The Givreuse Enigma

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  Dawn was on the point of breaking. A few ragged streaks of light extended over the sea and into the immense darkness of the sky. There were silky threads, wan reflections, and a vague and fugitive phosphorescence. Then clouds became discernible, some the color of iron filings, others the gray of mud. In the pale orient, shafts of daylight extended over the wild plains of the ocean; woolly clouds wadded the firmament.

  A small boat had just emerged from the cliffs. It was almost the same color as the waves, and the two men aboard were like fragments of the hull, their clothes being the same shade—except for the parts of their upper bodies emerging from two concavities hollowed out in the upper surface of the craft.

  They steered around a two-pronged rock feared by navigators and headed south-west at top speed. That speed was surprising for such a small boat, and must have attained nearly 30 knots. One of the two men aboard was old, with a red beard flecked with white, a face like tanned leather and two marcasite-colored eyes beneath coarse bushy eyebrows—a mariner’s eyes, swift and sure. The other was Philippe.

  The sea was rumbling feebly; the waves were long and very slow, but high-peaked.

  “She holds steady!” said the old man.

  Philippe nodded his head. The old man was steering. In front of Philippe there were levers and switches. There was no other communication between the inside and the outside of the skiff; above as below, the entire hull was tightly sealed. The boat was named the Insubmersible, and it was.

  The seaman’s eyes could just make out a few ships far out to sea. One of them was more visible than the rest, and much closer; it was toward that one that the boat was heading. It was traveling north-west at top speed—a speed considerably inferior to that of the Insubmersible. Within ten minutes, the distance had diminished noticeably.

  Through his telescope, Philippe made out the name of the ship: Old Queen Elizabeth. It was presumably a cargo vessel, already old, between 500 and 2000 tons, with two funnels.

  “Look out!” muttered the old mariner. His finger indicated something at the surface of the waves, which Philippe could not see immediately. “A periscope!” the other specified.

  Philippe could just make it out, minuscule upon the immensity. “You’re right.”

  “No mistake, Monsieur…that boat out there has been spotted…the filthy beast is out hunting.”

  “Underwater?”

  “She must have her reasons…you can’t tell me that she hasn’t seen her!”

  “To the Queen Elizabeth, comrade…circuitously.”

  The old man gave a connoisseur’s wink; the boat began to describe zigzags and parabolas. In the distance, a sort of apocalyptic beast was emerging.

  “It’s coming up, Monsieur, take Pierre Salaun’s word for it. “There’ll be a chase.”

  “We must follow that one now!”

  It was a submarine of great breadth, a powerfully-armed cruiser much faster than the freighter. There was more than six kilometers between the two ships; the Insubmersible formed a near-equilateral triangle with them, being about five kilometers from each of them.

  For some while, the three vessels sailed on silently. Finally, there was a puff of smoke, soon followed by a detonation.

  The Old Queen Elizabeth maintained its course.

  “Too short!” sneered the old man.

  The submarine was five kilometers away from the freighter, the Insubmersible three kilometers from the submarine, for which it was headed at top speed.

  The submarine continued firing. Gradually, its projectiles homed in on the fugitive.

  “Touché,” muttered Philippe, angrily. He could see the hole made by the shell.

  “They’ve seen us now, Monsieur!” groaned Pierre Salaun.

  Until then, the submarine’s crew had not appeared to notice the presence of the Insubmersible. The pinnace was merely an insect lost at sea. When he finally saw the insect maneuvering, the cruiser’s captain seemed astonished.

  “I told you so!” Salaun remarked.

  A shell had just fallen into the waves three or four cables away, and others swiftly followed. The extreme speed of the Insubmersible, its swerves and its small size made it a difficult target.

  For the Old Queen Elizabeth the situation was becoming serious. There were large gaping cracks in its hull. One of which was on the water-line. The water was pouring in; the ship was starting to list; they crew were hastening to the lifeboats. An enormous jet of steam and a prolonged detonation testified that the engine-room had been hit.

  “Poor fellows!” murmured Salaun, rapidly making the sign of the cross. “They’re on fire!”

  The pinnace was now only a few hundred meters from the submarine. Projectiles were raining down furiously on all sides, but the little boat, as rapid as a seagull and as disconcerting as a swallow, seemed to be playing hide-and-seek with the shells.

  “Ah! Damn!” muttered the mariner. A projectile had just sunk less than ten fathoms away. “Not that one!” Salaun shouted, wildly.

  “Slow down, then stop…aim straight at them!” Philippe commanded, placidly.

  The old man obeyed. In the distance, the Old Queen Elizabeth was sinking, puny boats fleeing over the gray plain. The men on the submarine were laughing.

  “Stop!” said Philippe, his eyes fixed on the enemy. He pressed three electric switches in succession. There was a muted pressure, a wake, then a wave crashing against the flank of the submarine, and a clamor of curses. “Got them!” the young man added. “Out to sea!”

  The Insubmersible drew away at top speed. The submarine seemed unscathed; it continued bombarding the boat.

  “It hit her, all the same,” the old man remarked.

  A quarter of an hour went by. The Insubmersible was out of range. The Old Queen Elizabeth had sunk. The submarine was still on the surface.

  “Gently!” said Philippe. He had taken up his telescope again, and was examining the enemy. “Something’s definitely going on!”

  “Hey!” exclaimed Salaun. “Look over there…further out. Something’s coming…” Salaun lifted his own telescope. “Heads up! It’s a destroyer—but that swine of a submarine will dive…”

  The destroyer was coming forward at high speed.

  “The submarine isn’t diving!” said Philippe.

  “It’s because it can’t, then—our pill must have put something out of order. Look out! Hurrah!” A distant cannon-shot had just rung out. “Too short!” Salaun observed.

  The cannonade increased; the submarine was properly bracketed. It attempted to reply. “Off target, you old hound!” Salaun exclaimed, jubilantly. “She’s within two kilometers—and you’re still not diving, I see…”

  A jet of fire and smoke rose up from the submarine. Pitiless fire riddled it. The monster listed and began to sink. Two large shells struck home; it sank into a maelstrom. Soon a large oily sheet extended over the waves.

  “The beast’s punctured!” exclaimed Salaun, making the sign of the cross. “And you know, Monsieur Frémeuse, we’re the ones who started the job. Without our little torpedo, the big fellow wouldn’t have had the time…the shark would have gone down into the sea. David’s beaten Goliath.”

  A strangely abstract joy filled the young man’s heart, while there was a wild explosion in the old man. The Insubmersible was getting close to the place where the pirate had vanished. The greasy and silky sheen was beginning to disappear. A few corpses were floating in the water.

  “Assassins!” howled Salaun. “God knows how many brave men they’ve done away with!”

  But there was one that was moving…

  A man was struggling feebly on the surface of the gray immensity. He appeared to be still young, his face beardless and his cheeks thin.

  “Where can we put him?” asked the old man.

  “We’ll see.”

  The man disappeared, only to surface again further away. Philippe threw him a line; the shipwreck victim grabbed it. He murmured something, then his arms opened and his head dipped b
eneath the waves. He did not reappear.

  Scattered clouds came together to form a colossal mass. Blue fissures became visible again, then disappeared with phantasmagoric rapidity; a deceptive wind whirled around and the cloud-mass became a nimbus the color of smoke and slate, bordered with quivering gleams. Brisk, rough waves made the pinnace shudder.

  “Dirty weather’s on its way,” muttered Salaun. “We have to get back to the coast double quick.”

  The coast was eight knots away when the full force of the storm burst. The frail Insubmersible was tossed about dangerously, its propeller periodically spinning in mid-air. The pale and attentive Salaun, hunched over and scowling, tried to avoid dangerous passes.

  Suddenly, everything stopped—the engine was no longer functioning.

  “We’re in the Devil’s hands!” said the mariner. “That would normally be all right by me…but not today. There’s still those swinish reefs…”

  For nearly an hour the boat drifted at the whim of the storm, the two men doing their best to fight it. Livid glimmers streaked the sky; the depths of the firmament were so dark that it gave the impression of being the end of twilight. A large reef formed by three rocks rose up to their left…

  The rain was falling in torrents; a leaden veil covered the Atlantic. In spite of his long experience, Salaun no longer knew where they were. They peered into the distance; the little boat was like an item of flotsam, borne by the whims of the weather. Suddenly, a sinister profile loomed up out of the mist…

  “The reef!” moaned Salaun.

  The Insubmersible yielded a dull cracking sound; they were among the rocks…

  There was an indentation between two solid blocks, forming a sort of long, narrow gully.

  “We might be able to make fast,” declared the old man. “If we’re not holed…there might be a way to get out of this…later…”

  They succeeded in securing the boat effectively to a granite projection and they disembarked.

  Half an hour went by; the Insubmersible did not sink; it was shaken by the occasional breaker, but the storm was already easing. A pale gap in the clouds appeared overhead.

  “Luck, Monsieur,” Salaun remarked. “The boat seems to me to be sound…if we can just get the engine going.”

  “That’ll be difficult—perhaps impossible. The boat’s own design is opposed to it—it requires a special tool to get inside!”

  They had taken refuge in the cleft. In the center, it formed a sort of cave with a split ceiling. The near-horizontal floor was slippery, polished by the waves. At high tide, it was submerged.

  “We’ll be all right for a few hours…and at high tide, it might be possible to climb…there’s a sort of niche that will hold two…”

  “The weather’s easing.”

  “We’d need luck to get up there. Bah! We might be found before…”

  Philippe was no longer anxious. He was content. The tiny Insubmersible had just rendered a service that far surpassed its commercial value, although chance had done three-quarters of the work—to be sure, Philippe had known that one or more submarines had shown themselves within sight of the shore, but that was no guide, inasmuch as one day’s indications signified nothing for the next. His experiment had been a success; if the pinnace was not perfected, it had nevertheless demonstrated its potential…

  While Philippe was thinking, the good weather returned, with a suddenness that seems even more frequent at sea than on land.

  Salaun had gone back to the boat. He tinkered with it for some time; then his blurred silhouette stood up straight. “It’s all right, Monsieur Philippe—the engine’s working!”

  It was 10 a.m. when Philippe arrived at Thérèse’s house. She appeared in a long woolen garment, still damp from her bath. Her hair was not yet dry; she looked at Philippe in bewilderment.

  “Excuse me—you told me to come, no matter what the hour.”

  “What! It’s finished already?”

  “We went out before dawn. It was over some time ago.” He had changed his clothes. Nothing betrayed the expedition that he had just completed.

  “You’ve tested the boat?”

  “In the most favorable conditions…”

  “The sea was calm?”

  “That’s not what I meant…”

  A voice was heard in the next room. “Madame! Madame! You don’t know…they’ve sunk…”

  Thérèse opened the door curiously. “Sunk what?”

  “A submarine, Madame—within sight of Granville.”

  Thérèse turned to Philippe. “Did you know that?”

  “Yes. The submarine had just sunk an English steamer, the Old Queen Elizabeth…a destroyer sank it in its turn.”

  “You saw it?”

  “As clearly as I see you.”

  “It happened while you were at sea?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh! Tell me what happened!” She turned towards him, her expression mingling the naivety of a little girl with the ardor of a woman.

  He told her what had happened. He did it soberly, without emphasizing the role of the Insubmersible. Avidly, she plied him with questions; she had a violent desire for Philippe’s role to have been decisive, and reconstructed the tale of the frail boat attacking the huge pirate in her own fashion. “It’s you who wounded it!” she affirmed. “It was you!”

  “We’ll never know.”

  “But it’s certain. Why else wouldn’t it have dived?”

  A pink tint invaded her pale cheeks. Philippe saw the fiery glimmer in her eyes that had once preceded their embraces. The past was reincarnate in the present and Philippe, losing his head, put out his arms to seize the young woman. Two little hands met his own simultaneously, and held them, while a firm voice whispered: “No! You’re dear to me, Philippe…but I don’t love you yet!”

  IV.

  Doctor Savarre had just come back from his clinic when he was handed a visitor’s card, accompanied by a letter. The name printed on the card, unknown to Savarre, nevertheless took on a particular significance by virtue of the address that followed it: Château de Grantaigle.

  “This isn’t a servant’s card…but the laboratory assistant is dead.” He looked at the letter, but did not open it immediately. He liked to exercise his powers of divination. “What if he isn’t dead?”

  Finally, he unsealed the envelope and read:

  Monsieur,

  Monsieur Charles Gourlande is the assistant—or, rather, collaborator—about whom I spoke to you during your visit. At that time he had disappeared and had been erroneously crossed off the list of the living. He will be able to inform you much better than I was able to do myself; moreover, he knows exactly what the discoveries were that my father wished to keep secret—if not forever, at least for our generation and the following one—because he judged them to be harmful.

  You may have confidence in Monsieur Charles Gourlande; no more honest man exists.

  Please accept, Monsieur, my sincerest good wishes.

  Abel de Grantaigle.

  Savarre read the letter again. “Harmful discoveries? Shall I really learn something?” He shrugged his shoulders—a gesture expressive of uncertainty—and instructed that Charles Gourlande should be shown in. He was almost a giant. Above massive and rigid shoulders he displayed a diamond-shaped face liberally but patchily strewn with hair. His lips were set in heavy jaws. His vast and deep-set eyes gave evidence of nyctalopia.

  “Thank you for coming,” said Savarre, extending his hand.

  The other advanced an arm that was still very stiff as a result of recent wounds. There was a short pause, during which Savarre and Charles Gourlande looked at one another anxiously.

  “I don’t know what you want to know, Monsieur,” the latter eventually said, “but, as you’ve probably learned from Monsieur Abel de Grantaigle’s letter, my confidences will be limited by promises—formal and unconditional—that I made to my master. His death has not released me from that obligation.”

  “Is he real
ly dead?”

  “There’s no possible doubt—his mortal remains were found buried in the ruins.”

  “You know all his secrets, I believe—I mean the secrets of his laboratory.”

  “Not all. There are a few essential formulas and a few crucial experiments that he kept hidden even from me. My master was certainly the most powerful scientific genius, by a wide margin, that has ever appeared on Earth. Faraday, Ampère, Carnot, Maxwell and Curie, great as they are, could not be compared to him…”

  Savarre experienced a flash of ill-humor. He discerned that it was a mixture of indignation, jealousy and disdain—but he had exercised objectivity for far too long for that stance to be so easily compromised. Besides, he thought, with an irony addressed to himself, he’s dead, so… He smiled, and the smile signified that skepticism had replaced the jealousy.

  “You don’t believe me,” said Gourlande, smiling in his turn. “That’s entirely natural. In any case, it’s of no importance. Let’s get back to the matter in hand. What do you want to know?”

  “I’d like to know the nature of Monsieur de Grantaigle’s discoveries,” the neurologist replied, with some slight hesitation, “and their actual results…I mean, their realizations. It’s not curiosity that leads me to ask.”

  Gourlande bowed his head thoughtfully, then said: “Do you, perhaps, recall the object of his first endeavors?”

  “Not exactly. They were concerned with polarization, I think.”

  “My master refined a part of the theory of rotatory polarization and, on the other hand, created a sort of mechanical polarization, but only for circular or pseudo-circular systems. In his final paper, which remains underappreciated to the present day, he advanced a theory regarding the transformation of transversal waves into longitudinal waves, and vice versa. From that moment on, he stopped communicating with scientific societies, and also with individual scientists. He was beginning to get too far ahead of his contemporaries. His discoveries multiplied, becoming more and more profound and diverse. I can tell you about his research on the polarization of electricity—not with respect to negative and positive polarity, but to the polarization of individual electrons, or, if you prefer, atoms of electricity. That discovery led him to the phenomena of pre-electricity. The most astonishing result of his research was the bipartition of atoms.”