The Cyclops had less than one hour to live. In forty-eight minutes she would become a mass tomb for her 309 passengers and crew—a tragedy unforeseen and unheralded by ominous premonitions, mocked by an empty sea and a diamond-clear sky. Even the seagulls that had haunted her wake for the past week darted and soared in languid indifference, their keen instincts dulled by the mild weather.
There was a slight breeze from the southeast that barely curled the American flag on her stern. At three-thirty in the morning, most of the off-duty crewmen and passengers were asleep. A few, unable to drift off under the oppressive heat of the trade winds, stood around on the upper deck, leaning over the railing and watching the ship’s bow hiss and lift over the high rolling swells. The main surge of the sea seemed to be moving beneath the smooth surface, while massive forces were building in the depths below.
Inside the Cyclops’ wheelhouse, Lieutenant John Church stared vacantly through one of the large circular ports. He had the midnight to 4 A.M. watch, and it was all he could do to stay awake. He vaguely noticed the increasing height of the waves, but as long as they remained wide-spaced and their slopes gentle he saw no reason to reduce speed.
Nudged by a friendly current, the heavily loaded collier was plodding along at only nine knots. Her machinery was badly in need of overhaul and even now she was steaming on just her port engine. Shortly after departing Rio de Janeiro, the starboard engine broke down and the chief engineer reported it could not be repaired until they reached port in Baltimore.
Lieutenant Church had worked his way up through the ranks to commissioned officer. He was a thin, prematurely gray-haired man a few months shy of thirty. He had been assigned to many different ships and had sailed around the world four times. But the Cyclops was the strangest vessel he’d ever encountered during his twelve years in the Navy. This was his first voyage on the eight-year-old vessel and it was not without its odd events.
Since leaving home port, a seaman who fell overboard was battered into pulp by the port propeller. Next came a collision with the cruiser Raleigh that caused minor damage to both ships. The brig was filled with five prisoners. One of them, convicted in the brutal murder of a shipmate, was being transported to the naval prison at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Outside the entrance to Rio Harbor, the ship came within a hair of running onto a reef, and when the executive officer accused the captain of endangering the ship by altering course, he was placed under arrest and confined to quarters. Finally, there was a malcontent crew, a problem-plagued starboard engine, and a captain who was drinking himself into oblivion. When Church summed up the luckless incidents, he felt as if he were standing watch over a disaster waiting to happen.