by Tony Pollard
Travelling once again on Brunel’s railway, I returned to London on 13 September. No more of the men in my care had died, and I was hopeful that they would all pull through. Unfortunately, Brunel did not seem to be faring so well, and when I arrived at Duke Street on the morning after my return, Brodie feared the end was very near.
‘I tried to keep the bad news away from him, but he got hold of a copy of The Times,’ he whispered anxiously, just before I entered the bedroom. ‘I think one of his servants smuggled it in for him. He was naturally eager for news of the ship’s voyage.’
‘And he learned about the explosion – was that what caused the relapse?’
‘He had another heart attack. He won’t live much longer, I’m afraid. There is nothing more I can do, Phillips.’
With that Brodie opened the door and I quietly approached the bed. Brunel’s head lay half buried in the pillow, where strands of his hair criss-crossed like the filaments of a broken spider’s web. His arms were motionless by his side, the only movement provided by the rise and fall of his chest. At first I thought he was sleeping but on hearing me approach the red lids of his eyes fluttered open. ‘Phillips’, he rasped. ‘Hear you did a splendid job with the men on the ship. The second time you have been there to help when it was needed most…’
‘I did what I could,’ I said, pulling up a chair to sit beside him.
The dying man’s lips moved once again, his voice so frail that it was difficult to make out what he was saying. I moved closer, my head cocked to the side and almost resting on the pillow beside his. ‘The ship, how…’ he whispered, each word accompanied by a dreadful wheezing sound as it dragged itself out of his throat. ‘How did she fare?’
‘She moves like a dream, Mr Brunel, and I know that the explosion had nothing to do with her design. There were other factors involved.’
‘Other factors? You mean Russell?’
There seemed little point in trying to explain all I had learned and so I simply nodded. Brunel seemed satisfied.
‘There is one last service I want to ask of you.’
‘Anything,’ I replied.
‘First, have Brodie leave the room.’
I turned to the doctor, who was standing at the end of the bed. ‘Sir Benjamin, he asks if you could please step out of the room for a moment.’
There was a time when such a request would have been regarded as an affront to his position, but without a word Brodie turned and left, closing the door quietly behind him.
‘He’s gone,’ I said, uncertain as to how aware he was of his surroundings. Reaching for my handkerchief, I wiped a string of spittle from where it had formed on the twisted corner of his mouth.
He put his hand on my shoulder and drew me closer still. ‘The heart. I want you to place it inside my chest.’
At first I wasn’t certain I had heard him correctly. ‘In your chest?’ I asked, looking across at the agitated blanket. ‘You mean cut you open and put it inside you?’
He tried to nod, but the pillow pressing into the side of his face stopped him. ‘Take out the old and put in the new.’
It crossed my mind that he seriously expected the heart to improve his condition, to bring him back to life, but then it dawned on me: that wasn’t it at all. This was how he planned to dispose of the heart, to remove it from circulation and keep it out of Russell’s grasp. ‘But when?’ I asked, seeking reassurance that I was right.
‘Preferably not while I’m still breathing,’ he replied, his mouth trying its hardest to form a smile. ‘I have made arrangements. You will be allowed access to me… to my body before they put me in the ground.’
When I said nothing, he pressed the issue further. ‘Promise me, Phillips, promise you will carry out this old engineer’s last wish, as a friend.’ His eyes gave up what must surely be their last flicker of passion. ‘Promise!’
I touched his cold hand. ‘I promise.’
Brunel turned his head until he was once again looking up towards the ceiling. ‘Then all is well. Thank you, my friend.’
Our business concluded, I readmitted Brodie to the room. I asked him whether he would be returning to the hospital. ‘Not until I am finished here,’ he replied, now sounding more like an undertaker than a doctor. I offered to take his place but he would not have it, and so, feeling very low, I took my leave.
‘Goodnight, Isambard.’
‘Farewell, Phillips,’ returned Brunel, his eyes now closed.
Brunel and my father appeared side by side in my dreams that night, but then their faces merged and melded, as each of them tried to tell me something I could not hear.
The next morning, on his return to the hospital, Brodie delivered the anticipated news of Brunel’s death. The great engineer had passed away just hours after my departure. Sir Benjamin’s constant attendance had also taken its toll, and he looked terribly tired and drawn, and took me at my word when I offered to take charge of things so he could rest.
To my disappointment I discovered that Florence was away recruiting for her nursing school. There had been several occasions on the ship and in the hospital at Weymouth when I had wished her present, and not just because of her expertise in dealing with cases of mass injury.
Once again, the hospital seemed dull in comparison with my recent adventures, but nonetheless I found myself busy enough in the theatre. William was at first his usual ebullient self, but it didn’t take long for my bleaker mood to rub off on him.
‘There’ll be many a man sorry to see him go,’ he remarked, when I told him of Brunel’s death. ‘You’ll be going to the funeral then?’
‘I suppose so,’ I replied, having thought of nothing else for the entire day.
Brunel’s request weighed heavily upon my mind, not so much because of its peculiar character, for nothing in my life these days could really be described as normal, but because I did not want to see the device wasted in such a way. Despite my misgivings about the practicality of replacing a human heart with a mechanical counterpart, I had come to see some merit in the proposition. As Brunel had said, there might come a time when the device would be looked back upon as the foundation stone of a medical revolution, but not if it were buried with its inventor, never to be seen or heard of again. But on the other hand I thoroughly understood Brunel’s motives, as the act would remove the device forever from the grasp of those who had done so little to deserve it, and indeed intended to put it to so nefarious a use.
At first I successfully avoided the issue by keeping busy, but it wasn’t going to be that easy.
‘Someone’s left a note for you,’ said William. Recognizing Brunel’s hand on the envelope, I opened it straight away, the blood on my hands staining the paper and giving me all the more excuse to destroy it immediately upon reading. The note must have been written not long after I had left his bedside the night before. The hand was erratic, and obviously the work of a very sick man.
My Dear Phillips,
My eternal gratitude for agreeing to do me one final service. I write this letter while I am still able to do so but when it reaches you I will be dead. In order to fulfil your promise I have made arrangements for you to have access to my mortal remains prior to burial. Your window of opportunity will obviously be short, so please come to Duke Street at your earliest possible convenience. The man who delivered this note, already known to you as my driver, is a most trusted servant and has been briefed, though he does not know the true motive for your ‘visit’, and will ensure that you are unmolested while you carry out the task in hand. Mary too will be expecting you and knows better than to ask questions. That is all that is to be said, and anyway my hand can write no more. My eternal thanks for your companionship and assistance on numerous occasions.
Your friend,
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (deceased)
Crumpling the page in my fist, I imagined Brunel smiling to himself as he signed himself off as deceased, and dropped the ball of paper into the top of the stove, where it was engulfed in
flame. ‘William, where is the man who delivered this?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Dunno, sir, he left it at the front, probably couldn’t find you to deliver it personal like.’
‘Ah well,’ I sighed. ‘It can’t be helped. Let us get back to work.’
With the last of the day’s students departed and William left to clean up in the theatre, I slipped into the specimen room, where I had first demonstrated the functions of the heart to Brunel almost three years previously. Pushing aside a jar on a high shelf, which caused the foetus within to bob from side to side as if trying to free itself from a crystal womb, I pulled down the jar concealed behind it. The red fleshy object in this vessel did not float, but like a stone in a lake sat motionless on the bottom. Placing it carefully on the bench, I removed the lid and after rolling up my sleeve and putting on a thick glove slowly immersed my hand in the fluid.
The lung was bloated, as if infected by some terrible growth, the walls distended and thinned by the presence of the solid mass within. It lay on the bench in a spreading puddle of alcohol. Slipping the fingers of my gloved hand into a broad incision in the wall of the sac, I took hold of the tumescent mass and pulled it out through the breach. Glove removed, I untied the string around the bundle and peeled it open. Brunel’s mechanical heart sat amidst the dark folds of the oilskin wrapper, its metallic surfaces entirely untarnished by its immersion. Thus the heart was revealed for the first time since I had concealed it in the lung weeks before. What better place to hide it than in a room full of human organs.
I brushed my hand over the surface of the casing and turned the fly-wheel. A flick of the latch and the two halves popped apart, revealing the valves and chambers. A more perfect tool for teaching the workings of the heart I could not envisage, though to display the thing in public would undoubtedly be to risk life and limb. In any case, I had made a promise to a friend: it had been no less than his dying wish that he be buried with this inside him. I surely had no option but to comply. But then, I told myself, there was more at stake here: there was the future of medical science, and indeed Brunel’s role within it to consider. As guardian of the heart, a role which had been thrust upon me by Brunel himself, it was surely my responsibility to ensure that the heart was looked after, protected and made available to others for further study. And so, I kept the heart instead of making sure it was buried with Brunel.
With my conscience in turmoil, I once again packed up the heart, wrapping it in the oilcloth and then stuffing it into the preserved lung before lowering it carefully back into the jar. You are doing the right thing, I told myself, and Brunel, had he been of sounder mind before his death, would, I was sure, have been in full agreement. Little did I know how much I would come to regret my decision to ignore his request in the days and weeks that followed.
After failing to find me at the hospital I further sought to avoid Brunel’s man Samuel by visiting my club for supper and then spending the night seeking solace between Clare’s welcoming thighs.
On my way to the hospital the next morning I picked up a copy of The Times, where I found an obituary to the deceased engineer.
Saturday, 17 September 1859
DEATH OF MR BRUNEL, CE – We regret to announce the demise of Mr Brunel, the eminent civil engineer, who died on Thursday night at his residence, Duke Street, Westminster. The lamented gentleman was brought home from the Great Eastern steamship at midday on the 5TH inst., in a very alarming condition, having been seized with paralysis, induced, it is believed, by mental anxiety. Mr Brunel, in spite of the most skilful medical treatment, continued to sink, and at half-past 10 on Thursday night he expired at the comparatively early age of 54 years. The deceased was the only son of the late Sir Marc Brunel, who for his many public works at Portsmouth, Woolwich, and Chatham, and more particularly the Thames Tunnel, received the honour of knighthood from Her Majesty in 1841. The late Mr Brunel was the engineer of the Great Western Railway from the formation of the company, and all the great works on that line were completed from his designs and supervision. The magnificent bridge at Saltash is another example of his engineering ability; and as most of our readers are aware, the leviathan steamship, the Great Eastern, was the last and greatest of his undertakings, and with which his name will ever be associated. Mr Brunel was born in England, but his father was a native of Normandy, and a gentleman by birth. Owing to the troubles of the first French Revolution, he was compelled to emigrate to the United States, whence he came to England in 1799, and was employed at Portsmouth Dockyard to complete the block machinery. Sir M. I. Brunel was educated for the church, but his love of scientific pursuits led to his embracing the profession of which he ultimately became one of the leading members.
It was depressing to think that one’s life, no matter how fulfilled, could be crammed into so few words – which in any case said as much about his father as him. But the obituary served to bolster my conviction that I was doing right by retaining what would otherwise be lost.
The day passed without incident and nobody arrived to find out why I had not appeared at Duke Street. I could only assume that Brunel, having no reason to doubt I would carry out his instructions, had left no provision for me to be pursued if I did not. The funeral was scheduled for the following Tuesday, which meant that the window of opportunity to which Brunel had referred was fast disappearing. It promised to be a grand affair at Kensal Green, and with Brunel safely out of my reach in his coffin I had every intention of being there to pay my last respects.
If the stature of a man can be gauged by the number of people attending his funeral, then Brunel, for all he lacked in physical height, was truly a giant among men. Not since the sea trial had I seen so many people gathered together in one place. Unable to proceed any further in the cab, I disembarked and continued on foot, joining those mourners of like mind in the funeral cortège. Up ahead, the hearse, pulled by horses decked out with black plumes, made its slow progress, the crowd parting like a human wave in front of it. Even on foot it was almost impossible to move along the streets bordering the cemetery for the crowds waiting to catch a glimpse of the coffin. Most of these people were railway workers, some of them still in their work clothes but all displaying a black armband. Hats were removed as the hearse passed slowly by and bared heads lowered in silent prayer.
Passage became a little easier when I reached the cemetery gates, where the Yeomanry, decked out in all their scarlet finery, provided a guard of honour and kept the masses at a respectable distance.
Leaving the crowd behind, the cortège made its way down the tree-lined avenue, the ornate tombs on either side giving the thoroughfare the appearance of a street inhabited only by the dead.
‘Quite a turn-out, don’t you think?’ said Ockham, who had fallen in beside me. It was the first time I had laid eyes on him since returning from the ship, and his immaculate funeral attire bore all the signs of being purchased specially for the occasion.
‘I thought I was never going to get here.’
‘Have you seen anyone else?’ he asked, craning his neck so as to see over the heads of those to our front.
‘I thought I caught a glimpse of Hawes back there, but he’s the only one thus far.’
‘There’s Russell, standing head and shoulders above the others,’ he observed, by now almost walking on tiptoes.
‘So he came back from Weymouth for the funeral.’
‘And I think he’s with someone,’ said Ockham, raising himself a fraction higher by placing a hand on my shoulder. ‘Yes, it’s Perry.’
‘Perry!’ I exclaimed too loudly, causing a lady to turn and glower disapprovingly. What with all the upheaval caused by Brunel’s death, I hadn’t given him much thought since my return from the ship. But now, here he was, the man responsible for Wilkie’s murder. His hands may not have committed the crime but they were no less blood-soaked for that.
‘Without a doubt,’ confirmed Ockham, now returned to his normal height and seeming a little startled as I tugged on
his sleeve and dragged him sideways out of the column of mourners.
Leaving the cortège, I ushered him between a pair of stone angels and came to a halt behind a miniature version of a Greek temple, where the sound of feet crunching on gravel could no longer be heard.
‘Listen, there’s something I’ve got to tell you, something I learned on the ship.’
‘I know all about that. It was Russell after all, wasn’t it?’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Brunel told me. Not exactly a surprise. I knew it was him all along.’
‘When did he tell you?’
‘I visited him not long after you on the night of his death. Brodie didn’t want to let me in but the old man insisted. He told me that you had confirmed Russell’s involvement.’
‘Yes, but…’
Ockham seemed untroubled by the affair. ‘Why look so worried? Remember, as from today the heart really does cease to exist.’
‘Cease to exist?’
He glanced back at the funeral procession. ‘Well, as good as, once it’s been buried along with Brunel. If only Russell knew he was saying goodbye to his precious engine.’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said, playing along. ‘I suppose Brunel told you about that as well?’
Ockham nodded. ‘That you had promised to carry out the operation, yes.’
‘It was the least I could do,’ I lied. My chance to come clean, to admit that I had broken my promise, had passed. This was after all no time to be creating a scene.
‘I had meant to seek you out and offer assistance but…’ Ockham’s countenance suddenly darkened and for a moment words seemed to fail him. ‘Well, things got in the way.’ It was only then that I realized how deeply Brunel’s death had affected him. These past days had no doubt been spent dulling his emotions in an opium den, just as I knew he had done after his mother’s death – well, at least her second death. Perhaps aware that he was now betraying those emotions, he stiffened his back.
