The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables

While Sam and his friends were thus standing absorbed by the contemplation of the curious sights and sounds around them, one of the engineer staff, who had served on board during the laying of the 1866 Atlantic cable, chanced to pass, and, recognising Robin as an old friend, grasped and shook his hand warmly. Robin was not slow to return the greeting.

“Frank Hedley,” he exclaimed, “why, I thought you had gone to California!”

“Robin Wright,” replied the young engineer, “I thought you were dead!”

“Not yet,” returned Robin; “I’m thankful to report myself alive and well.”

“But you ought to be dead,” persisted Frank, “for you’ve been mourned as such for nigh a couple of years. At least the vessel in which you sailed has never been heard of, and the last time I saw your family, not four months since, they had all gone into mourning for you.”

“Poor mother!” murmured Robin, his eyes filling with tears, “but, please God, we shall meet again before long.”

“Come—come down with me to the engine-room and have a talk about it,” said Frank, “and let your friends come too.”

Just as he spoke, one of the little brown-faced Mohammedan boys fixed his glittering eyes on an opening in the bulwarks of the ship, through which the water could be seen glancing brightly. That innate spirit of curiosity peculiar to small boys all the world over, induced him to creep partly through the opening and glance down at the sparkling fluid. That imperfect notion of balance, not infrequent in small boys, caused him to tip over and cleave the water with his head. His Mohammedan relatives greeted the incident with shrieks of alarm. Robin, who had seen him tip over, being a good swimmer, and prompt to act, went through the same hole like a fish-torpedo, and caught the brown boy by the hair, as he rose to the surface with staring eyes, outspread fingers, and a bursting cry.

Rope-ends, life-buoys, and other things were flung over the side; oars were plunged; boats darted forward; fifty efforts at rescue were made in as many seconds, for there was wealth of aid at hand, and in a wonderfully brief space of time the brown boy was restored to his grateful friends, while Robin, enveloped in a suit of dry clothes much too large for him, was seated with his friend the engineer down among the great cranks, and wheels, and levers, of the regions below.

“It’s well the sharks weren’t on the outlook,” said Frank Hedley, as he brought forward a small bench for Letta, Sam, and Jim Slagg. “You won’t mind the oily smell, my dear,” he said to Letta.

“O no. I rather like it,” replied the accommodating child.

“It’s said to be fattening,” remarked Slagg, “even when taken through the nose.”

“Come now, let me hear all about my dear mother and the rest of them, Frank,” said Robin.

Frank began at once, and, for a considerable time, conversed about the sayings and doings of the Wright family, and of the world at large, and about the loss of the cable-ship; but gradually and slowly, yet surely, the minds and converse of the little party came round to the all-absorbing topic, like the needle to the pole.

“So, you’re actually going to begin to coal to-morrow?” said Sam.

“Yes, and we hope to be ready in a few days to lay the shore-end of the cable,” answered the young engineer.

“But have they not got land-lines of telegraph which work well enough?” asked Robin.

“Land-lines!” exclaimed Frank, with a look of contempt. “Yes, they have, and no doubt the lines are all right enough, but the people through whose countries they pass are all wrong. Why, the Government lines are so frequently out of order just now, that their daily condition is reported on as if they were noble invalids. Just listen to this,” (he caught up a very much soiled and oiled newspaper)—“‘Telegraph Line Reports, Kurrachee, 2nd February, 6 p.m.—Cable communication perfect to Fao; Turkish line is interrupted beyond Semawali; Persian line interrupted beyond Shiraz.’ And it is constantly like that—the telegraphic disease, though intermittent, is chronic. One can never be sure when the line may be unfit for duty. Sometimes from storms, sometimes from the assassination of the operators in wild districts through which the land wires pass, and sometimes from the destruction of lines out of pure mischief, the telegraph is often beaten by the mail.”

“There seems, indeed, much need for a cable direct,” said Sam, “which will make us independent of Turks, Persians, Arabs, and all the rest of them. By the way, how long is your cable?”

“The cable now in our tanks is 2375 nautical miles long, but our companion ships, the Hibernia, Chiltern, and Hawk, carry among them 1225 miles more, making a total of 3600 nautical miles, which is equal, as you know, to 4050 statute miles. This is to suffice for the communication between Bombay and Aden, and for the connecting of the Malta and Alexandria lines. They are now laying a cable between England, Gibraltar, and Malta, so that when all is completed there will be one line of direct submarine telegraph unbroken, except at Suez.”

“Magnificent!” exclaimed Robin, “why, it won’t be long before we shall be able to send a message to India and get a reply in the same day.”

“In the same day!” cried Sam, slapping his thigh; “mark my words, as uncle Rik used to say, you’ll be able to do that, my boy, within the same hour before long.”

“Come, Sam, don’t indulge in prophecy. It does not become you,” said Robin. “By the way, Frank, what about uncle Rik? You have scarcely mentioned him.”

“Oh! he’s the same hearty old self-opinionated fellow as ever. Poor fellow, he was terribly cut up about your supposed death. I really believe that he finds it hard even to smile now, much less to laugh. As for Madge, she won’t believe that you are lost—at least she won’t admit it, though it is easy to see that anxiety has told upon her.”

“I wonder how my poor old mother has took it,” said Slagg, pathetically. “But she’s tough, an’ can’t be got to believe things easy. She’ll hold out till I turn up, I dessay, and when I present myself she’ll say, ‘I know’d it!’”

“But to return to the cable,” said Sam, with an apologetic smile. “Is there any great difference between it and the old ones?”

“Not very much. We have found, however, that a little marine wretch called the teredo attacks hemp so greedily that we’ve had to invent a new compound wherewith to coat it, namely, ground flint or silica, pitch, and tar, which gives the teredo the toothache, I suppose, for it turns him off effectually. We have also got an intermediate piece of cable to affix between the heavy shore-end and the light deep-sea portion. There are, of course, several improvements in the details of construction, but essentially it is the same as the cables you have already seen, with its seven copper wires covered with gutta-percha, and other insulating and protecting substances.”

“It’s what I calls a tremendious undertakin’,” said Slagg.

“It is indeed,” assented Frank, heartily, for like all the rest of the crew, from the captain downwards, he was quite enthusiastic about the ship and her work. “Why, when you come to think of it, it’s unbelievable. I sometimes half expect to waken up and find it is all a dream. Just fancy. We left England with a freight of 21,000 tons. The day is not long past when I thought a ship of 1000 tons a big one; what a mite that is to our Leviathan, as she used to be called. We had 5512 tons of cable, 3824 tons of fuel, 6499 tons of coal and electric apparatus and appliances when we started; the whole concern, ship included, being valued at somewhere about two millions sterling. It may increase your idea of the size and needs of our little household when I tell you that the average quantity of coal burned on the voyage out has been 200 tons a day.”

“It’s a positive romance in facts and figures,” said Sam.

“A great reality, you should have said,” remarked Robin.

And so, romancing on this reality of facts and figures in many a matter-of-fact statement and figurative rejoinder, they sat there among the great cranks, and valves, and pistons, and levers, until the declining day warned them that it was time to go ashore.

Chapter Twenty Four.

Shows the Dreadful Depravity of Man, and the Amazing Effects of Electrical Treatment on Man and Beast

Meanwhile Stumps went back to the hotel to brood over his misfortunes, and hatch out the plan which his rather unfertile brain had devised.

Seated on a chair, with his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, and his nails between his teeth, he stared at a corner of the room, nibbled and meditated. There was nothing peculiar about the corner of the room at which he stared, save that there stood in it a portmanteau which Sam had bought the day before, and in which were locked his and Robin’s bags of treasure.

“If I could only manage to get away by rail to—to—anywhere, I’d do it,” he muttered.

Almost simultaneously he leaped from his chair, reddened, and went to look-out at the window, for some one had tapped at the door.

“Come in,” he said with some hesitation.

“Gen’l’man wants you, sir,” said a waiter, ushering in the identical captain who had stopped Stumps on the street that day.

“Excuse me, young man,” he said, taking a chair without invitation, “I saw you enter this hotel, and followed you.”

“Well, and what business had you to follow me?” demanded Stumps, feeling uneasy.

“Oh, none—none at all, on’y I find I must sail this afternoon, an’ I’ve took a fancy to you, an’ hope you’ve made up your mind to ship with me.”

Stumps hesitated a moment.

“Well, yes, I have,” he said, with sudden resolution. “When must I be on board?”

“At four, sharp,” said the captain, rising. “I like promptitude. All right. Don’t fail me.”

“I won’t,” said Stumps, with emphasis.

When the captain was gone, Stumps went nervously to the door and peeped out. Nothing was visible, save the tail of a waiter’s retiring coat. Cautiously shutting and bolting the door, he took up a strong walking-cane, and, after some difficulty, forced the lock of the portmanteau therewith. Abstracting from it the two bags containing the treasures of his mates Robin and Sam, he wrapped them in a handkerchief, and put them into a canvas bag, which he had purchased for the reception of his own wardrobe. Taking this under his arm he went quietly out of the hotel into the street and disappeared.

He was closely followed by a waiter who had taken the liberty of peeping through the key-hole when he committed the robbery, and who never lost sight of him till he had seen him embark in a vessel in the harbour, named the Fairy Queen, and heard him give his name as James Gibson. Then he returned to the hotel, giving vent to his sentiments in the following soliloquy—“Of course it is no business of yours, John Ribbon, whether men choose to open their comrades’ portmantys with keys or walkin’-sticks, but it is well for you to note the facts that came under your observation, and to reveal them to them as they concern—for a consideration.”

But the waiter did not at that time obtain an opportunity to reveal his facts to those whom they concerned, for Sam, Robin, Slagg, and Letta did not return to the hotel, but sent a pencil note to Stumps instead, to the effect that they had received an invitation from a telegraph official to pay him a visit at his residence up country; that, as he was to carry them off in his boat to the other side of the bay, they would not have an opportunity of calling to bid him, Stumps, a temporary farewell; that he was to make himself as happy as he could in Bombay during their absence, keep on the rooms at the hotel, and settle the bills, and that all expenses would be paid by them on their return.

As the youth by whom this message was sent knew nothing about the senders or whither they had gone, and as Stumps did not again make his appearance, the landlord seized the few things that had been left by the supposed runaways.

The invitation that had thus suddenly been given and accepted, was received from a gentleman named Redpath, an official in the Indian telegraph service. They had been introduced to him on board of the Great Eastern by Sam’s friend, Frank Hedley, and he became so interested in their adventurous career that he begged them to visit his bungalow in a rather out-of-the-way part of the country, even if only for a few days.

“It won’t take us long to get there,” he said, “for the railway passes within thirty miles of it, and I’ll drive you over as pretty a piece of country as you could wish to see. I have a boat alongside, and must be off at once. Do come.”

“But there are so many of us,” objected Sam Shipton.

“Pooh! I could take a dozen more of you,” returned the hospitable electrician; “and my wife rejoices—absolutely rejoices—when I bring home unexpected company.”

“What a pattern she must be,” said Slagg; “but excuse me, sir, since you are so good as to invite us all, may I make so bold as to ax if you’ve got a servants’-’all?”

“Well, I’ve not got exactly that,” replied Redpath, with an amused look; “but I’ve got something of the same sort for my servants. Why do you ask?”

“Because, sir, I never did sail under false colours, and I ain’t agoin’ to begin now. I don’t set up for a gentleman, and though circumstances has throwed me along wi’ two of ’em, so that we’ve bin hail-feller-well-met for a time, I ain’t agoin’ to condescend to consort wi’ them always. If you’ve got a servants’-’all, I’ll come and thank ’ee; if not, I’ll go an’ keep company wi’ Stumps till Mr Shipton comes back.”

“Very well, my good fellow, then you shall come, and we’ll find you a berth in the servants’-hall,” said Redpath, laughing.

“But what about Stumps?” said Robin; “he will wonder what has come over us. Could we not return to the hotel first?”

“Impossible,” said the electrician; “I have not time to wait. My leave has expired. Besides, you can write him a note.”

So the note was written, as we have shown, and the party set out on their inland journey.

Before starting, however, Frank Hedley, the engineer, took Sam and Robin aside.

“Now, think over what I have mentioned,” he said, “and make up your minds. You see, I have some influence at head-quarters, and am quite sure I can get you both a berth on board to replace the men who have left us. I think I can even manage to find a corner for Slagg, if he is not particular.”

“We shall only be too happy to go if you can manage it,” replied Robin; “but Stumps, what about him? We can’t leave Stumps behind, you know.”

“Well. I’ll try to get Stumps smuggled aboard as a stoker or something, if possible, but to say truth, I don’t feel quite so sure about that matter,” replied Frank.

“But shall we have time for this trip if you should prove successful?” asked Sam.

“Plenty of time,” returned his friend; “coaling is a slow as well as a dirty process, and to ship thousands of tons is not a trifle. I daresay we shall be more than a week here before the shore-end is fixed and all ready to start.”

“Well then, Frank,” said Sam; “adieu, till we meet as shipmates.”

The railway soon conveyed our adventurers a considerable distance into the interior of the country.

At the station where Redpath and his guests got out, a vehicle was procured sufficiently large to hold them all, and the road over which they rapidly passed bore out the character which the electrician had given to it. Every species of beautiful scenery presented itself—from the low scrubby plain, with clumps of tropical plants here and there, to undulating uplands and hills.

“You must have some difficulties in your telegraph operations here,” said Robin to Redpath, “with which we have not to contend in Europe.”

“A few,” replied his friend, “especially in the wilder parts of the East. Would you believe it,” he added, addressing himself to Letta, “that wild animals frequently give us great trouble? Whenever a wild pig, a tiger, or a buffalo, takes it into his head to scratch himself, he uses one of our telegraph-posts if he finds it handy. Elephants sometimes butt them down with their thick heads, by way of pastime, I suppose, for they are not usually fond of posts and wire as food. Then bandicoots and porcupines burrow under them and bring them to the ground, while kites and crows sit on the wires and weigh them down. Monkeys, as usual, are most mischievous, for they lay hold of the wires with tails and paws, swinging from one to another, and thus form living conductors, which tend to mix and confuse the messages.”

“But does not the electricity hurt the monkeys?” asked Letta.

“O no! It does them no injury; and birds sitting on the wires are never killed by it, as many people suppose. The electricity passes them unharmed, and keeps faithfully to the wire. If a monkey, indeed, had a tail long enough to reach from the wire to the ground, and were to wet itself thoroughly, it might perhaps draw off some of the current, but fortunately the tails of monkeys are limited. We often find rows of birds lying dead below our telegraph lines, but these have been killed by flying against them, the wires being scarcely visible among trees.”

“And what about savages, sir?” asked Jim Slagg, who had become deeply interested in the telegraphist’s discourse; “don’t they bother you sometimes?”

“Of course they do,” replied Redpath, with a laugh, “and do us damage at times, though we bother them too, occasionally.”

“How do you manage that, sir?” asked Jim.

“Well, you must know we have been much hindered in our work by the corruptness and stupidity of Eastern officials in many places, and by the destructive propensities and rapacity of Kurds and wandering Arabs and semi-savages, who have found our posts in the desert good for firewood and our wires for arrow-heads or some such implements. Some of our pioneers in wild regions have been killed by robbers when laying the lines, while others have escaped only by fighting for their lives. Superstition, too, has interfered with us sadly, though sometimes it has come to our aid.”

“There was one eccentric Irishman—one of the best servants I ever had,” continued Redpath, “who once made a sort of torpedo arrangement which achieved wonderful success. The fellow is with me still, and it is a treat to hear Flinn, that’s his name, tell the story, but the fun of it mostly lies in the expressive animation of his own face, and the richness of his brogue as he tells it.

“‘I was away in the dissert somewheres,’ he is wont to say, ‘I don’t rightly remimber where, for my brain’s no better than a sive at geagraphy, but it was a wild place, anyhow—bad luck to it! Well, we had sot up a line o’ telegraph in it, an’ wan the posts was stuck in the ground not far from a pool o’ wather where the wild bastes was used to dhrink of a night, an’ they tuk a mighty likin’ to this post, which they scrubbed an’ scraped at till they broke it agin an’ agin. Och! it’s me heart was broke intirely wi’ them. At last I putt me brains in steep an’ got up an invintion. It wouldn’t be aisy to explain it, specially to onscientific people. No matter, it was an electrical arrangement, which I fixed to the post, an’ bein’ curious to know how it would work, I wint down to the pool an’ hid mesilf in a hole of a rock, wid a big stone over me an ferns all round about. I tuk me rifle, av coorse, just for company, you know, but not to shoot, for I’m not bloodthirsty, by no means. Well, I hadn’t bin long down whin a rustle in the laves towld me that somethin’ was comin’, an’ sure enough down trotted a little deer—as purty a thing as you could wish to see. It took a dhrink, tremblin’ all the time, an’ there was good cause, for another rustlin’ was heard. Off wint the deer, just as a panther o’ some sort jumped out o’ the jungle an’ followed it. Bad luck go wid ye says I; but I’d scarce said it whin a loud crashing in the jungle towld me a buffalo or an elephant was comin’. It was an elephant. He wint an’ took a long pull at the pool. After that he goes straight to the post. Ha! says I, it’s an owld friend o’ yours, I see. When he putt his great side agin’ it, for the purpose of scratchin’, he got a shock from my electrical contrivance that caused his tail to stand upon end, and the hairs at its point to quiver. Wid a grunt he stood back an’ gave the post a look o’ surprise, as much as to say, Did ye do that a-purpose, ye spalpeen? Then he tried it again, an’ got another shock that sot up his dander, for he twisted his long nose round the post, goin’ to pull it down, no doubt, but he got another shock on the nose that made him squeal an’ draw back. Then he lowered his great head for a charge. It’s all over wid ye now, me post, says I; but the baste changed its mind, and wint off wid its tail an’ trunk in the air, trumpetin’ as if it had got the toothache. Well, after that nothin’ came for some time, and I think I must have gone off to slape, for I was awoke by a most tremendious roar. Lookin’ up I saw a tiger sprawlin’ on his back beside the post! Av coorse the shock wasn’t enough to have knocked the baste over. I suppose it had tripped in the surprise. Anyhow it jumped up and seized the post with claws an’ teeth, whin av coorse it got another shock that caused it to jump back about six yards, with its tail curled, its hair all on end, all its claws out, an’ its eyes blazin’. You seem to feel it, says I—into meself, for fear he’d hear me. He didn’t try it again, but wint away into the bush like a war-rocket. After that, five or six little wild pigs came down, an’ the smallest wan wint straight up to the post an’ putt his nose to it. He drew back wid a jerk, an’ gave a scream that seemed to rend all his vitals. You don’t like it, thinks I; but, faix, it looked as if I was wrong, for he tried it again. Another shock he got, burst himself a’most wid a most fearful yell, an’ bolted. His brothers didn’t seem to understand it quite. They looked after him in surprise. Then the biggest wan gave a wriggle of his curly tail, an’ wint to the post as if to inquire what was the matter. When he got it on the nose the effect was surprisin’. The curl of his tail came straight out, an’ it quivered for a minute all over, wid its mouth wide open. The screech had stuck in his throat, but it came out at last so fierce that the other pigs had to join in self-defence. I stuck my fingers in my ears and shut me eyes. When I opened them again the pigs were gone. It’s my opinion they were all dissolved, like the zinc plates in a used-up battery; but I can’t prove that. Well, while I was cogitatin’ on the result of my little invintion, what should walk out o’ the woods but a man! At first I tuk him for a big monkey, for the light wasn’t very good, but he had a gun on his shoulder, an’ some bits o’ clothes on, so I knew him for a human. Like the rest o’ them, he wint up to the post an’ looked at it, but didn’t touch it. Then he came to the pool an’ tuk a dhrink, an’ spread out his blanket, an’ began to arrange matters for spendin’ the rest o’ the night there. Av coorse he pulled out his axe, for he couldn’t do widout fire to kape the wild bastes off. An’ what does he do but go straight up to my post an’ lift his axe for a good cut. Hallo! says I, pretty loud, for I was a’most too late. Whew! What a jump he gave—six futt if it was an inch. Whin he came down he staggered with his back agin the post. That was enough. The jump he tuk before was nothin’ to what he did after. I all but lost sight of him among the branches. When he returned to the ground it was flat on his face he fell, an’, rowlin’ over his head, came up on his knees with a roar that putt the tigers and pigs to shame. Sarves you right, says I, steppin’ out of my hole. Av coorse he thought I was a divil of some sort, for he turned as white in the face as a brown man could, an’ bolted without so much as sayin’ farewell. The way that nigger laid his legs along the ground was a caution. Ostriches are a joke to it. I picked up his blanket an’ fetched it home as a keepsake, an’ from that day to this the telegraph-posts have been held sacred by man an’ baste all over that part of the country.’”

“I’d like to meet wi’ the feller that told that yarn,” said Jim Slagg.

“So should I,” said Letta, laughing.

“You shall both have your wish, for there he stands,” said Redpath, as they dashed round the corner of a bit of jungle, on the other side of which lay as pretty a bungalow as one could wish to see. A man-servant who had heard the wheels, was ready at the gate to receive the reins, while under the verandah stood a pretty little woman to receive the visitors. Beside her was a black nurse with a white baby.