* * *
The boardroom of the Ripley Building at the Admiralty had long been considered one of the architectural glories among even the most admired of Whitehall’s many offices. Under a highly ornate plaster ceiling it was finely panelled in carefully jointed lime wood. At one end was an outsized built-in bookcase whose soaring, curved top held a colossal clock that seemed designed to dictate the tempo of naval business. Opposite this, at the other end of the room, a large pair of double doors had been incorporated into the panelling. These opened onto an adjoining room but were now closed, as for all gatherings of the Board of Longitude.
Along the outside wall, five long windows opened virtually from ceiling to floor and gave out onto the Admiralty’s perfectly proportioned courtyard. From these windows light flooded into the large rectangular room. A magnificent mahogany table usually ran down its centre but now, as at all full meetings of the Board, it had been pushed back to be nearer to the fireplace opposite the windows, so that space was made for members of the Board to clearly see the presentations.
Rumours that the meeting would be showing possible candidates for the Longitude Prize had circulated for some time and the day’s sitting had attracted considerable interest across a wide section of civil servants and merchants. Thus, while the Committee sat serenely in their places at the table talking idly to each other in a superior manner, they were hemmed in at both ends by excited and gossiping spectators standing shoulder to shoulder and pressing forward from the main body of the crowd that had gathered on the staircase landing.
Lord Dunbeath now stood before the table. Behind him were three easels, loaded with a mass of celestial charts and sample calculations. He had been speaking for over an hour and was bringing his case to a close.
‘And so, my lords, gentlemen, the secrets of longitude at sea are laid bare at last. The celestial mapping so necessary for success is now complete and these charts, together with the conversion tables I have set before you, have given us the means to calculate a ship’s position …wherever it may be on the open seas.’
He approached the Board’s table and now stood in front of the upturned faces of its silent members.
‘When the conditions for the Prize were set down by this Committee many years ago, your honours’ criterion of success was to be able to determine a vessel’s position within a half degree of longitude. My lords, gentlemen, as a result of my research, this is now possible!’
The pitch in Lord Dunbeath’s voice rose higher and he took two steps backwards so he could better address the room at large.
‘In conclusion, I believe you can be quite certain that from this day forth, there will be no reason why our ships should ever be lost again. I say to you that what you have seen here are the keys we have been searching for, found at last, that will allow our great nation to use Edinburgh as the universal meridian for all maritime charts – and for our navies to dominate the oceans. With these keys, my lords, gentlemen, we can unlock the race for world trade and secure the safety of the realm, now, and for generations to come.’
He came to a stop. There was a profound silence. Then the Chairman of the Board of Longitude rose to his feet and, without referring to any of his other members, he began to applaud. First one, then two others followed his lead and soon the whole room was clapping loudly. Some of the spectators even called out Dunbeath’s name while a few of the more high-spirited among the crowd let out a series of uncouth cheers.
Dunbeath gave a slight bow and the room began to fall quiet again. But in their enthusiasm for Dunbeath’s astonishing breakthroughs, nobody had noticed that the double doors to the side of the room had been slightly open as he’d been giving his presentation. These were now suddenly thrown back and all eyes turned to see that the king and his party had been listening in the next room. A gentleman usher brought his rod down on the wooden floor, once then twice, and the king swept into the boardroom, followed by a small crowd of favoured retainers. Alongside him, smiling broadly with the triumph of being given an invitation to leave Hampton Court for the day, his father’s old friend, Prince Friedrich von Suderburg-Brunswick-Luneburg puffed away with the effort of having stood for so long. As always, his preposterous hussars jostled to stay close to their master.
‘Many congratulations, Lord Dunbeath!’ called out the king, ‘I heard your conclusions. You have made a wonderful contribution to solving the problem of longitude with your discoveries and I believe the whole nation has cause to thank you. Who knows, the Prize may very well be won soon.’
He paused, theatrically, and looked around the room with a particularly ingenuous set to his features.
‘However, we have yet to hear from Mr Harrison, have we not?’
The Chairman turned an angry scarlet. He was a committed advocate of the lunar distance method and he had hoped to avoid having to give time to John Harrison, a man he considered as little more than a dangerous upstart. But he knew he had to give way to the royal command and he now forced a smile of agreement and waved forward a group of men that had been standing in the far doorway.
In spite of the king’s obvious patronage, there was a low murmur of disapproval as Harrison made his way to the front of the room. He ignored the evident ill feeling and had his two assistants set down a large box on the table in front of the Board.
‘Your Majesty, my lords, gentlemen,’ he said in a strong North Country accent as his men took the cover off the box, ‘this is my latest clock. The third that I have made and submitted before this Board for your honours’ consideration. I have been working on these marine chronometers for twenty years, but I am pleased to say that they have finally rewarded my efforts in full.
‘As your honours commanded, this latest of mine was sent on yet another sea trial. It travelled in His Majesty’s warship, Agamemnon, to the island of Jamaica in the West Indies, and has just returned from an arduous journey of fifteen weeks, a journey of the most violent storms and heavy seas and extreme variations in temperature and humidity. When the Agamemnon docked at Deptford this chronometer was taken under the custody of a guard of marines to Greenwich. There it was measured against the land clocks of the Royal Observatory.’
There was a deep silence in the room. All eyes were on Harrison. He turned towards the king.
‘Your Majesty, my chronometer was found to have deviated from the best clocks at the Observatory by just one second.’
The room erupted. Some of the crowd clapped and cheered while many of the celestial navigation supporters shouted out with frenzied complaints. But the crowd quickly fell silent again as the king began to speak.
‘That is an astonishing piece of timekeeping, Mr Harrison,’ he said, ‘and I’m sure you have earned our profound admiration for your result.’ He paused as he gazed around the room with a trace of ham drama and then continued, ‘but you will have to forgive me if I ask how this great achievement of yours can solve the problems of longitude?’
‘Well, Your Majesty,’ replied Harrison solemnly, with more than a hint of a rehearsed dialogue, ‘we are all aware that the earth takes exactly twenty four hours to rotate around the sun.’
He stooped down and picked up a small globe from the Board’s table and pointed to the lines of longitude, arranged on its surface like the slices of an orange.
‘When, for example, it is noon here in London,’ he indicated with his forefinger, ‘it will not be noon at Your Majesty’s dockyard in Plymouth for a further seven minutes. And, indeed, it will not be noon in Georgetown in the American colony, for another five hours, twenty three minutes and forty five seconds. So, if one knows the exact time in London, the home port, and one knows the time on board the vessel one is travelling in, then it is a simple matter of computing the longitude, once the latitude – where one’s ship is on the curve of the globe – has been factored in. Every hour of difference equates to fifteen degrees. Thus, if you are three hours behind the time in London then you are at sea in the Atlantic Ocean some forty five degrees west of he
re.’
‘I understand,’ said the king in such a way that there were few in the room that didn’t see he was almost speaking in prepared lines, ‘and your clock will be set to the time in the home port. But how can one tell accurately what time it is on board?’
‘Why, by measuring noon from the height of the sun, Your Majesty,’ said Harrison. ‘Please allow me to demonstrate with this globe.’
The king’s party moved closer to the front of the room and now stood to watch Harrison while a visibly agitated Dunbeath was edged to one side. Harrison threw the globe high into the air and as it reached its apex the upwards movement stopped, paused for a fraction of a second, and then started to descend. Harrison caught it again.
‘You saw the globe pause as it reached the top of its flight, Your Majesty? Just as the globe stopped in the air, so the sun reaches the highest point in its arc each day, what we call its zenith, before starting its downward journey again. That is the point when it is noon. And it is easy to measure. Indeed, I believe that even the most callow of midshipmen would be trusted to reckon this point with a sextant within a few months of joining Your Majesty’s navy. Or, indeed, any navigator on one of our great trading ships. In fact, I foresee that ships will carry two chronometers in time. One would be at the time in the home port and the other would be altered with the progress of the ship. In this way a vessel would be more independent of the weather and a regular sighting of the sun would become less necessary. In any event, the calculations for longitude are then easily completed and an exact position for the ship can be arrived at within just a few minutes. Not hours, but minutes.’
There was a murmur of approval as John Harrison said this, followed by an expectant hush. It was clear that the king was about to speak and the room fell silent. He appeared to be thinking through what he’d just heard and then turned slightly to address the Committee’s table.
‘Gentlemen of the Board. As you know, this great nation of ours is famous throughout the world for its many geniuses. Nonetheless, it must be rare to have two together in one room as we do here today. We should celebrate it. But I do not envy you in your decision making. Both of the methods perfected by these gentlemen are wonderful breakthroughs in our understanding of navigation, are they not? And both set our country years ahead of other nations. Since that is so, would it not seem wrong to reward the endeavours and brilliance of one of these great men and condemn the other to public failure?’
There was a murmur of approval in the room. The king held up a hand in a faintly apologetic manner.
‘Of course, I would not wish to interfere, gentlemen, but if I could be permitted an opinion on how this may be resolved, might not you members of the Board consider that the Prize could be …shared?’
Dunbeath could take no more. He had been struggling to contain his rage during Harrison’s performance but, king or no king, this suggestion made him lose all control.
‘Shared!’ he shouted as all eyes in the room turned on him. ‘Shared? The perfection of the heavens shared with this coxcomb craft …this, this box of tricks. A mere mass of metal?’
‘Lord Dunbeath, I beg you,’ the king murmured serenely, ‘do not distress yourself in this way. I have told you already of my admiration for your achievements. But just as there is greatness in both solutions, so there are deficiencies. You, yourself, will acknowledge that no planetary readings are possible when there is heavy cloud. That could last for many days, particularly in some intemperate regions.’
All pretence at an amateur’s ignorance had been dropped. The king continued smoothly on.
‘Nor is it possible to take daylight readings for six days in every month when the moon is so close to the sun that it disappears. I also understand you to have said that it can take over two hours to compute one’s position with the lunar distance method – even with your great advances. In two hours a ship could be on the rocks.
‘Set against this, the marine clock, Mr Harrison’s so called chronometer, is quicker to use and, as he says, can be largely independent of the weather. But it is fragile and vulnerable and must be subject to doubt. So, surely the two systems should be taken on voyages together? To support one another? I merely suggest to the experts here in this room that there are strengths and weaknesses in both methods. And so I posed my question, Lord Dunbeath, simply for the Board’s consideration – and I ask it again – might we not try to avoid confrontation and schism on this point? Would it not be possible to co-operate?’
But of all the words the king could utter, such an echo of the co-operation games that had so maddened Dunbeath in Scotland now made him throw self-restraint to the winds.
The Urquhain Rage descended.
‘Co-operate? Co-operate!’ he shouted, advancing on the king. And then, with a roar, he lifted his arm.
In an instant, Zweig had him by the wrist – but not before the prince’s hussars had moved with almost incredible speed to draw their sabres. The small crowd around the men gave a collective gasp and quickly parted. Everyone froze. But, the king seemed to be the only man in the room to remain completely unperturbed and he now lifted his hand to stop any violence.
‘Please, gentlemen,’ he said placidly, ‘there is no need for arms. Calm yourself, Lord Dunbeath. I shall withdraw and leave the Board to its deliberations.’
He turned to the hussars.
‘Sheath your swords, gentlemen, I beg you.’
The king moved to go. Then, almost as if a thought had just occurred to him, he turned back and spoke in a low murmur into Dunbeath’s ear.
‘My lord, I hear unhappy reports from Scotland,’ he whispered. ‘Of an uprising against me. I wonder that you are here at all. Should you not be raising a militia to fight this invader when he lands? Hmm? This …Bonnie Prince Charlie?’
He made as if to finally leave but then seemed to have a further thought. Once more, he turned back and again he muttered softly to Dunbeath.
‘Or, perhaps you agree with his plan?’
With this the king and his retinue moved towards the door and everyone in the long room bowed, except Dunbeath.
* * *
Outside the porticoed entrance to the Admiralty the king’s carriage stood waiting, a footman poised to open the door and drop the step.
The king emerged into the courtyard and calmly made his way to the coach. The door was smartly swung wide for him and he had his hand on the carriage’s side when he suddenly hesitated and turned to the old prince, still wheezing along beside him.
‘Did you see that man, prince?’ he murmured serenely in German. ‘He raised his arm to me. He made to strike the King of England. Remarkable, wouldn’t you say? I wonder that nothing can be done to stop such a madman from threatening the crown again. Can you imagine what would have happened to his like in the old country, eh?’
With that he climbed into the carriage and the prince creaked his whale body downwards to a semblance of a bow.
The coach pulled away and the prince walked back to where Dumm and Kopf were lounging by the front door, reddened with the pleasure of action like a pair of fighting cocks. The prince was quite sure of what the king had said: he knew a hinted order when he heard one, and he now spoke loudly to his little army in the obscure slang they always used, its strange army vocabulary mixed in with their extraordinary local Hanoverian dialect. As ever, they were confident in their secret language.
‘You both saw the intended assault on His Majesty,’ the prince barked, crazed with self-importance. ‘We cannot let this pass. This Dunbeath and his like must be taught a lesson they will never forget.’
Zweig had followed the royal party down the stairs with the intention of seeing what the aftermath of Dunbeath’s madness was likely to bring. He had buried himself as best he could in the knot of people by the door but the prince had made no effort to drop his voice, so confident was he that nobody would be able to understand what he was saying.
Zweig broke away and hurried back to the Board’s meeting roo
m. He saw Lord Dunbeath talking to the Astronomer Royal.
‘My lord,’ he said urgently, ‘you must come with me immediately. There is not a moment to lose.’
Dunbeath began to protest but Zweig took him firmly by the arm and repeated the one word warning –‘immediately!’ Dunbeath nodded a farewell to Bradley and together the two men hurried through the far door and ran down a back staircase. On the ground floor they came to a long corridor and Zweig moved quickly down it, looking into the rooms to either side. Eventually he found one he evidently liked. They ducked into a small, unlocked office whose windows gave out onto the courtyard and Zweig held open the door and virtually pulled Dunbeath inside.
‘Wait here, my lord,’ he said urgently, ‘your life is in great danger. Do not stir until I come for you.’
He walked quickly over to the sash window and opened it. With a quick movement he removed his hat and pulled a long ostrich feather from the brim and placed it on the window sill. Then he closed the window again.
Zweig left the room and locked the door from the outside. He put the key in his pocket and walked coolly back to the front entrance and left through it, wandering casually away from the waiting guards. He found Makepeace with the carriage amongst a group of other drivers and took him to one side and told him briefly about the dangers to his master.
‘Drive your team along the wall there and stop at the window that I have marked with an ostrich feather. Wait for us there. I shall go back for his lordship and we shall join you presently. And, Makepeace, have that cudgel of yours to hand. I might have use of it.’
Zweig then strolled slowly back through the gaggle at the front door and found the corridor again. He carefully checked that he hadn’t been seen or followed and then quickly unlocked the door, locking it again once he was inside. As he did so the carriage drew up outside and Zweig moved like lightening to open the window.
‘Out of here, my lord. Makepeace has the carriage waiting!’
The Prisoner's Dilemma Page 27
