by Jean Rabe
“You know I’m doing my best to help, Father,” replied Genevieve. “I’ve almost gotten caught up with the correspondence that fell in arrears after Mother’s passing. I should have time to help with the payroll and accounts soon.”
She wanted to help, truly she did. Father and Mother had been so good to her—never leaving her wanting for anything as she grew up, providing for a university education for her, even though, in these allegedly modern times, such extravagance was normally reserved for the male heirs of the well-to-do. Still, it was hard to muster too much enthusiasm over paystubs and equipment orders after studying Aristotle and Archimedes and Newton.
Nor was she likely to meet any suitors in the business office to Father’s mines. While she held no prejudice against the miners or the salesmen and such who visited the office, she did crave the affection of a man of education and sensibility, not the slick, pushy, middle-aged hawkers of wares or the coarse, rough men of the mine. What a pity she would have no more time for the Literary and Philosophical Society now that she was taking an active part in the family business.
Father’s face turned red as he held up yet another invoice, his hand quivering with rage as he scanned its contents. “Fire and damnation! Again! Coals to bloody Newcastle.”
Genevieve did her best to put a tone of disapproving shock into her response. “Father! Such language . . . Why, I never . . .”
Father turned toward her in a quick motion. “Don’t say you’ve never heard such language before. I won’t have you telling a bald-faced lie just to admonish me.” He gave her a mischievous wink. “Go ahead, admit it. You’ve heard such phraseology before. I dare say that if you work at the mines, you’ll hear the same and much, much worse often enough.”
Of course she had heard such language before. She was a college graduate—from a university filled to the rafters with young males, whose tongues could be as quick and vulgar as their hands—but there was no reason to rile her father further. “Of course I’ve heard the phrase ‘coals to Newcastle’ before, Father. It is an exclamatory recitation indicative of redundancy. To wit, no one would bring coals to Newcastle, since it is the center of the entire English coal industry.”
She did her best to force a blush. “As for the other phrases, Father . . .”
Father cut her off with an abrupt motion of his hand, still holding an invoice. “Well, it’s an exclamatory reci . . . dundancy or whatever you said, no more.” He brandished the invoice at her, as if she could read it across the room in the dim light afforded by the gas lanterns ensconced on the wall. “Here’s the proof, more to shame. A second invoice relating to the steam-boiler for the Shaft 37 crusher-sorter, importing coal to Newcastle from Rhineland. We mine coal, for heaven’s sake, yet we are importing coal to fuel the device that crushes and sorts our own coal. What’s the world coming to? Demand for coal is enormous, what with fancy newfangled machinery, inventions, discoveries, steam-powered transportation, steam-powered factories, steam-powered plumbing . . . Where will it end?”
“I’m sure the invoice is just reflective of a temporary dislocation in the timing of shipments from our own mines, Father. Customers come first for all our production, after all. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure. Business is strong.”
Father released his iron grip on the invoice. “Too strong, I fear. In between sorting out the accounts payable, I took a look at the mine plans versus usage and anticipated mine life. The invoice isn’t a temporary reflector . . . or whatever you said . . . it’s a harbinger of the future. With all the steam-power, England’s running through her coal reserves in record time.”
“You mean the country could run out? The company could run out of coal to mine?” Her prospects of meeting an educated, sensitive suitor as a penniless victim of mining bankruptcy would be practically null.
Father screwed up his face and picked up his pipe, chewing on the stem for a few moments before answering.
“There’s one thing. I’ve resisted it because of the dangers involved, but the engineering men, they say it can be done.”
Genevieve did not like the look on Father’s face. “Go deeper?” she asked in a whisper.
He shook his head. “The coal’s not deeper; it’s farther afield.”
She didn’t understand. All of the subsurface mining rights in the area had been granted long ago. “What do you mean?”
Father took the pipe out of his mouth to squirt a pittance into the spittoon on the floor near the corner of his desk.
“The coal seams keep going from here, beneath the North Sea, with no sign of stopping. We’ll have to mine under the waves if we want to keep producing steam.”
Coal mines had extended beneath water before, of course, but rivers and lakes are not as deep nor so broad and heavy and fraught with waves and tides and motion as the sea itself. The new project took years of planning and organizing to put into effect, with consideration for the economics of the mine plan and the safety of the miners who would be toiling beneath the sea. Not only were enormous steam-powered pumps needed to clear out any seepage into the workings, but the sea above complicated everything else. No ventilation shafts, no escape shafts, no rescue shafts would be possible beneath the ocean. Air would need to be pumped in. The long horizontal shafts extending from the on-shore entrance shaft and mine workings would mean getting to and from the coal-face could take considerable time and communications would be difficult—almost as difficult as finding love in an office shared with Father.
That changed the very first day she met Trevor Moynihan.
At first, she thought Trevor to be just another of the many tradesmen and sales people who came to the office to pitch their wares to Father, albeit a younger, cleaner, better-looking specimen than most. But Father had been called to one of the nearby pits to handle a minor difficulty and so Trevor was left to cool his heels awaiting the mine owner’s return. As she explained the delay, he smiled briefly and then averted his gaze—stammering a few phrases about how it would be no trouble to wait in order to see such a busy and important man. He fidgeted and looked about the room, as if seeking something safe and neutral and inanimate to look at instead of at her. She decided to have some fun.
“You’re not like the other salesmen,” she stated simply.
He stared at her as if shocked that she was addressing him, then quickly looked away. “Er, how so?”
She shrugged. “The other salesmen are generally older, for one thing.”
“I’m sure they were young once.”
She laughed. “Yes, but the company is an important client, so only the most senior salesmen usually come calling. There’s nothing young about them. I’m sure Father was young once, too, though he shows little evidence of it anymore.”
“Every journey has a beginning and an end. Change is the mark of a journey’s progress.”
“So you are saying that with enough time, all salesmen become pushy, serious types, with no sense of humor? You’ve not pictured a bright future for yourself, Mr. Moynihan.”
“Oh, I’m not a salesman, at least not except in the most incidental way. I’m an inventor.”
His posture straightened almost infinitesimally as he said the word “inventor.”
“And how does one become an inventor, Mr. Moynihan? Do you come from a long line of inventors?”
“Er, no . . . I mean I don’t know. My parents died when I was very young.”
She flushed at the thought she may have discomfited him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. That must have been very terrible.”
“I suppose. I was very young.”
“Still, I’m sure you had a hard life.”
“A bit lonely in some ways, but not so bad. I was taken in by the Anglican Charities of Newcastle upon Tyne. They even sent me to college, by special dispensation of the vicar—one of his ‘bright boy’ fellowships.”
“And is that where you learned to invent?”
“It’s where I learned a lot of things—math, science, engineering
formulas, and mechanical drawing. But you can’t be taught to invent. You either invent things or you don’t. I’ve met a few other inventors, though, mostly at meetings of the Literary and Philosophical Society.”
“And so you’ve invented something you think could be useful to our company?”
He flashed a smile. “Er, yes. The Pressure-Sensitive Steam Fixed-Communicator.”
“I haven’t ordered anything like that lately. What does it do?”
“It allows one to communicate over great distances using a code transmitted by extremely high-pressure steam.”
“By code?”
“Yes. By fluctuating the pressure contained in the extended steam line by rapid stops and starts of a release valve, someone on the other end of the line with a pressure gauge can read the fluctuations and decode the message remotely.”
“Doesn’t pressure in a steam boiler fluctuate on its own, due to variations in the heating elements and such?”
“A keen observation,” replied Trevor, nodding with a nervous smile on his handsome face. “You speak truly, but by keeping the pressure at an extremely high level, those natural operational variations are not noticeable compared to the more significant variations from starting and stopping the release valve.”
She frowned. She had hopes for the lad, but his invention sounded outlandish, even dangerous.
“I’ve seen the victims of boiler explosions here at the mine. Maintaining such high pressure over a pipeline of such great length as to be useful in our undersea mine shafts would be quite dangerous. Releasing massive amounts of steam to send even the shortest, simplest message would be dangerous and disruptive. Besides, it would require immense amounts of energy to maintain pressure over miles of pipe. Why, we might as well take our production straight from the mine face to the boiler for the communicator with none to spare for customers.”
“No, no. I fear I am a better inventor than salesman. You see, the pipe is extremely small in diameter—more like a pipette. A small, commercially available steam-engine produces sufficient steam to maintain high pressure over an extended length because the total area of pressure is actually quite moderate. I could show you the math . . .”
“I can calculate area given diameter and length myself, sir.”
“Oh, yes. My apologies. I’m sure you could.” He glanced at the door, as if hopeful his prospective client would arrive. “The key to the invention is the pressure release regulator and gauge system, which allows rapid release and re-establishment of pressure, creating short or long spikes or dips in the reading, which can be read as a simple code. Alfred Vail invented such a code for use in connection with Samuel Morse’s telegraph system . . .”
Father burst through the door, sweaty and with his jacket off and his shirtsleeves rolled up. “Bloody thirty-seven winch, never dependable in cool weather no matter how much the foreman tinkers with it. Remind me never to purchase anything from Fairfax & Wilmington again.” He looked at the young man standing in front of his desk. “Who are you?”
Trevor jumped lightly and stammered as he responded. “T–t–trevor M–m–moynihan, Mr. Suttington. I’ve come to t–talk to you about my P–pressure-Sensitive S–s–steam F–fixed-Communicator . . .”
Father fluttered a hand toward Trevor as he moved behind his desk and started unrolling his sleeves. “Yes, yes. Read your prospectus, or ‘p–p–prospectus’ as you would say. Works like a telegraph, I understand, but without electricity. That correct?”
“Y–yes s–sir.”
“Can’t stand electricity. Passing fancy. Dangerous stuff. Packs a shock. You could probably kill an elephant with it.”
“No electricity, s–sir.”
“Great. Steam, that’s the power of the future. Great idea this Pressure-Sensitory Fixer Gizmo of yours. Genevieve will arrange everything for you. Mind you, you’ll have to work the mine-side communicator yourself until we have someone trained.”
“Er, I thought I might operate the topside end, myself, sir.”
“Nonsense. No room in here for a third desk, so Genevieve will have to do that. Nothing wrong about going into the mine for a bit, son. Men do it all the time.”
Genevieve communicated a lot with Trevor as the installation of the Pressure-Sensitive Steam Fixed-Communicator was fabricated and installed, running from a steam-engine outside Father’s office, through a release valve regulator and gauge at her very desk, then out to the mines, down the vertical shaft and then lateral almost two miles under the North Sea to within a few hundred feet of the working face of the mine. There it hooked into a second release regulator and gauge in a mobile underground office used by Trevor.
In person, under Father’s baleful glare or her own smiling countenance, Trevor was a bundle of nerves, but on the steam pressure line . . . online . . . Trevor was confident and well-spoken and witty and full of hope and ideas for the future and interested in her life and her studies and her future plans and dreams. They chatted constantly, at first ostensibly because of the need to test and regulate the system, then to practice, practice, practice her coding, until she could manipulate the release valve in a staccato of dots and dashes prescribed by Vail’s code for Morse’s silly electrical invention.
Eventually, they chatted just to chat, to learn about each other and talk about inconsequential things. Their chats were undoubtedly a needed respite for Trevor, who was teased and worse endlessly by the miners for his bookish ways and his relative intolerance for the conditions in the mine. Given the pressures of the rock and waters above, the ambient temperature of the natural coal seam was nigh unto 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Worse yet, the frequent use of steam-powered equipment and seepage from above drove the humidity high.
Hot and steamy.
As for Genevieve, she longed for companionship and intellectual stimulation and more from Trevor, but was under the constant eye of Father and the constant stress of her office duties. Only when she and Trevor were pulsing one another online did she have a life of her own and hope for a future of her dreams.
She and Trevor never touched, but felt each other’s every move, every mood, every thought through a three-mile column of pressurized steam in heavy-duty half-inch diameter copper pipes that also contained their growing love, released in brief dots and dashes over weeks and months.
Hot and steamy.
And yet, all was still and pleasant on the day Genevieve’s life changed forever. No explosion reverberated through the mine office when the collapse of the North Sea adit first occurred. No voices were raised above conversational tones as the critical moment came and went. No shaking of the earth or subsidence of the ground beneath grimy Newcastle hinted at what was occurring miles away in the gloomy depths of the North Sea mine.
No doubt all of that occurred beneath the ocean when the bedrock encasing the coal-seam burst, however. No doubt a deafening crack rang out as the roof collapsed. No doubt the bellow of the earth subsiding joined with the thunderous roar of the ocean depths flowing into the shaft to blot out the full-throated screams of alarm and agony of the miners in the midst of the watery chaos engulfing them. No doubt the frigid water of the North Sea hit the hot rock and the hotter steam-powered machines with an angry, shattering hiss. No doubt the men ran and fell and drowned or dove into pockets still sufficiently air-tight to hold back the water, although instantly pressurized to a nearly lethal level, to wait for death.
Up above, however, all Genevieve saw at first was a broad dip in the pressure of the Pressure-Sensitive Steam Fixed-Communicator as the cold water far below surrounded and cooled a considerable length of sturdy pipe. A moment later, the steam engine outside whined as it ramped up to maintain the prescribed pressure. She knew instantly something was amiss.
Once the pressure level of the device re-attained its specified mark, Genevieve frantically pulsed the release regulator to inquire.
No response.
She tried again, then again.
Nothing.
She tried yet again�
�barely forcing herself to wait between pulses, to give Trevor a chance to respond.
Finally, a pulse came. “Ocean breach. Trapped.”
She ran to the wall near Father’s desk and pulled the alarm cord. A mournful wail of steam-powered anguish drowned out all other sound across the offices and the workings and the mines and the town. She let go of the cord and rushed back to her desk to reply, looking up for only a moment to shout “North Sea” when Father and a few others came in to find out why she had sounded the alarm. They immediately rushed back out to organize help and she was left alone.
“Help coming,” she pulsed.
“Not possible,” came the reply. “Under pressure.”
She was an educated woman, one of the few in this working-class town. She understood the physics, the math. If Trevor was under pressure, there could be no hope of rescue. The North Sea had flooded the shaft, forcing its way both directions along the shaft from the point of breach. Moving shoreward, the water pushed air ahead until the pressure dissipated as it found the ventilation shafts and vast, interconnected underground workings of the older portions of the mine, above the level of the sea. Seaward, the water had flowed through the shaft, obliterating everything in its path (except a study copper pipe too small to create much resistance and too strong to be overcome by the external pressure), until the column of air before it had compressed to an equalizing pressure.
Even if someone could somehow drill down from above to the pocket of life beneath the floor of the ocean, releasing the air pressure would allow the sea to move in. And even if completely unblocked, there was no way to move through miles of submerged tunnel to escape. There was no hope.
Only life.
Tears flowed unabated down her cheeks, wetting the high, starched collar of her maroon and white gown. “I understand.”
She received no immediate response, so continued after a few moments. “What can I do?”
“Send for their families. I will send the names of those men still alive here.”
