Cries from the Deep

This is a story about an atrocity, and the likelihood that you don’t already know it is itself atrocious. It’s more than a hundred years old, with lessons for the current age. It is a story about tragedy, scandal, cover‑up, and, in time, a small measure of justice. It is not a tale about honour nor one about redemption; instead, it is about war, and seamen in submarines, and mendacity, and the kind of brutal things humans do to one another when they are just following orders, or think they are.

The tragedy occurred in the Atlantic, off the Irish coast, on June 27, 1918, not so very far from the end of the First World War. There are scant heroes here, mostly villains and victims. At the centre of this story are two vessels. One was a chartered hospital ship, operating in the open and above water — its intent entirely peaceful, its procession through the seas protected by international convention, its identity clearly marked by unmistakable symbols. The other was a...