The man was Ahab and so Langhorne left the crew with which he’d arrived. Ahab soon had a ship and Langhorne was his chanteyman. The men of the ship liked a song while they worked. It lifted the spirit, lightened the load. They chanteyman did the hauling, too, but he was by virtue of his song the first among them. And by night he was Ahab’s chanteyman, lulling him to sleep with melodies from heaven. They sailed together on ships too numerous to count.
When Ahab was given the Valparaiso Langhorne did go with him. And when Ahab came to understand that he was called to take command of the Great Eastern, Langhorne did go with him. Had Great Eastern’s crew been American they might have taken issue with a black man among their number; but they were English and Langhorne’s father had been in the Royal Marines and that was enough. They taught him some tunes which he sang beautifully and thus won their hearts. He told them stories of Tobago, of the luminescent fish that swam in Man O’ War Bay and would light up the waters with a pale green glow.
Within a few hours of Ahab’s command of the Great Eastern—and with the assistance of several jugs of distilled fermented cane, passed generously round—Langhorne, who the previous night had boarded their ship as a pirate, was now accepted as fellow sailor. So, too, were the rest of Valparaiso‘s swabbers, line-pullers, welcomed to the fold.
The routine of those before the mast is not likely, on any given day, to be affected by the composition and identity of those behind it. The men had in their seafaring lives labored under captains generous, captains cruel; captains competent, captains in all ways at sea; captains who oversaw every detail and captains who ventured only upon occasion from stateroom. And under all of these had survived: a sailor’s work is, largely, a sailor’s work, without regard to whose hand be on the Wheel. The binnacle man he polishes the binnacle, whene’er it needs polishing (and oft when it does not); the sheet man he minds the sheets on days fair and days foul; the holystoners the decks do scrub, from stem to stern, and when that is done, from stern to stem again. As is said on land: regardless of fluctuations in the price of beef, the sacrifice remains constant for the ox.
As Langhorne was quick to learn, this perspective was not shared by the officer class. They had seen their Captain Anderson dispatched (from the ship, and from life itself). Anderson had been, like them, a Londoner, and this new man, this Ahab, was an American: a murderer, a mutineer, a thief. He was a man of the colonies in command of Englishmen. His manners were abrupt and his language wrong. Though they let the cable unspool as he commanded, it remained to be seen in the longer run if they were his men or the Great Eastern‘s.
And they were not comprehending why a commander of the Great Eastern—whose holds contained a full 1,500 tons of coal, whose boilers were fiercer than the flames of Hades, whose screw was as the blade bone of some huge pre-Adamite beast, whose paddles were as large and implacable as the Wheel of Fate itself—had chosen to forgo all in favor of the sheet.
But before the mast it was understood. They were sailors and they forgot not their name. Sailors: those who live, and die, by the sail. And so they again unreefed the sails, back-to-front, starting with the jigger-mast: the jigger-mast lower, the jigger topmast, the jigger top gallant. Then to the mizzenmast, where Ahab had stood; then the mainmast in all its glory. Once the mainsail was set the trysail no longer had use, so it was reefed. Then the foresails, and finally the bowsprit.
And as they hauled line they sang, and as they sang one voice rang out clear and true among them and it was Langhorne’s. It was a voice to lift the spirit and to calm it, and it made of many, one.
And once they were ahead full sail; once Ahab knew that the Great Eastern was tight under his command; once it was clear that his men had been recognized by the Great Eastern‘s crew as fellow men of the sea; once he was assured by his men that he need not focus an abundance of his attention on questions of disobedience; once the cable were again being payed out in a languorous sag from the rear of the ship (the better to attract the Leviathan, whose unseen presence beneath the Atlantic had become the sole occupant of Ahab’s thoughts)— Only then did Ahab feel freer of spirit, and was thus able to divert his attention from the larger life of the Great Eastern to other pursuits.
The Great Eastern, he knew, would never be his. He was a ship’s captain and, try as he might, this was—to Ahab—no ship. But it did not have to be. Its purpose was, to Ahab, well-defined, and limited to tasks. One: not to sink. Two: to deploy the cable that to the Leviathan was as glittering prize. Three: to let Ahab work his lance.
Should they return home in good stead that would be fine. Should they slaughter the beast and from its oil make profit, that would be fine. Should Ahab be considered hero, and borne on the shoulders of his countrymen, and hailed down Broadway, and heralded by fireworks, and celebrated in popular song, that would be fine.
But none of those things were necessary. To ensure his being, the sole requisites were the one, the two, the three. All else was dross. Not even the clear and ringing song of his chanteyman, a voice that all ails might cure, could bring him peace, or lead him to quit.
It was as if he and the Leviathan were twins in the ocean’s womb. One of them would die and the other be born: there was not room for two. So either Ahab be delivered into this world and the great white die— Or the recto-verso, and Ahab would die and the Leviathan rule all and forever.
That shall not happen, Ahab said. To himself, to Langhorne, to whomever sufficiently close to hear him mutter, sufficiently keen to read his mind. His life up until tonight, all of it—the cold winters in New York, the years at sea, the men dispatched to the next life without e’en a fare-thee-well, all of it—was to take him to this moment. The moment where Leviathan dies, that Ahab might, for the first time in his long and awful life, be born.
THIRTY-NINE
“WHY HAVE WE stopped? Is the ship—”
“There is nothing wrong with Nautilus,“ said the captain. “Its engines are full stop because I gave the command that they do so. We are presented with a conundrum, M. Brunel, and while I pondered, and in mind weighed alternative explications, I wished for us to be still. And so we are.”
It was the Engineer who broke the silence. “Might I ask, Captain, on what you are thinking?”
“Once I have made known to you the subject of my thoughts, you will understand why I sought to summon you. I have, as you have yourself seen, severed the cable which, had I not intervened, likely would have spanned the Atlantic. And yet, though the cable be severed, I now can see that the cable is again being laid.”
“Was the grapnel successful,” asked Brunel. “Were they—”
“No.” Nemo’s word reverberated in the ship’s new silence.
“They lowered the grapnel repeatedly and each time failed to grasp. They spent the night without activity. Then, this morning, they commenced paying out again. I will let you see.” With that he actuated the switch that caused the metal iris to widen; and through the glass saw indeed what the Captain had described. Cable—percha-clad copper cable—draped from the stern of the large iron ship.
“Is it possible that they were unaware of the break?”
“Had they been unaware they’d not have lowered the grapnel.”
Brunel had no real wish to assist the Captain in his present goal. Yet it was difficult not to share the Captain’s ponder: A ship lays cable. That cable snaps. And yet she lays cable again as if nothing had been sundered.
“I would have thought,” said the captain, “that they’d return to Foilhummerum, take on board another spool of copper. Either that or—and this was my hope—abandon the project. Yet here they follow another path, one that begs comprehension.”
“Is it possible,” said Brunel, “that for reasons of contract it is necessary for them to complete the voyage, break or no?”
“It is possible,” replied the captain, “but scarce likely. What kind of contract would prescribe a crossing, yet care not if the mission of that crossing were accomplished?”
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Brunel found himself seated at the captain’s chart table. The captain joined him, pulling from a drawer a pair of sea-cheroots. They fired up and leaned back, following the lazy drift of smoke—blue from the tip, brown from the tail—toward the cabin’s coffered ceiling. At length the captain continued to speak. “To solve the mystery of the severed yet continued cable, we are obliged to follow her. This causes me no end of displeasure.”
Brunel sensed he was waiting for an interjection: why so, Captain? Instead Brunel waited to see what thoughts might form in the captain’s mind. He waited for a full minute and then the captain did again commence to speak.
“I am a man of the sea and by sea I mean the sea entire: the Atlantic, yes, but also my beloved Indian Ocean, which itself encompasses perhaps a fifth of the waters of the world. And the Pacific where, as you know, I have found solace and restoration. And the icy seas of the Poles, above and below. In the years that are left to me I want to explore those seas. Yet here we are in a fool’s circle.
“Now they are acting in a manner that is not by any standard a rational one, and again we are drawn into the cable’s web. The most effective means at my disposal to end this dismal cycle is clear. If I cause the iron ship to drown ‘tis unlikely they’ll be dispatching another.
“Were there an alternative I’d seize upon it. But I do not see one. Thus: I must put paid to her. I only ask that you hear me out.
“I have, as you know, scuppered many a vessel. I have caused loss of life. But no more so than in any war. The English did against me and my land declare war. That war ended as far as they were concerned but it did not end for us. There are the personal matters here, as you well know. But this goes beyond.
“We are engaged in a battle for the soul of the century itself. You either will understand implicitly, and to the depths of your intellect, or you will not understand at all. You know that I will not argue ‘gainst fixed opinion. There is never any profit to it.
“And so while she wags her black tail at us—taunting us, mocking us, begging us to follow—’tis our duty—”
Brunel interrupted, something he’d rarely done, and an act for which the captain had no tolerance. But he needed to say what was in his mind, and the thought pushed out with such pressure that it escaped past the sentries of reason.
“Let go of it, Captain. Let go. You have already won. The cable you hate will not be lain—the break assures it. Let the ship sail where it will. She is no threat to you. If you wish to visit Reykjavik, or return to Erromango, or traverse once more beneath Pole north or south, why then do so. The cable is as dead as a severed snake—it may, for a while, twitch, but there is no motive force left in it, nor can current pass through it. I pray you Captain: let go of it.”
The captain looked off, as if he were considering the words of Mr. Brunel. Then the captain he spoke:
“What I am about to ask, you may accept or reject. I will, in fact, not expect a reply at this instant, but rather expect you to contemplate it in your own quarters, removed from my importuning or influence. And the question I pose is this:
“What are your Great Eastern‘s weakest attributes? Where is she less than fully sound? Seven years ago I was able almost to destroy her by means of a quarter turn on an ill-placed stopcock. Could I gain access to the ship I suspect I could, without grand fuss, find similar imperfections. But for that I would need an accomplice aboard Great Eastern, to haul me aboard; and I readily admit to you that I have no such accomplice.
“So I ask you— If you were a small submersible craft, such as Nautilus; and if you were up ‘gainst far larger craft, double-hulled with metal plate— Where would you strike?”
He paused for several long moments. With the engines silenced Brunel could hear, distinctly, the tick and tock of the extraordinary cabinet clock, the one crafted and fashioned by Breguet, case of ormolu, moon of ivory. He wondered whether the captain were aware, as he spoke, of the enormity of the question he had asked. He could hear the click and sigh of the pipe organ’s bellows and pumps, still breathing though no fingers were as of this moment on the keys. Brunel was being asked to assist in slaughter, of machine and of men, by a man who had yanked him from his proper life and now proposed that he destroy what was, in essence, the culmination of a life’s work. Through the iris’d window he could see—as he had over the course of his captivity aboard Nautilus become accustomed to seeing—a sea-creature of extraordinary aspect. This one was as a billowing sheet, curling in on itself and extending out, then waving, like a flag in the wind—of what unknown nation?—but slowed to the point of languor. There was a mouth or cloaca near the top, and the skin—though skin seems far too mundane a word to describe the roll and undulation of what he was glimpsing—was of pristine white, with glowing veins, some golden in hue, and some with purplish cast, spread across the creature’s surface, forming skeins in vaguely hexagonal array. The veins shifted and vanished and reappeared and reformed like sunlight on a windblown ocean. Brunel’s thoughts went deep, even as within Nautilus‘s salon he gazed at it, rapt, through the iris’d window, and could have gazed out at it for the longest while, perhaps forever.
“I know that it is difficult,” the captain was saying, “to choose among your children.” And with that two of the Nautilus‘s mates appeared in the hatchway escorting their Huzoor sternward, back to his quarters. When he was returned to his room they closed the door behind themselves and fastened it from the outside. What had been, ab ovo, a cell, and had for the better part of a decade become a cabin, was cell once more. Into which he’d been tossed, until he either assisted the captain in the destruction of Great Eastern, or, he supposed, perished within the confines of his sub-sea gaol.
The captain had a conundrum he could not solve: why would Great Eastern continue to pay out a cable that to which nothing did, or could, connect? And the engineer had one no more susceptible to solution: why would the captain wish to destroy a ship that no longer possessed the capacity to do him harm?
Now the engines of the sub-marine craft started up again. All of the small sounds—silverware in the galley, footfalls along the gangways, the scrape of metal and the low squeak of leather—were swallowed up. Brunel could feel the ship list, then turn: Nemo had commanded Nautilus three-quarters ahead, and on a path toward Great Eastern. The small sounds were gone, and with them were the small thoughts inside his head. There were only large sounds now, large thoughts, and all of them concerning doom. The destruction of dreams, and of lives.
FORTY
NEMO HE WAS in his salon, eyes clamped to the omni-scope. Its objective lens was above the water, the Nautilus below. Yet there was no water seeping in, nary a drop: Brunel’s design of the nesting rubber gaskets was intelligent and precise.
What Nemo through the omni-scope saw: the stern of the Great Eastern. It was sailing along at no great speed, paying out cable behind. And Nautilus the Great Eastern did now follow, keeping pace, neither gaining nor losing ground. The hours passed and the new-moon skies grew darker still.
Then Nemo saw, on the stern of the Great Eastern, a glint— And then another. It was the objective lens of a telescope and it was trained on the Nautilus. He was staring at the large iron ship and it was staring back.
The locked gaze was held for the longest time and while Nemo stared at the ship-that-stared-back he fell into thought, and as reverie internal replaced what the senses did perceive, the ship in front of his eyes slow became another ship, pale, translucent, a darker gray among clouds of dark gray fog, a mystery ship, a ghost ship, a ship whose hold contained all the troubles of the world. He saw in his mind a map of the seas with lines wherever British freighters and cargo ships and men-o’-war had crossed. From London out to India, to be sure; but also to the Americas, north and south; and to Australia; and to the ports of Asia and the islands of the Pacific— A web of lines, parallel and crossing, a weave that held the world in its skein. And he saw, too, the privation, the suffering, inflicted causally or with no motive or eve
n without the awareness it had been inflicted. The raw materials taken for little compensation or none at all. Those strapped to cannon and gut-shot with lead balls large as a man’s head. Those dead of scurvy in service of the queen. The humans extracted from their lives and pressed into service. Those packed into ships and taken from their homeland and brought somewhere else to harvest for someone else, without pay or prospect or liberty. Those whose languages were lost and forgotten with scant fare-thee-well as English became the mother tongue. Those whose souls were sucked dry by the double-ledgers of English accountants. Those killed in wars fought for lines on a map. Those who were as butterflies broken on the English wheel.
How to end it? How to take the march of civilization and turn it round? How to put a stop-point to history? How to reclaim the lives spent and discarded for naught? How to avenge the deaths of so many whose only crime was to live on a piece of land thought propitious by Company or Crown? How to reclaim agency—and some small piece of dignity—for the lost children of empire?
There was no path to it. There was no one thing one man could do. Even Mangal Pandey—what had he done? His homeland no longer in chains of iron, but still in no ways free— Nemo thought of Mangal Pandey and thought of the slaughter of Rani and Hanuman by English sappers, come in the night and departed, bloodied knives wiped clean on Orchha sheets; and he thought of Madhya, told by traitorous satraps that he himself was dead, so that she went to cinder (and ash, and smoke) by own desire.
The Nautilus she had a pointed prow, well-serrated, fashioned of wootz, capable of inflicting fatal damage on wooden-hulled ships. It had done in the Governor Higginson; it had rent a hole in the port side of the Cristóbal-Colón, from which the Cristóbal-Colón did not recover; and similarly with the Helvetia; and, as well, with the Shannon. The Péreire, the Etna, the Lord-Clyde, all of them pierced by the wootz-clad prow, and all of them by it brought down. The Castillan, the Constitutional: same. The Moravian: gone.
The Great Eastern Page 27