Chilling Locales: Leviathan

 

Leviathan, thou noble ship,
Thou mighty monarch of the seas,
May thy stalwart form and mighty force
War’s desolating horrors ease.
We view the grandeur of thy bulk,
And gaze with wonder and with awe
At thy great magnitude and might
Which surpass visions we foresaw.

Adele M. Marshall, from the History of the USS Leviathan

Vaterland, the pride of Germany's Hamburg-America Line, arrived in New York harbour in late June, 1914. She did not leave.

Vaterland was, at that time, the largest ship afloat. A three-stack luxury liner too powerful for her own good; when trying to berth at New York, she accidently swamped a tugboat in her wake, killing one of its crew. Vaterland boasted everything a luxury craft of her day was expected to, from swimming pool to fancy barber, and was decorated in grand German style, up to and including a statue of the Kaiser.

With the outbreak of war in Europe America, determined to remain neutral, didn't want to let a German liner make the run back home, particularly with British warships guarding the oceans. A small cadre of British diplomats based in New York with an excellent view of the Hudson from the consul's office were watching the comings and goings, and those Germans brave enough to try to run were often caught thanks to their vigilance. 

Hamburg-America's Graccia was one of those who tried, in 1914, and the British snapped her up off the coast of Gibraltar. She was sent to Liverpool for refit, named the Pollockshields, and promptly hit a reef off Bermuda and sank on her first voyage, laden with munitions. Not willing to risk their pride and joy on a similar run, Hamburg-America ordered the Vaterland to remain in port, along with her crew.

The Vaterland appears in a scenario in my Dulce et Decorum Est Great War book, available through Pelgrane. That scenario's set in its New York period, when the marooned crew - unable to leave the ship for any reason - whiled away the carefree hours by holding after-dark parties. The band would play, beer would flow, and everyone had a good time raising money for the German war effort. 

This was all before the Lusitania was torpedoed, killing more than a thousand American civilians including women and children, after which American popular opinion turned against Germany. The Vaterland was effectively quarantined by US troops until America joined the War. Some of its crew tried to escape and go to Germany to fight, but most remained captive until the end.

When the United States entered World War I on 6 April 1917 one of the first things that happened was the blockading troops, who'd been sitting on the Vaterland's doorstep since the Lusitania sank, captured the German liner. 

All her German influences were stripped out. Her more luxurious scrap was sold at silly prices, right on New York's docks. By then she was a broken ship anyway; years of neglect sitting at anchor saw to that. She was refit, renamed the Leviathan, and went to war as a troop carrier. 

By now the Spanish Flu epidemic had taken hold of America, and the world. 

In the rush to get 9,000 soldiers to the Front the authorities had little time to worry about how many of those soldiers might be infected. Many were. About 700 fell ill within 24 hours of departure, and within a week over 2,000 were stricken. Many of them lay on the Leviathan's decks, gasping for air and spewing blood. 

Due to the U-Boat menace the Leviathan couldn't stop for funerals, and in any case there were too many of them - 91 in all. Over the side they went, a muttered prayer their only funeral. 

After the War the US Government found itself the proud possessor of a German white elephant. Leviathan was all but broken, a groaning old lady of the seas, and each of her captains complained she was too difficult to handle. At one point, in a relatively modest storm, she split, the bolts holding her plating together having sheared off. She was, with difficulty, repaired and made seaworthy again. It wouldn't matter. Her time had come and gone.

The era of grand cruise liners was fading, thanks to restrictions on immigration that cut demand for tickets. Her steerage section, meant for immigrants, became 'tourist class' - always assuming there were tourists willing to make the trip. At her best she shipped 1,300 passengers; her capacity was 3,000.

If that wasn't bad enough, Prohibition meant no booze aboard a US vessel, which put paid to the only other reason Americans went abroad - to drink. The Leviathan, once the largest and most luxurious ship afloat, spent the rest of its career a third-rate liner. 

Then came the Great Depression, which further cut into the luxury trade, and the Leviathan ran out of lives. The decision was eventually made to break her up for scrap and she was sent to Rosyth, Scotland in 1937.  It was a far more difficult passage than it needed to be, what with weather troubles, an angry crew demanding their wages and bust machinery. "She was a hoodoo ship, all right," her last captain wrote to a friend. "I was glad when we docked."

To ensure she didn't slip chain and drift in Rosyth's strong winter winds they flooded her No 1 hold, sinking her in the mud. As she was so massive, and as the outbreak of another world war diverted resources, she was left to rot until war's end. They finally destroyed Leviathan in 1946.

As a Chilling Locale, the Leviathan's practically a ghost ship from 1914 onwards. Captured before it had a career, soaked in the blood of American soldiers, half-empty on almost every run - all it wants are a few mysterious shadows and you're good to go.

Plus there are those moments in New York, and later in Rosyth, when the Leviathan's basically locked up tight for years. Particularly at Rosyth, less so in New York when at least there are people watching her and some crew still aboard. Haunted. Disgraced. In Limbo. 

Rosyth, for those interested, is a small town in Scotland best known for its dockyard, which would have been a Royal Naval Dockyard when the Leviathan arrived. The Dockyard, built for battleships, was brand new when World War One broke out, but closed in 1925. It reopened in the late 1930s when relations with Germany began to deteriorate - about the same time Leviathan arrived for its slaughter. During World War 2 it was a refit station, repairing and rearming over 3,000 warships. Imagine bringing your destroyer into port and berthing it next to Leviathan's rotting corpse.

So let's have some story seeds:

Missing Crewman: One of the Vaterland's crew is supposed to have accidentally murdered himself while attempting to sabotage the ship, when she was docked at New York. After her refit, the Leviathan crew tell tales of the 'extra hand' - someone who's only ever seen when trouble's about to start. He's dressed in Vaterland's uniform, but those who see him say he doesn't have a face. When one of the player characters sees him, what kind of disaster does this presage?

Hoodoo Ship: Is this old liner trying to kill itself? There's those who say they can hear the ship muttering after dark, planning its self-destruction in some terrible act of immolation - but will it be satisfied killing only itself, or does it plan on taking other ships with her when she goes?

Rosyth Haunts: Dock workers at the port are going to go on strike unless something's done about the Leviathan. Strange noises are heard and there are lights after dark, the sound of music and laughter. It's all nonsense of course, but the commander in charge of the docks decides to send a search party aboard. Maybe deserters are hiding in there. Maybe something else ...