Shooting Stars (15 page)

But the venture is made. Factories are at work day and night, all the cogwheels drive that one man’s demonic will forward. Whole mines of iron and copper are needed for this one cable, whole forests of rubber trees must be tapped to make the gutta-percha insulation to cover such a great distance. And nothing more vividly illustrates the enormous proportions of the enterprise than the fact that 367,000 miles of a single wire are spun into this one cable, thirteen times as much as would go around the entire earth, and enough to connect the earth with the moon in a single line. Not since the building of the Tower of Babel has mankind ventured anything more technically magnificent.

The machinery whirrs for a year, wire reels out from the factories into both ships all the time like a thin, flowing thread, and at last, after thousands and thousands of revolutions, half
the cable is rolled up in a spool on each of the ships. The new, cumbersome engines have also been built and installed; provided with brakes and a reverse gear, they are to lower the cable to the depths of the ocean in an uninterrupted process taking one, two or three weeks. The best electricians and technical experts, including Morse himself, have assembled on board in order to keep an eye on their apparatus and check it while the cable is being laid to make sure that there is no break in the electric current. Reporters and artists have joined the fleet as well to describe this voyage, the most exciting since the days of Columbus and Magellan in words and pictures.

At last everything is ready for the ships to leave, and although hitherto sceptics have been in the majority, the public interest of Great Britain as a whole now turns to passionate enthusiasm for the venture. On 5th August 1857, hundreds of small boats and ships are circling around the fleet carrying the cable in the little Irish harbour of Valentia to take part in the historic moment when one end of the cable is carried to the coast by boats and made fast on the mainland of Europe. The departure of the ships becomes a solemn occasion. The government has sent representatives, and in a moving address a priest prays for God’s blessing on the bold venture. “O Eternal God,” he begins, “Thou who hast spread out the heavens and mastered the surging of the sea, Thou whom the winds and the waves obey, in Thy mercy look down on Thy servants… hold sway over every obstacle, remove all resistance that might prevent us from carrying out the performance of this great work.” And then thousands of hands wave and thousands of hats are raised from the shore
and the sea. Slowly, the land disappears. An attempt is being made to realize one of mankind’s boldest dreams.

The original plan had been for the two great ships, the
Agamemnon
and the
Niagara
, each carrying half the cable, to arrive with each other at a point in the middle of the ocean, calculated in advance, and only there would the two halves be riveted together. Then one ship was to steer west for Newfoundland, the other east to Ireland. But it seemed too audacious to venture so much expensive cable at the first attempt, so it was decided, instead, to lay the first part of the line from the mainland while no one yet knew for certain whether telegraphic transmission beneath the sea worked properly at all over such distances.

Of the two vessels, the task of laying the cable from the mainland to the middle of the sea is given to the
Niagara
. Slowly and cautiously, the American frigate steers a course to that point, all the time leaving the thread of the cable behind like a spider spinning silk from its huge body. Slowly and regularly, the engine laying the cable rattles on board the ship—it is the sound well known to all seamen of an anchor cable being paid out as it unreels from the winch. After a few hours the men on board pay no more attention to the regular grinding sound than they do to their own heartbeats.

Further and further out to sea, always lowering the cable into the water behind the keel. This adventure seems far from
adventurous. Only the electricians sit in a special room
listening
, constantly exchanging signals with the Irish mainland. And, wonderful to relate, although the coast has long ago been out of sight, transmission along the underwater cable is as clear as if one European city were communicating with another. They have already left the shallow waters behind, they are part of the way over what is known as the deep-sea plateau that rises beyond Ireland, and still the metal thread is running regularly down behind the keel like sand in an hourglass, sending and receiving messages at the same time.

Three hundred and thirty-five miles of cable have already been laid, more than ten times the distance from Dover to Calais; five days and five nights of initial uncertainty have already passed, and on the sixth evening, on 11th August, Cyrus W. Field is going to bed after many hours of work and stress to get some well-earned rest. Then, suddenly—what has happened?—the rattling sound stops. And just as someone sleeping in a moving train starts up when the locomotive unexpectedly stops, just as the miller wakes in his bed when the mill-wheel suddenly stops going round, so all on board the ship are instantly awake and running up on deck. A first glance at the engine shows that the reel running out is empty. The cable has suddenly slipped off the winch, it was impossible to catch the end that came away in time, and now it is even more impossible to find the lost end in the depths and bring it up again. A terrible thing has happened. A small technical fault has wrecked the work of years. The men who set out so boldly return, defeated, to Great Britain, where the sudden silencing of all signals has already paved the way for bad news.

Cyrus Field, the only imperturbable man involved, hero and businessman both, takes stock. What has been lost? Three hundred miles of cable, £100,000 of share capital, and—what troubles him even more—a whole irreplaceable year. For the expedition can hope for good weather only in summer, and this year the season is already too far advanced to try again. On the other side of the account that Field is drawing up, there is a small profit: a great deal of practical experience has been gained in this first attempt. The cable itself, having proved its worth, can be wound up and put away ready for the next expedition. Only the engines for laying the cable, which were to blame for the fateful break in it, must be altered.

So another year passes in waiting and preparatory work. Not until 10th June 1858 can the same ships set out again, with a cargo of new courage and the old cable. As the
electrical
transmission of signals worked perfectly on the first voyage, Field and the others have returned to the old plan of beginning to lay cables out on both sides from the middle of the ocean. The first few days of the second voyage pass without incident. Only on the seventh day is the laying of the cable, and thus the real work, to begin at the place calculated in advance. Up to this point everything is, or seems to be, a pleasure cruise. The engines are not in use, the sailors can rest and enjoy the fine weather, the sky is cloudless and the water still—perhaps too still.

On the third day, however, the captain of the
Agamemnon
feels secretly uneasy. A glance at the barometer has shown
him how alarmingly fast the quicksilver column is falling. A storm of an unusual kind must be brewing, and sure enough a storm does break on the fourth day, such a storm as even the most experienced seamen on the Atlantic Ocean have seldom seen. This hurricane strikes the British cable-laying ship, the
Agamemnon
, with fatal severity. In itself an excellent vessel that has withstood the harshest trials in all seas and even in war, the flagship of the British Navy ought to be able to withstand this terrible storm as well. But unfortunately the ship has been entirely converted for laying the cables in order to accommodate such a huge weight. This is not like a freighter, where the weight can be equally distributed on all sides of the hold; the whole weight of the gigantic spool lies in the middle, and only part of it is entirely in the foreship, with the even worse result that every time the ship goes up and down in rough seas that part of the ship swings back and forth with redoubled force. That means that the storm can play a dangerous game with its victim: the ship is raised forward and backward up to an angle of forty-five degrees, breakers flood down on the deck, any objects not lashed down there are smashed. Then there is another misfortune—in the worst of the storm, when the ship is shaken from the keel to the mast, the shed containing the cargo of coal heaped on deck gives way. The whole mass comes down like a storm of black hail over the sailors, who are already bleeding and exhausted. Some are injured by their fall, others scalded as pans tip over in the galley. One sailor goes mad in the ten-day storm, and the crew are already thinking of the desperate measure of throwing part of the fateful cable overboard. Fortunately the
captain refuses to take the responsibility for that, and he is right. The
Agamemnon
survives the ten days of storm, after unspeakable travails, and although badly delayed manages to join the other vessels at the place in the ocean where the laying of the cable was to begin.

Only now, however, is it clear how much the valuable and sensitive cargo of wires has suffered, entangled thousands of times as it was flung back and forth in heavy seas. The
separate
wires are intertwined in many places, their gutta-percha covering is rubbed or torn. Without much confidence, they make a few attempts to lay the cable all the same, but the only result is the loss of some 200 miles of cable that
disappear
uselessly into the sea. For the second time the voyage has to be abandoned, and they go home, not in triumph but crestfallen.

Pale-faced and already aware of the bad news, the shareholders in London are waiting for their leader—and the man who tempted them into the venture—Cyrus W. Field. Half of the share capital has been lost on those two voyages, and nothing has been proved, nothing achieved. It is understandable that most of them now feel enough has been done. The chairman advises salvaging what can still be salvaged. He is in favour of bringing what remains of the cable back from the ships and selling it, if necessary even at a loss, before drawing a line under that wild plan to stretch a telegraph line under
the ocean. The deputy chairman closes ranks with him and sends notice of his resignation in writing, to demonstrate that he wants no more to do with the absurd enterprise. But there is no shaking the tenacity and idealism of Cyrus W. Field. Nothing is lost, he explains. The cable itself passed the test with flying colours, and there is still enough on board to make a new attempt; the fleet is assembled, the crews hired. The very fact that there was such an unusual storm last time suggests that the ships can hope for a period of fine, calm weather now. Courage, he says, take heart again! Now or never is the opportunity to dare the ultimate venture.

The shareholders look at one another more and more uncertainly: are they to entrust the last of the capital they paid into the scheme to this fool? But as a strong will will always finally sweep the hesitant away with it, Cyrus W. Field forces the others to decide on another voyage. On 17th July 1858, five weeks after the last, disastrous voyage, the fleet leaves its British harbour for the third time.

And now the truth of the old adage that crucial matters almost always succeed in secret is confirmed. This time there are no observers of the departure; no boats large or small circle round the ships wishing them luck, no crowd gathers on the beach, no festive dinner is held, no speech is made, no priest calls on God to be with the enterprise. The ships put out to sea, surreptitiously and in silence. But a kindly sea awaits them. Precisely on the day agreed, 28th July, eleven days after the departure from Queenstown, the
Agamemnon
and the
Niagara
are able to begin their great task at the appointed place in the middle of the ocean.

It is a strange sight. The ships turn to each other, stern to stern. The ends of the cable are riveted together between them. Without any formality—and even the men on board, tired as they are of unsuccessful attempts, watch with little interest—the iron and copper cable sinks down between the two ships to the bottom of the sea, unplumbed as yet by any lead-line. There is one more greeting from deck to deck, flag to flag, and the British ship steers for Britain, the American ship for America. While they move away from each other, two wandering points in the endless ocean, the cable constantly holds them together—and for the first time in human history two ships can communicate with each other beyond wind and water, space and distance, now invisible to one another. Every few hours one of the vessels sends an electric signal from the depths of the ocean recording the number of miles it has travelled, and every time the other ship confirms that, thanks to the good weather, she too has gone the same distance. A day passes like this, and then another, a third, a fourth. At last, on 5th August, the
Niagara
is able to report its arrival in Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, and can see the American coast ahead, after laying no less than 1,030 miles of cable. The
Agamemnon
is likewise triumphant, having also embedded about 1,000 miles securely in the depths, and the British ship has the Irish coast in sight. But only those two ships, those few hundred men in their wooden accommodation, know that the deed has been done. The world is not aware of it yet, having forgotten the venture long ago. No one is waiting for them on the beach in Newfoundland or Ireland—but in that single second when the new cable under the ocean joins
the cable on land, the whole of mankind will know of their great joint victory.

It is for the very reason that this lightning flash of joy strikes out of a clear blue sky that it burns so brightly. The old and the new continents receive news of the project’s success at almost the same hour early in August. The effect is indescribable.
The Times
, usually thoughtful and measured in its pronouncements, says in a leading article: “Since the discovery of Columbus, nothing has been done in any degree comparable to the vast enlargement which has thus been given to the sphere of human activity.” The City is in a state of great excitement. But the pride and delight felt in Great Britain is restrained and muted by comparison with the hurricane of enthusiasm in America as soon as the news breaks there. Business grinds to a halt, the streets are crowded with people asking questions and deep in loud discussion. A complete unknown, Cyrus W. Field, has become the hero of an entire nation overnight. He is placed firmly beside Franklin and Columbus; the whole of New York and a hundred more cities are agog with expectation to see the man whose determination has brought about “the marriage of young America and the Old World”. But the enthusiasm has not yet reached its highest point; for the time being, there is nothing to go on but the dry announcement that the cable has been laid. However, can it speak as well? Has the achievement really succeeded? It is a great spectacle—an entire city, an
entire country is waiting and listening for a single word, the first word to cross the ocean. Everyone knows that the Queen of England will be first to send a message of congratulation, and it is expected ever more impatiently hour by hour. But days and days pass, because by unlucky chance the cable to Newfoundland has been destroyed, and it is not until 16th August that the message from Queen Victoria reaches New York in the evening.