"We are sneaking along at night," he said in very fair English. He told
me later he had once been on a Hamburg-American merchantman regularly
out of New York. "We haven't a light showing. The ship's as black as
the water around us, and there's not a pipe or a cigar lit on the deck.
"All of a sudden the lookout calls and we see your lights. Keeping them
low on the horizon we steam along all night waiting for daylight to run
in on you. After that it was simple. You know what happened then. (I
certainly did know.) What fools you were to run with lights!"
One of the officers from the _Voltaire_, already taken and sunk, told
me that afterward while the Germans were chasing us a sailor went below
and informed the prisoners that the raider was overhauling the White
Star steamship _Georgic_. The name had been chipped off the _Georgic's_
counter and lifeboats and the only conceivable way they could have
identified us was by intercepting wireless messages. For that, they
must have had the British code. The incident lends color to the story
that the Germans had the code when the _Lusitania_ made her last trip
and sent a message to the Captain to slow down to eighteen knots. There
are many stories among seamen in England to-day that Capt. Turner of
the _Lusitania_ punished at least one member of his crew for treachery
before he abandoned his ship.
"When we came aboard the raider," the officer from the late _Voltaire_
continued, "one of the Germans said to me:
"'Where were you? You are twenty-four hours late.'
"And we were. It's a cinch those Fritzies never dreamt that. They pick
code messages."
I had heard the raider was equipped with both coal and oil burning
engines, so I managed to wander into the engine room to try to see how
they were arranged while I was out for an airing one day. I hadn't had
much time to look around when a heavy hand clutched my shoulder and a
German sailor sent me spinning out of the doorway.
Nevertheless we neutrals were allowed a great deal of freedom, and I
want to say that what I did discover showed me that the raider was
about as cleverly arranged a ship as I have ever seen. While on the
forecastle head for airings, I noticed that there were always six
men on the bridge. This was an unusual circumstance, but it would be
difficult to note it from a distance because the men on the bridge were
partially concealed behind a canvas windshield.
There were always two lookouts in the crow's nest and sailors told me
they only stood one hour watches each. This insured wide awake, alert
men all the time. I noticed these scanners used telescopes most of the
time, which gave them a longer range of vision than would binoculars.
There were always three operators in the wireless room--no chance of
treachery there. One was continually listening to pick up messages
and one was ready to "jam the air" should any vessel the raider was
pursuing attempt to send out a message. Not a single ship ever got a
message into the air because the raider jammed every one of them. This
was accomplished by a noisy and continuous, disjointed sending, like a
sputtering gossip of the sea.
Personally I saw seven guns and four torpedo tubes on the raider. She
may have had more but I doubt it. They were quite sufficient for any
merchant ship she might encounter.