Heroes of the Telegraph [57]
and so discover the cable, which was thereupon grappled, cut, and the sea end brought on board over the bow sheave. After being passed six times round the picking-up drum it was led into the hold, and the Elba slowly forged ahead, hauling in the cable from the bottom as she proceeded. At half-past nine she anchored for the night some distance from the shore, and at three next morning resumed her picking up. 'With a small delay for one or two improvements I had seen to be necessary last night,' writes Jenkin, 'the engine started, and since that time I do not think there has been half an hour's stoppage. A rope to splice, a block to change, a wheel to oil, an old rusted anchor to disengage from the cable, which brought it up-- these have been our only obstructions. Sixty, seventy, eighty, a hundred, a hundred and twenty revolutions at last my little engine tears away. The even black rope comes straight out of the blue, heaving water, passes slowly round an open-hearted, good-tempered-looking pulley, five feet in diameter, aft past a vicious nipper, to bring all up should anything go wrong, through a gentle guide on to a huge bluff drum, who wraps him round his body, and says, " Come you must," as plain as drum can speak; the chattering pauls say, "I've got him, I've got him; he can't come back," whilst black cable, much slacker and easier in mind and body, is taken by a slim V-pulley and passed down into the huge hold, where half a dozen men put him comfortably to bed after his exertion in rising from his long bath.
'I am very glad I am here, for my machines are my own children, and I look on their little failings with a parent's eye, and lead them into the path of duty with gentleness and firmness. I am naturally in good spirits, but keep very quiet, for misfortunes may arise at any instant; moreover, to-morrow my paying-out apparatus will be wanted should all go well, and that will be another nervous operation. Fifteen miles are safely in, but no one knows better than I do that nothing is done till all is done.'
JUNE 11.--'It would amuse you to see how cool (in head) and jolly everybody is. A testy word now and then shows the nerves are strained a little, but every one laughs and makes his little jokes as if it were all in fun....I enjoy it very much.'
JUNE 13, SUNDAY.--'It now (at 10.30) blows a pretty stiff gale, and the sea has also risen, and the Elba's bows rise and fall about nine feet. We make twelve pitches to the minute, and the poor cable must feel very sea-sick by this time. We are quite unable to do anything, and continue riding at anchor in one thousand fathoms, the engines going constantly, so as to keep the ship's bows close up to the cable, which by this means hangs nearly vertical, and sustains no strain but that caused by its own weight and the pitching of the vessel. We were all up at four, but the weather entirely forbade work for to-day; so some went to bed, and most lay down, making up our lee-way, as we nautically term our loss of sleep. I must say Liddell is a fine fellow, and keeps his patience and his temper wonderfully; and yet how he does fret and fume about trifles at home!'
JUNE 16.--'By some odd chance a TIMES of June 7 has found its way on board through the agency of a wretched old peasant who watches the end of the line here. A long account of breakages in the Atlantic trial trip. To-night we grapple for the heavy cable, eight tons to the mile. I long to have a tug at him; he may puzzle me; and though misfortunes, or rather difficulties, are a bore at the time, life, when working with cables, is tame without them.--2 p.m. Hurrah! he is hooked--the big fellow--almost at the first cast. He hangs under our bows, looking so huge and imposing that I could find it in my heart to be afraid of him.'
JUNE 17.--'We went to a little bay called Chia, where a fresh-water stream falls into the sea, and took in water. This is rather a long operation, so I went up the valley with Mr. Liddell. The coast here consists of rocky mountains 800 to 1000 feet high, covered with shrubs
'I am very glad I am here, for my machines are my own children, and I look on their little failings with a parent's eye, and lead them into the path of duty with gentleness and firmness. I am naturally in good spirits, but keep very quiet, for misfortunes may arise at any instant; moreover, to-morrow my paying-out apparatus will be wanted should all go well, and that will be another nervous operation. Fifteen miles are safely in, but no one knows better than I do that nothing is done till all is done.'
JUNE 11.--'It would amuse you to see how cool (in head) and jolly everybody is. A testy word now and then shows the nerves are strained a little, but every one laughs and makes his little jokes as if it were all in fun....I enjoy it very much.'
JUNE 13, SUNDAY.--'It now (at 10.30) blows a pretty stiff gale, and the sea has also risen, and the Elba's bows rise and fall about nine feet. We make twelve pitches to the minute, and the poor cable must feel very sea-sick by this time. We are quite unable to do anything, and continue riding at anchor in one thousand fathoms, the engines going constantly, so as to keep the ship's bows close up to the cable, which by this means hangs nearly vertical, and sustains no strain but that caused by its own weight and the pitching of the vessel. We were all up at four, but the weather entirely forbade work for to-day; so some went to bed, and most lay down, making up our lee-way, as we nautically term our loss of sleep. I must say Liddell is a fine fellow, and keeps his patience and his temper wonderfully; and yet how he does fret and fume about trifles at home!'
JUNE 16.--'By some odd chance a TIMES of June 7 has found its way on board through the agency of a wretched old peasant who watches the end of the line here. A long account of breakages in the Atlantic trial trip. To-night we grapple for the heavy cable, eight tons to the mile. I long to have a tug at him; he may puzzle me; and though misfortunes, or rather difficulties, are a bore at the time, life, when working with cables, is tame without them.--2 p.m. Hurrah! he is hooked--the big fellow--almost at the first cast. He hangs under our bows, looking so huge and imposing that I could find it in my heart to be afraid of him.'
JUNE 17.--'We went to a little bay called Chia, where a fresh-water stream falls into the sea, and took in water. This is rather a long operation, so I went up the valley with Mr. Liddell. The coast here consists of rocky mountains 800 to 1000 feet high, covered with shrubs