The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables

by R. M. Ballantyne

  CHAPTER EIGHT.

  LAYING THE CABLE--"FAULTS" AND FAULT-FINDING--ANXIETIES, ACCIDENTS, ANDOTHER MATTERS.

  Come with us now, good reader, to another and very different scene--outupon the boundless sea. The great Atlantic is asleep, but his breastheaves gently and slowly like that of a profound sleeper.

  The Great Eastern looks like an island on the water--steady as a rock,obedient only to the rise and fall of the ocean swell, as she glidesalong at the rate of six knots an hour. All is going well. Thecomplicated-looking paying-out machinery revolves smoothly; thethread-like cable passes over the stern, and down into the deep with theutmost regularity.

  The shore-end of the cable--twenty-seven miles in length, and muchthicker than the deep-sea portion--had been laid at Valentia, on the22nd of July, amid prayer and praise, speech-making, and muchenthusiasm, on the part of operators and spectators. On the 23rd, theend of the shore cable was spliced to that of the main cable, and thevoyage had begun.

  The first night had passed quietly, and upwards of eighty miles of thecable had gone out of the after-tank, over the big ship's stern, anddown to its ocean-bed, when Robin Wright--unable to sleep--quietlyslipped into his clothes, and went on deck. It was drawing near todawn. A knot of electricians and others were chatting in subdued tonesabout the one subject that filled the minds of all in the ship.

  "What! unable to sleep, like the rest of us?" said Ebenezer Smith,accosting Robin as he reached the deck.

  "Yes, sir," said Robin, with a sleepy smile, "I've been thinking of thecable so much that I took to dreaming about it when I fell asleep, andit suddenly turned into the great sea-serpent, and choked me to such anextent that I awoke, and then thought it better to get up and have alook at it."

  "Ah! my boy, you are not the only one whom the cable won't let sleep.It will be well looked after during the voyage, for there are two setsof electricians aboard--all of them uncommonly wide awake--one setrepresenting the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, underMonsieur de Sauty; the other set representing the Atlantic TelegraphCompany, under Mr Varley and Professor Thomson. The former are to testthe electrical state of the cable, and to keep up signals with the shoreevery hour, night and day, during the voyage, while the latter are towatch and report as to whether the cable fulfils her conditions, asspecified in the contract. So you see the smallest fault or hitch willbe observed at once."

  "Do you mean, sir," asked Robin in surprise, "that telegraphing with theshore is to be kept up continually _all_ the voyage!"

  "Yes, my boy, I do," answered Smith. "The lengths of the cable in thethree tanks are joined up into one length, and telegraphing--for thepurpose of testing it--has been kept up with the shore withoutintermission from the moment we left Ireland, and began to pay out. Itwill be continued, if all goes well, until we land the other and inNewfoundland. The tests are threefold,--first, for insulation, which,as you know, means the soundness and perfection of the gutta-perchacovering that prevents the electricity from escaping from the wires,through the sea, into the earth; secondly, for continuity, or theunbroken condition of the conductor or copper core throughout its wholelength; and, thirdly, to determine the resistance of the conductor, bywhich is meant its objection to carry our messages without vigorousapplication of the spur in the form of increased electrical power in ourbatteries. You see, Robin, every message sent to us from the shore, aswell as every message sent by us in reply, has to travel through theentire length of the cable, namely about 2400 miles, and as every mileof distance increases this unwillingness, or resistance, we have toincrease the electrical power in the batteries, in proportion to thedistance to which we want to send our message. D'you understand?"

  "I think I do, sir; but _how_ is the exact amount of resistance tested?"

  Mr Smith smiled as he looked at the earnest face of his youngquestioner.

  "My boy," said he, "you would require a more fully educated mind tounderstand the answer to that question. The subtleties of electricalscience cannot be explained in a brief conversation. You'll have tostudy and apply to books for full light on that subject. Nevertheless,although I cannot carry you _into_ the subject just now, I can tell yousomething _about_ it. You remember the testing-room which I showed youyesterday--the darkened room between the captain's state-room and theentrance to the grand saloon?"

  "Yes, sir, I remember it well," responded Robin,--"the room into whichthe conducting-wires from the ends of the cable are led to thetesting-tables, on which are the curious-looking galvanometers and othertesting machines."

  "Just so," returned Smith, pleased with his pupil's aptitude. "Well, onthat table stands Professor Thomson's delicate and wonderfulgalvanometer. On that instrument a ray of light, reflected from a tinymirror suspended to a magnet, travels along a scale and indicates theresistance to the passage of the current along the cable by thedeflection of the magnet, which is marked by the course of this speck oflight. Now, d'you understand that, Robin?"

  "I--I'm afraid not quite, sir."

  "Well, no matter," rejoined Smith, with a laugh.

  "At all events you can understand that if that speck of light keepswithin bounds--on its index--all is going well, but if it travels beyondthe index--bolts out of bounds--an escape of the electric current istaking place somewhere in the cable, or what we call a _fault_ hasoccurred."

  "Ah, indeed," exclaimed Robin, casting a serious look at the cable as itrose from the after-tank, ran smoothly over its line of conductingwheels, dropped over the stern of the ship and glided into the sea likean an endless snake of stealthy habits. "And what," he added, with asudden look of awe, "if the cable should break?"

  "Why, it would go to the bottom, of course," replied Smith, "and severalhearts would break along with it. You see these two gentlemenconversing near the companion-hatch?"

  "Yes."

  "One is the chief of the electricians; the other the chief of theengineers. Their hearts would probably break, for their position isawfully responsible. Then my heart would break, I know, for I feel itswelling at the horrible suggestion; and your heart would break, Robin,I think, for you are a sympathetic donkey, and couldn't help yourself.Then you see that stout man on the bridge--that's Captain Anderson--well, _his_ heart would--no--perhaps it wouldn't, for he's a sailor, andyou know a sailor's heart is too tough to break, but it would get apretty stiff wrench. And you see that gentleman looking at thepaying-out gear so earnestly?"

  "What--Cyrus Field?" said Robin.

  "Yes; well, his heart and the Atlantic Cable are united, so as a matterof course the two would snap together."

  Now, while Smith and his young assistant were conversing thusfacetio-scientifically, the electricians on duty in the testing-roomwere watching with silent intensity the indications on theirinstruments. Suddenly, at 3:15 a.m., when exactly eighty-four miles ofcable had been laid out, he who observed the galvanometer saw the speckof light glide to the end of the scale, and vanish!

  If a speck of fire had been seen to glide through the key-hole of thepowder-magazine it could scarcely have created greater consternationthan did the disappearance of that light! The commotion in thetesting-room spread instantly to every part of the ship; the whole staffof electricians was at once roused, and soon afterwards the engines ofthe Great Eastern were slowed and stopped, while, with bated breath andanxious looks, men whispered to each other that there was "a fault inthe cable."

  A fault! If the cable had committed a mortal sin they could scarcelyhave looked more horrified. Nevertheless there was ground for anxiety,for this fault, as in moral faults, indicated something that _might_ endin destruction.

  After testing the cable for some time by signalling to the shore,Monsieur de Sauty concluded that the fault was of a serious character,and orders were at once given to prepare the picking-up apparatus at thebow for the purpose of drawing the cable back into the ship until thedefective portion should be reached and cut out.

  "O _what_ a pity!" sighed Robin, when he understoo
d what was going to bedone, and the feeling, if not the words, was shared by every one onboard with more or less intelligence and intensity; but there wereveterans of submarine telegraphy who spoke encouragingly and treated theincident as a comparatively small matter.

  Two men-of-war, the Terrible and the Sphinx, had been appointed toaccompany and aid the Great Eastern on her important mission. A gun wasfired, and signals were made, to acquaint these with what had occurredwhile the fires were being got up in the boilers of the picking-upmachinery.

  Electricians as well as doctors differ, it would seem, among themselves,for despite their skill and experience there was great difference ofopinion in the minds of those on board the big ship as to the placewhere the fault lay. Some thought it was near the shore, and probablyat the splice of the shore-end with the main cable. Others calculated,from the indications given by the tests, that it was perhaps twenty orforty or sixty miles astern. One of the scientific gentlemen held thatit was not very far from the ship, while another gentleman, who was saidto be much experienced in "fault"-finding, asserted that it was not morethan nine or ten miles astern.

  While the doctors were thus differing, the practical engineers were busymaking the needful preparations for picking-up--an operation involvinggreat risk of breaking the cable, and requiring the utmost delicacy oftreatment, as may be easily understood, for, while the cable is beingpayed out the strain on it is comparatively small, whereas when it isbeing picked up, there is not only the extra strain caused by stoppage,and afterwards by hauling in, but there is the risk of sudden risings ofthe ship's stern on the ocean swell, which might at any moment snap thethin line like a piece of packthread.

  The first difficulty and the great danger was to pass the cable from thestern to the bow, and to turn the ship round, so as to enable them tosteam up to the cable while hauling it in. Iron chains were lashedfirmly to the cable at the stern, and secured to a wire-rope carriedround the outside of the ship to the picking-up apparatus at the bows.The cable was down in 400 fathoms of water when the paying-out ceased,and nice management was required to keep the ship steady, as she had nowno steerage-way; and oh! with what intense interest and curiosity andwonder did Robin Wright regard the varied and wonderful mechanicalappliances, with which the whole affair was accomplished!

  Then the cable was cut, and, with its shackles and chains, allowed to goplump into the sea. Robin's heart and soul seemed to go along with it,for, not expecting the event, he fancied it was lost for ever.

  "Gone!" he exclaimed, with a look of horror.

  "Not quite," said Jim Slagg, who stood at Robin's elbow regarding theoperations with a quiet look of intelligence. "Don't you see, Robin,that a wire-rope fit a'most to hold the big ship herself is holdin' onto it."

  "Of course; how stupid I am!" said Robin, with a great sigh of relief;"I see it now, going round to the bows."

  At first the rope was let run, to ease the strain while the ship swunground; then it was brought in over the pulley at the bow, the paddlesmoved, and the return towards Ireland was begun. The strain, althoughgreat, was far from the breaking-point, but the speed was very slow--notmore than a mile an hour being considered safe in the process ofpicking-up.

  "Patience, Robin," observed Mr Smith, as he passed on his way to thecabin, "is a virtue much needed in the laying of cables. We have nowcommenced a voyage at the rate of one mile an hour, which will notterminate till we get back to Owld Ireland, unless we find the fault."

  Patience, however, was not destined to be so severely tried. All thatday and all night the slow process went on. Meanwhile--as the cable wasnot absolutely unworkable, despite the fault--the chief engineer, MrCanning, sent a message to Mr Glass in Ireland, asking him to send outthe Hawk steamer, in order that he might return in her to search for thedefect in the shore-end of the cable, for if that were found he purposedsacrificing the eighty odd miles already laid down, making a new splicewith the shore-end, and starting afresh. A reply was received from MrGlass, saying that the Hawk would be sent out immediately.

  Accordingly, about daybreak of the 25th the Hawk appeared, but herservices were not required, for, about nine that morning, when the cablewas coming slowly in and being carefully examined foot by foot--nay,inch by inch--the fault was discovered, and joy took the place ofanxiety. Ten and a quarter miles of cable had been picked up when thefault came inboard, and a strange unaccountable fault it turned out tobe--namely, a small piece of wire which had been forced through thecovering of the cable into the gutta-percha so as to injure, but notquite to destroy, the insulation. How such a piece of wire could havegot into the tank was a mystery, but the general impression was that ithad been carried there by accident and forced into the coil by thepressure of the paying-out machinery as the cable flew through thejockey-wheels.

  Signals were at once made to the fleet that the enemy had beendiscovered. Congratulatory signals were returned. The fault was cutout and a new splice made. The Hawk was sent home again. The bigship's bow was turned once more to the west, and the rattling of themachinery, as the restored and revived cable passed over the stern, wentmerrily as a marriage bell.

  The detention had been only about twelve hours; the great work was goingon again as favourably as before the mishap occurred, and about half amile had been payed out, when--blackness of despair--the electriccurrent suddenly ceased, and communication with the shore was endedaltogether.