“Charles Parsons left nothing to chance. In the event that something went wrong with Turbinia, he built two turbine racers. This one’s named Dyname. Do you remember your Greek?”
“The result of forces acting together.”
“Very good! Dyname is actually Turbinia’s big sister, a trifle beamier, modeled after the torpedo boats of the nineties. I had her refitted as a yacht and converted her boilers to oil, which opened up a lot of space in the former coal bunkers. Poor Alasdair used her as a test craft and modified the turbines. Thanks to him, even though she’s beamier than Turbinia, she burns less fuel and goes faster.”
“How fast?”
Falconer laid an affectionate hand on Dyname’s varnished mahogany and grinned. “You would not believe me if I told you.”
The tall detective grinned back. “I wouldn’t mind a trick at the helm.”
“Wait ’til we’re out of congested waters. I don’t dare open her up in the harbor.”
The yacht steamed down the East River into the Upper Bay and increased her speed dramatically. “Quite a clip,” said Bell.
Falconer chuckled, “We rein her in until we reach the open sea.”
The lights of Manhattan Island faded astern. A steward appeared bearing covered dishes and spread them on the table. Captain Falconer bid Bell sit across from him.
Bell stood where he was, and asked, “What is Hull 44?”
“Please join me for supper, and while we head to sea I will tell you the secret of why Hull 44.”
Falconer began by echoing Alasdair MacDonald’s lament. “It’s ten years since Germany started building a modern Navy. The same year we captured the Philippine Islands and annexed the Kingdom of Hawaii. Today, the Germans have dreadnought battleships. The British have dreadnought battleships, and the Japanese are building, and buying, dreadnought battleships. So when the U.S. Navy embarks on distant service to defend America’s new territories in the Pacific, we will be outclassed and outgunned by the Germans and the British and the Empire of Japan.”
Brimming with such zeal that he left his beefsteak untouched, Captain Falconer regaled Isaac Bell with the dream behind Hull 44. “The dreadnaught race teaches that change is always preceded by a universal conviction that there is nothing new under the sun. Before the British launched HMS Dreadnaught, two facts about battleships were engraved in stone. They took many years to build and they had to be armed with a great variety of guns to defend themselves. HMS Dreadnaught is an all-big-guns ship, and they built her in a single year, which changed the world forever.
“Hull 44 is my response. America’s response.
“I recruited the best brains in the fighting-ship business. I told them to do their damnedest! Men like Artie Langner, the ‘Gunner,’ and Alasdair, whom you met.”
“And saw die,” Bell interrupted grimly.
“Artists, every one of them. But like all artists, they’re misfits. Bohemians, eccentrics, if not plain loony. Not the sort that get along in the regular Navy. But thanks to my misfit geniuses hatching new ideas and refining old ones, Hull 44 will be a dreadnought battleship like none that sail the seas—an American engineering marvel that will overwhelm the British Dreadnought and the German Nassau and Posen, and the worst Japan can throw at her—Why are you shaking your head, Mr. Bell?”