Scott Russell, who was the Great Eastern‘s financier and, as you may recall, a scientist, too, was the first to observe and document the phenomenon. He’d been observing the motion of a boat that was being rapidly drawn along the Union Canal at Hermiston by a pair of horses when the boat suddenly stopped—but not so the mass of water in the channel which the boat had put in motion.
The water mass that had accumulated round the prow of the vessel in a state of violent agitation at once departed, rolling forward with great velocity, assuming the form of a large solitary elevation, a rounded, smooth, and well-defined heap of water that continued its course along the Canal with neither change of form nor diminution of speed. Scott Russell followed it on horseback and overtook it still rolling on at a rate of some eight or nine miles an hour, preserving its original figure some thirty feet long and a foot to a foot and a half in height. After pursuing it for one or two miles Scott Russell lost it in the windings of the Canal. You may here pause to contemplate the image of the man, on horseback, chasing a perturbation.
According Scott Russell, a Soliton will propagate in accordance with the following basic precepts:
• The wave is stable and can travel over very large distances (normal waves tend to either flatten out or steepen and topple over).
• The speed depends on the size of the wave, and its width on the depth of water.
• If a wave is too big for the depth of water, it will split into two, one big and one small.
It is now thought that the pair of waves that hit Charlotte Amalie and Frederiksted was in fact a single Soliton that, due to the shallowness of the water, had split in two; but that the wave that propagated in the northerly direction, where the sea was far deeper, stayed as one— One solitary wave, as high as the two that struck Charlotte Amalie combined. A wave whose height and force were undiminished as it traveled—fifty foot tall, stately, imperturbable—into the North Atlantic. It is left to your imagination to contemplate just where in the North Atlantic our Soliton might be headed.
FORTY-SIX
THE EXTENT OF the ruin perpetrated by M. Brunel was troubling enough; the thought that he would do this to the Nautilus of his own volition was of course more than disturbing. But those who waste their time in shock, or who become waylaid with thoughts of might-have-been, do not in times of crisis fare decently.
My first perception of Brunel’s attack was the dimming, then brightening, then extinguishing of the lights, followed immediately by the deceleration of Nautilus‘s motors.
I knew at once that the electrical system had been compromised. My first impulse was to summon Mr. Brunel, who had planned and built that system; but before I could summon him I was alerted by one of my men to M. Brunel’s convulsed and unmoving presence on the floor of my salon, surrounded by shards of the glass ampoule he had himself shattered. There was a double anger: at M. Brunel for having caused this ruin, and at M. Brunel for being hors de combat with respect to any present or future efforts at repair.
But there was, as I have indicated, no time for anger at his misdeed, nor for lamentation of his current state; no time, indeed, for anything save swift assessment, swift restoration. I did not allot these next moments to a consideration of the life of a great man, who had nobility and courage in him, yet in the past few moments had extinguished the life force of Nautilus, and perhaps of himself.
My officers reported to me that while we were not taking in water we were at present without motive force. Neither had we the power to acquire ballast or expel it. We were thus rendered immobile without the ability to move forward, backward, up, or down. Given the damage we had done to Great Eastern it was likely that the ship, or a boat by that ship dispatched, would soon be engaged in our pursuit. My motor-man informed me that it would be a matter of days, if not weeks, before the shorted, burnt-out armature wires could be isolated and replaced. In the immediate future, escape via forward propulsion would not be at our disposal.
Since the options of moving in the lateral plane were for the moment denied us, I considered ascent and descent. We were now visible and powerless upon the surface of the sea in a manner that left us at tactical disadvantage.
Our only recourse then would be the manual flooding of the ballast tanks. This could not be accomplished from within Nautilus. Accordingly I alerted the crew via speaking tube of my intent: then made for the exterior hatch assembly and there did, rapidly and over the clothes I was at the time wearing, dress myself in full diving habiliment. I was aware even as I quit the ship that re-entry via the customary hatch would be difficult, as without power the water in the egress lock must needs be expelled by hand, if such expulsion could be accomplished at all. Once having left Nautilus I might very well be without means to return. But that was not the problem confronting me in this moment and so I put it out of mind.
The undersea was calm now, without the roil or perturbation that can at times be found there. I made my way aft and inspected the exterior intake pipe for the port ballast. The valve was inset a good distance and was not favorably placed for external control. It was perhaps twelve inches within the ship; the pipe was narrow and would not admit my hand or wrist; and my wrench was not sufficiently long. Still, if I were willing to damage the pipe seals and surrounds I might be able to access the valve, to allow water to flood the ballast tank that we might, thus weighted, descend. What repair these actions might necessitate could be performed later, whereas the damage that would accrue from remaining on the surface would be by far the greater. I went at it.
At last there was enough of an aperture to permit me to find, then using the leverage of my body entire to turn, the port ballast inlet valve. The inrush of water was slower than one might wish but steady. The ship listed to side as the water filled the port ballast.
Without waiting for completion I went round the bottom of Nautilus to the starboard side to perform the same task there. Having done it once it should be more expeditiously accomplished, because I now had some experience in the external operation of the ballast valves and would not be hindered by the trial-and-error. I will not say that the work was pleasurable, as there is never any pleasure in taking a harsh and damaging wrench to one’s own creation. But it proceeded decently and in good time. E’en as I worked I was aware that I was under the sea, enveloped by the waters of the world, able to see the flora and fauna of which the terrestrial world was so largely unawares. This was a source of pleasure and comfort as I continued the work.
Within some moments both aftward tanks were taking in water with the resultant rear-tipping of Nautilus. Thus I went to work on the fore-tanks. That work was straightforward. I knew of course that the expulsion of water from the tanks would require the restoration of Nautilus‘s motive power, and that without the ability to expel ballast Nautilus would only sink and ne’er again rise. Our large dynamic armatures, now shorted to ruin by the impulsive act of the engineer, could scarcely be repaired absent long weeks in drydock. More easily accomplished might be the repair of the far-smaller ballast pumps. That would be the hope (a word that I of course detest). But for now we were deeper beneath, even as a ship and a boat—the Great Eastern and one of her chaloupes—were bearing toward us. Only depth would afford us some protection from their gaze, and, should they find us, their attack. It was better to be down here, facing uncertain future, than up there, immobile, facing certain death.
Even as I worked the fore-tanks and watched from beneath the approach of the pursuers, I felt a downward pressure startling and instantaneous. This pressure, this fall, was not a matter of inches but of feet, and not of few feet but of many. I adjudged that I, and Nautilus, and everything else in these environs, sunk (in tandem) a distance of perhaps thirty feet. And did so in abrupt and sudden manner.
The swiftness, depth, and power of the drop was confounding. The catalogue of possible causes was not a thick one. Was this some weapon deployed by the chaloupe? Unlikely, unless it were invisible, and without the percussive effects that in my exper
ience most always accompany the explosive device. Was this the result of the motion of the tail and flukes of some Leviathan? There was none visible in any quadrant (and the seeing at this depth was unmurked by sediment). My first surmise was that this was the result of some undersea quake that by coincidence of timing I was experiencing even as I was external to Nautilus. I tried to be as observant as possible that I might add an entry to my log upon my return.
Events with precedent offer more comfort, but events not previously experienced are far more conducive to the accumulation of knowledge. And so I watched with as much openness of mind as might be possible under these circumstances as I dropped, Nautilus dropped, the chaloupe dropped, the Great Eastern dropped, a descent of perhaps thirty feet, all in parallel, so that in relation to each other we remained unchanged.
Having noted as much as I could, and with the problem of ballast intake having been solved I turned my attention to the chaloupe, and pondered what might be done to destroy her; and then, chaloupe having been scuttled, what might be done to bring the larger ship to naught. I was engaged in those useful ponderments when the water, which had as I described receded with astonishing rapidity, now seemed to be returning with a swiftness equal to or greater than that of its departure, and with immediate increase in pressure. I looked up to see, heading toward, what seemed the underside of a wave whose height and propagation were of unknowably large size and proportion.
Might it be possible that the damage we’d inflicted upon Great Eastern was larger than we’d supposed, and that she was foundering, and that this was the residue of her massive demise? But substantial as Great Eastern was—and I knew full well there were ne’er larger built—this wave was far more immense, far more vast than might be caused by the sinking of any ship, even the one at hand. And a glance to the south disclosed the presence of Great Eastern, fully afloat, and under her own power, not all that far behind her own chaloupe.
My next thesis was the ascription of the conditions I was experiencing to an event meteorological. I had often seen, on land and on sea, things seem to drop from the sky— Which is to say, dramatic and even murderous changes in weather, the occurrence of which was without herald or foreshadow. I think of the flash floods in Uttarakhand during one of the Junes of my childhood, a flood that appeared as if from nowhere, killed upward of a thousand, left thrice that many without home. The river Alaknanda overflowed its banks in an instant and—if one may ascribe emotion to the motiveless—with great anger. “It was as if Lord Shiva were doing his Tandav,“ said one of my amahs. She was speaking of the Hindoo god Shiva, who, it is written, performs his divine dance to destroy a weary universe.
Many sailors have seen this or worse as they plied their routes. There is much I myself have with my own eyes seen that to recount would beg credulity. A cataract of dense ash that damped visibility even as it turned the water to weak thin milk. Fog or mist so thick as to deny admittance, opening up before one’s eyes, then closing just behind. Ferocious and unremitting storms, gone as quickly as they’d appeared, leaving o’erturned ships in their wake, upside-down beneath what was now sudden sunlight—clear blue skies, presenting to anyone who wished to fathom the Mystery of the O’erturned Ships no evidence, no trace, no origin, no author.
What, then, was now occurring? What was the etiology of this event, and what would be the effect upon a massive iron ship, a steam-chaloupe, a sub-marine vessel? On a man beneath the waves in waxed-canvas diving suit weighted against buoyancy by gold bullion? Even as the—wave?—came nearer, memories of every sort were pressing in upon my head. I was diligent and effective in keeping them at bay.
What mattered to me now was the rapid movement—decompression, compression—of water molecules. With an abundance of curiosity I observed the wave’s approach and awaited the arrival of disaster. Show me one thing here on Earth which has begun well and not ended badly. This downfall constitutes the heart’s drama, and the negative meaning of history.
FORTY-SEVEN
MR. FIELD WAS NOT a happy man, but truth be told he had rarely if ever been a happy man. His current circumstance—in chains, confined to the ruined salon of an iron ship, watched over by burly seamen in shifts of three, not allowed to relieve himself save under surveillance—did not suit him in any aspect.
Still he was bothered less by the imprisonment than by the death of the one thing that to him mattered: the cable. The length of wire, or wires, strung from there to here through which limitless news and information might be conveyed. It began as a dream and had it stayed vaporous, evanescent, the current situation might have been less painful. But he had put his will to the task, raised capital, persuaded solons, worked toward the solution of insoluble technical obstacles; and after some error and much trial had succeeded. In 1859 he saw his dream in the world, and there were songs and celebrations, there were proclamations and conflagrations—New York City Hall!—it was as if he had been borne on a palanquin on the back of an elephant into a holy city. Presidents and queens conversed across seas and via wire and all due to Mr. Field, all hail Mr. Field, and all bow down.
And Mr. Field he did not gloat, nor conduct himself in self-congratulatory or unseemly manner. No, he was content to have built what he had set out to build. And warmed by the prospect of repaying his investors and then, in perpetuity, reaping the royalty from each wired transmission. And then—
It ceased. For reasons unfathomable. And not in a stroke, either. The conveyance of electricity became slower, and the text more garbled, the dots and dashes less distinguishable from one another, until they began to tail off. And thirty-six hours after the initial triumphant missive there was naught but silence. Or, to be accurate: static so loud that all message was lost within it. The greeting sent by president to queen was just a memory now. Telegraphy across the cable faded, then vanished, a dream that upon waking one tries fiercely to recall.
The failed attempts, the setbacks, the hopes raised and dashed, the fortunes lost and borrowed and lost again, will not here be recounted. Put simply the years 1857–1865 were not fashioned of gold. But this last voyage, with one large spool of wire aboard one large ship, had held such large promise. Some bank their hopes against the possibility that those hopes be dashed. Others fire up their hopes, full-bellow, with the rise of the sun each morning: they are less afraid of hope than of failure. To men like Mr. Field, being thought a fool is of no real consequence. There is only the prize and the getting of it.
Now, even as he was held captive in what had once been a gilded silk-draped floating palace, Mr. Field was contemplating the next expedition. Enumerating, in his mind: the manufactory from which he would source the cable; the investors from whom he would raise capital; the ship he would hire to pay it out.
He liked to learn from failure, but the current circumstances could not be classified as failure. Yes, the cable had snapped. Yes, the ship was o’errun by a brigand he himself had hired. Yes, he was in chains and the cable was at present being payed uselessly out to sea, connected at neither end. But the technical concepts remained sound, and the projected return on investment still sufficiently large to call forth the venturesome. Now that the War and its distractions were receding there would be, Mr. Field felt a new spirit o’er the land, a spirit of exploration and of ambition on the largest scale. In the current mood, the coming mood, one could be no better situated. In terms world-historical: was there e’er a better time to be Wire King?
Mr. Field’s thoughts were thus of triumph when the bottom dropped out of his belly. It was as if the entire salon had—and quite abruptly—no underpinnings. He felt himself rise up even as the chains kept him in place. The chandelier leapt up, banged against the coffered ceiling. Silverware lifted, floated in air. Ascended to the ceiling as all else dropped. And this dropping did not stop, for what seemed a full five seconds. Then it was very quiet.
Now Mr. Field, and the salon, and the Great Eastern, rose almost as rapidly as they had descended. It did not feel to Mr. Field as if this we
re equilibrium returned. No, this was a trip up fully as awful as the one down. Only this time: accompanied by screams from the foredeck. What happenstance or emergent thing would make a merchant seaman scream?
Then he heard the noise louder than anything he’d ever heard, a low and harsh and terrible noise, as if a giant had taken the planet itself in his mouth. The crash, when it came, was of a magnitude neither Mr. Field nor anyone else on board had e’er experienced or e’en imagined.
* * *
—
AS MR. FIELD IN the ruined salon could only guess, but to the rest of the crew was all too evident: this was no mere wave. They had all of them known bores, been near-capsized, been pummeled by the squalls of the North Atlantic— No, this was something of a different nature. A wall of water taller than the topmast, twice as tall, three times as tall, taking Great Eastern in its grasp as if she were a balsa boat in a child’s pond in a private park. The great iron ship listed a full thirty degrees in three seconds, and the howl of metal plate would have been impossible to bear had not that and all else been drowned out by the wall of sea.
As the masts snapped like sugar canes, as the once-taut sails ripped into a thousand rags, as the coffered roof came down in pieces, as the binnacle pulled free from its stanchion and slid into the sea— As men on deck were tossed off the edge as so many crumbs off a white tablecloth, as rivets and welds popped and parted, as Chips was drowned still standing up— As ribcages were crushed and heads staved in, as the gleam of day was replaced by a liquid ebony that seemed to suck up all and every light—
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