Robert Michael Ballantyne
The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables
The whole operation was conducted with a superabundance of noise, for the burying of a rope in a trench three feet deep was in itself such a tremendous joke to the coolies, that they entered upon it with much excitement as a sort of unusual piece of fun. That they were in some degree also impressed with the mysterious and important object of their work might have been gathered from their chant:– “Good are the cable-wallahs, great are their names; good are the cable-wallahs, wah! wah! wah! great are the cable-wallahs, wah!” which they continued without intermission all through the night, to their own intense delight and to the annoyance no doubt of the military unfortunates who were encamped on the ground.
Besides the naked fellows who, in their excitement and activity, resembled good-humoured, brown demons, there were many other figures in English dress moving about, directing and encouraging, running from point to point, flitting to and fro like wills-o’-the-wisp, for all bore lights, and plunged ever and anon out of sight in the trench. Between three and four o’clock the work was completed; tests were taken, the portion of cable was pronounced perfect, and communication was thus established between the cable-house and Rampart Row. This was the first link in the great chain of submarine telegraphy between India and England.
“Now, Robin,” said Sam, with a tremendous yawn, “as we’ve seen the first act in the play, it is time, I think, to go home to bed.”
With a yawn that rivalled that of his comrade, Robin admitted the propriety of the proposal, and, half an hour later, they turned in, to sleep—“perchance to dream!”
Chapter Twenty Seven.
Describes Several Important Events
The laying of this thick shore-end of the cable was an important point in the great work.
By that time Robin and cousin Sam had been regularly installed as members of the expedition, and were told off with many others to assist at the operation.
The Chiltern carried the great coil in her tanks. After rounding Colaba Point into Back Bay, she found a barge waiting to receive some two-and-a-half miles of the cable, with which she was to proceed to the shore. The barge resembled a huge Noah’s Ark, having a canvas awning to protect the cable, which was very sensitive to heat.
A measure of anxiety is natural at the beginning of most enterprises, and there were some who dreaded a “hitch” with superstitious fear, as if it would be a bad omen. But all went well.
“Now then, boys—shove her along; push her through,” said an experienced leader among the cable-hands, who grasped the great coil and guided it. The men took up the words at once, and, to this species of spoken chorus, “shove her along, push her through,” the snaky coil was sent rattling over the pulley-wheels by the tank and along the wooden gutter prepared for it, to the paying-out wheel at the Chiltern’s stern, whence it plunged down into the barge, where other experienced hands coiled it carefully round and round the entire deck.
It is difficult to describe the almost tender solicitude with which all this was done. The cable was passed carefully—so carefully—through all the huge staples that were to direct its course from the fore-tank to the wheel at the stern. Then it was made to pass over a wheel here and under a wheel there, to restrain its impetuosity, besides being passed three times round a drum, which controlled the paying-out. A man stood ready at a wheel, which, by a few rapid turns, could bring the whole affair to a standstill should anything go wrong. In the fore-tank eight men guided each coil to prevent entanglement, and on deck men were stationed a few feet apart all along to the stern, to watch every foot as it passed out. Three hours completed the transfer. Then the barge went slowly shoreward, dropping the cable into the sea as she went.
It was quite a solemn procession! First went a Government steam-tug, flaunting flags from deck to trucks as thick as they could hang. Then came the barge with her precious cargo. Then two boats full of cable-hands, and an official gig pulled by a Chinaman, while the steam-launch Electric kept buzzing about as if superintending all.
When the tug had drawn the barge shoreward as far as she could with safety, the smaller “Electric” took her place. When she also had advanced as far as her draught allowed, a boat carried to the shore a hawser, one end of which was attached to the cable. Then the cable-hands dropped over the sides of the barge up to waist, chest, or neck, (according to size), and, ranging themselves on either side of the rope and cable, dragged the latter to the shore, up the trench made for its reception, and laid its end on the great stone table, where it was made fast, tested by the electricians, as we have said, and pronounced perfect.
A few more days had to pass before the insatiable Great Eastern was filled with coal and reported ready for sea. Then, as a matter of course, she wound up with a grand feast—a luncheon—on board, at which many of the leading authorities and merchants of Bombay were present, with a brilliant company which entirely filled the spacious saloons.
“Owing to circumstances,” said Sam to Robin that day, “over which we have no control, you and I cannot be included among the guests at this approaching feast.”
“I’m sorry for that, Sam,” said our hero.
“Why so, Robin? Does a morbid devotion to chicken and ham, or sweets, influence you?”
“Not at all, though I make no pretence of indifference to such things, but I should so much like to hear the speeches.”
“Well, my boy, your desire shall be gratified. Through the influence of our, I might almost say miraculous, friend, Frank Hedley, we shall be permitted to witness the proceedings from a retired corner of the saloon, in company with crockery and waiters and other débris of the feast.”
At the appointed time the company assembled, and enjoyed as good a luncheon as money could procure.
“How some people do eat!” murmured Robin from his corner to Sam, who sat beside him.
“Yes, for it is their nature to,” replied Sam.
After the first toast was drunk the company braced themselves to the mental work of the afternoon, and although, as a matter of course, a good deal of twaddle was spoken, there was also much that threw light on the subject of ocean telegraphy. One of the leading merchants said, in his opening remarks: “Few of those present, I daresay, are really familiar with the history of ocean telegraphy.”
“Ah!” whispered Robin to Sam, “that’s the man for me. He’s sure to tell us a good deal that we don’t know, and although I have been ransacking Bombay ever since I arrived, for information, I don’t yet feel that I know much.”
“Hold your tongue, Robin, and listen,” said Sam.
“Mind your foot, sir,” remonstrated one of the steward’s assistants, who had a lugubrious countenance.
Robin took his foot out of a soup tureen, and applied himself to listen.
“When I reflect,” continued the merchant, “that it is now fourteen years since the first ocean telegraph of any importance was laid,—when I remember that the first cable was laid after an infinity of personal effort on the part of those who had to raise the capital,—when I mention that it was really a work of house-to-house visitation, when sums of 500 pounds to 1000 pounds, and even 10,000 pounds were raised by private subscription, with a view to laying a telegraph cable between England and America, when I reflect that the Queen’s Government granted the use of one of its most splendid vessels, the Agamemnon (Hear! hear! and applause), and that the American Government granted the use of an equally fine vessel, the Niagara—” (Hear! hear! and another round of applause, directed at the American Consul, who was present.)
(“Five glasses smashed that round,” growled the lugubrious waiter.)
“When I reflect,” continued the merchant, “that the expedition set out in 1857 with the greatest hopefulness, but proved a total failure—that the earnest men (Hear! hear!) connected with it again set to work the following year, and laid another cable (Applause), which, after passing through it a few messages of great importance to England and America (Hear!) also ceased communication, which so damped the courage of all concerned, that for seven or eight weary years nothing was attempted—no, I should not say nothing, for during that period Mr Cyrus Field,” (thunders of long-continued applause, during which the lugubrious waiter counted the demolition of six glasses and two dessert plates), “without whose able and persevering advocacy it is a question whether to this day we should have had ocean telegraphy carried out at all—during that period, I say, Mr Cyrus Field never gave himself rest until he had inspired others with some of the enthusiasm that burned so brightly in himself, which resulted in the renewed effort of 1865, with its failure and loss of 1213 miles of cable,—when I think of the indomitable pluck and confidence shown by such men as Thomas Brassey, Sir Samuel Canning, Sir James Anderson, Sir Daniel Gooch, Sir Richard Glass, Mr George Elliot. Mr Fender, Captain Sherard Osborn, and others—men of mind, and men of capital, and men who could see no difficulties—and I like men who can see no difficulties,” (Hear! hear! and loud applause.)
(“You’ll see more difficulties than ye bargain for, if ye go through life makin’ people smash crockery like that,” growled the lugubrious waiter.)
“When I think of these men, and of the formation of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company (Applause), and the successful laying of the 1866 cable, and the picking-up and completion of the old cable,” (Loud cheers),—(“Hm! a decanter gone this time. Will you take your foot out of the soup tureen, sir,” from the lugubrious man, and an impatient “hush!” from Robin.)
“When I think of all these things, and a great deal more that I cannot venture to inflict on the indulgent company (Go on!) I feel that the toast which I have the honour to propose deserves a foremost place in the toasts of the day, and that you will heartily respond to it, namely, Success to the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, for that Company has laid scores of cables since its formation, and has now successfully commenced, and will doubtless triumphantly complete, the laying of the cable which we have met to celebrate to-day—the fourth great enterprise, I may remark, which the Company has undertaken—the cable that is soon to connect India with England.”
The merchant sat down amid thunders of applause, during which the reckoning of breakages was lost, and finally abandoned by the lugubrious waiter.
At first Robin and Sam listened with great interest and profound attention, and the former treasured in his memory, or made pencil notes of, such facts and expectations as the following:– That only nine months previously had they commenced the construction of the cable which was now about to be laid; that Captain Halpin in the Great Eastern had laid the French Atlantic cable; that in a few weeks they hoped to connect Bombay with Malta, and two months later with England; that, a few months after that, England would be connected with the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. “In short,” said one gentleman at the close of his speech, “we hope that in 1871 India will be connected, chiefly, by submarine telegraph, with China, Australia, Europe, and America, and that your morning messages will reach home about the same hour at which they are sent from here, allowing, of course, for the difference in time; and that afternoon and evening messages from Europe will be in your hands at an early hour next morning.”
At this point the heat and unpleasant fumes around him began to tell upon Robin, and he suggested that they had better go on deck for a little fresh air.
“I’ll not budge,” said Sam, positively. “Why, the best is yet to come.”
Saying this, to the surprise of Robin, Sam rose, went forward to the table, and asked permission to make a few remarks.
“Who is he?—what? eh!” exclaimed the chairman. “Turn him out,” cried one. “Sit down,” cried another. “No, no, let him speak,” cried a third. “Don’t you know it is Samuel Shipton, the great electrician?”
“Bravo! go on! speak out!” cried several voices, accompanied by loud applause.
“Gentlemen,” began Sam in his softest voice, “I regard this as one of the greatest occasions of—of—my life,” (Hear! hear! from a fussy guest; and Hush! hush! and then we shall hear here better, from an angry one). “I little thought,” continued Sam, warming apparently with his subject—or the heat, “little thought that on this great occasion I could—could—I could—” (would or should; go on, man, from an impatient guest).
“Oh, Sam, don’t stick!” cried Robin, in an agony of anxiety.
“Who’s that? Put him out!” chorused several voices indignantly.
“There, sir, you’ve put your foot in it at last,” said the lugubrious waiter.
Robin thought he referred to the interruption, but the waiter’s eyes and forefinger directed his attention to the soup tureen, which, in his eagerness, he had sacrificed with a stamp. Finding that no further notice was taken of the interruption, he listened, while Sam continued:—
“Yes, gentlemen, I have some difficulty in starting, but, once set agoing, gentlemen, I can keep on like an alarum clock. What nonsense have some of you fellows been talking! Some of you have remarked that you shall be able to exchange messages with England in a few hours. Allow me to assure you that before long you will accomplish that feat in a few minutes.”
“Pooh! pooh!” ejaculated an irascible old gentleman with a bald head.
“Did you say ‘pooh!’ sir?” demanded Sam, with a terrible frown.
“I did, sir,” replied the old gentleman, with a contemptuous smile.
“Then, sir, take that.”
Sam hurled a wine decanter at the old gentleman, which, missing its mark, fell with a loud crash at the feet of Robin, who awoke with a start to find Sam shaking him by the arm.
“Wake up, Robin,” he said; “man, you’ve lost the best speech of the evening. Come—come on deck now, you’ve had quite enough of it.”
“Yes, an’ done enough o’ damage too,” growled the lugubrious waiter.
So Robin became gradually aware that Sam’s speech was a mere fancy, while the smashing of the soup tureen was a hard fact.
It may not, however, be out of place to remark here that the prophecy made by Sam in Robin’s dream, did afterwards become a great reality.
Chapter Twenty Eight.
The Cable Laid
“I say, Robin,” said Samuel Shipton, as he encountered our hero and Slagg that same evening in the streets of Bombay, “the government land telegraph was reported this morning to have recovered its health.”
“Well, what of that?”
“I have taken advantage of the lucid interval to send a telegram to uncle Rik. No doubt your father has by this time received the telegram we sent announcing our safety and arrival here, so this one won’t take them by surprise.”
“But what is it about?” asked Robin.
“It is sent,” replied Sam, “with the intention of converting uncle Rik into a thief-catcher. That stupid waiter told me only this morning that the time he followed Stumps to the harbour, he overheard a sailor conversing with him and praising a certain tavern named the Tartar, near London Bridge, to which he promised to introduce him on their arrival in England; so it struck me that by telegraphing to uncle Rik to find out the owners of the Fairy Queen and the position of the Tartar, he might lay hold of Stumps on his arrival and recover our stolen property.”
“But I hope he won’t put him in limbo, sir,” said Jim Slagg. “I’ve no objection to recover our property, but somehow I don’t like to have the poor fellow transported. You see I can’t help thinkin’ he was half-cracked when he did it.”
“He must take his chance, I suppose,” said Sam, thoughtfully. “However, the telegram is off, and, if it ever reaches him, uncle Rik will act with discretion.”
“I agree with Jim,” said Robin, “and should be sorry to be the means of ruining our old comrade.”
“It did not strike me in that light,” returned Sam, a little troubled at the thought. “But it can’t be helped now. In any case I suppose he could not be tried till we appear as witnesses against him.”
“I ain’t much of a lawyer,” said Slagg, “but it do seem to me that they couldn’t very well take him up without some proof that the property wasn’t his.”
“It may be so,” returned Sam; “we shall see when we get home. Meanwhile it behoves us to square up here, for the Great Eastern starts early to-morrow and we must be on board in good time to-night.”
Now, you must not imagine, good reader, that we intend to drag you a second time through all the details of laying a deep-sea cable. The process of laying was much the same in its general principles as that already described, but of course marked by all the improvements in machinery, etcetera, which time and experience had suggested. Moreover, the laying of the Indian cable was eminently, we might almost say monotonously, successful, and, consequently, devoid of stirring incident. We shall therefore merely touch on one or two features of interest connected with it, and then pass on to the more important incidents of our story.
When Robin and his comrades drew near to the big ship, she was surrounded by a perfect fleet of native boats, whose owners were endeavouring to persuade the sailors to purchase bananas and other fruits and vegetables; paroquets, sticks, monkeys, and fancy wares.
Next morning, the 14th of February 1870, the Great Eastern lifted her mighty anchor, and spliced the end of the 2375 miles of cable she had on board to the shore-end, which had been laid by the Chiltern. This splice was effected in the presence of the Governor of Bombay, Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, who, with a small party, accompanied the Great Eastern a short distance on its way. Then, embarking in his yacht, they bade God-speed to the expedition, gave them three ringing cheers, and the voyage to Aden began.
Soon the cable-layers were gliding merrily over the bright blue sea at the rate of five or six knots an hour, with the cable going quietly over the stern, the machinery working smoothly, the electrical condition of the cable improving as the sea deepened, and flocks of flying-fish hovering over the crisp and curly waves, as if they were specially interested in the expedition, and wished to bear it company.
All went well, yet were they well prepared for accident or disaster, as Sam informed Robin on the morning of the 16th while sitting at breakfast.
“They have got two gongs, as you’ve observed, no doubt,” he said, “which are never to be sounded except when mischief is brewing. The first intimation of fault or disaster will be a note from one of these gongs, when the ship will be instantly stepped, the brakes put on, and the engines reversed.”
“Everything is splendidly prepared and provided for,” said Robin; “hand me the sugar, Sam.”
“The elasticity and good behaviour of the big ship are all that could be desired,” remarked one of the engineers, “though she carries 3000 tons more dead-weight than when she started with the Atlantic cable in 1865.”
At that moment there was a lull of consternation round the breakfast-table, for a drumming upon metal was heard! For one instant there was a gaze of doubt round the table. Then they rose en masse; cups were upset, and chairs thrown over; the cabin was crossed at racing speed,—Captain Halpin leading—the stair-case surmounted, and a rush made to the testing-room.
There all was quiet and orderly; the operators placidly pursuing their labours, working out their calculations, or watching the tell-tale spot of light on the scale, and all looking up in silent surprise at the sudden hubbub round their door. It was a false alarm, caused by the steady dripping of a shower-bath on its metal bottom! That was all, but it was sufficient to prove how intensely men were on the qui vive.
It was a wonderful scene, the deck of the Great Eastern—incomprehensible by those who have not seen it. The cabins, offices, workshops, and machinery formed a continuous line of buildings up the centre of the vessel’s deck, dividing it into two streets an eighth of a mile long. At the end of one of these were the wheels and drums running from the top of the aft-tank to the stern; and between them and the two thoroughfares were wooden houses which shut them out from view. There was a farmyard also, where cattle were regularly turned out for exercise; there were goats which were allowed to go free about the decks, and chickens which took the liberty of doing so, sometimes, without leave; there were parrots being taken home by the sailors which shrieked their opinions noisily; and there were numerous monkeys, which gambolled in mischievous fun, or sat still, the embodiment of ludicrous despair; while, intermingling with the general noise could be heard the rattle of the paying-out wheels, as the cable passed with solemn dignity and unvarying persistency over the stern into the sea, it seemed almost unheeded, so perfect and self-acting was the machinery; but it was, nevertheless, watched by keen sleepless eyes—as the mouse is watched by the cat—night and day.
The perfection not only achieved but expected, was somewhat absurdly brought out by the electrician in the cable-house at Bombay, who one day complained to the operators on board the Great Eastern that the reply to one of his questions had been from three to twelve seconds late! It must be understood, however, that although the testing of the cable went on continuously during the whole voyage, the sending of messages was not frequent, as that interfered with the general work. Accordingly, communication with the shore was limited to a daily statement from the ship of her position at noon, and to the acknowledgment of the same by the electrician at Bombay.
One of the greatest dangers in paying-out consists in changing from tank to tank when one is emptied, and a full one has to be commenced. This was always an occasion of great interest and anxiety.
About midnight of the 19th the change to the fore-tank was made, and nearly every soul in the ship turned out to see it. The moon was partially obscured, but darkness was made visible by a row of lanterns hung at short intervals along the trough through which the cable was to be passed, making the ship look inconceivably long. As Robin Wright hurried along the deck he observed that both port and starboard watches were on duty, hid in the deep shadow of the wheels, or standing by the bulwark, ready for action. Traversing the entire length of the deck—past the houses of the sheep and pigs; past the great life-boats; past the half-closed door of the testing-room, where the operators maintained their unceasing watch in a flood of light; past the captain’s cabin, a species of land-mark or half-way house; past a group of cows and goats lying on the deck chewing the cud peacefully, and past offices and deck-cabins too numerous to mention,—he came at last to the fore-tank, which was so full of cable that the hands ready to act, and standing on the upper coil, had to stoop to save their heads from the deck above.
The after-tank, on the contrary, was by that time a huge yawning pit, twenty-five feet deep, lighted by numerous swinging lamps like a subterranean church, with its hands, like Lilliputians, attending to the last coil of the cable. That coil or layer was full four miles long, but it would soon run out, therefore all was in readiness. The captain was giving directions in a low voice, and seeing that every one was in his place. The chiefs of the engineers and electricians were on the alert. Every few minutes a deep voice from below announced the number of “turns” before the last one. At last the operation was successfully accomplished and the danger past, and the cable was soon running out from the fore-tank as smoothly as it had run out of the other.
The tendency of one flake or coil of cable to stick to the coil immediately below, and produce a wild irremediable entanglement before the ship could be stopped, was another danger, but these and all other mishaps of a serious nature were escaped, and the unusually prosperous voyage was brought to a close on the 27th of February, when the Great Eastern reached Aden in a gale of wind—as if to remind the cable-layers of what might have been—and the cable was cut and buoyed in forty fathoms water.
The continuation of the cable up the Red Sea, the successful termination of the great enterprise, and the start of our hero and his companions for Old England after their work was done, we must unwillingly leave to the reader’s imagination.
