The Great Eastern she was a passenger ship. And she never sunk, we’ll give her that. Ye are waiting for the caveat because ye be smart. And here is the caveat. The Great Eastern not a ship! Not if ye go by Ahab’s definition. What be a ship? Floats on water propelled by wind. Yer Great Eastern floats, yes, on water, yes, propelled by wind— Some of the time! Other of the time, by paddle! So it can be a ship but ain’t always, at least as Ahab calls ‘em.
Great Eastern is a sea-going vessel. Used to haul passengers. Doth ye recall the glory? Were ye there in 1860 when the President and “Miss Lane” (the first lady in all but conjugality, and about that, we ponder, we ponder) traveled by rail from the capitol to Annapolis? Went out on the screw-tender Anacostia a full five miles out, where the Great Eastern lay at anchor? When aforesaid Anacostia did salute her with guns one-and-twenty? Those were, me lads, the days. Then ha! And bang! And boom! Dost ye hear the explosion, reverberating through the years? The explosion of gold coins, flying out from the investor’s coffers, up in the air, ‘til the skies be rainbowed with reflective coin? What do they say in France? They say, waouah! And Ahab says with them, waouah! And ye can now say with me: waouah!
So: yer Great Eastern, bought on the cheap. Just like Ahab? No not just like Ahab. Ahab be in his prime. For what Ahab doeth? Ahab be just the right age. What doth Ahab do? He kills. Do ye want yer young killer, gone all simple with the spree of it? Ye do not. Do ye want yer killer in the midst of life, shaken and quaken with the remorse? Ye do not. Or do ye want yer Ahab? Knows the art. Does it. Receives no pleasure from it. That’s what ye want. Yer practiced and unsmiling killer. And that’s what ye have. Ahab would kill ye. Not for the fun of it, for killin’ ain’t fun. Because he can.
And kill a whale as soon as look at it. More than just because. On account of leg &c don’t ye know. For what’s better than a practiced killer? A killer practiced and motivated!
So back to the Q: why paddle wheels? To move when the sea is becalmed. The other way— The true ship’s way— Is to wait for yer wind to come up. Which it does. Always does. We ain’t yet been in a place where the wind don’t move forever. Sometimes the wind it takes a nap. But what’s that?
The other reason for the paddles is paddles don’t need much draft. So yer Great Eastern could go up the Hooghly. That was the idea. But she ain’t never gone up the Hooghly and now she’s a broke-down cable tramp. Built for Calcutta and never seen it. Ahab’s seen Calcutta. Seen enough of it. Building a ship just so that ship could go to Calcutta? Ahab will not even utter his opinion. Reason ‘cause: ye knows it already.
Also: a ship, like a man, must needs make up its mind! ‘Tis the one, or ‘tis t’other. But choose, man! Make a selection and stick to it. Sails or engines, both have their place. But! On the same ship? Let me ask. Do ye know the French? Of course ye do. Do ye know what they mean when they say à voile et à vapeur? (Didn’t know Ahab spoke French? Well Ahab can speak any language on the face of the Earth. The dead ones, too. That’s why he’s Ahab.) When they say that of a man. When they say à voile et à vapeur? They mean, he travels by sail and by steam. And what do they mean, “he travels by sail and by steam”? Here be a hint: ye don’t have to know yer French, ye just have to know yer men!
Is this all Ahab has to say about the Great Eastern? No, ‘tis not. ‘Twould be enough! But that ain’t all. For when one speaks of the Great Eastern, there be ONE MORE MATTER worthy of discourse—And that be the matter of celestial grace.
We all of us knows Proportion when we see it. To some it is the Euclidean solids: the cube, the sphere, the tetrahedron—and the interplay amongst ‘em when engaged in dance of beauty. Crystals of salt! The sun and the pyramid! &c &c!
To others, it be the Golden Mean. The ratio at the end of the Fibonacci rainbow. Three is to five, five is to eight, eight is to thirteen, thirteen to twenty one, twenty one— A is to B as A + B is to A! And after a while ye get yer Leonardo, ye get yer art, ye get yer beauty! So of what is beauty born? The mathematics of the stars! And what exhibits this beauty? The undulations of the coral reef. When we say sinuous, we mean sine! The proportions of the sea creature, from the bulge of the head to the incurved waist through the scoop and efflorescence of the tail. The beauty of the night sky, reflected in the mathematics of fish! Though ye may think him daft, Ahab doth tell ye that Proportion is at the center of all Beauty; and that Beauty ain’t mere whim but the heart of Essence— And recto verso: Beauty be the essence of the Heart.
Now gaze upon yer Great Eastern. Dost thou see Proportion? Dost thou see Ratio, in ways that pay tribute to the Night Array of Stars? To the crystal of salt, to the diamond discovered in dark mine, to the pyramid and the sun above it? The Great Eastern, do her curves quicken the heart? The honest man would say: no, and no, and no, and no, and no. What one sees is this: the usual array of sails, but proportioned in ungainly fashion, with the jib too far forward and the mainsail too far back— Why? Because they cared more about the Engine than about the sail. Why? Because the man what built the Great Eastern was not a sailor. No he was not. He was not a man of the sea. No he was not. He was a civil engineer! We’ll say it again, all five syllables sticking in this sailor’s parched throat: civil engineer! A man of—
Railroads!
As if: by constructing that which rides on tracks of iron, thou then knowest how to build that which rides on no tracks at all. As if: by understanding the iron and invariant Way from Here to There, ye somehow understand the undulations of the sea, the elegance of its To and Fro, the geometry of the Tack, the persistence necessary to FORGE ONE’S OWN WAY WITHOUT PATH LAID DOWN AFOREHAND. The rail is as much preparation for the ship as—Well: ye may know how to board a sleeping car, yet by that token, dost ye know how to swim?
So the Great Eastern, paddles neither poised gracefully amidships nor lending thrust and power to her stern— With its iron prow parting the seas that her chugging iron engine show its might— This be not a Ship! And more, this be not a thing that pleaseth the eye. Or heart. Or soul.
When a man giveth himself over to the ocean he begins to know of beauty and of his own heart; but when a man decideth, of will and iron, to conquer that ocean his efforts be all mechanical, and out-of-sorts with the ways of the sea.
Ye know that a ship goes from port to port. Yer merchant, yer capitalist, all he sees is the port. To him what is a ship? A conveyance! All boiled down to grim utility! A ship is that which moves the goods from the one port to t’other.
Now ye know—Ahab knows—any sailor knows—that the port is the least of it. The goods and pieces and ladings and cargoes so beloved to yer merchant class? That’s just what allows yer ships be built. What allows ‘em to sail. But the punctum— Ah me lads, the punctum is elsewhere. On the oceans of the planet and the waters of the world. The ship comes first, and what it hauls mere— Mechanism! Device! Excuse! Palaver!
The difference in price ‘tween cargo here, and cargo there, lets ships be built and launched. Which is to the good. But it is not the Point. Money be just—ha!—a ship’s way of building another ship. And a ship is an ocean’s way of saying: thou art small. Thou art without will or command or purpose in my realm. On my waves I raise thee and plunge thee at my will or whim. Says ocean: shall thee cross? I care not! I am indifferent! The ocean, she spends as much in thought about the Valparaiso, about the Great Eastern, as the lung spends in considering the molecule of air it sucks in, then expels. So when the ocean destroys us—and in the end, the ocean will have us all—’twill be without malice, without sorrow, without triumph. To the ocean the ship does not exist. But to the ship? The ocean is all it knows. Ocean is to ship as the fluid amniotic is to us! As we float, curved inward, little beans, little human beans, curled up knees to chest, head to knees, thumbs brought up to our mouths— As we suck on ourselves in fine contentment of dark and wet— Head-to-toe, toe-to-head, in cosy loving company with Annabel don’t ye know— Until that bright and terrible day we find ourselves expelled, and slapped, and forced to br
eathe. Now where was we?
TWENTY-FOUR
NEMO MOVED ROUND to the omni-scope, lifted the valve that the hydraulics might raise the scope’s objective above the water. What he saw accorded with what he’d been told: a ship so large as to dwarf imagining, with paddle wheels, and a screw, and six masts, too. The sails were reefed ‘gainst high wind, the wheels stilled, so Nemo surmised it was pulling along by screw. The cable behind, like black excrescence from some oiled iron cloaca, draped as it sank from ship to wave. There were other ships, too: escort ships. Three of them. As if something that size, and made of iron, needed anything other than its own massive self.
“Ahead three-quarters,” said Nemo into the speaking tube. It was best, he knew, to sever the cable on the ocean floor itself, where the depth make it hard to retrieve, and the silt cover it up, and the corals grow around it.
“Dive,” said Nemo into the speaking tube. All the while watching the iron ship, large as a city, grow closer.
TWENTY-FIVE
PERHAPS TIME FOR Ahab to lay to rest, once and for all time, a popular slander. It says this and this sole thing: that Ahab wants revenge only. That the sailing, the ship, the crew all mean naught to him. That what Ahab he seeks is the white whale all else be damned. That the cable matters not to him. That the well-being of his employer matters not to him. That his ship matters not. That his crew could all drown in the icy North Atlantic and Ahab shed not a tear.
Whereas yer Ahab, yer veritable Ahab, le vrai Ahab, is a man of peace. His being is as placid as soft forgotten isle. What drives him? What constitutes his motive force? His drives, his motors, are those of charity and of compassion. To how many sailors under his command has he given additional emolument?
They gave him lashes twenty,
Ranzo, boys, Ranzo
Nineteen more than plenty—
Ranzo, boys, Ranzo
Then the skipper did forgive him,
Ranzo, boys, Ranzo
And went down-cabin with him,
Ranzo, boys, Ranzo
He gave Ranzo cake and whisky,
Ranzo, boys, Ranzo
And then skipper he got frisky;
Ranzo, boys, Ranzo
With rum the skipper plied him
Ranzo, boys, Ranzo
Then skipper occupied him
Ranzo, boys, Ranzo
Gave Ranzo education
Ranzo, boys, Ranzo
And taught him navigation
Ranzo, boys, Ranzo
He made him his best sailor,
Ranzo, boys, Ranzo
Sailing on that whaler;
Ranzo, boys, Ranzo
Now Ranzo is a skipper,
Ranzo, boys, Ranzo
Of his own China clipper;
Ranzo, boys, Ranzo!
So Ahab is, and so, like any man, wishes to be perceived. To be taken for who he is. To see his good works find purchase in this world; and by that to be acknowledged— Though this be not his motivation. No! Ahab, careth he for fame? Doth Ahab harbor the wish to be cherished? Nein, nein, mein Lieber Segler! Ahab he wish only to do what is right. And if that is recognized, so be it, and rewarded, so be it, &c &c. And if not, those winds they will moan and howl, west to east, as they did before he arrived, and will do long after he and any who knew him have long since gone beneath. But Ahab he knows, the deed is the thing: in itself, and of itself. That be the wine and the viand. The rest is as Persian sherbet.
Ye can see, canst ye, the full measure of Ahab’s generosity? To take a lubber under his wing? And give him care? And give him cake? And make him a sailor? As Ahab hath done with Langhorne? And others far too numerous to count?
For Ahab knows the true law of the sea: that for every skipper there is a Ranzo, yes, and for every Ranzo there is a skipper. But more, me lads, more: yer skipper was once himself a Ranzo! He did not know his duty! He was, dare we admit, a lubber! And on board his first ship, did he find his sea legs? He did not! And was he the object of ridicule from the mizzenmast on back? Why yes he was! Ahab himself, though ye’d not see it now were ye to gaze upon this countenance— that time has staled Ahab, yes, he did his holy stoning! And had his lashes, he did, and his back with oil was painted!
Let me tell ye, lads, where the charity lays and where the grace resides: when the sun hath swept the dial, and the clock hath chimed and chimed again, and the pages of the calendar flip and float and fly as numbered butterflies in unrelenting wind— When back in Nantucket what once was grass now is hay, and when the man stained by time wants once more to chew with colt’s teeth— He doth it now with memory. And a sense of the larger wheel.
Ahab is nothing now but a man of that larger wheel.
As that wheel did turneth, so did Ahab become the master of his ship. But Ahab, he doth recall, even now, a time when even he was subject to the law of others. So if there is blood, why there is cake, too, for the sailor. And rum. And the lullaby, sweet lullaby of major chords, and more verses than fingers and toes can count, to smooth the furrowed brow and soothe away the care.
In this way did Ahab sing to Langhorne, and now Langhorne, in voice deeper and more sonorous, sings to us. His black skin invisible under this month’s new moon, but his voice ringing out o’er the deck, that every last man Jack can hear, and o’er the sea, too, that the men of the G____E______, and those who escort it, can share, too, in the magnificence of his instrument, and the power of his melody, and the incantatory thrall of those very old words, ne’er written, just handed down, and handed down again, and now with us, as we prepare to hand them down to the next.
And aboard that other, larger boat, as they hear the deep and perfect voice from our Valparaiso— On that other ship, Mr. Field’s ship— Well on that ship the cable-men make their splice and the percha men apply their tarry liniment and the winch men pay it out and the electricians watch as their magnets move, all while the glass-men scan the horizon for lowering skies, and the sextant man eyes the sun and takes his fix (know ye, that on this ship, yer Ahab does his own fix, each morn, and none but he knows for sure just where we are, or have been, or will go)— And as aboard the iron boat the panics come and panics go— And when they are afeared of a break, why then, they summon Ahab; and when they ascertain that t’aint a break at all, why they dismiss him, skiff him back to his own ship—And the day passes into night into day once more, and each fix shows a latitude e’er more western. We are off the coastal shelf now. What’s down there is ocean floor. What’s down there is the vasty deep.
The shorter rendition, the one-verse-no-chorus of it: as of an hour ago we are in that place where Leviathan he likes to swim. And play. And wreak his havoc. Destroy the lives of the innocent. And the not-so innocent. But in the eyes of the Man Upstairs: is that any less a crime?
Those that come at Ahab do so at their full peril. And whatever response to threat Ahab be compelled to unleash, why that not be on Ahab’s ledger. No. That be on the tabulation of Leviathan, and, should Ahab prevail, on the balance sheet of the Almighty.
TWENTY-SIX
THE CAPTAIN IN his wheelhouse now, hands perched above the levers and contacts and gauges and switches, as curved and expectant as if he were about to play the toccata. The silence before the attack. Then Nemo did move his hands rapidly among the controls and conveyances before him. And through the round wheelhouse glass could see the pantograph extend from its housing just below Nautilus’s prow. Powered first by steam and now—and for this we tip our hat to the Engineer—by electricity.
The pantograph was designed to extend downward, to ocean’s bed, to seize objects from that bed and retrieve them for examination. Your unexpected coral. Your anemone where none heretofore’d been seen. But the pantograph, along its far end, had blades that were sharp, that could cut as well as grasp.
The Captain he kept his breath low and regular as he turned the rheostats that fired and banked the motors that pulled the pantograph this way and that. The work required the dexterity and patience of a surgeon and down here,
two thousand fathoms down, he was guided as much by instinct as by sight. When his heart got fast he counted his breaths ‘til his heart was slow again. When at last the pantograph reached the cable he could see that it was black with pitch. Insulation. Nemo positioned the blades—concave, curved—round the cable and pressed home the single-pole switch. It did not bite the first time, nor the second. But then it did. The motors were geared down, a hundred turns of the shaft to an inch of movement at the far end of the pantograph. The blades pressed the cable and then, at once, met. As Nemo watched, the lower length of the cable made its bed slow and silent, on the bottom of the sea, even as the upper length—tension now released—snapped, recoiled. Spun and writhed. Aboard that iron ship, they would know that all was not right. Eighty-three counted breaths. He watched as they began to reel in the cable, then he spoke through the speaking tube to Mohan. Said a phrase in the language they shared, a phrase which in English is best rendered thusly:
“It is done.”
Then Nemo spun the hatch on the wheelhouse bulkhead, descended the eighteen spiral steps to his salon for a tot of Madeira and to think about the cable-laying ship, which was infinitely larger in size and sturdier of hull than any he’d yet taken down.
TWENTY-SEVEN
YER AHAB STAYED as logic and prudence would dictate aboard his Valparaiso. Yet news from the Grand Excrescence did not escape yer Ahab’s grasp: the paying out had gone—as e’en Mr. Field would wish—smoothly, with the cable emerging slow and deliberate from its wheel; with the G____ E______ picking up speed; and with the depth lowering as she headed west—
The Great Eastern Page 20