It would take a man with a knowledge of Brunel’s diagrams and a high general intelligence to understand the consequences of turning this stopcock. It would take a man with diabolical intent to turn it. Yet turn it the lascar did, exploiting the dark flaw in the Great Eastern‘s design to which the engineer himself had been blind.
Then, swiftly and silently as he’d arrived, the lascar departed by different route, past the feedwater pipes, down the corridor, through the bulkhead door, up the gangway, onto the deck, over the bridge between the paddle boxes: and, gripping with hands and crossed feet, down the rope which held the compact steam chaloupe that served as the Great Eastern‘s pilot boat. Once sheltered from the view of the deck he removed his pea jacket and shoes and trousers, and let them fall into the Channel— Then followed them, into the darkening evening sea.
He swam toward Hastings as the steamship was headed the other way. It was a fair distance and a lesser man would not have had the stamina. But the lascar had both strength and strength of purpose and so within the hour was onshore finding, and then donning, a cache of clothes along the bank that he, or a confederate, had previously secreted. He was headed by land back to London even as the feedwater pressure was building past its limit.
It was ten minutes to six when those on deck—mostly gathered under the forward bulwark for protection against the headwinds—suddenly heard a grand roar and crash, then turned to see the great forward funnel of the ship in two pieces, thirty feet in the air, rising up then sinking down in grand and terrifying slow motion, amidst a shower of splinters and pipes, obscured by dark, glowing columns of steam and smoke. Captain Harrison immediately ran belowdecks, knocking down stateroom doors behind one of which was his young daughter, unharmed. Mr. Comstock ordered his men to hurry up the afterforce pump. (His hope was to flood the boiler room with cooler water, checking the heat and condensing the steam.) Some of the passengers on deck scanned the waterline looking for signs that the ship was foundering; others made their way to the boats, and had begun to lower them into the chop, when one of the officers, brandishing a firearm, put a stop to that.
Belowdecks a volume of smoke and flame emerged not only from the chambers but from the furnace doors themselves, erupting down the corridor into the grand salon. Mr. Rawlinson, assistant adjuster of compasses, supervised the evacuation of the ladies from their apartments. The great struggle at present was to get out the miserable fire-men who were known to be scalding below, and whose terrible groans now reached the deck.
As soon as the smoke and steam had been sufficiently damped to render a descent if not safe then possible, several men at once volunteered to go down the shafts. In a few moments all the twelve fire-men on duty were brought up. One or two were not very seriously injured, and the worst injured seemed in the least pain, actually walking unaided. But the sight of them was heartrending. The scalp of one was hanging in strips from his head, the boiled flesh of another stripped from the bones of his hand. While removing his coat, another found his skin had peeled off with his clothing. The room designated as a hospital was more customarily used as a carpenter’s shop and the floor was covered with shavings on which mattresses were hastily laid. Two ship’s surgeons and a London physician—a passenger—at once set to work to alleviate the distress of the poor sufferers. Yet even had they been on shore, scarcely anything more could have been done.
The stricken were generally delirious and all seemed to be cold, begging to be covered up. In many ways their actual suffering was not extreme. But they had breathed the fatal steam and before long death, perhaps mercifully, had come to three of them, while at least five others were becoming quiet and unconscious in death’s near approach.
Belowdecks—though the larger force of the explosion had been contained by the bulkheads, and though the ship’s double hull had not failed—the consequences were well in evidence. The forepart of the salon was a pile of glittering rubbish, a confused mass of splinters and ornaments: the gilt castings broken and thrown down, the brass work ripped, the handsome cast-iron columns overturned and strewn about. Closer to the boilers, in a state sitting room for the ladies, every single thing was destroyed, the wooden flooring broken and wrenched-up. It was impossible to gaze upon the sequelae of the explosion’s appalling force without profound gratitude to Providence that the explosion occurred at the only single moment when the grand salon was empty. What the consequences would have been had it taken place earlier, when the visitors had been in residence, is fearful to contemplate.
On deck the steam and smoke continued to rise. At the wheel Mr. Atkinson, the pilot, pulled his hat down to shield his face from the vapors, then proclaimed to anyone who might hear, “That’s none of my business. I’m going to steer the ship as long as she is a ship.” Gathered around the pilothouse the passengers were talking over the matter in view of their heaven-sent escape; others mused on the cause of the disaster, and not a few with reference to its commercial results. A vague apprehension of fresh terror—the sudden check to the great enterprise in the hour of its promise, together with a deep and universal sorrow at the fate of the dying, steam-struck men—gloomily ushered in the night.
By midday on 10th September the Great Eastern had put ashore at Portland Harbor, Dorset. The dead—and by then there were a full eight of them—were carried off; the remaining wounded were transported to hospital; the journalists rushed to file their stories. Chief Equerry and Clerk Marshal to the Queen Lord Alfred Paget stayed behind for some minutes to offer solace to Captain Harrison before setting off by carriage back to London. The cause of the explosion had yet to be ascertained but was attributed to accident. There would be no reason to think otherwise.
We know what they failed to know—that the turning of the cock was not without intent. We know as well that the lascar had some knowledge of probable consequence, otherwise he’d not have quit the ship, subjecting himself to harsh and perilous swim. But why? What motive? What animus might a man bear ‘gainst a ship? Why contrive an explosion when those most likely to be struck were those belowdecks: seafaring proletariat, stokers, fire-men, coalmen, who twelve hours a day stared into the fires of hell? Who would hate a hull of doubled iron? And who would want to delay the onset of progress, of the transport of men and goods from London to Delhi and Bombay? Such a man would have to lack moral sense. Either that or be deranged, so that night to him was day, and darkness light.
THIS LASCAR DID return to Mile End early on the morning of 10th September. He walked through the hospital doors without remarking upon his absence; and neither was it remarked upon by Dr. Murdstone or Shropham, both of whom observed his re-entry up the stairs and into the room set aside for Brunel. His sabbatical coincided with the explosion aboard the Great Eastern but neither the alcoholic physician nor the composer of tender age did speculate on the coincidence.
Returning to the Brunel room the Lascar spoke briefly with his two compatriots in a language Shropham had to no avail, over the past days, tried to comprehend. His best guess was that they were speaking Hindoo or one of its variants. The conversation was telegraphic, without to-do or palaver. Were they to have been overheard even by someone who spoke their dialect it would not have disclosed much at all.
The lascars continued their vigil for the next several days. On the evening of 14th September the lead lascar emerged from Brunel’s sickroom and sought out Dr. Murdstone, who was red cheeked, perhaps from recent exposure to the sun, perhaps from gin. The two chatted amiably as they strode the corridors, Murdstone in the Kensington drawl he’d acquired in medical school, the lascar in fine Cantabrigian cadence. Shropham, who had been detailed to the supply room, could not help but overhear. And what he heard was a negotiation concerning money, which he, the lascar, would pay to him, the doctor, in two days’ time. The doctor was wanting one hundred English pounds. The lascar he did agree.
To Shropham this was a harbinger of doom. What act was so consequential, illegal, or hideous as to command a payment of one hundred English pounds
? He could scarcely contemplate the enormity of such a thing. And if the lascar had acquiesced to Murdstone’s opening demand then something was very wrong. Either the lascar had been out-negotiated—something Shropham doubted to his core—or the lascar had no intention of making payment. There was a hedge maze of alternatives here, each more troubling than the next, none of them leading to sunlight.
The carriages began to arrive shortly after dawn. At first one by one, then, as the morning drew on, in pairs or even quartets. They delivered their passengers to Shropham’s waiting room. Not the diseased or stricken, but rather journalists, from the Times and various publications of lesser repute. All Shropham had been given to tell them was that there would be an announcement round nine a.m.
At a quarter past, Dr. Murdstone—freshly shaven, coiffed, and in his very best suit—descended the stairs. He announced his name, spelled it. Limned a brief history of Mile End. Talked about its service to the community and the number of lives that had been saved. Alluded to three or four cases where there had been patients who entered in gravis, departed in the pink of health. (Young Shropham wondered if he chose these examples because they were the most illustrative, or because they were unique.)
Perhaps sensing the reporters’ uneasiness, perhaps because he had run out of prefatory material, Dr. Murdstone then made his announcement: “At two minutes past midnight the gravely ill Isambard Kingdom Brunel slipped away. The great man, who will be remembered as long as there is an England, shall henceforth design railways, bridges, steamships only in the Better Place.”
The assembled journalists, clearly expecting such an announcement, had but few questions. Some were medical, concerning the etiology of the disease, and these Dr. Murdstone answered in medical language that Shropham, if no one else, knew were word-for-word repetitions of the monologue delivered up by the lascar on the evening that Brunel was first brought to Mile End. Some were historical, concerning Brunel’s achievements, and those Dr. Murdstone modestly declined to answer, referring them to Scott Russell or to the Brunel family. Still others were about funeral arrangements, which Dr. Murdstone, reading from a folded piece of notepaper, conveyed to them.
At length the journalists departed. The last of them had gone Fleetstreetward when another carriage—longer, lower, and with hoof steps more solemn—pulled up to the doors. The crew who came with it were lower of class than the journalists and were dressed to the man in dark overcoats. Pallbearers. Gravediggers. London’s own Charons, crossing the Thames in black cloth gone shiny with use.
Two lascars came down the stairs carrying a body on a hand-borne stretcher. The body was covered head-to-foot with linen shroud. Shropham strained for a glimpse but the shrouded body was borne through the doors swiftly and without pause. All he saw was a toe, peeking from beneath the shroud. The toe was dark in color, perhaps as a result of livor mortis—but wouldn’t that make the toe, elevated, pale rather than dark? If what he was seeing were skin tone, this was not the skin tone of a man from Portsmouth, even one, like Brunel, of French extraction. And even more vexingly: the toe seemed to clench, to pull in, as if it were aware of its exposure and sought shelter beneath the shroud. Shropham had never traveled more than five miles from the street in which he’d been born but he’d seen his share of death, both at Mile End and in other, darker corners of East London. And this did not seem like death.
Flowerets of unhealthy thought bloomed in the garden of young Shropham’s mind. Was this really Brunel’s body? Was this perhaps the body of one of the other two lascars, feigning death for reasons unfathomable? That would explain the subcontinental darkness of toe, and its movement as well. But this explication left in its wake more mystery than it solved. Alternatively: might this be a real dead body, of some darker someone from the upper wards? A lunger, a mendicant, a ne’er-do-well? And even stretched out, the body with the toe seemed normal height—something that Brunel, who courted five foot flat, was not.
And if the figure between stretcher and shroud were not Isambard Kingdom Brunel, where was Brunel now? Young Shropham was filled with curiosity, a curiosity soon overwhelmed by dread. Much of him yearned to climb the stairs, to see, to investigate, to know. But a larger part felt not thirst for that knowledge but terror of it. Shropham stayed where he was. If there were a truth to be learned, and if he were to learn it: what possible good could come of that? He stood in the receiving room of Mile End pretending he’d seen nothing and hoping that no one had seen him see. Just another day at hospital with the sick ones carried in, the dead ones carried out. And if this particular dead man was the most prominent civil engineer in Great Britain; and if this particular dead man was perhaps not even dead— The thoughts along that path were morbid and frightful.
The thoughts spun, and swirled, one atop the next, in a paddle wheel of unhealthy mental excitement. Better not to think. Better to save the mind for the writing of the adagio.
* * *
—
DR. MURDSTONE WAS pleased, and pleased with himself. He had increased his notoriety in the press and had done it without suffering any concomitant scandal. As the attending physician to one of the Great Men of England he had improved his social standing overnight. And he was—for services rendered—now richer, to the tune of one hundred English pounds. All he had done, really, was to divert his eyes at crucial instants. He’d made sure not to see things that shouldn’t have been seen. And where’s the crime in that?
The evening of 20th September, after the body of Isambard Kingdom Brunel had left Mile End, and the mourners had gone off, and the press had dispersed, Dr. Murdstone, feeling more ambitious than he had in some time, and with the means to exercise that ambition, set out for his club. He’d have a joint and potatoes. And gin for starters, and some good claret to accompany the joint. Perhaps after dinner he’d enjoy a cheroot—he’d borrowed three or four from Brunel’s leather case though without, truth be told, the intent of ever returning them. And after the cheroot it would be nice to find some female companionship. There was he’d been told a certain address in Marylebone where the original chevalet, the one devised and constructed by Theresa Berkley in 1828, might be found. Brunel had been an astonishingly inventive man to be sure. But, Dr. Murdstone now chuckled to himself: not all the great engineers of the nineteenth century were men. Yes, the chevalet. The Berkley Horse. Dr. Murdstone smiled as he imaged it in his mind. That would be the perfect end to a perfect evening: gin, joint, claret, cheroot, flogging.
The gin was cold and delightfully redolent of juniper. It brought color to his cheeks and, for the moment, a sparkle to his eyes. He imagined that the barman’s greeting was warmer, the gazes of his fellow club-members more approving, since his recent bout with fame. The joint was rare, as he liked it, and the potatoes that accompanied well-buttered, garnished with parsley, too. A fellow physician nodded to him respectfully. Word had, he felt, gotten around. The claret, from the Bordeaux region of France, was poured from a cut-glass decanter, and poured again, and then a third time. Dr. Murdstone now repaired to the lounge for his cheroot where he could lean back in a high-backed, well-stuffed chair, reclining against the antimacassar. He savored each puff and waited for someone to enquire the maker or origin of said cheroot. Because, of course, he had a tale to tell. The way he’d prepared that tale, in his mind, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, FRS, despite his inability to speak, had made clear his desire that Murdstone take several cheroots from his case as a way of giving thanks for the extraordinary care he’d received at Mile End. As it turned out, no one enquired; but Murdstone knew that, in time, someone would.
A hansom cabriolet brought him from the club to Marylebone, to the particular address. He was quickly ushered upstairs to the private apartments where he had an appointment with Emily, and with the chevalet.
The chevalet was an instrument for allowing the body to be arrayed in such a fashion that it be optimally accessible to the whip. Fashioned of wrought iron, there are warrens on the bottom for the feet and apertures through whic
h the buttocks and genitals can be approached. Rings riveted to the chevalet permit the passage of rope or leather thong, allowing the hands and feet to be bound, permitting the kind of writhing that can to the supplicant be pleasurable, yet forbid escape. The angle of the upright can be adjusted and at 45 degrees one may be flogged, simultaneously, front and back. This requires, of course, two floggers, and at this establishment, costs twice as much. (No discount offered.) But Dr. Murdstone, his pockets weighted with gold, feels himself deserving of the extravagance. He asked for, paid for, and received the full dorsal-ventral.
Following the session Dr. Murdstone bathed. Then slowly dressed, savoring the tingle. Then distributed gratuities. Then stepped outside into the Marylebone night air, feeling the sharp breeze against his hands and face. He strolled a while, flush with the lineaments of gratified desire. Then, in Bentinck Street, he stepped into a convenient hansom cabriolet and proceeded directly home.
Or so he’d commanded. The swift, low-slung cab seemed to be taking a route of its own design, one headed not to the warm precincts of Dr. Murdstone’s apartments but rather to a colder and more forbidding destination down by the docks. He yelled for the driver but the driver perhaps did not hear him over the clatter of hooves on cobbled stone. He contemplated jumping off but the cab was moving too rapidly. The streets were narrow, ill lit, and the precincts not congenial, even to one who spent his working nights at Mile End. For several minutes he was wishing that the cabriolet would stop; and then, surveying the neighborhood, for a few more minutes was wishing that it would not.
The Great Eastern Page 3