The vague looming of 12-inch guns overhead indicated he was near its bow, and he quietly paddled alongside until he found the MAS. He boarded, confirmed it was unmanned, and untied all but one line. Then he inspected the motors, a pair of the sort of beautifully compact gasoline engines he expected of the Italians. He figured out how to start them, got their fuel pumps primed, and released the last line. Using one of the oars, he paddled it slowly away from the dreadnought and waited for the sun to start burning off the fog. At the moment he could see and be seen, he started the engines, each of which was as a loud as his old Locomobile.
By the time he reached the narrow mouth of the harbor, the Germans knew something was up, if not exactly what. The confusion and still-murky fog bought him a few precious moments, and by the time individuals began firing rifles at him he was thundering across the water at nearly thirty knots. He streaked past some picketboats, drawing more fire, some of it remarkably accurate. Four miles beyond the sea buoy, he looked back. The fog was thinning, little thicker than a haze, and through it he saw columns of smoke-three or four torpedo boats coming after him with 4-inch guns on their bows.
The farther he got from the coast, the rougher the seas, which slowed him. The torpedo boats began to gain. At three miles, they opened fire, and all that saved him was the fact that the fifty-foot MAS was a minuscule target. At two miles, the shells began coming uncomfortably close, and Bell began to zigzag, which made the MAS even harder to hit but slowed his passage, and soon the torpedo boats were close enough for him to see the men working the bow guns.
He peered ahead, straining to see smoke or the tall, fuzzy pillar of a cage mast.
A four-inch shell cut the air with an earsplitting shriek and splashed ahead of him. The fog was gone now. There were patches of blue in the sky. He could see the lead torpedo boat clearly and two behind it. Another shell screeched very close by. He saw it splash beside him and bounce like a skipping stone.
The sky ahead turned blue, and it was suddenly divided vertically by a column of smoke as if split by a dark sword. He heard the rapid booming of quick-firing 5-inch guns. Shells streaked over him. Splashes straddled the lead torpedo boat, and all three sheared around and fled for the coast.
Now Bell saw his savior steaming toward him. At his and its combined speeds, it was only minutes before he recognized the familiar cage masts, radio antennas, and 14-inch guns of the 27,000-ton battleship USS New York.
Within minutes, Bell had been hoisted to her main deck. Sailors escorted him to the base of a cage mast. He presented his map to the commander of the Sixth Squadron, a broadly grinning Rear Admiral Lowell Falconer, who seized it with his maimed hand, scanned it eagerly, and issued orders.
Bell said, “I’ll give the range boys a hand sorting out landmarks.”
A sailor half his age offered to help him climb the mast.
“Thanks,” said Bell. “I’ve been on one of these before.”
The New York ’s 14-inch guns, designed by Arthur Langner, were mounted on special turrets that had been perfected by Langner’s acolytes. They could be elevated to extraordinary angles, vastly increasing the guns’ range. A fire-control system pioneered by Grover Lakewood’s team calculated the distance to the U-boat yard. Salvos thundered. High-explosive shells soared toward the distant coast.
By now, the tide had risen. German battle cruisers came boiling out of the harbor. They were fast and heavily gunned, but their armor was no match for the battleship New York ’s, and they kept their distance until a brace of full-scale German dreadnoughts appeared next on the horizon. The sailors flanking Bell in the spotting top exchanged anxious glances.
The German dreadnaughts drew closer. The American kept bombarding its target.
At last, mountains of smoke marked the ruins of the U-boat yard. Falconer ordered what he described to Bell as a “prudent withdrawal.”
The German ships fired at extreme range, but the shells fell short and they were too late. With her original reciprocating engines replaced by the latest model MacDonald turbines, the New York left them in her wake.
As the American dreadnought steamed for the harbor of Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands north
of Scotland, Admiral Falconer invited Isaac Bell up to his private cabin just under the bridge. The U.S. Navy was dry, alcohol forbidden, but Bell had brought a flask, and they raised a glass to victory.
“This is one escapade that won’t appear in the history books,” Falconer told Bell, adding with a laugh that jealous British admirals would want Bell shot for upstaging them.
“Assure them,” smiled Bell, “that private detectives serve privately.” A ship’s carpenter knocked at the door and came in with a mallet and steel chisels. Falconer pointed at the builder’s plate, which read:
USS NEW YORK
Brooklyn Navy Yard
“Loosen that for me.”
“Yes, sir, Admiral!”
The carpenter chiseled around it, and when it was loose enough to pry from the bulkhead Falconer dismissed him. Alone with Isaac Bell, he peeled it away. Underneath it, raised characters welded to the steel read:
Hull 44
A WEEK LATER, Isaac Bell stepped off the train from Scotland and strode from Euston Station into London streets that looked weary from a long, long war.
The tall detective turned his face from a newsreel camera and dodged a horse-drawn mail van. He paused to admire a red 1911 Rolls-Royce Lawton Limousine. Its elegant lines were marred by a floppy gas bag on its roof. The limousine had been converted to burn coal gas, thanks to the oil shortage caused by U-boats sinking tankers.
The Rolls-Royce stopped in front of him.
The elderly chauffeur, too old to fight in the trenches, climbed down, saluted Isaac Bell, and opened the door to the passenger compartment. A beautiful woman with straw-blond hair, an hourglass figure, and sea-coral green eyes addressed him in a voice brimming with joy and relief.