The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

by Henry M. Field

And so the days and weeks wore on; it was near the end of August, and still the prize was not taken. The courage of the men did not fail, but they were becoming worn out. The tension on their nerves of this long suspense was terrible. On Tuesday, August 28th, Mr. Temple was brought on board from the Albany, very ill. He was worn out with constant watching. Their resources, too, must in time be exhausted. On the evening of the 29th, Captain Commerill, of the Terrible, came on board, and reported the condition of his ship. He was one of the very best officers in the fleet, full of zeal, courage, and activity (having a good right hand in his first officer, Mr. Curtis), and always kept up a brave heart, even in the darkest days.[A] But his supplies were nearly exhausted. He had been out four weeks, and his coal was almost gone, and his men were on half rations. So he must leave the fishing ground for fresh supplies. It was a painful necessity. He mourned his fate, like a brave officer who is ordered away in the midst of a battle. But he submitted only with a determination to take in ammunition, and to come back in a few days to renew the struggle. Accordingly the Terrible left the same evening for St. John's.

At the same time it was decided that the three other ships should leave their present cruising ground, and try a new spot. As an old fisherman, who has cast his line in one place so often as to scare the fish away, sometimes has better luck in other waters, so they proposed to go east a hundred miles, to a place where the ocean was not quite so deep. Deane, in his Diary, calls it "the sixteen hundred fathom patch," but they found it nineteen hundred fathoms, or about two miles! So the next morning the Great Eastern, the Medway, and the Albany "pulled up stakes," that is, took in their buoys, and bore away to the east. In a few hours they reached the appointed rendezvous, and had set their buoys. The last day of August had come, and all seemed favorable for a final attempt. It was a clear day, with no wind. The sea had gone down, so that at noon it was a dead calm, as the three ships took their position in line, about two miles apart, ready to open their broadsides at once. The grapnel went over for the thirtieth time. Kind heaven favored its search, and at ten minutes before midnight it had found the cable, and fastened its teeth never to let go. Feeling something at the end of the rope, they began to haul in, but slowly at first, as an expert angler decoys a big fish by pulling gently on the line. Watching the dynamometer, they saw with delight the strain increase with every hundred fathoms. Up it went to eight, nine, ten tons! They had caught it, and no mistake. In about five hours they had drawn it up to within a thousand fathoms of the top of the water, where it hung suspended from the ship. But now came the critical point, for as it approached the surface the danger of breaking increased every moment. It required delicate handling. To make sure this time, the Great Eastern buoyed the cable, and moved off two or three miles to take a fresh gripe in a new place; and having got a double hold, the Medway, which was two miles further to the west, was ordered to grapple for it also; and having caught it, to heave up with all force, till she should bring it on board or break it. This was done, and the old cable brought up within three hundred fathoms, and there broken. This at once lightened the strain and gave them an end to pull upon, whereupon the Great Eastern, having a lighter weight on the rope, drew up again, but still gently, watching the strain, lest the cable should break. These operations were very slow, and lasted many weary hours. It was a little before midnight on Friday night that the cable was caught, and it was after midnight Sunday morning that it was brought on board. How long that day seemed! Night turned to morning, and morning to noon, and noon to night again, and still the work was not done; still the great ship hung over the spot where its treasure was suspended in the deep. The sun went down, and the moon looked forth from driving clouds upon a scene such as the ocean never saw before. At a distance could be discerned the black hulls of the attendant ships, the Albany and the Medway. But why were they thus silent and motionless in the midst of the sea? Some mysterious errand brought them here, and as their boats approached with measured sweep, at this midnight hour, it seemed as if they came with muffled oars to an ocean burial. It was still calm, but the sea began to moan with unrest, as if troubled in its sleep. As midnight drew on, the interest gathered about the bows of the Great Eastern. The bulwarks were crowded with anxious watchers, peering into the darkness below. Still not a word was spoken. Not a voice was heard, save that of Captain Anderson, or Mr. Halpin, or Mr. Canning, giving orders. As it approached the surface, two men, who were tried hands, were lashed with ropes and lowered over the bows, to make fast to the cable when it should appear. This was a perilous service, and the boats were there to pick up the brave fellows, if they should drop into the water. As soon as it showed itself, they dived upon it, and seizing it with their hands, fastened it with large hempen stoppers, which were quickly attached to five-inch ropes.

"It was then found, that the bight was so firmly caught in the springs of the grapnel, that one of the brave hands who put on the stoppers, was sent lower down to the grapnel, and with hammer and marlinspike, the rope was ultimately freed from the tenacious gripe of the flukes. The signal being given to haul up, the western end of the bight was cut with a saw, and grandly and majestically the cable rose up the frowning bows of the Great Eastern, slowly passing round the sheave at the bow, and then over the wheels on to the fore part of the deck. The greatest possible care had to be taken by Mr. Canning and his assistants, to secure the cable by putting on stoppers, and to watch the progress of the grapnel, rope, and shackles, round the drum, before it received the cable itself."

When once it was made fast, all took a long breath. The cable was recovered. They had the sea-serpent at last. There the monster lay, its neck firmly in their gripe, and its black head lying on the deck. But even then there was no cheering, as when they caught it two weeks before. Men are sometimes stunned by a sudden success, and hardly know if it be not all a dream. So now they looked at the cable with eager eyes, but without a word, and some crept toward it to take it in their hands, to be sure that they were not deceived. Yes—it was the same that they paid out into the sea thirteen months before!

But their anxiety was not over. Now that they had regained the lost cable of 1865, was it good for any thing? It had been lying more than a year at the bottom of the deep. What if it should prove to have been broken somewhere in the eleven hundred miles between the ship and Ireland? What if some sharp rock had worn it away, or some marine insect had eaten into its heart? If there were but a pin's point, anywhere in its covering of flesh, the vital current might escape through it into the sea. Fears like these restrained their exultation. It was yet too soon to proclaim their victory. So, as the cable was passed along the deck to the testing room, where the chief electrician was to operate upon it, to see whether it was alive or dead, it was followed by an anxious group, who stood around him as he sat down at the instrument, watching his countenance as friends watch the face of a physician, when he feels the pulse of a patient to see if the heart is still beating. The scene is thus described by Mr. Robert Dudley, the artist of the expedition, whose spirited sketches in the London Illustrated News have made known to the world many incidents of this memorable voyage:

"I made my way with others, in accordance with an invitation from Willoughby Smith, to the electricians' room. Here, after another hour's preparation, during which time the cable had been carefully passed round the drums of the picking-up machinery, and a sufficient length drawn in on board, the severed end was received. And now, in their mysterious, darkened haunt, the wizards are ready to work their spells upon the tamed lightning. Not 'unholy spells' are these, or secret; for, though the wizards' den is but of limited dimensions, they have not been averse to the presence of a few visitors. Mr. Gooch is looking on; Professor Thomson, be sure, is here, a worthy 'Wizard of the North;' Cyrus Field could no more be absent than the cable itself; I think, too, Canning, hard at work as he is forward in the ship, must have dropped in just for a moment; Clifford, Laws, Captain Hamilton, Deane, Dudley—all have, in their several ways, a great interest in every movement of Willoughby Smith and his brother (and able assistant) Oliver; and, when the core of the cable is stripped and the heart itself—the conducting wire—fixed in the instrument, and these two electricians bend over the galvanometer in patient watching for some message from that far-off land of home to which the great news has just been signalled, then the accustomed stillness of the test-room is deepened; the ticking of the chronometer becomes monotonous. Nearly a quarter of an hour has passed, and still no sign! Suddenly Willoughby Smith's hat is off, and the British hurrah bursts from his lips, echoed by all on board with a volley of cheers, evidently none the worse for having been 'bottled up' during the last three hours. Along the deck outside, over the ship, throughout the ship, the pent-up enthusiasm overflowed; and even before the test-room was cleared, the roaring bravos of our guns drowned the huzzas of the crew, and the whiz of rockets was heard rushing high into the clear morning sky to greet our consort-ships with the glad intelligence."

While this scene is going on on board ship, we may turn to the other end of the line. It may be well supposed that the result of this attempt was watched with deep interest at Valentia. How they looked for the first signal from the deep, and how the tidings came, is thus told in the London Spectator:

"Night and day, for a whole year, an electrician has always been on duty, watching the tiny ray of light through which signals are given, and twice every day the whole length of wire—one thousand two hundred and forty miles—has been tested for conductivity and insulation.... The object of observing the ray of light was of course not any expectation of a message, but simply to keep an accurate record of the condition of the wire. Sometimes, indeed, wild, incoherent messages from the deep did come, but these were merely the results of magnetic storms and earth-currents, which deflected the galvanometer rapidly, and spelt the most extraordinary words, and sometimes even sentences of nonsense. Suddenly, last Sunday morning, at a quarter to six o'clock, while the light was being watched by Mr. May,[B] he observed a peculiar indication about it, which showed at once to his experienced eye that a message was at hand. In a few minutes afterward the unsteady flickering was changed to coherency, if we may use such a term, and at once the cable began to speak, to transmit, that is, at regular intervals, the appointed signals which indicated human purpose and method at the other end, instead of the hurried signs, broken speech, and inarticulate cries of the illiterate Atlantic. After the long interval in which it had brought us nothing but the moody and often delirious mutterings of the sea, stammering over its alphabet in vain, the words 'Canning to Glass' must have seemed like the first rational word uttered by a high-fevered patient, when the ravings have ceased and his consciousness returns."

The telegraphic fleet remained together but a few hours after this recovery of the lost cable. The battle was gained, and the three ships were no longer needed. The Albany, therefore, parted company to pick up the buoys, and at once sailed for England, while the Great Eastern, attended by the faithful Medway, turned to the west. It was about nine o'clock that the ship began to pay out the cable. Up to that time it had continued calm, but the morning was raw and chill, and the sea began to rise as if in anger at those who had torn from it its prey. Captain Anderson looked anxiously at the signs of the coming storm. It seemed as if Heaven had kept back the winds during the critical day and night when they were lifting the cable! But now the tempest was upon them, and for thirty-six hours it swept the ocean. All trembled lest they should not be able to hold on. But little incidents sometimes turn the current of one's thoughts, and give a feeling of peace even in the midst of anxiety. Says Mr. Field:

"In the very height and fury of the gale, as I sat in the electrician's room, a flash of light came up from the deep, which having crossed to Ireland, came back to me in mid-ocean, telling that those so dear to me, whom I had left on the banks of the Hudson, were well, and following us with their wishes and their prayers. This was like a whisper of God from the sea, bidding me keep heart and hope. The Great Eastern bore herself proudly through the storm, as if she knew that the vital cord which was to join two hemispheres, hung at her stern; and so on Saturday, the seventh of September, we brought our second cable safely to the shore."