Paul, Louis "The Cruise of the Lola Montez"

Early World War 2 tale from the days when the United States was still a neutral in the conflict. An American photographer stranded in Mexico, goes to Tampico (“Tampico’s all right if you sleep and eat on a tourist steamship and have your passage booked out of the place. But for an American on the beach with a limited knowledge of Spanish it’s not so good. This seaport stinks of fish and oil. The people have a method of curing meat in which the native fly – big translucent babies – play a part. It’s not like Baltimore”) to look for a ship to crew on. He soon encounters “a very interesting Spic” crimp who gets him a job as a seaman aboard the ship LOLA MONTEZ, warning him to “show no surprise” at anything he might see aboard the vessel. The LOLA had apparently once been a millionaire’s yacht, though now appeared to be – in our hero’s words – “the dirtiest hulk of a boat that I ever clapped my eyes on.” The ship is captained by a mysterious, “shriveled-up Negress dwarf,” who turns out to be well-educated, with a burning desire to learn all about America from narrator. Whew! What a stewpot of a plot so far! At any rate, in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico the LOLA MONTEZ’s destination becomes apparent when a German U-boat rises out of the waters to rendezvous with her. The smaller vessel empties her cargo holds to provision the submarine and also runs a line over to the sub to pump oil and fuel. A few days later our American hero is tossed unceremoniously overboard about a mile off the Mississippi Delta, from whence he successfully makes for New Orleans.