The U-Boat
The Lusitania became the victim of a revolution in warfare: the submarine equipped with weapons capable of sinking a ship. British Naval Intelligence were aware that a German U-boat (submarine) posed a threat, but in an extended metaphor, this knowledge was like:
“knowing a particular killer was loose on the streets of London, armed with a particular weapon, and certain to strike in a particular neighborhood within the next few days, the only unknown being exactly when.”
The Accordionist
One little anecdote about an “orchestra” featuring a violin, mandolin and accordion is punctuated by an amusing simile about the accordionist who turned out to have been quite the ladies’ man despite the fact that he “looked like a gnome and could neither read nor write.”
The Passengers
Captain William Thomas Turner was not exactly molded in the image of Captain Steuben from The Love Boat television show. Turner was not what one would call a “people person.” Apparently he viewed the passengers aboard his ship as “a load of bloody monkeys who are constantly chattering.”
Fog
As it often does, fog played a major role in the disaster that struck the Lusitania. Fog is described metaphorically in various terms including “a protective screen” over water which “was quilted with fog.”
A City on the Sea
By modern cruise ship measures, the Lusitania would hardly impress, but for a brief period it held the title as the largest passenger ship on earth. So large that one passenger described life during a voyage as “like living in a town [where] one saw fresh people every day and never knew who they were.”
