EIGHTEEN
UPON OPENING THE Hawkins journal I see that it has been a goodly length of time since the last entry. To you who read this—if readers there ever be—know that I have been immersed in the tasks of each day. Were I to attempt here to set down or e’en recapitulate my travails since last I wrote ‘twould be laborious to the writer and would likely prove tedious to the reader. Allow me rather to Skip Over, and indite here the simplest facts: that the captain has brought his craft, and me within it, to his island. I do not know if it appears on the Charts, or if so, under what name; but those who this island do inhabit call it Erromango. They call themselves Sye, but to us they are Canaques: that is our name for them and I have yet to learn if they in turn have a name for us. The Canaques are a sturdy people, and under my guidance have proven to be the most industrious of workers. Dare I say, more than the Englishmen of a certain class that one finds by the docks in London? We have been at work upon the Neptune, improving it in each aspect. Or had been, until the events of last night, which were so shattering and extraordinary that they caused me after long lapse to once again set pen to paper. To wit: the wholesale kidnapping of our Canaques by a ship of sea pirates.
The good fortune—if within the grievousness and calamity of last night’s occurrence I may have the temerity e’en to use that phrase—was that these blackbirders did thieve our Canaques as we were so near to finishing our work, rather than, say, ten months ago, when the devastation would have been more complete, the blow to my emotions more profound. What is left can be enumerated simply on a list and that list confined to a single piece of paper. To wit: the sintering of the starboard batteries. The fabrication of six new plates to match the extant wootz, so that the former exhaust tubes might be removed and the lacunae replaced with solid hull. And less crucially: the replacement of the interior filament lamps, which consume electricity with a rapacity that takes away from our reserve, with other lamps that the captain and myself had together designed, in which the electricity is used not to heat a wire to its glow-point, but rather, to stimulate a light-emitting admixture of chemicals as in nature does the firefly.
I was in the midst of contemplating the work that remained, and how I might martial the resources necessary for its completion, when the captain did my thoughts interrupt. “We shall get them,” he said, “before they reach Queensland.”
I did not follow his line of argument, and did tell him so.
“The winds are low, near-still,” he said. “The blackbirders’ ship be dependent on those winds, and when the winds are becalmed, they can do naught but sit and wait for them again to start up. Let us say that they can average, over time, five knots. And let us say that we can be at the ready in ten days’ time, and that we are capable of fifty knots. It is clear that we shall reach them before they are safe home.” Here his disturbingly wide-set eyes left mine and gazed out. Toward the sea, toward the blackbirders, thence toward the future.
“Think upon it, M. Brunel. They are burdened with their cargo—I make it, what, perhaps sixty Canaques? Even should they have the fortune of weather, that will slow them further still. So we will finish our work here and set out in pursuit.”
I could not help but apply our chosen mission to another set of circumstances, viz., mine own. Yet e’en in this access of pity for myself I knew at the self-same moment and with the larger and uppermost portion of my mind that we had work at hand. When that work was done, he would set sail in the newer, better Neptune and free the Canaques (and later on further freeing, lest we forget, M. Brunel). It was the liberty that the captain had pledged to me; and in the years during which we had kept company neither I nor anyone among the crew had e’er seen him fail to honor his word, regardless in matters small or large.
The final sintering—fusing mineral dust into Plates for our batteries—would have been difficult were we fully manned, and as it was, with so many hands gone in the night, there was no quick start to the day. Those that had been trained in the laying-out of powder trails into the mold were nowhere to be found, so the laying-out fell to myself. I worked swiftly as I could consonant with good result. I tried to keep the mind in present, dwelling neither on the dreadful events of the past night, the thieving of souls from the adjacent village; nor of the reward—the unlocking of my manacles—that awaited me upon completion of the build. I put my mind only to the pouring, through sieve and funnel, of powder upon flat plate. And even while I poured, the remaining welder-men were setting up the tower, and the burning glass, that my lacy traceries be fixed, for longtime, into solid (if to the eye translucent) mesh. The rays thus converged—collimated by the outer ring of Reflectors, then through the Glass, crenellated, in the manner of the Cordouan Lighthouse at the mouth of the Gironde, and following the practice of Condorcet and Fresnel—down toward the sintering plate where I did so carefully array the powder. The rays, their power multiplied by the convergence, were not to be trifled with.
All this meant that the arm providing the powder’s distribution—the arm, in the present instant, of one M. Brunel—must lay it down quick, then be out of the path of the Ray. Too fast and the metals separated out; too slow and the arm was sintered along with the grid. And those burns of the sun were not like those obtained by the city dweller who with his family decides upon a day at the shore. No. Given the reach of the reflectors, and the precision of the crenellated lentille (as designed and executed by M. Brunel) the collimated ray was, at its point of convergence, hotter than the heat of the boiler of the largest steam ship yet built (and that, too, by M. Brunel). Nay, was hotter than anything this side of the sun, which is what makes the sintering of such disparate metals possible, but also what makes the apparatus, no matter how well-built, not without its own danger. It might be said that those Canaques—from Erromango, from ‘Ata, from Kiribati, from the more southern of the Caledonies—who were so recently scooped up in dead of night, and slapped in chains, and taken in captivity, and shipped off, by desperate and unscrupulous blackbirders, who cared only to keep them alive until they could in bulk be sold— That in some sense there were among them those who were fortunate to be on a ship at this moment rather than beneath the Glass, whose ferocious focus could reduce arm to nub in a single instant, faster than the power of nerves to react. It was work for which the Canaques—exhibiting in all aspects the nobility of the wild man, the cloudless mien of the savage—were so well suited to it that they might have been to that purpose built.
But now I was sole builder of this infernal machine—infernal here used as description, rather than as moral judgment—and as such were there an arm or a head to be sacrificed, why then it would be mine. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, him what built that what kilt him. Buried at Kensal Green and now again in the New Hebrides, so far from any place called home. But this is mere imagination and pity of self: for the final sintering it was done, and done in a day.
Next: the tanks would be prepared. The solution of pure’d water and electrolytes mixed and poured. The sintered lacy plates lowered down ‘til they were full beneath the liquid surface, like a descending sub-marine. That when all that had been done, as the Engineer had designed and decreed, the potential it was measured at the two output wires. Then there would be from those sintered plates, from those batteries beyond compare, sufficient voltage to power the vessel entire. Its lights, its instruments, its motive force. Pumps for air and pumps for ballast. So that the ship might rise and fall, by electricity. So that those within might inhale and exhale, by electricity. So that if the captain wished his craft to ascend or descend; or should said captain wish to consult his magnificent clock, or play chess with his Turk; or should his engineer, held (but not for long, not for long!!) in his cabin, wish an old and treasured book to read—
All would be possible, by electricity. All of this, and what worlds to come.
* * *
—
AT THE RISK of appearing as if I have no mettle, I want to state what must be stated: that the focused sunlight, it does
hurt. That the eyes, in gazing upon it, are darkened by after-shadows for the longest time. So that today spots swim in and out of my field of vision, and already there are thin white peels of skin on forehead (why did I not wear a hat?) and forearms, and the odor of sintering metal remains in the nares. This is not work for a man of my age or station. That I did it is testament to my love of the invention, a love so large that it o’erlaps its bounds.
Still: there are larger and weightier matters at hand. The exterior work has gone well, and the metal plates that we have fabricated are fully as sound as the wootz with which they enjamb. The alloys are not identical, which can lead, in longer run, to rust, and in shorter run, to electrical potential. And the air-pumps, which I have fashioned from Archimedean cylinders, have yet to be laid in place. But I distract myself from course. Let me now lay down the large events of tomorrow, and of today.
Let us commence with the tomorrow. Having completed the work as related above, the ship—as the captain had imagined, and now realized by the work of the engineer—she will launch! Will slide, on skids formed of native island trees, from her dry-docking up above the beach, across the sands, into waters shallow then deep. She is a handsome craft, just shy of 230 foot long, with a displacement of 1,500 tons. She was built double-hulled—the inspiration, the captain has acknowledged, was my own work—but now the outer hull is, via my own methods, stronger by a factor of three (and by the same factor better able to withstand the pressures of the deep). Her prow is rather sharp, in the manner of, say, a narwhal, with serrations top and bottom; and there is a raised section just abaft of the prow within which the captain’s chair resides. Though not built on the customary ten-to-one ratio, she is nonetheless sufficiently well-formed to allow her to part the seas when above, glide through them when below.
There will of course not be the portent or ceremony that attended, say, the launch of the Great Eastern (or shall we say launches, plural, with respect to the grand gathering at her official launch, which I attended on an upright board to which I had by the captain and his lascars been strapped). No royalty nor ministers of state, but rather the remaining Canaques, still in throes of grief for their brothers, swept up and carried off.
Also today: there is a change of nomenclature which must be noted. You will note that heretofore in this entry I referred to the craft not by name, as I have on all days previous, but rather as “the ship.” For you who read this: I wished to withhold, until now—with a flourish of trumpets, or their Erromangorian equivalent—the following fact: that the captain, in tribute to my work, the invention and the craft, did tell me that perforce, she is not the same ship. What tomorrow would set sail is not that which months back did here arrive. So she arrived as Neptune; but as she departs, she is H. Lal’s Neptune no longer. Rather: she is I. K. Brunel’s Nautilus!
If she were named for distant planet (reminder of the loftiness of her aspiration) and for god of the sea (in the mythos of the Greeks), now she were named for a sea-creature herself. And in doing so she is no longer a stranger in sea-waters, but one among its denizens: no longer god with trident, but shelled, chambered dweller. Less that which commanded—than that which belonged. And in honor of this: beneath the name Nautilus, which was now lettered out in rivets along her starboard prow, were also an insignia, a device: a circle (without commencement, without end) around which were writ the words MOBILIS IN MOBILI. Moving within that which moves. Is there a better way to describe a sub-marine vessel, whose life is to be spent beneath the oceans of the Earth? Our azure sphere, far more wet than dry, around which orbits her serene and ivory moon.
And so, with the rising of the sun in the eastern skies we will watch as our much-reduced force of Canaques lay out a path of horizontal trees to act as bearings while (and now I can say her name!) the Nautilus is rolled carefully down to sea, the sub-marine craft departing in better shape and spirits than when she had arrived.
And what of I.K.B.? Was he departing in better shape and spirit than when he himself arrived? In ways of body, not entirely: the portions of the beard given o’er to whiteness were significantly larger, a glacier spreading south in long winter. Yet the sun had given color to I.K.B.’s cheeks, and the manual labor a tone to his arms and chest. Might we even say a sunniness to his disposition? That would be too much to ask, or, if asked, to answer.
* * *
—
THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN Neptune and Nautilus are, if I may say, sufficiently wide-ranging as to merit the rechristening. Perhaps the most dramatic is the transition in motive force, from that of steam to that of electricity. Gone the soot from the coal; gone the whoosh and thump of steam through pipe.
In their place: silence, and a far quieter revolution as batteries directly power the shaft that turns the screw. And that screw does turn with vastly increased torque, that the resistance of the water impinge far less upon its abilities.
Then there is the air. Using an exchange system—alike in kind, but more sophisticated in structure, to that which we in the construction of the Thames Tunnel did employ—the air is no longer fouled. And at the same time that air can now be brought to higher pressure, that the pressure of air within compensate and countervail the pressure of water without, enabling us to seek deeper currents and for longer periods of time.
To speak only in terms of the engineering: is the Nautilus as grand an achievement as my beloved Great Eastern? ‘Tis is somewise more advanced, as it must cope with conditions below as well as above. Yet if truth be told: is also a lesser achievement, in that the Great Eastern she were built from naught but imagination and steel, while Nautilus she was and improvement upon that what others dreamed and made. Still, I will not castigate myself for pride in this work, the first—will there be more?—of my ships made to sail beneath the waves. And of the Fracture of Life, and the Captivity, and Grief of Family? Do they outweigh aforementioned Pride? These measurements are not for me to make, or, perhaps, were better made from a vantage, after sufficient ticks of the clock that the immediate emotions have given way to a more measured reflection.
I do observe, and set down as well, what I see to be other changes from N. to N.: less questions of equipment than of the shift in mood and consciousness amongst the crew that our improvements may have in some smallwise induced. No longer did it feel as if we were below (and mostly above) the seas in some floating experiment, audacious in aspiration yet everywhere constrained in design. Now we were in a true ship and in every visage that increased sense of pride it were reflected. The word “Huzoor” now being used with real deference, the way one might, for instance, say “captain.”
* * *
—
OUR FIRST TASK in Nautilus: the o’ertaking of the blackbirder’s ship and the liberation of its human cargo before that cargo be sold in Queensland to the highest bidder. To that end we have set a course WSW across the Coral Sea, toward Airlie Beach, near Bowen and Proserpine, the most likely dockings for freight of this kind. In our chase we were aided by our new ability to spend long hours beneath, that when the weather above become inclement we surged forward unperturbed. It is astonishing that rain, even in copious amounts, and squall, and whitecap wash, do the surface of the waters disturb, but that disturbance does not deeply penetrate, so that when one is but thirty feet below the blast and flurry is aboard Nautilus nowhere felt.
And so we pressed on, toward the ship (name not known to us) whose captain and crew had the Canaques abducted. Yet, for all the enthusiasm which welled up from my gut for the chase, I was brought up short when in contemplation of the victory. The Canaques were of sufficient number that we could not take them aboard the Nautilus—we lacked, plain and simple, the capacity. Perhaps we might improvise rafts and laboriously tug them abovesea back to Erromango. But by far the more economical method, and the one most consonant with what I know of my captain, would be to jettison the ship’s commanders and give dominion to the cargo. Then the Canaques could make their way home, by their own speed and in enjoyment of rea
l freedom, while we of the Nautilus would proceed efficient and direct to the next task, that of my repatriation and the freedom that back in London I would once again obtain.
And what would be the fate of the blackbirders at the hands of those whom they had taken with the goal to sell? It would not be a lovely destiny. And though ‘twas no less than their conduct and disposition merited, one could say that—in putting shoulder to wheel, in so efficiently executing the final transformation of Neptune-to-Nautilus, and in doing it to a timetable that enabled the chase—I had been accessory to the savaging and death of fellow humans. Miscreants, yes; lawbreakers to be sure—would my freedom be accomplished at the expense of their lives?
“We all of us die,” said the captain. “And those that enslave others but shorten their expectancy.” These contemplations made for scantly-eaten dinner, and an overuse of Madeira, and a sleep more troubled than not.
How quickly dreams flee as if insects exposed to sudden light! And so without further preface let me set down the images and disquietudes of last night’s dreams—before they are fully retrieved by the dream world, thus rendered inaccessible to the waking mind.
In the dream there was a grand and enormous Wave. It stood the full height of a tall house and one could see it from the window of my lodgings in Duke Street. The Wave—and here I lend it capitalization to emphasize its size and force as well as the terror it induced—was neither preceded nor followed by other Waves, but loomed on its own. Now that I think on it—and this was not a thought I had in the dream but a thought that comes as I write—it may have been what Scott Russell would call a Soliton.
The Wave approached and I could see it as it submerged everything on the south bank. (In real life I cannot from Duke Street see more than Manchester Square but in the dream from my window I could see the city entire.) Then it began to break, and the resultant floods and eddies—on a scale too massive for words to convey—upended everything. Cast the city itself adrift. Some houses were reduced to shards and flotsam as I watched; others taken whole and floated off. What surprises me now as I recall the dream was that there was no accompanying anxiety—no sense of dread—as the Wave approached. The waters were inexorable yet the dreamer calm. What pieces of the city floated by! Life itself uprooted, displayed now separate from its customary moorings. I saw (and will no longer comment upon scale or perspective of viewing) a woman walking her dog in the Square only now both were afloat. Various Fellows of the Royal Society bobbed up and down then were swept aside as they gathered round a large oaken table. Good old Bill Gravatt, my man, my best right hand, smiling and waving to me above the waters and below them—above and below in rhythm stately—he too not at all afflicted with panick—he looked at me as he disappeared. The hospital at Mile End—being built of cheap material and rotted at that—collapsed into dust—or particles too small to see—all at once!
The Great Eastern Page 16