Lunch is never hurried on an ocean liner, and many first class passengers were in the white and gold Louis Seize dining saloon when the torpedo struck. Walter Baranov was with his crippled father at a table near the entrance staircase. He led the movement to the deck to see what had happened. The foredeck was already under water and it was obvious that the ship would sink. He forced his way back to his father. Baranov senior was an acrobat. Touring in America, he had fallen from the highwire and sustained a compound fracture of the leg. The son, an army dentist, had been granted leave to help him back to England. The father's crutches slowed them. They were the last to leave the saloon.
On the boat deck things were happening that would haunt the dreams of survivors for their remaining lives. The listing of the ship had swung the starboard lifeboats out of reach, so there was a rush to occupy the lifeboats on the port side. When Staff Captain Anderson, the officer responsible, assembled his men at their stations, the eleven conventional lifeboats and the thirteen collapsibles underneath them were crammed with frightened passengers, up to eighty in each. As a precaution against a dangerous inward swing, each boat was fitted with a chain that linked the inboard gunwale to the edge of the deck. Third Officer Albert Bestic asked for help to swing the first boat outwards, over the ship's side. It weighed almost five tons when unladen; the human cargo was as heavy again.
As the volunteers began to push, someone released the chain.
The boat lurched inwards over the helpless volunteers and crashed onto the people sitting below it in the collapsible. The wreckage of two lifeboats and a hundred screaming injured slid forward with the tilt of the ship and smashed against the superstructure of the bridge.
Within seconds the carnage was repeated with the next boat. Even as officers screamed at passengers to climb out, three more lifeboats hit the deck and careered into the bloody heap of splintered wood and bodies.
Cabin stewardess Katherine Barton was below on BDeck checking that the first class passengers were all alerted. Many of the doors stood open. The richest passenger on board, Alfred Vanderbilt, had vacated number 8, and the theatre producer, Carl Frohman, was out of 10, but there was a sound from 12, the stateroom of Mrs Delia Hawkman, a New York socialite. Stewardess Barton looked in and saw someone at the dressing table. It was not Mrs Hawkman. It was a stocky young man in a dark suit. He was in the act of filling his pockets from an open jewel case. Stewardess Barton challenged him. The looter turned and swung the jewel case at her head.
In the same corridor, cabin steward Hamilton was checking the odd-numbered staterooms, unaware of what had happened. He heard a door slam and saw a young man he did not recognize come towards him. Hamilton reminded the young man to take a life jacket, but he pushed past without a word and sprinted towards the companionway. Hamilton resumed his check. He reached the end and realised that stewardess Barton had stopped checking the other side. He went back and found the door of stateroom 12 was locked. She was inside on the floor, insensible, blood running from her mouth and nose. Both Hamilton and Barton were among the survivors.
On the boat deck, Staff Captain Anderson had succeeded in persuading sufficient passengers to vacate a lifeboat to manhandle it over the rails. As it was lowered to the level of the promenade deck below, more people tried to climb aboard. Those inside had to fight them off with oars. Someone in the boat shouted upwards to the crewmen to lower away. Something went wrong. The fall supporting the stern of the lifeboat gave way. The boat upended, pitching everyone into the sea. It swung a moment there, and then the bow fall broke. The five-ton lifeboat plunged onto the people in the water.
Three more lifeboats splintered on the projecting rivets of the Lusitania's port flank. They broke up and sank.
Staff Captain Anderson was one of the Lusitania's dead.
Isaac Lehmann, a New Yorker, had collected a revolver from his stateroom. He went to a lifeboat that had not been launched. It was packed with passengers. A seaman stood, axe in hand, waiting to cut the falls as the deck sank to the level of the sea. Lehmann insisted that the boat was launched without delay. He drew his gun and threatened to shoot to kill. The seaman freed the snubbing chain and the boat plunged onto the collapsible below it and slid, like the others, down the slope of the deck. Some thirty people were crushed to death. Lehmann survived.
A number of passengers and crew declined to join the scramble for the lifeboats. Alfred Vanderbilt and Mr and Mrs Carl Frohman were seen in the entrance hall tying life jackets to the basketwork cots in which several babies had been sleeping in the nursery after lunch. Vanderbilt, the Frohmans and the infants in the cots were drowned.
Some fifteen minutes after the first explosion, the bow of the Lusitania struck the granite ocean floor. The stern pivoted high above the water, the propellors still revolving. Hundreds were still aboard. Some worked hopelessly to free more lifeboats. Others waited calmly to step into the waves as the stern settled. Among them were Walter Baranov and his crippled father. They kept afloat until they were helped aboard a lifeboat.
A boiler burst. One of the four huge funnels heeled over in a cloud of steam and sparks. Seconds later, the ship itself was gone. Its captain, William Turner, remained clinging to the navigation bridge until the water swept him clear. He was one of the survivors. As he arrived for the subsequent Board of Trade inquiry, he was handed a white feather.
In all, the survivors from the Lusitania numbered 764. Many of these had fallen or jumped or stepped into the water and climbed aboard the half-dozen lifeboats successfully launched from the starboard side. Others stayed afloat by clinging to wreckage. One officer and his mother climbed aboard the grand piano from the main lounge.
1201 lives were lost. For days after, bodies were found on the Irish beaches. The search was furthered by rewards from the Cunard Company and the relatives.?1 was offered for each body found;?2 for each American;?1000 for Alfred Vanderbilt.
PART TWO
1
The next stage in the making of the false Inspector started in the spring of 1921.
In the dental chair, Alma Webster focused on Mr Baranov's right hand and ignored the probe he was holding. She studied the crop of fine, fair hairs on his fingers and followed their course along the back of his hand as far as the shirtcuff. On his wrist they sprouted more thickly and wildly.
She loved him to distraction.
This was the third appointment in a course of treatment that would last at least six weeks. 'Not that you need be concerned about the state of your teeth,' Mr Baranov had explained. 'For a young lady of- what are you? — twenty-four? — they are in fine condition. A cavity here and there, that's all. No extractions will be necessary. I believe in conserving teeth, Miss Webster, not removing them. I work slowly, and I make no apology for that. It will encroach on your valuable time, but you have my word that you will not be disappointed with the result.'
Alma did not begrudge a moment of her valuable time. Her dislike of dental treatment had practically evaporated when she had first stepped into the surgery in Eaton Place. It was furnished like a room in the Winter Palace, with a glittering chandelier, a log fire blazing in a massive brick and brass hearth, gilt-framed portraits of wild Cossacks on black hunters, a golden Afghan carpet and leather armchairs made for people the size of Chaliapin. There was an aroma of Balkan cigarettes. Mr Baranov had been writing at an ebony desk. He had risen at once, smiled, and given a slight bow. As their eyes had met, Alma had felt a pricking under her skin, the kindling of something strange.