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

“Well, what of that?”

“I have taken advantage of the lucid interval to send a telegram to uncle Rik. No doubt your father has by this time received the telegram we sent announcing our safety and arrival here, so this one won’t take them by surprise.”

“But what is it about?” asked Robin.

“It is sent,” replied Sam, “with the intention of converting uncle Rik into a thief-catcher. That stupid waiter told me only this morning that the time he followed Stumps to the harbour, he overheard a sailor conversing with him and praising a certain tavern named the Tartar, near London Bridge, to which he promised to introduce him on their arrival in England; so it struck me that by telegraphing to uncle Rik to find out the owners of the Fairy Queen and the position of the Tartar, he might lay hold of Stumps on his arrival and recover our stolen property.”

“But I hope he won’t put him in limbo, sir,” said Jim Slagg. “I’ve no objection to recover our property, but somehow I don’t like to have the poor fellow transported. You see I can’t help thinkin’ he was half-cracked when he did it.”

“He must take his chance, I suppose,” said Sam, thoughtfully. “However, the telegram is off, and, if it ever reaches him, uncle Rik will act with discretion.”

“I agree with Jim,” said Robin, “and should be sorry to be the means of ruining our old comrade.”

“It did not strike me in that light,” returned Sam, a little troubled at the thought. “But it can’t be helped now. In any case I suppose he could not be tried till we appear as witnesses against him.”

“I ain’t much of a lawyer,” said Slagg, “but it do seem to me that they couldn’t very well take him up without some proof that the property wasn’t his.”

“It may be so,” returned Sam; “we shall see when we get home. Meanwhile it behoves us to square up here, for the Great Eastern starts early to-morrow and we must be on board in good time to-night.”

Now, you must not imagine, good reader, that we intend to drag you a second time through all the details of laying a deep-sea cable. The process of laying was much the same in its general principles as that already described, but of course marked by all the improvements in machinery, etcetera, which time and experience had suggested. Moreover, the laying of the Indian cable was eminently, we might almost say monotonously, successful, and, consequently, devoid of stirring incident. We shall therefore merely touch on one or two features of interest connected with it, and then pass on to the more important incidents of our story.

When Robin and his comrades drew near to the big ship, she was surrounded by a perfect fleet of native boats, whose owners were endeavouring to persuade the sailors to purchase bananas and other fruits and vegetables; paroquets, sticks, monkeys, and fancy wares.

Next morning, the 14th of February 1870, the Great Eastern lifted her mighty anchor, and spliced the end of the 2375 miles of cable she had on board to the shore-end, which had been laid by the Chiltern. This splice was effected in the presence of the Governor of Bombay, Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, who, with a small party, accompanied the Great Eastern a short distance on its way. Then, embarking in his yacht, they bade God-speed to the expedition, gave them three ringing cheers, and the voyage to Aden began.

Soon the cable-layers were gliding merrily over the bright blue sea at the rate of five or six knots an hour, with the cable going quietly over the stern, the machinery working smoothly, the electrical condition of the cable improving as the sea deepened, and flocks of flying-fish hovering over the crisp and curly waves, as if they were specially interested in the expedition, and wished to bear it company.

All went well, yet were they well prepared for accident or disaster, as Sam informed Robin on the morning of the 16th while sitting at breakfast.

“They have got two gongs, as you’ve observed, no doubt,” he said, “which are never to be sounded except when mischief is brewing. The first intimation of fault or disaster will be a note from one of these gongs, when the ship will be instantly stepped, the brakes put on, and the engines reversed.”

“Everything is splendidly prepared and provided for,” said Robin; “hand me the sugar, Sam.”

“The elasticity and good behaviour of the big ship are all that could be desired,” remarked one of the engineers, “though she carries 3000 tons more dead-weight than when she started with the Atlantic cable in 1865.”

At that moment there was a lull of consternation round the breakfast-table, for a drumming upon metal was heard! For one instant there was a gaze of doubt round the table. Then they rose en masse; cups were upset, and chairs thrown over; the cabin was crossed at racing speed,—Captain Halpin leading—the stair-case surmounted, and a rush made to the testing-room.

There all was quiet and orderly; the operators placidly pursuing their labours, working out their calculations, or watching the tell-tale spot of light on the scale, and all looking up in silent surprise at the sudden hubbub round their door. It was a false alarm, caused by the steady dripping of a shower-bath on its metal bottom! That was all, but it was sufficient to prove how intensely men were on the qui vive.

It was a wonderful scene, the deck of the Great Eastern—incomprehensible by those who have not seen it. The cabins, offices, workshops, and machinery formed a continuous line of buildings up the centre of the vessel’s deck, dividing it into two streets an eighth of a mile long. At the end of one of these were the wheels and drums running from the top of the aft-tank to the stern; and between them and the two thoroughfares were wooden houses which shut them out from view. There was a farmyard also, where cattle were regularly turned out for exercise; there were goats which were allowed to go free about the decks, and chickens which took the liberty of doing so, sometimes, without leave; there were parrots being taken home by the sailors which shrieked their opinions noisily; and there were numerous monkeys, which gambolled in mischievous fun, or sat still, the embodiment of ludicrous despair; while, intermingling with the general noise could be heard the rattle of the paying-out wheels, as the cable passed with solemn dignity and unvarying persistency over the stern into the sea, it seemed almost unheeded, so perfect and self-acting was the machinery; but it was, nevertheless, watched by keen sleepless eyes—as the mouse is watched by the cat—night and day.

The perfection not only achieved but expected, was somewhat absurdly brought out by the electrician in the cable-house at Bombay, who one day complained to the operators on board the Great Eastern that the reply to one of his questions had been from three to twelve seconds late! It must be understood, however, that although the testing of the cable went on continuously during the whole voyage, the sending of messages was not frequent, as that interfered with the general work. Accordingly, communication with the shore was limited to a daily statement from the ship of her position at noon, and to the acknowledgment of the same by the electrician at Bombay.

One of the greatest dangers in paying-out consists in changing from tank to tank when one is emptied, and a full one has to be commenced. This was always an occasion of great interest and anxiety.

About midnight of the 19th the change to the fore-tank was made, and nearly every soul in the ship turned out to see it. The moon was partially obscured, but darkness was made visible by a row of lanterns hung at short intervals along the trough through which the cable was to be passed, making the ship look inconceivably long. As Robin Wright hurried along the deck he observed that both port and starboard watches were on duty, hid in the deep shadow of the wheels, or standing by the bulwark, ready for action. Traversing the entire length of the deck—past the houses of the sheep and pigs; past the great life-boats; past the half-closed door of the testing-room, where the operators maintained their unceasing watch in a flood of light; past the captain’s cabin, a species of land-mark or half-way house; past a group of cows and goats lying on the deck chewing the cud peacefully, and past offices and deck-cabins too numerous to mention,—he came at last to the fore-tank, which was so full of cable that the hands ready to act, and standing on the upper coil, had to stoop to save their heads from the deck above.

The after-tank, on the contrary, was by that time a huge yawning pit, twenty-five feet deep, lighted by numerous swinging lamps like a subterranean church, with its hands, like Lilliputians, attending to the last coil of the cable. That coil or layer was full four miles long, but it would soon run out, therefore all was in readiness. The captain was giving directions in a low voice, and seeing that every one was in his place. The chiefs of the engineers and electricians were on the alert. Every few minutes a deep voice from below announced the number of “turns” before the last one. At last the operation was successfully accomplished and the danger past, and the cable was soon running out from the fore-tank as smoothly as it had run out of the other.

The tendency of one flake or coil of cable to stick to the coil immediately below, and produce a wild irremediable entanglement before the ship could be stopped, was another danger, but these and all other mishaps of a serious nature were escaped, and the unusually prosperous voyage was brought to a close on the 27th of February, when the Great Eastern reached Aden in a gale of wind—as if to remind the cable-layers of what might have been—and the cable was cut and buoyed in forty fathoms water.

The continuation of the cable up the Red Sea, the successful termination of the great enterprise, and the start of our hero and his companions for Old England after their work was done, we must unwillingly leave to the reader’s imagination.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

Uncle Rik’s Adventures

Uncle Rik seated in Mr Wright’s drawing-room; Mr Wright in an easy-chair near the window; Mrs Wright—with much of the lustre gone out of her fine eyes—lying languidly on the sofa; Madge Mayland at work on some incomprehensible piece of netting beside her aunt,—all in deep mourning.

Uncle Rik has just opened a telegram, at which he stares, open eyed and mouthed, without speaking, while his ruddy cheeks grow pale.

“Not bad news, I trust, brother,” said poor Mrs Wright, to whom the worst news had been conveyed when she heard of the wreck of the Triton. Nothing could exceed that, she felt, in bitterness.

“What is it, Rik?” said Mr Wright, anxiously.

“Oh! nothing—nothing. That is to say, not bad news, certainly, but amazing news. Boh! I’m a fool.”

He stopped short after this complimentary assertion, for uncle Rik had somewhere read or heard that joy can kill, and he feared to become an accomplice in a murder.

“Come, Rik, don’t keep us in suspense,” said his brother, rising; “something has happened.”

“O yes, something has indeed happened,” cried Rik, “for this telegram is from Sam Shipton.”

“Then Robin is alive!” cried Mrs Wright, leaping up, while Madge turned perfectly white.

“No—that is to say—yes—it may be so—of course must be so—for,—bah! what an ass I am! Listen.”

He proceeded to read Sam’s telegram, while Mrs Wright covered her face with her hands and sank trembling on the sofa.

The telegram having suffered rather severe mutilation at the hands of the foreigners by whom it was transmitted, conveyed a very confusing idea of the facts that were intended, but the puzzling over it by the whole party, and the gradual, though not perfect, elucidation of its meaning, had perhaps the effect of softening the joyful intelligence to a bearable extent.

“Now,” said uncle Rik, while the perspiration of mental effort and anxiety stood on his bald forehead, “this is the outcome of it all. Sam clearly says ‘all well,’ which means, of course, that Robin is alive—thank God for that! Then he refers to a previous telegram, which, of course, must be lost, for it hasn’t come to hand. Bah! I wonder the nasty things ever do come to hand. Anyhow, that telegram must have been meant to announce their safe arrival at Bombay, undoubtedly.”

“Of course—I see it now,” said Mrs Wright, with a deep sigh.

“Of course,” echoed Rik. “Then there’s some queer reference to a ship and a Fiery Queen, and a Stamps and a Shunks, and a Gibson, and a thief, and three bags, and the port of London, which of course means London, and a public-house named, apparently, Torture—”

“Tartar, I think, uncle,” said Madge.

“Well, Tartar if you like, it’s much the same if you catch him. And it winds up with a girl—which is not surprisin’—who is to be expectorated—”

“Expected, surely,” said Madge, with a rather hysterical laugh, for the conflicting feelings within her tended rather to tears.

“So be it, Madge—expected, with an unreadable name beginning with an L,—and that’s all; and a pretty penny he must have paid to send us such a lot o’ rubbish.”

“It has brought the oil of gladness to our hearts, brother,” said Mr Wright, “and is worth its cost. But, now, what do you intend to do?”

“Do!” exclaimed Rik, who was never happier than when he could explode his feelings in action. “I’ll go this moment to the port of London, find out the owners of the Fiery Queen, make particular inquiries about the Stampses, Shunkses, and Gibsons, visit Torture public-houses—though they’re all that, more or less—and see if I can hear anything about girls to be expectorated, with names beginning with L. There—these are my sailing directions, so—up anchor and away!”

Uncle Rik immediately obeyed his own commands, and spent the remainder of that day in what he styled cruising. And he cruised to some purpose, for although he failed to obtain any information as to the girl, he discovered the owners of the Fairy—not Fiery—Queen, who said that she was expected home in a few weeks, but that they knew nothing whatever about the rather remarkable names which he submitted for their consideration. With this amount of information he was fain to rest content, and returned in an elevated state of mind to his brother’s house.

Some weeks after these events, the Wright family was again seated round the social board, as uncle Rik called it, when two visitors were announced. The social meal happening to be tea, and the drawing-room at that time in dishabille, owing to carpet disturbances, the visitors were shown into the dining-room—a lady, accompanied by a pretty little girl.

“Excuse my calling at an unusual hour,” said the lady, “but I trust the occasion of my visit will be a sufficient excuse. I have just arrived from Bombay, and hasten to present a letter from your son, and to deliver over my interesting charge, this dear child, Letta Langley, whom—”

“The expectorated girl!” shouted uncle Rik, leaping up, “begins with an L,—two L’s indeed. Bah, I’m an idiot! Excuse my excitement, madam—pray go on.”

Slightly surprised, but more amused, the lady went on to tell all she knew about Robin and his friends, while the happy mother read snatches of Robin’s letter through her tears, and Mr Wright and Madge plied the lady with questions and tea, and Letta, taking at once to uncle Rik, ecstatified, amazed and horrified that retired sea-captain with her charming earnest little ways, her wonderful experiences, and her intimate acquaintance with pirates and their habits.

A letter from Robin to his mother, and another from Sam to Mr Wright, arrived next morning, and proved to be those which had been written immediately after their landing at Bombay, and had been posted, so the writers thought, at the time their first telegram was despatched. But the letters had been given to Stumps to post, and Stumps was not blessed with a good memory, which may account for the delay in transmission. These letters corroborated all the lady had said. Thus was Letta formally installed in the Wright family, and uncle Rik solemnly charged himself with the discovery of her mother!

“Depend upon it, my dear,” he said, with an amount of self-sufficient assurance and indomitable resolution that carried sweet consolation to the child’s heart, “that I’ll find your mother if she’s above ground, though the findin’ of her should cost me the whole of my fortune and the remainder of my life.”

And nobly did Rik redeem his promise. He obtained special introduction to the British Museum, consulted every Directory in existence, hunted up every widow of the name of Langley in the kingdom, and found the right one at last, not three miles distant from his own door in London. Captain Rik, it must be known, had a room in London furnished like a cabin, which he was wont to refer to as his “ship” and his “bunk,” but he paid that retreat only occasional visits, finding it more agreeable to live with his brother.

It was a fine Sabbath morning when Rik took Letta’s hand and led her into the presence of her mother. He would not let himself be announced, but pushed the child into the drawing-room and shut the door.

With similar delicacy of feeling we now draw a curtain over the meeting of the mother and the long-lost child.

“It’s almost too much for me, tough old sea-dog though I am, this perpetual cruisin’ about after strange runaway craft,” said uncle Rik, as he and Letta walked hand in hand along the streets one day some weeks later. “Here have I been beatin’ about for I don’t know how long, and I’m only in the middle of it yet. We expect the Fairy Queen in port to-night or to-morrow.”

“But you won’t hurt poor Stumps when you catch him, will you?” pleaded Letta, looking earnestly up into her companion’s jovial face. “He was very nice and kind to me, you know, on Pirate Island.”

“No, I’ll not hurt him, little old woman,” said Rik. “Indeed, I don’t know yet for certain that Stumps is a thief; it may be Shunks or it may be Gibson, you see, who is the thief. However, we’ll find out before long. Now then, good-bye, I’ll be back soon.”

He shook hands with Letta at Mr Wright’s house, she and her mother having agreed to reside there until Robin’s return home.

Wending his way through the streets until he reached one of the great arteries of the metropolis, he got into a ’bus and soon found himself on the banks of the Thames. Arrived at the docks, one of the first vessels his eyes fell on was the Fairy Queen.

Going on board, the first man he met was the captain, to whom he said, touching his hat—

“Excuse me, captain; may I ask if you have a man in your crew named Stumps?”

“No, sir, no such name on my books.”

“Nor one named Shunks?”

“No, not even Shunks,” replied the captain, with a sternly-humorous look, as if he thought the visitor were jesting.

“Nor Gibson?” continued Rik.

“Yes, I’ve got one named Gibson. What d’ye want with him?”

“Well, I have reason to believe that he is—or was—a friend of a friend of mine, and I should like to see him.”

“Oh! indeed,” responded the captain, regarding his visitor with a doubtful look. “Well, Gibson has just got leave to go ashore, and I heard him say to one of his mates he was going to the Tartar public-house, so you’ll see him there, probably, for he is not invisible or’narily. But I don’t know where the Tartar is.”

“But I know,” returned Captain Rik; “thank you. I’ll go seek him there.”

Stumps sat alone in one of the boxes of the Tartar public-house, which at that hour chanced to be nearly empty. His face was buried in his hands, and a pot of untasted beer stood at his elbow. Poor Stumps! Conscience had been remarkably busy with him on the voyage home. He would have given worlds to have got back to Bombay, return the ill-gotten bags, and confess his guilt, but it was too late—too late.

There is something very awful in these words, too late! We read of and hear them often, and we use them sometimes, lightly it may be, but it is only when they can be used by ourselves with reference to something very serious, that we have a glimmering of their terrible significance. There is a proverb, “It is never too late to mend,” which is misleading. When the dream of life is over, and the doom is fixed, it is too late to mend. No doubt the proverb is meant to refer to our condition while this life lasts, but even here it is misleading. When the murderer withdraws the knife and gazes, it may be, horror-struck at the expressionless face of his victim, it is too late. He cannot mend the severed thread of life. When the reckless drunkard draws near the end of his career, and looks in the mirror, and starts to see the wreck of his former self, it is too late. Health will never more return. Not too late, blessed be God, for the salvation of the soul, but too late for the recovery of all that was held dear in the life of earth.

Yes, Stumps had many a time while on the sea muttered to himself, “Too late!” He did so once again in that low public-house near the docks. Uncle Rik overheard him, and a feeling of profound pity arose within him.

“I beg pardon,” he said, and at the first word Stumps looked quickly, almost fiercely, up, “your name, I believe, is Gibson.”

“No, it isn’t—I, that is to say—Well, yes it is. Sailors has got aliases, you know, sometimes. What d’ye want wi’ me?”

“You were acquainted in Bombay,” resumed Captain Wright, very quietly, as he sat down opposite to Stumps, “with a young man named Wright—Robin Wright?”

Stumps’s face became deadly pale.

“Ah! I see you were,” resumed the captain; “and you and he had something to do, now, with bags of some sort?”

The captain was, as the reader knows, profoundly ignorant of everything connected with the bags except their existence, but he had his suspicions, and thought this a rather knowing way of inducing Stumps to commit himself. His surprise, then, may be imagined when Stumps, instead of replying, leaped up and dashed wildly out of the room, overturning the pot of beer upon Captain Rik’s legs.

Stumps shot like an arrow past the landlord, a retired pugilist, who chanced to be in the doorway. Captain Rik, recovering, darted after him, but was arrested by the landlord.

“Not quite so fast, old gen’l’man! As you’ve had some of your mate’s beer, you’d better pay for it.”

“Let me go!—stop him!” cried the captain, struggling.

As well might he have struggled in the grasp of Hercules. His reason asserted itself the instant the fugitive was out of sight. He silently paid for the beer, went back to the Fairy Queen to inform the captain that his man Gibson was a thief—to which the captain replied that it was very probable, but that it was no business of his—and then wandered sadly back to tell the Wright family how Gibson, alias Stumps, alias Shunks, had been found and lost.

Chapter Thirty.

The Wright Family reunited, and Sam becomes highly Electrical

That much-abused and oft-neglected meal called tea had always been a scene of great festivity and good-fellowship in the Wright family. Circumstances, uncontrollable of course, had from the beginning necessitated a dinner at one o’clock, so that they assembled round the family board at six each evening, in a hungry and happy frame of body and mind, (which late diners would envy if they understood it), with the prospect of an evening—not bed—before them.

In the earlier years of the family, the meal had been, so to speak, a riotous one, for both Robin and Madge had uncontrollable spirits, with tendencies to drop spoons on the floor, and overturn jugs of milk on the table. Later on, the meal became a jolly one, and, still later, a chatty one—especially after uncle Rik and cousin Sam began to be frequent guests.

But never in all the experience of the family had the favourite meal been so jolly, so prolific of spoony and porcelain accidents, so chatty, and so generally riotous, as it was on a certain evening in June of the year 1870, shortly after the return home of Robin and his companions.

Besides the original Wright family, consisting of father, mother, Robin, and Madge, there were assembled uncle Rik, Sam Shipton, Mrs Langley, Letta, and—no—not Jim Slagg. The circle was unavoidably incomplete, for Jim had a mother, and Jim had said with indignant emphasis, “did they suppose all the teas an’ dinners an’ suppers, to say nothin’ o’ breakfasts, an’ mess-mates an’ chums an’ friends, crammed and jammed into one enormous mass temptation, would indooce him to delay his return to that old lady for the smallest fraction of an hour?” No, Jim Slagg was not at the table, but the household cat was under it, and the demoralising attentions that creature received on that occasion went far to undo the careful training of previous years.