The Great Eastern

by Howard Rodman

  He also requested, as if in afterthought, an update on the price of his company’s shares on the London market: truth be told no afterthought but rather the punctum of the day. The Company’s shares were originally offered at £340, but upon the news in August that the cable was complete and had carried a message, the shares had shot up to £600, then £800, then on to comfortably inhabit a range between £880 and £920. In late August, though, word had somehow gotten round that the signal had deteriorated since the initial triumphant exchange between President and Queen, and the shares plummeted to £350. The position of the Company was dependent, far more precariously than Field would wish, upon the valuation of the London shares, and if they slipped below £300, the Company would sunder. And as the cable was no longer carrying words from London, there was no way to get news of the consequences of its own failure. Word of the shares’ price could travel no faster than a ship could carry it. Field might be boom, he might be bust but he would not know until many days from now whether he were dead today.

  Field left his office, repaired once more to his club, ate supper, enjoyed a seated cigar, then lit a walking cigar and went home. The air was damp, the fragrance pleasing to the nose. The sun was setting. Had it been blotted out from the sky this very moment Field and all else in Gramercy Park would still bask in its warm and slanting rays for another eight minutes.

  He dressed for bed and joined his wife Mary, already there installed. They had been married since he was twenty and she had borne him seven children. They were still amorous. They were, in fact, in matrimonial conversation when Mr. Field heard a syncopated noise, th-TUMP, th-TUMP, that increased in volume—as if something were approaching. It seemed, at first, to originate in the children’s wing, but now, th-TUMP, th-TUMP, it was clearly coming from downstairs. And heading his way.

  Mr. Field pushed his wife under the bedsheets, grabbed the curtain rod, shook off the curtains. He took the rod in both hands. He was standing there, naked, thick brass rod held crosswise, when the door to his bedroom was flung open. Silhouetted in the doorframe was a tall man in black. One of his legs was not a leg. He did not brandish a gun or seem armed in any way. And he did not speak.

  “I have in my hands an instrument capable of bashing in your skull. You will lie face down on the carpet while I summon the police.”

  The man just waited.

  Mr. Field took a step forward. “I meant what I said.”

  “Had thou meant what thou sayest, thou would by now have done that thing.” The man’s voice was low, calm, as if he were in the middle of a conversation, not the beginning of one. As if he hadn’t just broken into the house of the man to whom he was speaking.

  “One hath heard, on highways and in low places, that thou didst send yer man to summon me.” And when Mr. Field made no reply: “Thou hast a task. Nautical. Murderous. Elsewise thou wouldst look for someone else. But thou seekest me.”

  Extending his hand:

  “John Ahab.”

  Mr. Field said nothing. Then took the extended hand.

  A brief silence, now broken by the visitor: “Pays well I’ll take it. I’ll go downstairs. You think. Not too long. Thou cometh down, we shall set a price. Thou stayest up, then I am gone. And know thee well: that after Ahab’s departure thou shalt have need of a glazier. Ha. Locksmith too.”

  With that he turned, out of the bedroom and down the stairs, th-TUMP, th-TUMP. Mr. Field surveyed the room: the damask curtains pooled on the floor, the covers still pulled over his wife’s head and body.

  “Everything will be all right,” he said to her. It was the work of a few moments to rethread the rod through the curtains and hoist them back into place. Then he stroked the shrouded head of his wife. At length she peeled back some of the sheet, allowing her eyes to look out.

  “He’s gone,” said Mr. Field.

  “He’s still here,” said Mrs. Field.

  “Never you worry. He’s safely downstairs.”

  “He broke into our house,” said Mrs. Field.

  “That he did,” said Mr. Field. “But you are safe now, and you were never in true harm’s way, and the children slumber on, peacefully, as they should.”

  “Are you leaving me?” asked Mrs. Field.

  “Only to go downstairs for a conversation,” said Mr. Field. “I shall be back.” In the children’s floor of Mr. Field’s townhouse, there were four boys, three girls. One of them—one of the boys—heard, faintly, the crash of glass, the opening of the door, the bedroom conversation, the stark th-TUMP, th-TUMP— And in his dream, the syncopated tattoo was the wheel of a railway carriage carrying him away from home, farther than he’d ever been, and with no way back.

  * * *

  —

  “SOME THINGS ARE best experienced freshly, in the going-forward, without preconception,” Mr. Field said, “but in this matter past is prologue.” They were seated in the parlor, two chairs flanking the unlit fireplace. “What I want to talk about is the laying of the cable. Are you familiar—”

  Ahab cut him off: “Some.”

  “Do you know the ships then?”

  “Agamemnon. And the other.”

  “The Agamemnon and the Niagara then. Yes. Meeting in the middle. Paying out cable. The Agamemnon heading to Valentia, the Niagara to make port on this side. And as you may have heard the weather was not of the best, and the enterprise was in many ways problematical. But it was not just the weather. The cable snapped or, and listen to me carefully—” Here Mr. Field took a long pull on his cigar. “—was severed.”

  When his visitor said nothing he continued. “The core consists of four copper wires of Number 16 Birmingham Wire Gauge, each individually coated with two layers of gutta-percha to two-gauge, then twisted together and the spaces between packed with tarred hemp, the whole being covered in another layer of gutta-percha, wrapped in tarred hemp followed by twelve nine-gauge armoring wires. This is not a fragile reed.

  “The Agamemnon put out from Valentia on 5th August of last year and the first break occurred not three days later. It was said to be due to a fault in the descent limiter but I do not think this to be the case. Three hundred eighty miles out the cable failed, spooled to the ocean floor. We had to return to port. Had to make an additional 700 miles of cable. At no small additional cost, including of time.”

  “Expense,” said Ahab.

  “Of course. Which is why our next foray was not until the subsequent June. And with new method—rather than meet in the middle we would start there, then pay out the cable in both directions simultaneous. We stocked with 3,000 nautical miles of cable. On 10th June the ships set out to rendezvous mid-ocean at latitude 53°17’; longitude 33°18’. On the day they left Plymouth the sea was calm, as it was the day following. On 12th June the wind started to pick up and on board Agamemnon the screws were lifted out of the water and the fires raked out; she continued under royals and studding sails. The weather got worse and by the 20th a full storm was blowing. The Niagara began to give us a very wide berth, and, as darkness increased, it was a case of each ship for herself. The Agamemnon, rolling many degrees, looked to be breaking up. The next day the barometric glass was lower, the wind and sea were even higher than the day before.

  “What was told to the press was that due to the storm, the cable broke on board the Niagara, overriding and departing the pulley that led onto the machine. What I shall tell you now: the cause was not mechanical. There was something beneath.”

  At length Ahab said, “Beast.”

  “So you know,” said Mr. Field.

  “Yes,” said Ahab.

  “Again the ships met, and again we made a splice, putting a silver shilling into the splice for good luck. This time they managed nearly forty miles before it broke. Again, the break was from below. Marking the fourth time we’d been severed.”

  “Ah,” said Ahab.

  “We do not undertake tasks of this magnitude without knowing that it is more likely than not that we should fail. You of all men will know the trut
h of what I speak. We were beating against the wind and then: another break. The fifth.

  “I took my electricians from the Niagara and came on board the Agamemnon. A comparison of logs showed the painful and mysterious fact that each vessel’s line sustained a complete fracture, at the very bottom of the ocean, and within fifteen minutes of each other! Though human skill and science can lay the wire down, there may be obstacles—”

  “Ye did then summon Ahab.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Field continued. “It is possible that there are, after all, sharp-pointed rocks lying on the plateau of Maury, Berryman, and Dayman. But there is another possibility.”

  “Tell,” said Ahab.

  “You know that we re-spliced, continued, and even though our supply of cable ran perilously low, were able to make it to our respective shores. You know of the messages sent in August, and you know of the celebration.”

  “Ahab was there.”

  “But what you do not know is this: that within a day—”

  Ahab interrupted: “Line went dead.” He went on. “Leviathan. I do knoweth him. Knoweth him head to head. Thou might say soul to soul. He’s smart. Has power.” Ahab’s pegged leg tapped against the floor. “Of all men: yer Ahab he knoweth this.”

  Mr. Field offered him a cheroot, which he waved away.

  At length, Mr. Field began once more to speak. “If Louis the Great boasted that, owing to his statesmanship, the Pyrenees existed no longer, we can truly say that there is no longer an Atlantic. More wars are occasioned by blundering or designing ambassadors than by real grievances, and in this light the cable may be the Great Peacemaker between the two chief nations on the globe. And so as a charitable gesture, in the interests of peace in the midst of a bellicose century, I am mounting—”

  “Dung,” said Ahab. “Thy shares ain’t worth shit now. Thou art in ruin. How doth Ahab know this? William of Ockham. Lex parsimoniae. To wit: no one looks for Ahab. No one save the law. Not ever. ‘Cept: when all’s gone down the hole. Then do they come a’calling.” He tapped the leg that was not one. “Then and only then.”

  Mr. Field said nothing.

  “Thou’rt facing a monster, Mr. Field. Canst he be slain? Ahab will not promise. But no man be more capable of it. Or who more—” And here he again tapped his ivory leg. “—wants more to see him dead.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Field.

  “One thousand dollars. In coin. Tomorrow. Fifty bucks a day. Additional. Set of Maury’s hydrographic charts. Hark ye: Ahab does not suffer fools. The man Whiteman whom ye hired—”

  “Dr. Whitehouse.”

  “A dolt. Ahab will not serve under or with him. Nor with the turd Everett. There is one God that is Lord o’er the earth, and one Captain that is lord o’er the ship. Not beholden to other men. Not beholden to thee. Care not for thy profits. Care not for thy peace of mind. Care for one thing. And ye know what that be.” Then: “And what boat do ye propose yer Ahab to guide?”

  Here, Mr. Field allowed himself to smile. He exhaled, a small cloud of cigar smoke meant to be illustrative of his thoughts. Then said, “I think, sir, that you will be pleased beyond imagining by the boat I have for this venture procured. It is the noblest craft by far that you, nay, anyone has captained. She carried passengers white-gloved and noble she did. Then freight, of which she was the best and most capacious. And now—’tis a near-miracle, Mr. Ahab—I have managed to obtain her services for this historic task. I refer, of course, to the last and best masterpiece of Mr. Brunel, the Great Eastern.“

  But if Mr. Field thought his guest might display joy, pride, anticipation, he quickly came to understand elsewise. Ahab’s face, no masque of delight in the best of hours, became more graven, more somber still, if such a thing be possible.

  “‘Tis not a ship,” said Ahab.

  “I do not understand.”

  “Ship’s a thing of wood. Thy Great Eastern‘s a thing of iron. Thou hast seen trees float downstream: thou hast not seen, nor e’er will, yer iron drift downstream. Ship’s a thing with sails. Thy Great Eastern, her sails be like unto parlor curtains: pleasing to the ladies, but of no utility beyond the decorative. Thy Great Eastern she runs by steam, which is an abomination ‘gainst the gods, and an albatross round the neck of each and every good sailor who must stoke her. No. Thy Ahab will not ride such a beast. Let yer Great Eastern pay out the cable. Yer Ahab will captain his own.

  “No cable-payers on Ahab’s boat. No electricians. A first-shelf crew devoid of simpletons. North Atlantic. Storms out of nowhere. Then gone. Leave you wrecked, wracked, drowned. So. Give thy captain what thy captain needs.”

  Mr. Field said nothing. Considered what had been proposed to him. Was calculating the expense of boat, of crew, the rest of Ahab’s requisites. It would be costly, and though the cost would ultimately be borne by the shareholders the cash would have to come out of pocket. Those pockets were not as deep as once they were. Nor: as full.

  “One last. A lawman ‘cross the Hudson wants to jail Ahab. Charge him. Try him. Never mind why. Simple. Ahab in jail is Ahab not on the seas. Ye of all knowest the order of things. The lower pay heed to the higher. A word from thee will do it. Ahab needs to walk. Eyes ahead. Not o’er his shoulder. ‘Til we put out to sea.”

  Mr. Field considered the glowing stub-end of his cheroot. Then said, huskily, “I will do what I can.”

  Ahab stood, turned his head toward the entry hall as if he were about to depart. And then, as afterthought: “Log show yer last wire got cut two places, separate by ten miles, within the quarter hour. So thy logs be shit. Or Leviathan has a friend. A brother.

  “‘Gainst one Leviathan, the war’s more hard than any on land or sea. But. If there be two?

  “Then heaven help thy cable, ‘twill always be cut. Heaven help thy Company, ‘twill go bust three times for every time revived. And heaven help this poor soul, for yer Ahab he shall be slain in the pursuit.”

  With that Ahab turned, nodded, walked toward the inner door, whose lock he had picked; through it and toward the outer door, whose glass he had shattered. And without further word he went out into the night of Gramercy Park, his syncopated footsteps echoing loudly, then faintly, then not at all.

  In the eye of his mind he witnessed once more the grand conflagration, the inferno that spreads without cease and consumes the island entire. He saw, as well, the grand flood, as high and massive waves top the Battery, washing all away, until the East River and the Hudson were one. This was no place for a man to stand. He was glad, and heartened, and spirited, and relieved, to know in his soles and gut and mind and heart that he’d soon be shipping out.

  Did Mr. Field know the nature of the nemesis? The answer, to near-certainty, was no. Did Ahab know? Ahab he had both experience and certain kinds of connaissance. But you who read these words, knowing what you do of the dream of Gwalior, and of the way that dream did possess an Indian prince; knowing what you know of said prince’s enmity toward the civilized world, its intentions and activities—

  Then you have intimation— More than your cable magnate, more than his nocturnal visitor— Of what might ensue.

  Let us move then from land to sea, from the company of John Ahab to the sub-marine vessel commanded by our Captain Nemo. Conveying within its pressurized hull a certain British civil engineer whom you have previously met, and whose sad and glorious tale will now recommence.

  TEN

  THE CABIN IN which I am imprisoned is such that with extended arms I can touch both walls simultaneous. But it is larger than the cell of my body, in which I had been imprisoned by the administration of what fiendish paralytic, then made to watch the launch of my ship. A day that I had for years awaited, but could in no ways celebrate. Nor even fashion a smile.

  There is within these confines a lamp, which glows by electricity, a bunk, a chair, an outjutting that may serve as a desk, albeit one without appointments. The throb of engines and the reverberant clang of work elsewhere makes dedicated concentration difficult, when it does not
make it impossible. The air is foetid. I have not taken a full breath since inhabiting these foul apartments.

  The captain today provided me with a Hawkins journal, and ink derived from squid, and a pen with which to write: the scrimshaw’d bone of some marine mammal. His expressed wish was that I should use this journal to capture, before they evanesce, those Inspirations and practical insights that will visit the waking (or, indeed, sleeping) engineer. But I will here use them to another purpose: to express the thoughts uppermost in my mind. I will try not to succumb to melancholy, nor to dwell unduly upon the continuing conditions of my captivity in a sub-marine vessel whose pilot and crew are members of a dusky race, and whose language, habits, and e’en motives at each and every moment elude the comprehension of this Englishman.

  We have left London en route to one of Cook’s islands, where the captain he has a harbor nigh unto himself, unknown to the seafaring charts of civilized nations. I suspect we shall follow the clipper route round the Cape of Good Hope. Were we motivated by sail we could run the easting down, aided by those zephyrs that men of the sea call the Roaring Forties. I doubt that our craft, sans sails, will benefit from those beneficent westerlies.

  I wish to present myself as I am, that you who fashion history may judge me with more accuracy than you otherwise might. I am not pleading my case before the large bar. Still I would want to bring the facts to light, so that you will see the man who wrote these words neither grander than he was nor more diminished. You will notice that I use the past tense. I cannot conceive of a circumstance in which these words be read yet I am still alive.