The Poison Tide

taken and impatient with himself. I want to dance with a pretty girl, he thought, turning on his side, and he tried to imagine her fingers touching the back of his hand as they swept about the floor, an adoring look in her eyes.

He was woken by an urgent knocking at a door and raised voices in the passageway. No, they were banging on more than one door. Switching on the cabin light, he glanced at the case, then at the clock. Half past two in the morning. Something was wrong. The ship was barely moving. He jumped out of bed and reached for his trousers. The Lusitania had sunk in minutes. He was doing up his laces when someone knocked sharply: ‘Andersson, sir. You must get up.’

It was the young Swede who’d settled him into the cabin.

‘What is it?’ he shouted, stumbling towards the door. ‘Are we sinking?’

‘No, sir,’ came the muffled reply. The steward was smirking when Dilger opened the door.

‘First class to the library, sir.’ He turned to rap at the cabin door opposite. ‘A British cruiser, you’ll see her on the port side. No need to worry, sir.’

‘What do they want?’

Either Andersson didn’t hear him or wasn’t able to say.

Stay calm, remember, the British won’t be looking for someone like you, the Count had advised.

‘Come on, don’t just stand there.’ It was an old lady in a lobster-green silk dressing gown and a life preserver, her grey hair caught in a net. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ she huffed, pushing past with her elbows. Further along the passageway a young woman was trying to arrange two bleary-eyed children in her arms and he recognised the New York banker, struggling into a coat.

‘Do you know your way, sir?’ a steward asked.

In the end, Dilger left the case sitting in the middle of the table in his cabin. If they found it hidden in a cupboard they would examine it more carefully. If they knew what he was doing, his number was up anyway. How could they know?

The British were aboard. A young lieutenant with a ‘rules-the-waves’ air was sitting at a table in the library, the passenger list in front of him, two marines with revolvers at his back.

‘American,’ he said, glancing up from Dilger’s passport. ‘On the way home, from where?’

‘Germany.’ Nadolny had instructed him to tell the truth.

‘Your business there?’

‘Family business,’ he replied. A few weeks with his sister and now he was returning to his practice in Virginia.

The lieutenant considered him carefully for a few seconds, then slid his passport back across the table. ‘All right, please take a seat.’

Everyone looked bored, everyone looked weary, and the little textiles manufacturer was wearing a hole in the rug, restless with anger at the affront to his dignity, a Frenchman, an ally. Dilger stood at the green marble mantelpiece with his back to a fire. Stewards glided about the room with drinks and saucissonages and he accepted a glass of water, but only minutes after draining it his mouth was sticky with anxiety again. They’d been waiting half an hour when the lieutenant rose from his table. No regrets, no apologies, with the superciliousness of an Empire Englishman he informed them that the Rotterdam had been taken under escort; that they could return to their cabins to finish dressing but they were to gather in the library again in half an hour, and that was all his orders permitted him to say.

‘They’re looking for German stowaways and spies,’ the steward informed Dilger at his cabin door.

‘But the ship’s on her way to America.’

The Swede shrugged philosophically. The same thing had happened to the Noordam a few weeks before, he said; forced to anchor off Ramsgate while some of her passengers were questioned ashore. ‘It will add at least a day and a half to the journey,’ he grumbled.

‘Where on earth is Ramsgate?’ Dilger enquired.

First-class passengers were permitted to take the air at daybreak, the coast just visible through a grey sea mist, the cruiser a few cables to stern. At seven o’clock they were served breakfast in the dining saloon, the captain and the first officer drifting between tables with words of reassurance. No more than a day or two in Ramsgate, they said, and while they were anchored the passengers would stay aboard.

‘All except the spies,’ observed the little textiles manufacturer. ‘They’ll be going ashore.’

Dilger smiled politely. But at nine o’clock the British lieutenant read out the names of first-class passengers who were to be taken ashore.

‘Just a formality, Doctor,’ he said coolly. ‘Our people would like to talk to you — no, no, not under arrest, just a few questions — a little information.’

Dilger protested that he was an American, spitting that their war was none of his goddamn business, to disguise his fear. What information? He was visiting his sister and there was nothing more to say; a private matter, damn their formality, they were treating him like an enemy. Were they going to rifle through his belongings too? Damn them.

The lieutenant held his hands open like Pilate. ‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience but you must understand — the war.’

The launch was hanging from its davits a little below the rail. Steerage in the bow, to judge by their jackets; they were in for a good soaking. The real spies were second class, a score or more in coats amidships, de Witt and his companions among them, the priest the colour of old lace. First class were handed down into the stern.

‘Steady with my medical bag,’ Dilger shouted to the crewman offering it to him on a safety line. ‘There are bottles… steady, steady…’

He could hear the glass tinkling. Pray God they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between one phial and another.

12. The Club

THE GRILLE SLID back with an emphatic clunk.

‘Lieutenant Wolff?’

‘Who the devil are you?’

A jangling of keys and after a few seconds the cell door swung open.

‘Fitzgerald. I’m to take you to London.’ He looked fresh out of school, a good school naturally, one with a tie that the doorman at the Ritz would recognise and with old friends in Whitehall.

‘Call me de Witt here, and keep your voice down.’

Fitzgerald blushed. ‘Sorry.’

‘Where are you holding the rest?’ he asked, gathering his jacket from the bench.

‘Most of them are still at the harbour Clock House.’

Wolff stopped at the door to look him in the eye: ‘Make sure they’re unpleasant to the priest, will you? God, he deserves it. Oh, and he’s carrying letters from Casement in the lining of his cassock — he rustles like a pig in straw. Tell them to ignore those.’

They caught the one o’clock from Ramsgate Station. Fitzgerald found an unoccupied carriage and wanted to talk ‘tradecraft’. He was too impressed, too Boy Scout — they’d all been like that once. ‘Learn on the job,’ C used to say, and it wasn’t a problem before the war — except for Turkey; you couldn’t make a mistake there.

‘Chuck it, will you, I’m tired,’ Wolff declared, settling into his corner.

Fitzgerald woke him as the train rattled across the Thames.

‘Fine view of the Court. Look, I say…’ he turned from the window to Wolff with a diffident smile. ‘Do you mind if I ask you one thing — why did he do it? I met him once, you know.’

‘Why did who do what?’

‘Roger Casement.’

Wolff lifted his briefcase from the rack. The trunk was still on the ship; the last of Mr de Witt — dress coat,