The Poison Tide

‘About what?’ Hinsch asked, shifting impatiently in his chair.

‘That the United States will become embroiled.’

‘Isn’t it already?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘You know we should get on?’

Anton caught Emmeline’s eye and smiled apologetically. ‘The captain wants to see my experiments.’

‘Oh?’ she remarked sceptically. ‘Are you interested in science, Captain?’

‘Very,’ replied Hinsch, bending to stuff a trouser leg back in his boot.

‘All right.’ Her brother put down his mug and stood up hurriedly. ‘Shall we?’

Emmeline followed them into the kitchen with the tray. As they clumped down to the cellar she heard Hinsch say, ‘And this is Tony’s lab.’ Then, a moment later, ‘Don’t I need a mask?’ The door banged shut because it was stiff; she would speak to Anton about shaving a little from the jamb.

She’d asked the Mitchells from across the way for supper. Anton had found a good butcher and she was going to cook Schweinshaxe. Taking a sharp knife from the drawer, she scored the flesh of the pork and began to press in the garlic. Pity there wasn’t time to soak the knuckle in brine. Hinsch was talking, now laughing. He had a quarterdeck voice — boom, boom, boom — but she couldn’t make out more than a few words and was cross with herself for trying.

If only Anton would join a medical practice in Washington. Handsome, charming, still only thirty; his list would be full in no time. But he pulled a face when she mentioned the possibility, and when she had pressed him he said he wasn’t interested in that sort of medicine. ‘I’m too selfish, Em,’ he joked; ‘patients would bore me.’ She’d scolded him lightheartedly: ‘It must be a terrible trial living with me.’ He denied it, of course, squeezing her hand affectionately.

She began shredding the cabbage. You couldn’t have pork without sauerkraut. Everyone made a joke about it these days. Anton said they were calling Germans ‘Krauts’ in the newspapers. She wished he wouldn’t bother reading them. What was he doing down there with Hinsch? He’d told the family he was exploring ways to control infections, some research he had begun in Berlin. But before today, before Hinsch, he’d avoided speaking to anyone else of his work, skilfully deflecting their neighbours’ questions. At first she was glad he had found something worthwhile to do, she had even learnt to live with the smell of his foul ‘broth’, but the squealing of the guinea pigs — that she was sure she would never get used to. ‘It’s cruel, An,’ she complained, but to no avail. He was adamant that he needed the animals for his experiments. When they died, he wrapped them in tarred canvas and buried them in the border furthest from the house, and she was under strict instructions not to garden there.

Slipping the pork into the hot oven, she turned to tidy the vegetable peelings from the table. ‘…Yes, yes, in a safe at the Hansa Haus. Don’t worry, Doctor,’ she heard Hinsch say at the cellar door. ‘We’ll begin in Newport News, the British have a large operation there.’ Then her brother said something she didn’t catch and a second later the door opened with a jerk and they began to climb the stair to the kitchen.

‘I asked Captain Hinsch to join us for supper but he must return to Baltimore by nightfall,’ Anton said with an insincere little smile.

She answered him with one of her own: ‘Perhaps another time, Captain.’

‘Yes.’ Hinsch was cradling a boot box of brown cardboard, tied with string. She caught Anton’s eye but he looked away, stern like their father, his thin mouth turning down a little at the corners, skin stretched tight across the family jaw. ‘I’ll see you to your car, Captain,’ he said.

‘Best not. Goodbye, Miss Dilger.’ He nodded curtly to her.

‘Goodbye, Captain.’

Then Anton led him to the end of the hall and they stood there for a moment in conversation. From her place at the kitchen door she heard snatches of Hinsch: ‘…if you need more money, Hilken can make arrangements’; and a moment later, ‘Aren’t you tired of this place? If you want some life, come to Baltimore, or join us in New York. Hilken says it’s perfectly safe; he knows…’ but the rest was lost as he turned his back to the hall. A few seconds later the door opened and she heard Hinsch leave. From the window in the parlour she watched him lumber across the grass to his shiny new Ford, open the passenger door and place the cardboard box in the well beneath the seat. Then he walked to the front and cranked the engine.

‘Glad to be rid of him?’ Anton was standing at the door.

‘Yes.’

She turned back to the window as the car began to pull away. Her hands were trembling, and she clenched them in fists.

‘He’s gone.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Mr and Mrs Mitchell again tonight, isn’t it?’

She turned abruptly to face him. ‘What did he want, Anton?’

He frowned, crossly this time. ‘I told you. Business. It was business.’

‘Why does it have to be secret?’

‘Because it does,’ he exclaimed angrily. ‘It does.’

It was too much for her. She crumpled, shoulders shaking, reaching for her handkerchief, and turned away. Anton was beside her in a second; ‘Shh shh,’ his arm about her. ‘Emmeline, please don’t. It’s nothing.’ But she couldn’t stop.

‘Don’t let him upset you.’ He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Dear Em.’

She wanted to tell him, ‘No, Anton, it’s you, not that oaf. I’m frightened for you,’ but she couldn’t. He would be angry, say she was silly.

‘It’s nothing,’ he assured her. ‘Just samples for a doctor I know in Baltimore. That’s all. Hinsch said he’d deliver them for me.’

She lifted her face to him and he wiped a tear tenderly from her cheek.

‘Are you bored, An?’ she asked nervously.

He looked puzzled. Then the right side of his face twitched with irritation, but the smile was back in only a moment. ‘Of course not, Em. I’m happy here with you. Very happy.’

‘Are you?’

‘Yes. Come on,’ and he led her to the parlour door. ‘It’s five o’clock already. What can I do to help?’

But she stopped, pulling at his hand and turning towards him with a determined stare. ‘You can be careful,’ she said firmly. ‘Please, Anton, please be careful.’

19. Saboteur

THE NOTE WAS on the hall floor in the morning. Wolff padded through to the bathroom and propped it against the mirror while he went to the lavatory. He was surprised it had taken so long, almost a week. Washed and shaved but still in his dressing gown, he sat and read it at the kitchen table.

Catch the ferry to Hoboken. Motor car waiting on the street outside the terminal at five o’clock. Driver in blue peaked cap, red card on the windscreen. Code word, Leuthen.

He’d arranged to meet Laura McDonnell at Burns’ on 6th Avenue. Volunteers were needed to distribute flyers at a strike rally, so she had volunteered him. ‘But if you have a rendezvous with Mr Gache I forgive you,’ she said when they met at the restaurant.

Stop British Tyranny in Ireland. He handed back the leaflet. ‘Telephone me tomorrow if you’ve any left,’ he suggested casually.

‘I’ll have found someone more reliable by then.’ She looked down at her hands then up at him with a smile, her large eyes twinkling with good humour.

‘You said you were going to forgive me, remember?’

She laughed, and tossed her auburn hair. It had a wicked lustre.

‘I’ll take some advice from Mr Devoy,’ she teased.