Ballaster towed the ship back to Bristol, they spent twelve hours searching the area in which they found the Valkyrie without finding a clue. There wasn’t a single lifeboat missing. It’s quite the mystery.”
“OK, let me see if I’ve got this straight.” Kate set her coffee on the table and laced her fingers together. “A coal liner finds an empty cruise ship floating in the middle of the ocean. There’s no trace of anyone. The ship gets towed to port, and nobody opens an investigation? How did this not make headlines in every major newspaper? Shouldn’t this story be better known?”
“The fact is a few days later Germany invaded Poland, sparking the beginning of the Second World War. England and France declared war on Germany, and before anyone knew about it, the newspapers had much more interesting headlines. There was no room for a strange story about a ship found abandoned at sea. A German ship, mind you.”
“I see.” Kate was taking notes as the colonel spoke. “So I take it there was never any kind of official investigation.”
“Are you kidding?” Collins smiled sadly. “During the next twelve months, Hitler’s submarines nearly finished off England’s navy. In the span of fifteen weeks, hundreds of transport ships were sunk, ships that had supplied raw materials to the islands. Thousands of Allied sailors disappeared at sea. Nobody even considered mounting an investigation regarding the Valkyrie . The story lost all importance before it was even born.”
“What happened to the ship during all this?”
“The Valkyrie was internalized. That’s military jargon for civil ships that are captured from an enemy nation.” Collins rifled through the pages of the report. “However, there was a bit of a legal snafu. Since the ship had been seized four days before the war started, it technically couldn’t be considered an internalized ship. But it also couldn’t be categorized as a rescued ship because it sailed under the enemy flag. A sort of bureaucratic tangle, you see.”
“I suppose it was no favor to the owner of the towing ship, the”—Kate consulted her notes—“ Pass of Ballaster . Did he get his finder’s fee?”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Collins raised up a packet that was taking up nearly half the dossier on the Valkyrie . “He spent nearly four years in litigation against the Royal Navy in pursuit of the reward money, but it was in vain. During the war there were bigger fish to fry. Facing a scarcity of ships, the Admiralty decided to commission the Valkyrie for the transportation of soldiers, and well, this is where things get strange.”
Kate leaned forward. She was enthralled with the curious nature of the colonel’s story. A flash of lightning lit up the room.
“What happened?”
“For starters, nobody could get the engines to work. The best mechanics from London were called in. They took the motors apart piece by piece and put them together again, but to no avail. The engines simply refused to work. They tried replacing them with British engines, but the setup of the cams the Germans had used was so specialized that it proved impossible. Eventually, they realized the ship would not be leaving Liverpool, so they turned it into a floating antiaircraft vessel.”
“A floating antiaircraft vessel?”
“Yes, to defend the port against shelling from the German Luftwaffe. Eight antiaircraft cannons were installed on deck and assigned a crew to oversee them, and the navy anchored the Valkyrie near the port’s refinery. That way it would be as close as possible to the resources it was meant to protect. But in case the German forces did manage to fly over unimpeded, the ship could be cut loose and allowed to drift away with the tide.”
“So what happened?”
“The dark legend of the Valkyrie began taking shape.” Collins was holding an old draft of a report that looked fragile enough to disintegrate in his hands. “In August 1940 a German bomb fell on one of
“OK, let me see if I’ve got this straight.” Kate set her coffee on the table and laced her fingers together. “A coal liner finds an empty cruise ship floating in the middle of the ocean. There’s no trace of anyone. The ship gets towed to port, and nobody opens an investigation? How did this not make headlines in every major newspaper? Shouldn’t this story be better known?”
“The fact is a few days later Germany invaded Poland, sparking the beginning of the Second World War. England and France declared war on Germany, and before anyone knew about it, the newspapers had much more interesting headlines. There was no room for a strange story about a ship found abandoned at sea. A German ship, mind you.”
“I see.” Kate was taking notes as the colonel spoke. “So I take it there was never any kind of official investigation.”
“Are you kidding?” Collins smiled sadly. “During the next twelve months, Hitler’s submarines nearly finished off England’s navy. In the span of fifteen weeks, hundreds of transport ships were sunk, ships that had supplied raw materials to the islands. Thousands of Allied sailors disappeared at sea. Nobody even considered mounting an investigation regarding the Valkyrie . The story lost all importance before it was even born.”
“What happened to the ship during all this?”
“The Valkyrie was internalized. That’s military jargon for civil ships that are captured from an enemy nation.” Collins rifled through the pages of the report. “However, there was a bit of a legal snafu. Since the ship had been seized four days before the war started, it technically couldn’t be considered an internalized ship. But it also couldn’t be categorized as a rescued ship because it sailed under the enemy flag. A sort of bureaucratic tangle, you see.”
“I suppose it was no favor to the owner of the towing ship, the”—Kate consulted her notes—“ Pass of Ballaster . Did he get his finder’s fee?”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Collins raised up a packet that was taking up nearly half the dossier on the Valkyrie . “He spent nearly four years in litigation against the Royal Navy in pursuit of the reward money, but it was in vain. During the war there were bigger fish to fry. Facing a scarcity of ships, the Admiralty decided to commission the Valkyrie for the transportation of soldiers, and well, this is where things get strange.”
Kate leaned forward. She was enthralled with the curious nature of the colonel’s story. A flash of lightning lit up the room.
“What happened?”
“For starters, nobody could get the engines to work. The best mechanics from London were called in. They took the motors apart piece by piece and put them together again, but to no avail. The engines simply refused to work. They tried replacing them with British engines, but the setup of the cams the Germans had used was so specialized that it proved impossible. Eventually, they realized the ship would not be leaving Liverpool, so they turned it into a floating antiaircraft vessel.”
“A floating antiaircraft vessel?”
“Yes, to defend the port against shelling from the German Luftwaffe. Eight antiaircraft cannons were installed on deck and assigned a crew to oversee them, and the navy anchored the Valkyrie near the port’s refinery. That way it would be as close as possible to the resources it was meant to protect. But in case the German forces did manage to fly over unimpeded, the ship could be cut loose and allowed to drift away with the tide.”
“So what happened?”
“The dark legend of the Valkyrie began taking shape.” Collins was holding an old draft of a report that looked fragile enough to disintegrate in his hands. “In August 1940 a German bomb fell on one of
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