by Kage Baker
Bulger rolled out of his hammock. Reaching into his bolster he drew forth a clasp-knife. Opening it out, he slipped it between his teeth and followed Cheltenham unseen.
He emerged into the galley just in time to see Cheltenham’s feet disappearing at the top of the next companionway. He pursued closely and ducked down on the topmost step, for from this vantage point he could see Cheltenham on deck, crouching in the shadows between the capstan and the pen that held the topmost store of cable. The cable was braced there in an immense spool, one end threaded carefully through a loosely fitting hatch cover to the compartments below.
Bulger watched a long moment, as Cheltenham waited for the attention of the deck watch to stray elsewhere. Ten minutes passed before the watchman gave a furtive look around and hurried forward to the head.
Cheltenham scrambled aft to the cable hatch and had it aside in a second, sliding through, dragging it shut above him. Bulger, glancing over his shoulder at the watchman, followed Cheltenham swiftly and silently.
He dropped into darkness, his knife drawn, expecting to grapple with Cheltenham at once. Yet he was alone; he felt nothing but the gutta-percha covering of the coiled cable under his bare toes. He heard the echoing breaths that told him Cheltenham had already gone farther down, into one of the lower holds. Bulger grimaced and rapped his right temple two or three times. The deep-night-vision filter in his prosthetic eye dropped into place at last.
Bulger went at once to the hollow cone around which the cable had been wrapped, that gave access to the next tier below. He put the knife back between his teeth and slid straight through to the orlop-deck. Cheltenham crouched there, atop the mass of coiled cable, in the narrow space below the underside of the deck above. He opened one shutter of his lamp, throwing a narrow beam of light on the cable.
Bulger heard him fumbling in his pocket, as his breaths came shallow and his heartbeat thundered. Cheltenham pulled out a pair of blacksmith’s tongs at last, with a sigh of relief. He pulled up a length of cable and applied the tongs to it, pinching to crimp and fracture the cable while leaving no obvious cut in its gutta-percha covering.
Clearly his plan was to so damage the cable that it would easily break when fed through the paying-out apparatus. One break wouldn’t set the enterprise back much, but Cheltenham had privacy and hours to work on the whole mass of the cable…
Bulger crawled toward Cheltenham, grinning around the knife. “He’oh!” he said, as the beam from the lantern fell upon his fearful countenance.
Cheltenham saw him and jumped up, screaming. Which is to say, he tried to jump and tried to scream; both were cut short, the one by violent contact with the underside of the deck above and the other by immediate unconsciousness.
Bulger took the knife out of his mouth. “Stroke of luck for me,” he told the unconscious saboteur. “Saves me getting blood all over the cable, don’t it?”
He hauled Cheltenham up through the tiers, climbing with apelike strength, only pausing at the hatch to assure himself that the watchman was still enthroned forward.
That worthy heard a splash, but as it was accompanied by no shouts he ignored it. When he returned to his post a moment later, he saw Bulger leaning on the rail, peacefully rolling a cigarette.
“Pleasant night, ain’t it?” said Bulger.
***
“Bulger informs me he has dealt with the saboteur on board,” said Kendal, as Arnau brought them tea next morning.
“Capital,” said Bell-Fairfax. He was shaving, having propped a pocket mirror on a bulkhead shelf. He glanced over at Monturiol, who was amidships at the periscope. “I shouldn’t discuss it with our host, were I you. What else did he say?”
“That they saw the lights of the wire squadron at eight bells in the middle watch, and expect to close with the Niagara this morning.”
“Very good,” said Bell-Fairfax, just as Monturiol said something in an excited tone of voice. Laying aside his razor, Bell-Fairfax joined him amidships. They conversed in Spanish and Monturiol stepped back from the periscope a moment, in order to let Bell-Fairfax look through its lens. Stooping, he did so.
“And there they are, Niagara and all,” Bell-Fairfax announced. “We’re standing off as they rendezvous.”
“At last,” said Kendal. He accepted one of the ship’s biscuits Arnau offer-ed him. “I don’t believe I could ever tire of the view, but the close quarters have become a little oppressive. Must be rather worse for you.”
“One endures what one must,” said Bell-Fairfax, returning to his shaving mirror.
“And in the best of causes, after all. Think what the world will be like, when everyone’s connected by cable! Instantaneous transmission of knowledge. Wars ending sooner, if the news of treaties can be sent out the day they’re signed.”
“It’s my hope wars won’t start at all,” said Bell-Fairfax. “It will be a great deal harder for nations to lie to one another, when their citizens may telegraph the truth to anyone anywhere else in the world.”
“Though I suppose we’ll use it to make money,” Kendal said, gazing out at the depths, which were steadily brightening as the dawn progressed. “Stock fixing, for example. Assuming the gyttite works.”
“It works.” Bell-Fairfax set down his razor and reached for a towel. “You weren’t involved in that business, but I was; and I can tell you that gyttite conducts at virtually the speed of light. One strand hidden in the cable ensures that we receive any transmitted information hours before anyone else. The Society profits, the great work goes forward, and mankind continues its advance to the earthly paradise.”
“So it does,” Kendal agreed hastily.
“Nor is the Society the only beneficiary for the common welfare,” Bell-Fairfax continued, tying his tie. “Consider that scholars and scientists on opposite sides of the world will be able to exchange ideas as easily as though they were walking next door to a neighbor’s. How much more swiftly must civilization progress, in the time to come!”
“They’ll still require translators,” said Kendal.
“Not at all,” said Bell-Fairfax confidently. “Most professional men speak Latin.”
***
The Ballena moved in once the cable ships had made fast to each other, hovering at four fathoms in the Agamemnon’s shadow. The Niagara passed one end of her freight of cable to the Agamemnon, and the Agamemnon’s electricians set about splicing it to their end.
“I’m watching ’em,” muttered Bulger. “A fine sight it is.”
Is the cable connected?
“Almost,” said Bulger. “Whang dang dill-oh! It’s been spliced together in this big wooden splint. Now they’re a-putting the sinkweight on her. Derry diddle dido! And now they’re a-lifting her to put her over the side! Huzzay! Oh, bugger.”
“What is it?” Kendal demanded, as something hit the water with a splash and shot straight down past the Ballena.
The sinkweight broke loose. Derry diddle dee! Powerful lot of cursing going on. Mr. Bright’s just a-standing there chewing his fingernails. Somebody’s saying it’s because they didn’t weld no lucky sixpences into the splice.
“Have they lost the cable again?” Kendal felt his heart constrict.
No. They’re a-hauling it back aboard, splint and all. Haul on the bowlin, Nancy is me darlin’! Here’s a lad with another weight. That’ll do the job. Haul on the bowlin, all the way to Liverpool—there! She’s fixed up proper. There she goes! Look out down below!
“It’s the cable!” cried Kendal. Bell-Fairfax and Monturiol rushed to his side in time to see the cradle that held the main splice dropping through the water, pulled inexorably by its weight of thirty-two-pound shot. The double line of cable sank. Here came a tiny silvery flash dropping with it, close to the portholes.
“Good God,” said Bell-Fairfax. “It’s a sixpence.”
Monturiol shouted in triumph. He embraced them both in turn; Kendal and Bell-Fairfax shook hands, grinning.
Heyho dumpty oh! Mind you, there ain’t mu
ch cheering going on up here. I reckon they seen this go wrong so often they’re afraid to jinx it. Down-a-down-a-down she goes, where she stops—oh. She stops at 216 fathoms. They’re doing something, I can’t see…lot of shouting back and forth between us and the Yanks…Oh! They was testing the signal. It’s coming through. Stand by below there, they’re firing up the engines to go about—
Those aboard the Ballena could feel the turbulence as the two great ships prepared to steam away from each other. Monturiol ran to the helm and took the Ballena to a safe distance as they maneuvered. The Niagara set off for Newfoundland, the Agamemnon for Ireland, both paying out cable as they went. Four fathoms under the Agamemnon’s bow coursed the Ballena, like a dog trotting before its master.
***
There was nothing to do now but pace the Agamemnon eight hundred nautical miles, until Galway Bay where the next attempt by the Preventers was expected. The crew of the Ballena relaxed. Monturiol, who had been at the helm for twenty straight hours, slung up his hammock and climbed in for some well-deserved rest, leaving Arnau at the helm. The engineering crew divided their watch; two slept in their hammocks aft while two observed the dials and gauges, and occasionally made small adjustments to the mechanisms. Bell-Fairfax immersed himself in a copy of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Kendal returned to his serene contemplation of the depths.
He had lost track of the passing hours when Kendal beheld small silver fish—sardines, he supposed—shooting toward the Ballena from the waters ahead. A moment later something immense and dark loomed into view. Kendal glimpsed an eye. Before he could open his mouth to exclaim, the Ballena had been struck with an audible crash and scrape that rocked the vessel.
Kendal was thrown to his knees, Bell-Fairfax flung backward against a bulkhead, and Monturiol startled awake as his hammock pitched wildly. Shouts sounded aft. The Ballena heeled over, from the impact they thought. All hands braced themselves and waited for her to right. Instead, she tilted at a sharp angle and rose through the water.
Kendal glimpsed sunlight and sky through the portholes. “They’ll see us!” he cried. Arnau meanwhile was struggling at the helm, but the Ballena in her present state was proving almost impossible to steer, veering back toward the Agamemnon. Bell-Fairfax climbed to his feet and went aft to seize the wheel, lending his strength to Arnau’s. Monturiol, frantically attempting to get out of his hammock, fell from it at last. On his hands and knees he scrambled to the starboard porthole and peered out. One of the crew, bending over a gauge, shouted to him in Spanish. He shouted a reply.
“What are they saying?” cried Kendal.
“Three of the exterior ballast weights have gone,” Bell-Fairfax answered.
What’s going on below, there? They can see you!
“I know! We’re in trouble!”
“What?”
“I’m talking to Bulger!”
Bulger, leaning on the rail with the other sailors, watched in horror as the Ballena shot along the side of the Agamemnon, coming perilously close to the steadily dropping cable. “Damn, that’s a big whale! What a great awful whale that is, to be sure!” he announced.
“Surely that’s no whale,” said Mr. Bright, craning his head to watch as the Ballena, with a flash of her rudder, dove again and vanished, just nudging the cable in passing.
“Aye, sir, that’s a, er, Brown Whale! I served aboard whalers forty years, man and boy, and I seen ’em many’s a time!”
On board the Ballena, meanwhile, Monturiol had got to a chain drive and hauled on it. A metal weight came shuttling forward along a track under the walkway; at once the Ballena righted herself. Monturiol threw a lever that filled a ballast tank, and she descended. Arnau stood back, gasping with exertion, as Bell-Fairfax swung the wheel around and put her on course again. Monturiol closed off the valve. He rose to his feet, saying something in a satisfied tone.
“What was that?”
“He said he built this fish to save lives, not to take them,” Bell-Fairfax translated. Monturiol smiled wearily and went back to his hammock.
***
Thereafter they sped on through an effortless week, weathering gales that caused the Agamemnon above them to labor hard on her way. Once or twice there were difficulties with the cable, but the Agamemnon’s electricians resolved them easily. Just before dawn on 5 August, Kendal woke with Bulger’s voice in his head.
There’s Skellig Light. That’s Valentia Island, by God. We made it!
Kendal sat up in his hammock. Beyond the portholes he saw only night sea, still thinly illuminated by the Ballena’s lamp. Bell-Fairfax had risen and pulled on a suit of woolen underwear; he knelt now beside the trunk that held his diving apparatus. Monturiol, at the helm, smiled. “Do you see any sign of the saboteurs?” said Kendal.
“I beg your pardon? Oh,” said Bell-Fairfax.
No sign of ’em yet…only, there’s a small craft over to port. Let me get my long-distance lens up…A dull thudding sound transmitted to Kendal. Ah! She’s a little steam launch. Looks like a crew of three. She’s making for us.
“Keep watching her, then.” Kendal climbed from his hammock and assisted Bell-Fairfax into the immense canvas diving suit. There were innumerable straps to fasten and weights to attach. Bell-Fairfax’s face was white and set; Kendal wondered if he was afraid. By the time Kendal had lifted the bronze helmet into place and fastened the screws that fixed it to the suit’s breastplate, morning blue was visible through the portholes.
We’re dead on for the strait between Valentia and Beginish Islands. And here’s the launch, coming up hard to port!
How many? Bell-Fairfax spoke through the transmitter in his helmet.
Who’s that? Oh. Morning, Commander sir! All I’m seeing now is two…there was three before. They got a tarpaulin spread aft and I reckon he’s lying under it. T’other two are all got up as Irishmen. Red fright wigs and such. Pretending to be fishermen, likely. They’re grinning and waving, cheering us on. They’re marking pretty careful where the cable’s falling, though.
Bell-Fairfax opened the plate on the front of his helmet and spoke to Monturiol, who nodded and sent the periscope up. He peered into it and evidently spotted the steam launch at once. Calling Arnau to the helm, he came forward to the deck hatch, where he turned a crank. The domed lid of the hatch opened back, like an eyelid over an empty socket, disclosing a round chamber underneath. He stood and gestured to Bell-Fairfax.
Bell-Fairfax removed a long narrow box from the trunk, something like a map-case. Monturiol looked curiously at it as Bell-Fairfax lowered himself into the diving chamber, but he asked no questions; merely knelt to make the several connections for the tether and air lines.
We’re past ’em now, and they’ve come right up in our wake and dropped a buoy! Sly-like, pretending to be casting nets. Ah! Here’s the third bastard after all, sitting up. He’s in diving gear. He’s got something in his hand. Looks like a pair of hedge-clippers. There he goes, over the side!
Monturiol cranked the hatch back into place. It sealed with an audible hiss. He turned another crank, and the hiss was replaced by a bubbling splash. Bell-Fairfax’s lines paid out as he descended. He dropped perhaps five fathoms before they stopped.
“Bell-Fairfax, are you all right?”
Yes. There was a peculiar metallic quality to Bell-Fairfax’s voice, as it came over the wall-mounted receiver. I can see the saboteur. Senor? He said something in Spanish, and Arnau took the Ballena forward slowly. Kendal went to the porthole and saw, just ahead, the line descending from the buoy the saboteurs had laid. Looking up he saw the bottom of the little launch, gently rocking, silhouetted under a bright morning sky, and what must be their diver’s lines going down into the depths.
We’re dropping anchor now. Look at them crowds, all turned out to welcome us! It’s up to you lot now. Best of luck, Commander.
Thank you.
Kendal clenched his fists, knowing what must happen next, trying not to imagine it in any detail. When the sudden bubbles
came belching up—and some of them seemed to bear a scarlet tinge, that brightened as they broke the surface—he let out his breath and sagged backward. He told himself it was the saboteur’s own fault; he told himself that Progress required certain sacrifices.
Bell-Fairfax’s voice came crackling over the receiver once more, giving what sounded like an order in Spanish. Arnau obeyed, unthinking, though Monturiol cried “Que? No, no!”
His countermand came too late. The Ballena had gone shooting up to the surface, ramming the saboteurs’ launch and capsizing it. Kendal, regaining his feet, looked out the porthole and straight into the face of one of the saboteurs, whose eyes were wide with astonishment as he struggled in the depths. Kendal had only a moment to register the absurdity of the man’s costume—music-hall Irish, green knee breeches and buckled shoes, and on the surface a pair of red fright wigs floating—before a spear came flashing up from below and pierced the man through.
Monturiol shouted something in tones both horrified and accusatory. There, another cloud of scarlet came drifting by, just visible through the other porthole. Bell-Fairfax, standing on the bottom, had aimed upward and shot both saboteurs as though they were a pair of grouse.
Trailing bubbles through red swirling water, the saboteurs sank from sight. Monturiol cranked away at the winch angrily, as though to haul Bell-Fairfax up before he could do the dead men any further injury. There was a faint thump on the Ballena’s lower hull, and a moment later Bell-Fairfax sat on the deck beside the diver’s hatch, laying his chambered spear gun aside. Kendal worked the screws and got the helmet off.
At once Monturiol unleashed a furious torrent of denunciation. Bell-Fairfax merely sat there, breathing deeply, no expression on his pale weary face. At last he raised his hand.
“Senor, lo hecho, hecho esta,” he said dully. “Esta es guerra.”
***
The first public message was sent from the London company directors to their American cousins, lauding God and observing that Europe and America were now connected by telegraphic communication. It took all of fifteen minutes to transmit. The next message was sent from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan, was rather more effusive, and took sixteen hours to transmit and receive.
