The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables

“Oh yes, I see, Robin; so does a bat, but he doesn’t see well. However, go on.”

“Well, if I were to run my wire through the posts that support it, my electricity would escape down these posts into the earth, especially if the posts were wet with rain, for water is a good conductor, and Mister Electricity has an irresistible desire to bolt into the earth, like a mole.”

“Naughty fellow!” murmured Madge.

“But,” continued Robin impressively, “if I fix little lumps of glass with a hole in them to the posts, and fix my wires to these, Electricity cannot bolt, because the glass lumps are non-conductors, and won’t let him pass.”

“How good of them!” said Madge.

“Yes, isn’t it? So, you see,” continued Robin, “the glass lumps are insulators, for they cut the electricity off from the earth as an island is, or, at all events, appears to be, cut off from it by water; and Mister Electricity must go along the wires and do what I tell him. Of course, you know, I must make my electricity first in a battery, which, as I have often and often told you, is a trough containing a mixture of acid and water, with plates or slices of zinc and copper in it, placed one after the other, but not touching each other. Now, if I fix a piece of wire to my first copper slice or plate, and the other end of it to my last zinc slice or plate, immediately electricity will begin to be made, and will fly from the copper to the zinc, and so round and round until the plates are worn out or the wire broken. D’ee see?”

“No, Robin, I don’t see; I’m blinder than the blindest mole.”

“Oh, Madge, what a wonderful mind you must have!” said Robin, laughing. “It is so simple.”

“Of course,” said Madge, “I understand what you mean by troughs and plates and all that, but what I want to know is why that arrangement is necessary. Why would it not do just as well to tempt electricity out of its hiding-hole with plates or slices of cheese and bread, placed one after the other in a trough filled with a mixture of glue and melted butter?”

“What stuff you do talk, Madge! As well might you ask why it would not do to make a plum-pudding out of nutmegs and coal-tar. There are some things that no fellow can understand, and of course I don’t know everything!”

The astounding modesty of this latter remark seemed to have furnished Madge with food for reflection, for she did not reply to it. After a few minutes’ walk the amateur electricians reached the scene of their intended game—a sequestered dell in a plantation, through which brawled a rather turbulent stream. At one part, where a willow overhung the water, there was a deep broad pool. The stream entered the pool with a headlong plunge, and issued from it with a riotous upheaval of wavelets and foam among jagged rocks, as if rejoicing in, and rather boastful about, the previous leap.

The game was extremely simple. The pool was to be the German Ocean, and a piece of stout cord was to serve as a submarine cable.

The boy and girl were well-matched playmates, for Madge was ignorant and receptive—in reference to science,—Robin learned and communicative, while both were intensely earnest.

“Now, this is the battery,” said Robin, when he had dug a deep hole close to the pool with a spade brought for the purpose.

“Yes, and the muddy water in it will do for the mixture of acid and water,” said Madge.

As she spoke, Robin’s toe caught on a root, and he went headlong into the battery, out of which he emerged scarcely recognisable. It was a severe, though not an electric, shock, and at first Robin seemed inclined to whimper, but his manhood triumphed, and he burst into a compound laugh and yell, to the intense relief of Madge, who thought at first that he had been seriously injured.

“Never mind, Madge,” said Robin, as he cleansed his muddy head; “cousin Sam has often told me that nothing great was ever done except in the face of difficulties and dangers. I wonder whether this should be counted a difficulty or a danger?”

“At first I thought it a danger,” said Madge, with a laugh, “but the trouble you now have with the mud in your hair looks like a difficulty, doesn’t it?”

“Why, then, it’s both,” cried Robin. “Come, that’s a good beginning. Now, Madge, you get away round to the opposite side of the pool, and mind you don’t slip in, it’s rather steep there.”

“This is England,” cried Robin, preparing to throw the line over to his assistant, who stood eager to aid on the other side, “and you are standing on—on—what’s on the other side of the German Ocean?”

“I’m not sure, Robin. Holland, I think, or Denmark.”

“Well, we’ll say Denmark. Look-out now, and be ready to catch. I’m going to connect England and Denmark with a submarine cable.”

“Stay!” cried Madge, “is that the way submarine cables are laid, by throwing them over the sea?”

“N–no, not exactly. They had a steamboat, you know, to carry over the telegraph from England to France; but we haven’t got a steamer—not even a plank to make-believe one. Cousin Sam says that a good workman can do his work with almost any tools that come to hand. As we have no tools at all, we will improve on that and go to work without them. Now, catch!”

Robin made a splendid heave—so splendid indeed that it caused him to stagger backward, and again he stumbled into his own battery! This time, however, only one leg was immersed.

“Another danger!” shouted Madge in great glee, “but I’ve caught the cable.”

“All right. Now make fast the shore-end to a bush, and we’ll commence telegraphing. The first must be a message from the Queen to the King of Denmark—Or is it the President?”

“King, I think, Robin, but I’m not sure.”

“Well, it won’t matter. But—I say—”

“What’s wrong now?”

“Why, the cable won’t sink. It is floating about on the top of the pool, and it can’t be a submarine cable, you know, unless it sinks.”

“Another difficulty, Robin.”

“We will face and overcome it, Madge. Cast off the shore-end and I’ll soon settle that.”

Having fastened a number of small stones to the cable, this persevering electrician would certainly have overcome the difficulty if the line had not, when thrown, unfortunately caught on a branch of the willow, where it hung suspended just out of Madge’s reach.

“How provoking!” she said, stretching out her hand to the utmost.

“Take care—you’ll—ha!”

The warning came too late. The edge of the bank gave way, and Madge went headlong into the pool with a wild shriek and a fearful plunge.

Robin stood rooted to the spot—heart, breath, blood, brain, paralysed for the moment—gazing at the spot where his playmate had disappeared.

Another moment and her head and hands appeared. She struggled bravely for life, while the circling current carried her quickly to the lower end of the pool.

Robin’s energies returned, as he afterwards said, like an electric shock, but accompanied with a terrible sinking of the heart, for he knew that he could not swim! His education in this important particular had been neglected. He sprang round to the lower end of the pool just in time to hold out his hand to the drowning girl. He almost touched her outstretched hand as she swept towards the turbulent waters below, but failed to grasp it.

For the first time in his life our little hero was called on to face death voluntarily. Another moment and Madge would have been caught in the boiling stream that rushed towards the fall below. He was equal to the occasion. He sprang right upon Madge and caught her in his arms. There was no need to hold on to her. In the agony of fear the poor child clasped the boy in a deadly embrace. They were whirled violently round and hurled against a rock. Robin caught it with one hand, but it was instantly torn from his grasp. The waters overwhelmed them, and again sent them violently towards the bank. This time Robin caught a rock with both hands and held on. Slowly, while almost choked with the water that splashed up into his face, he worked his right knee into a crevice, then made a wild grasp with the left hand at a higher projection of the rock. At the same moment his left foot struck the bottom. Another effort and he was out of danger, but it was several minutes ere he succeeded in dragging Madge from the hissing water of the shallows to the green sward above, and after this was accomplished he found it almost impossible to tear himself from the grasp of the now unconscious girl.

At first poor Robin thought that his companion was dead, but by degrees consciousness returned, and at last she was able to rise and walk.

Drenched, dishevelled, and depressed, these unfortunate electricians returned home.

Of course they were received with mingled joy and reproof. Of course, also, they were forbidden to go near the pool again—though this prohibition was afterwards removed, and our hero ultimately became a first-rate swimmer and diver.

Thus was frustrated the laying of the first submarine cable between England and Denmark!

Chapter Five.

Prospects of Real Cable-Laying—Robin meets with his First Electrical Acquaintances

Circumstances require that we should shift the scene and the date pretty frequently in this tale. We solicit the reader’s attendance at an office in London.

The office is dingy. Many offices are so. Two clerks are sitting in it making faces at each other across their desk. They are not lunatics. They are not imbeciles or idlers. On the contrary, they have frequent spells of work that might throw the toils of an Arab ass into the shade. They are fine strapping young fellows, with pent-up energies equal to anything, but afflicted with occasional periods of having nothing particular to do. These two have been sitting all morning in busy idleness. Their muscular and nervous systems rebelling, have induced much fidgeting and many wry faces. Being original, they have turned their sorrows into a game, and their little game at present is to see which can make a face so hideous that the other shall be compelled to laugh! We have deep sympathy with clerks. We have been a clerk, and know what it is to have the fires of Vesuvius raging within, while under the necessity of exhibiting the cool aspect of Spitzbergen without.

But these clerks were not utterly miserable. On the contrary, they were, to use one of their own familiar phrases, rather jolly than otherwise. Evening was before them in far-off but attainable perspective. Home, lawn-tennis, in connection with bright eyes and pretty faces, would compensate for the labours of the day and let off the steam. They were deep in their game when a rap at the door brought their faces suddenly to a state of nature.