The Great Eastern

by Howard Rodman

  “I dug more, and found: more fragments. In the end, most of the sphere was recovered by me, and hidden in my locked chest—even as my emotions were hidden deeper, in the locked chest of my person.

  “It had been smashed as if with a sledge, ‘til the dark, rapturous wood had been reduced to splinters and picks. The brass had been bent, hammered, torched. (The inorganic cannot scream, of course—but I could imagine the cry of those pieces, as they were subjected to the full weight of Ffoulkes and his cohort, taking pliers and tongs to the sphere, as they would have done, I’m sure, to the sphere’s owner, were there not, even for their class, certain prohibitions concerning homicide.)

  In short: it was not susceptible to repair. The ceramic shattered, the jewels pried out. There was not a one of them left. And in taking them, they had taken my heart.

  “I continued of course to explore, square by square, the Great Court. And on the penultimate night—number sixty-three, if you are counting with me—I was digging under the chandratap of a gibbous moon and came upon something they’d forgot to take. ‘Twas not a jewel, and so, I suspect, they thought it not of value. It was the small ball of ivory which in the departed and vanquished sphere had represented the Earth’s moon. A gift from my wife’s father on the night before I was wed, and in the intricacies of these things, my acceptance of that ivory ball was in and of itself the marriage vow. When I had received the armillary sphere from Mr. Singh I was filled with the largest gratitude; when I saw that Mr. Singh had made that ivory ball the moon of my Earth, my heart o’erflowed.

  “I pocketed the sphere. My work at Trinity was done.

  “I will not go into detail as to the second promise I made to myself. Let us simply say that in a state of inebriation Ffoulkes one night did decide to go riding. That his mount was more spirited than he had anticipated, and less susceptible to command than he did wish. That he was thrown, it is said, many feet in the air, then descended, legs splayed, onto a sharp whited fence. It pierced him in the sacks of his manhood and he from that wound exsanguinated. One can imagine the final scream. I did not attend the memorial service, but I did permit myself the indulgence of reading, for pleasure, the coroner’s certificate.

  “Now you may recall the third of my vows. And to that end: studies completed, I departed Cambridge, yet I did not immediately return to Bundelkhand. Rather, I matriculated at Sandhurst, an institute for another kind of education: military, and those arts pertaining to war. It was during this era that the East India Company commenced a series of annexations under a peculiar doctrine that proclaimed the Company’s right to take over a princely state, should the head of state be declared by them to be incompetent, or should he die without leaving any heirs. This annexation did they practice in Satara, in Jaitpore and Sambalpore, in Nagpore and Jhansi, in Tanjore and Arcot, finally in our neighboring state of Oudh. I feared for my own life, and for the life of my children. Rani. Hanuman. Would the Company find the world more convenient should they not be alive?

  “At Sandhurst I was—and by stating this flatly I mean no arrogance—as good a student in arts sanguinary as I had been, at Trinity, in the arts philosophical.

  “I did not take my military training with aggression in mind. Rather, I knew, from my own land, the power of the British army; and I knew, from my time at Trinity, something of the true feelings that the Englishman, in his heart, harbors toward the subcontinental. I knew that the full power of British force might someday be unleashed ‘gainst my own, and I wanted for that day to be prepared. You might say that I was prescient, but truly, M. Brunel, the thoughts in my mind were no different than those in the minds of hundreds, thousands, in Bundelkhand and other of the Princely States, who had seen the Englishman in puttees and with rifle raised at close range. The only difference between me and my fellows was that, as a prince, I had the resources that enabled me to learn from the Briton himself the arts of war. Would you care for a Madeira?”

  He brought from a cabinet a cut-glass decanter and without waiting for reply poured two small glasses. In that moment I was again cognizant, as I had been at many moments previous, of a certain disparity. The captain was my junior by well over a decade—by the looks of him, by a decade and a half. Yet he acted not simply as the commander of the vessel within which I was captive but in all ways as my senior. As if it were he who had lived the full life, and I were on life just now embarking.

  “Like many raised within the Empire, I was of course brought up that the Claret be the best accompaniment to viand,” he said, “and that after dinner, why a man must want of Port. But if truth be told I do believe that the popularity of Port has much to do with Port’s residual sugar. Your Englishman he likes his sweets. And in his postprandials, while he may not tell his butler to bring him the crème anglaise, the Montélimar, the floating island—as if he were a man of moderation—he will command his servitor to bring him a Port.

  “As for myself I always found it too cloying. And then I discovered Madeira. The complexity is there, to be sure, but the sweetness, it is not. The best of Madeiras, they are put into large casks and sent round the world. For education, if you will. It is said that no butt of Madeira is complete that has not the equator twice-crossed. It is in this voyage that evaporation concentrates the wine, and oxidation matures it. The best Madeira, then, carries within it the tang of the seven seas. Let us drink.”

  It had been the longest of days, and, though the captain seemed at full throttle, I myself was weary beyond my capabilities to stay ‘wake. I knew I would not often have the opportunity to hear the captain in this voluble—and, dare I say, self-revealing—a mode, yet the thought of bed (even if said bed were a cot!) had charm and attraction that were at that moment outweighing all else. And now that the conversation—or monologue, really, for the true conversation of necessity entails the exchange between parties—had seemed to reach a natural pause I thought it best to avail myself of the opportunity to quit the study and to walk aft-ward (even as the craft pressed fore-ward) to my room. To my gaol, but also to my dreams, in which from this captivity I find release.

  “I can see, M. Brunel, that you are weary. It has indeed been the long day for you. But I beg your indulgence for one additional moment.”

  Here I interrupted, in a way that was not characteristic for a man of my temperament—and for that I blame the strenuous nature of my morning “swim,” and the lateness of the hour, and the torpor induced by a full meal, and the Madeira. But also the conditions of my confinement, which will after time induce emotions that may spring out uncontained.

  “You beg my indulgence, Captain, as if I had any choice in the matter. This is your ship, your demesne. I had no agency in the decision to enter your realm, and I have no agency should I wish your realm to depart—none save the possibility of self-slaughter. So for you to speak of granting, or not granting, ‘indulgence,’ while you speak on— Why this be a travesty and a bitter one at that. It is as if you were offering the condemned man the choice of a last meal where there has been no crime, no indictment, no trial, no jury, no sentence.”

  I fully expected to be yelled at, or worse; but that was not to be the case. Instead, he buried his head in his hands. And when he spoke it was without looking up.

  “I can put myself in your shoes, M. Brunel. Your position must be nigh unto untenable. That is why I have given you a cabin more capacious than that of my first mate and that is why I have given you run of the ship. If I were to tell you that the captivity you experience at my hands pales before the captivity experienced by Bundelkhand at the hand of the British, you would, I suspect, find the comparison meretricious. Yet here we are.

  “I will not, given the lateness of the hour, bore you with details concerning the savagery of the Englishman during the sepoy rebellion, and how my training at Sandhurst was put to use. And you would perceive it to be a mere play for your sympathy were I to tell you of the death of my children by their hand, and of my wife as a consequence direct of their actions. That has shaped
my character to a degree greater than any you might imagine. But you too, sir, are no stranger to the wrench and wrack when one is separated from family.”

  I could not help but interject: “You say ‘is separated’ as if this were some passive event in which only fate played a part. Yet there was a cause to my misery as there is to thine own. And if the British were the effective cause of your desolation, the cause of mine is here, in this room. It is you, Captain. And all that has been done to you does not give you the right to do in turn. Even should you hate my government, my land, I am not their representative. I am—”

  Now it was he who interrupted. “You are an engineer, a citizen of the world. On board the Neptune not as a representative of your country, but rather as the recipient of a grand opportunity. Perhaps the greatest challenge—”

  “Poppycock.”

  “Then I put it to you simply. I ask not for your understanding or for your agreement since that apparently is not forthcoming. So let us do this as an exchange, an act of commerce. You do this for me—and by this I mean apply your skills toward the task of making this ship truly seaworthy, above and below—you do this for me and I will give you the only thing that matters: your freedom. I will repatriate you to your native land, that your liberty be restored, and you may reunite with those you love.

  “I ask not your conversion to our cause. I ask not that you endorse my program, which must seem to you savage at best. I ask not that you engage, as I do and will, in the slaughter of empire and of that empire’s satraps. I ask only that you make the practical man’s sound decision: To seize the possibility to live again on land, and in the cities of your own choosing, and to raise your children, and to see those children give you grandchildren to cherish. And, in the fullness of time, constrained only by the mortality that dogs us all, to be laid down in that grave which has already been prepared—but with a final date, carved in marble, several decades beyond than the one it bears now.

  “Know that this is not a plea, M. Brunel. Rather: a proposition. You may sleep upon it. And while you sleep, dream on this. The Neptune has but limited range, inefficient propulsion, and no ability to sustain itself undersea for any real length of time. Its hull and cladding of wootz iron are first-rate, and we have made many innovations. But a ship is not mere hull and lights. It is engine, and range, and, in a sub-marine craft, depth. These are the challenges to which you must put your mind—and I say, without flattery, that it is the finest mind of our century. That is why you, and you alone, are here. Apply your best intelligence and you will be home within three years at the most. I give you my word as a captain, as a prince. —And as a fellow scientist, though one not nearly of your rank.”

  He seemed about to continue but he did not. Rather: stood abruptly, nodded, walked out. Though he did not utter a sentence in summation, his meaning had it been writ out on parchment could not have been more clear: the choice is yours. But of course ‘twas not a choice at all.

  E’en as I knew that to aid him would be to aid a murderer—e’en as those crimes committed by a perfected version of this ship would be on my conscience, for now, and for forever—still, I thought of my room in London, and the things I had in that room dreamed up, and might dream up again, were I reestablished there. And I thought of Mary Elizabeth, who would be liberated from her grief, who could shed the black bombazine and don once more her preferred creamier hues. And of my children (Isambard Junior! Henry Marc! Florence Mary!) who by now had got used to a world without me in it and would have to get used to a world in which I was again the master of the house. And, unaccountably, I thought of V_______e, whom I had not seen since childhood, and would likely ne’er see again.

  This man, he meant without remorse to slaughter the caretakers of our empire—more, whomever among the white race might earn his displeasure. Were I to throw in my lot with this madman, ‘twould be the blackest mark upon my soul. I could convince myself that I was doing this for Mary Elizabeth, or for the good of my country: the tunnels yet to be dug, the bridges yet to be built, the rivers and seas yet to be spanned; still, in my uppermost mind, I knew those arguments to be mere casuistry. This was not about what comfort I might provide to my wife or what glory to my queen. It was not even about the gifts to Mankind.

  Alone in the Captain’s chambers, I peripatated in circles counterclockwise. Gazed out through the open iris into the darkling sea, illumed by the arcing light of the captain’s device. Looked—without really seeing—at the portrait of Baudelaire. Stared at the Turk, whose mechanical gestures imitated life but did not equal it. (Should I throw in my lot with the captain and his cause, would I become that Turk, winning game after game, a marvel of the Intellect, yet without a Soul?) And, finally, at the ivory ball, the captain’s moon, and the planetary system round it. I spent, now, several long minutes gazing at closest range at its traceries and mechanisms—

  And now saw something I’d not previously seen. It was small, and at the base of the thing, where the horizontal of the pediment met the curve of the legs. It were a signature intaglio’d into the brass. A signature I knew well:

  Breguet et Fils

  And there was, after the signature, a date:

  1849.

  There it was. Not a clock commissioned to commemorate (and appreciate) assistance during the Crimean War, which did not begin until some four years after the Clock it were crafted! Not something purloined from Abdülmecid! Not a gift—or if a gift, a gift to and from himself. A man whose life was as much a self-creation as the story he retailed of the criminal substitution of clock for replica at Beylerbeyi Palace. The captain he did openly confess to all manner of crime and atrocity—so why would he make up a tale about the clock, when said tale could be contravened by evidence plain? Among those with who I am familiar, such deceits are in largest part occasioned by matters of the heart. But can our captain be said to possess one? Thus I cannot declare with any reasonable assurance the facts of this matter. Still: allow me to tell the tale that mind and imagination here propose:

  After his time at Trinity and at Sandhurst the prince returned to his native land—not without first making a stop in Paris where I propose that he there asked, who makes the best clocks? And the answer he’d been given would be the same I or anyone would have proffered: Breguet. And this young prince, perhaps nineteen years of age, he would have gone to Breguet and he would have said: build me a clock. One that will display the hours of the day and, as well, the circulation of moon and planets. And here he would have handed M. Breguet a tiny ivory ball—sole surviving artifact of the (ravaged; beloved) armillary sphere. And in handing it to him, would have said, “la lune.”

  Breguet (and this I know) would have replied: Monsieur, this is beyond me. And then (I had seen this, time and again) he would have said: mais laissez-moi réfléchir. And then: c’est possible.

  So (and this I do imagine, rather than know) after some many weeks’ labour, Breguet would have sent message to the young prince that he should return to the quai de l’Horloge. The young prince would have walked the same quai with the same fine tang of river Seine that I myself had walked some twenty-seven years before. And he would have walked up that half-flight of stairs to the workshop of Breguet, the workshop at whose bench I myself learned such large portion of what now I know. (Ah, Breguet! With your beard perhaps now turned to snow! What debts I owe to your fine care! How much I long to see you!)

  The Prince would then have stood, silent, while Breguet gestured him to stand before an object covered in velveted cloth (so well I know that cloth! purple, near-black! And of such texture that to touch it would almost be to taste!). Breguet would then take a corner of that cloth and via gentle tug the object itself undrape. And there would be the clock, more intricate and fine than e’en the Prince might have imagined, with its face, and its gears, and springs, and regulators, and escapements—and its Solar System. And round the beauteous azure Earth, the most exquisite small Moon.

  Of ivory.

  And did that prince
then take that clock down that half flight of stairs? Did he take in the air of the Seine, redolent of rot and stone and wonder? Did he see the fishermen down there, on the lower quai with their thin rods and thinner creels? Did he see the glorious tree at the very tip of l’île du Palais, nobly spreading her branches as if she were the flag of some yet-to-be-discovered land? Did he feel himself aboard a ship? And did he then see V_______e, now all grown, but no less extraordinary for the passage of years? Or did he see a V_______e of his own, not mine but alike in power of enchantment?

  And what else do we have, I now thought (gazing out through the captain’s Large Glass before closing the iris and retiring at last to my own bed, my own sleep, my own dreams) save those moments where scurry and motion do cease— Where Time itself does take its stop—Where between tock, and subsequent tick, might lie sweet eternity?

  * * *

  —

  OUR ISAMBARD HE did here break off his journal entry, falling after longest day without resistance into the arms of Morpheus. We do not know, and never will, what dreams flowed and flickered within as Isambard in his cabin slept. Still, let us posit that on his sea of dreams did float the Great Eastern: his pride and his obsession, his buoy and his deadweight, the double-hulled embodiment of all to which his soul aspired. In his dreams, the man and his ship were once again united.

  And oddly, meaning not oddly at all: even as Great Eastern‘s creator slept, the Almighty was already mapping their reunion. First, though, we shall offer up some details as to Neptune‘s resurrection. A tale of the islands, of kidnapping-en-masse, of pursuit-at-sea. Concluding with some hopes raised high, and then, as can happen in these realms: some hopes dashed beyond repair.