship. When Lauriat returned to his room, he took the drawings from the extension case and put them in the top tray of his shoe box, which was easier to lock; he put Dickens’s Carol in his briefcase.
Before boarding, Lauriat had read about the German Embassy’s warning but had paid little attention; the idea of canceling never entered his mind. He wore his Knickerbocker suit, and that new innovation, a stem-winding wristwatch, which he kept set to Boston time, always, no matter where he was; it was his way of grounding himself in the world. He told no one about the drawings.
DWIGHT HARRIS, the New Yorker with the engagement ring and custom life belt, took his valuables to the purser’s office for safekeeping. These included a diamond-and-pearl pendant, a diamond-and-emerald ring, a large diamond brooch, $500 in gold, and of course the engagement ring. He took a few moments before sailing to write a thank-you note to his grandparents, who had given him a bon voyage present. He used Lusitania stationery. The German warning seemed not to have given him pause. His mood was full of exclamation points.
“A thousand thanks for the delicious Jelly Cake and Peppermint Paste!” he wrote. “I can hardly wait for tea time to come!” He noted that the weather had begun to improve. “I am glad it has cleared!—my cabin is most comfortable—and I shall proceed to unpack after lunch!” He added that his Cousin Sallie had sent a basket of fruit and that another family member, Dick, had sent a large supply of grapefruit. “So I am well supplied!”
His note was among those that made it into the last bag of mail to leave the ship before departure. The envelope was postmarked “Hudson Terminal Station.”
THE STEWARDS announced that all visitors had to disembark. Ship reporter Jack Lawrence left without even trying to talk to Captain Turner. The captain, he wrote, “was of that brand of deep sea skipper who believes that a newspaperman’s place is at his desk on Park Row or in Fleet Street and that there ought to be a law to prevent him from prowling around the decks of ships.” On every prior encounter, Turner had been cold and unfriendly. “He seemed to me to be an austere, aloof sort of a man who knew his business and didn’t wish to discuss it with anybody.”
Lawrence admired Turner, however. He saw him on the ship’s main stairway, talking to another officer, and noticed “what a splendid figure he made.” His uniform was dark blue, double-breasted, with three-inch lapels and five buttons on each breast, only four to be actually buttoned, as specified in the Cunard officers’ manual. The jacket cuffs—the real show—were each edged with “four rows of gold wire navy lace ?-inch wide,” according to the manual. Turner’s cap, also dark blue, was trimmed in leather and black mohair braid, fronted with the Cunard badge: the Cunard lion, mocked gently by crew as the Cunard “monkey,” surrounded by a wreath of gold stitching. “When a British skipper knows how to dress, and he usually does, he is the very last word in what the well-dressed merchant captain should wear,” Lawrence wrote. “He knows not only what to wear but how to wear it. He achieves a jauntiness that is incomparable. Turner, that day, was master of one of the great greyhounds of the North Atlantic—and looked the part.”
ROOM 40
BLINKER’S RUSE