Текст книги "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!"

Автор книги: Harry Harrison

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

BOOK THE SECOND
UNDER THE SEA

I. AN UNUSUAL JOURNEY

The silence in the little cabin was almost absolute and were it not for the constructions and devices of man it would have been, for here at thirty fathoms of depth in the Atlantic there was no sound. On the ocean’s surface above the waves might crash and roar and ships’ foghorns moan as the vessels groped their way through the almost constant fogs of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, and nearer the surface pelagic life made its own moans as it was consumed, the shrimp clicked, the dolphin beeped, the fish burbled. Not so at the level where the tiny submarine sped, here was the eternal quiet of the deep. Stillness outside and almost as still within. There was only the distant hum of the electric motors that drove them through the water, the sibilant whisper of the air vents and, surprisingly the loudest, the tack-tack-tack of the jackdaw clock fixed to the bulkhead above the pilot. There had been no conversation for some minutes and in that vacuum the clock sounded the louder. The pilot saw his passenger’s glance move to it and he smiled.

“You’ll be noticing the clock then, Captain,” said he, not without a certain amount of pride.

“I do indeed,” said Washington, failing to add that it was impossible not to notice the obtruding thing. “I assume it is an original?”

“Not only an original but it is close on being the original, one of the very first ones made, that’s what it is. My grandfather it was who built the first jackdaw clock after seeing one of them things from the Black Forest when he was in a hock shop on O’Connell Street. Cuckoo clock it was, he said, and it fascinated him, what with him being a clockmaker himself and all of that. When he came home to Cashel he tried to build one but not being overfond of cuckoos himself—great ugly thing laying eggs in others nests and such incivility—he put in a jackdaw and a bit of ruined tower that being where jackdaws are found in any case and there it was. He made first one and then another and they caught on with the English tourists out to look at the Castle and the Rock and before you could say Brian O’Lynn an entire new industry was founded and to this day you’ll see a statue of him in the square there in Cashel.”

As though to add emphasis to this panegyric the clock struck the hour and the jackdaw emerged through the portal of the ruined abbey and hoarsely shouted CAWR, CAWR before retreating.

“Is it two already?” asked Washington, looking at his watch which was in rough agreement with the jackdaw who had retired to his dark cell for another hour, “Are we going as fast as we can?”

“Full revs, Captain, Nautilus is doing her best.” The pilot pushed the speed lever harder against its stop as though to prove his point. “In any case there’s the site now.”

O’Toole turned off the outside lights so they could see farther through the darkness of the sea. Above them there was a filtered greenness that Vanished as the depth increased so that below there was only unrelieved blackness. Yet when the glow of the beams had died away something could be seen down there in abyss, light where only night had ruled since the world was born. One light was visible, then another and another until a cluster of submerged stars greeted them as they dropped lower, welcoming them to a hive of industry alien to the ancient peace of the ocean floor.

First of all the eye was captured by a hulking, squat, ugly, alien, angular, boomed, buttressed and barbizaned machine that clutched the ocean floor. It had the girder and rivet look of a sturdy bridge for well over ninety-five percent of its construction was open to the ocean, at a pressure equilibrium with the sea around it. The frame was open and the reaching arms were open, while the tractor treads were jointed plates that ran on sturdy cast-iron wheels. It took a keen eye to note the swollen bulges behind the treads that contained the electric motors to power them, though the rotund shape of the nuclear reactor, swung like a melon behind the great ma-chine, was certainly easy enough to see. Other motors in pods turned the gear wheels and cables while the most important pod of all made a rounded excrescence on the front of the entire structure. This was the control room and living quarters of the crew, pressurized, comfortable and habitable, and so self-contained that the men could live here for months on end without returning to the world above the waves that was their natural habitat. Yet so large was the great supporting device that even these stately quarters were no larger in proportion than an egg would be balanced on the handle-bars of a bicycle, which, in some ways, the structures did resemble.

This hulking machine, entitled the Challenger Mark IV Dredger by its manufacturers, was nonetheless called Creepy by all who came into contact with it, undoubtedly because of its maximum speed of about one mile an hour. Creepy was neither creeping nor operating at the present time which was all for the best since otherwise vision would have been completely impossible, for while at work it threw up an obscuring cloud in the water denser than the finest inky defense of the largest squid alive. Its booms would then swing out and the rotating cutters, each as large as an omnibus, would crash into the ocean floor, while about them compressed streams of water tore at the silt and sand deposits of this bed. Under the attack of the water and the cutting blades the eternal floor of the ocean would be stirred and lifted—into the mouths of suction dredgers that sucked at this slurry, raised and carried it far to the side where it was spewed forth in a growing mound.

All of this agitation raised a cloud of fine particles in the water that completely obscured vision and was penetrable only by the additional application of scientific knowledge. Sound waves will travel through water, opaque or no, and the returned echoes of the sonar scanner built up a picture on the screen of events ahead in the newly dug trench. But Creepy’s work was done for the moment, its motors silent, its digging apparatus raised when it had backed away from the new trench.

Other machines now took their place upon the ocean floor. There was an ugly device with a funnel-like proboscus that spat gravel into the ditch, but this had finished as well and also backed away and the silt raised by its disturbance quickly settled. Now the final work had begun, the reason for all this subaqueous excavation. Floating downwards towards the newly-dug trench and the bed of gravel on which it was to rest was the ponderous and massive form of a preformed tunnel section. Tons of concrete and steel reinforcing rods had gone into the construction of this hundred foot section, while coat after coat of resistant epoxies covered it on the outside. Preformed and prestressed it awaited only a safe arrival to continue the ever-lengthening tunnel.

Thick cables rose from the embedded rings to the even larger flotation tank that rode above it, for it had no buoyancy of its own. The tubes that would be the operating part of the tunnel were open to the sea at both ends. Massive and unyielding it hung there, now drifting forward slowly under the buzzing pressure of four small submarines, sister vessels to the one that Washington was riding in. They exchanged signals, stopping and starting, then drifting sideways, until they were over the correct spot in the trench. Then water was admitted to the ballast tanks of the float so it dropped down slowly, setting the structure to rest on its prepared bed. With massive precision the self-aligning joint between the sections performed its function so that when the new’section came to rest it was joined to and continuous with the last.

The subs buzzed down and the manipulating apparatus on their bows clamped hydraulic jacks over the flanges and squeezed slowly to make the two as one. Only when the rubber seals had been collapsed as far as their stops did they halt and hold fast while the locking plates were fixed in place. On the bottom other crawling machines were already waiting to put the sealing forms around the junction so the special tremie, underwater setting concrete, could be poured around the ends to join them indivisibly.

All was in order, everything as it should be, the machines below going about their tasks as industriously as ants around a nest. Yet this very orderliness was what drew Gus’s thoughts to the object off to one side, the broken thing, the near catastrophe that for a brief while had threatened the entire project.

A tunnel section. Humped and crushed with one end buried deep in the silt of the ocean’s floor.

Had it been only twenty-four hours since the accident? One day. No more. Men now alive would never forget the moments when the supporting cable broke and the section had started its tumbling fall towards the tunnel and Creepy close below it. One submarine, one man, had been at the right spot at the right time and had done what needed to be done. One tiny machine, propeller spinning, had stayed in position, pushing with all its power so that the fall had shifted from a straight line and had moved ever so slightly to one side, enough to clear the tunnel and the machines below. But ma-chine and man had paid the price for so boldly pitting themselves against the mass of that construction, for when the tunnel section had struck and broken it had risen up like an avenging hammer and struck the mote that presumed to fight against it. One man had died, many had been saved. The name of Aloysius O’Brian would be inscribed on the slate of honor. The first death and as honorable a one as a man could want, if a man could be said to want death at all. Washington breathed heavily at the thought, because there would be other deaths, many deaths, before this tunnel’was completed. The pilot saw the direction of his passenger’s gaze and read his thoughts as easily as though they had been spoken aloud.

“And a good man, Aloysius was, even if he came from Waterford. The Irish make good submariners and no empty boast is that and if ever anyone should doubt that you just tell them about himself out there with a thousand ton tombstone and what he did. But don’t fret yourself, Captain. The other section is on the way, the replacement for that one, hours away but moving steadily, the thing will be done.”

“May it be the truth, O’Toole, the very truth.”

The next section had already appeared and was visible in the lights below and Gus knew that the final ones were waiting out there in the darkness, with the ultimate one coming as fast as the tugs could pull. Under his directions the sub moved along the length of the trench the short distance to the two completed sections of tunnel that projected from the caisson that would some day be the Grand Banks Station. The ocean here was no more than eleven fathoms deep which made the dumping of the rubble for the station that much easier. The artificial island, rose up to the surface before them, an island growing all the time as barge after barge of stone and sand was added to it. Gus looked at his watch and pointed ahead.

“Take us up,” he ordered.

A floating dock was secured here and they rose next to it and there was the thud of the magnetic grapple striking the hull as they were hauled into position. O’Toole worked the controls that opened the hatches above and the fresh, damp ocean air struck moistly against Gus’s face as he climbed to the deck. The sun had set unremarked while he had been below the ocean’s surface and the fog, temporarily held at bay by the warming rays, was returning in all haste as though to make up for time lost. Streamers of it rolled across the dock, bearing with them a sudden chill in the northern September evening. A ladder had been lowered to the submarine and Gus climbed towards the sailor waiting above who saluted him as he stepped from it.

“Captain’s compliments, sir, and he says the ship is waiting and we’ll cast off as soon as you’re aboard.”

Gus followed the man, yawning as he did for it had been a long day, beginning well before dawn, and it was the latest of an endless series of similar days stretching into the past longer than he could remember. When he looked in the mirror to shave he was sometimes startled at the stranger who looked back at him, a man with an unhealthy pallor from being too long away from the sun, dark-burnt circles under the eyes from being too often away from his bed, touches of gray around the temples from too much responsibility too long borne. But no regrets ever, for what he was doing was worth doing, the game worth the candle. His only regret even now was that although he had a full night ahead of him when he could sleep, this night would be spent aboard H.M.S. Boadicea known affectionately to her crew as Old Bonebreaker for the quality of her passage over troubled waters.

She was a hovercraft, the newest addition to the Royal American Coast Guard, capable of fifty knots over even the most towering seas, or sand, or swamp, or solid ground for that matter, the revenue agent’s delight, the smuggler’s dread, at top speed she rode like a springless lorry on a washboard road so was not the vessel of choice when one wanted a good night’s sleep But speed was the point of this trip, not sleep, and speed was what this unusual Vehicle could certainly guarantee.

Captain Stokes himself was waiting at the top of the gangplank and his welcoming smile was sincere as he shook Washington’s hand.

“A pleasure to have you aboard, Captain Washington,” spoken quietly. “Cast off those lines,” exploded out like the shell from a gun towards the ratings on deck. “Reports say a moderate swell so we should be able —to maintain fifty-five knots for most of the night. If the seas stay that smooth, our ETA at Bridgehampton will be dawn. Reporter chap coming along for the ride, no way to stop him, hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, Captain. Publicity has been the making of this tunnel, so when the press wants to see me I am available.”

The reporter stood up when they entered the officers’ mess, a sturdy, sandy man in a checked suit wearing a bowler, the traditional hat of all newsmen. He was one of the new breed of electronic reporters, the recording equipment slung on his back like a pack, with the microphone peeping over one shoulder, the lens of the camera over the other. “Biamonte of the New York Times, Captain Washington. And I’m pool man, too, drawer of the lucky straw.

Since only one reporter could come on this voyage I’m AP, UP, Reuters, Daily News, the lot. I have a few questions—“

“Which I will be more than happy to answer in a few moments. But I have never been aboard a hovercraft before and I would like to watch her when she pulls out.”

Scarcely a second was being wasted on the departure. The two great propellers mounted on towers in the stern were already beginning to turn over as the lines that secured Boadicea to the dock were being cast off. The thrust propellers for the surface effect must have been turned on at the same time for the great craft shifted and stirred, then, strangest sensation of all, began to lift straight up into the air. Higher and higher, six, eight, ten feet it lifted until it was literally riding on a cushion of air and had no contact with the water at all. The thrust propellers were now just silvery disks, disks that could pivot back or forth on top of their mounts, and swing about they did until they faced crosswise rather than fore and aft and under their pressure the craft floated easily away from the dock. They turned again, thrusting now at full speed and bit by bit the modern Boadicea became a lady conqueror of the waves riding up and over them, faster and faster, rushing south into the night. But the hammering and shaking increased as she did, so that the plates rattled in the racks and the charts in their cupboards and Gus gratefully sought the softening comfort of the sofa.

Biamonte sat across from him and touched buttons on his hand controller. “Are we going to win, Captain Washington, that is the question that is on everyone’s lips today? Shall we win?”

“It has never been a question of winning or losing. Circumstances were almost completely governed by chance so that the American section of tunnel is reaching completion to the shelf station just about the same time as the English section to their station on the Great Sole Bank. There never was a race. The situations are different, even the distances involved are different.”

“They certainly are and that is what makes this race, that you won’t call a race, so exciting. The American tunnel is three times as long as the English…”

“Not quite three times.”

“But still a good deal longer, you’ll have to admit, and to build our tunnel in the same length of time as theirs is in itself a victory and a source of pride to all Americans. It will be an even greater victory if you can make a trip through the entire length of the American tunnel and then reach London in time to be aboard the first train to pass through the English tunnel. That train will be leaving Paddington Station in less than thirty hours. Do you still think you will be aboard it?”

“I have every expectation.” The hovercraft had reached its maximum speed now and was hammering along like a demented railway carriage, leaping from wave to wave. Biamonte swallowed and loosened his collar as a fine beading of perspiration appeared on his brow, for those of delicate tummies the-hovercraft is not a recommended form of transportation. But, sick or well, he was still a reporter and he pressed on.

“Does not the fact that one segment of the tunnel was destroyed interfere with your chances of winning?”

“I wish you would not refer to winning or losing since I feel it does not apply. In answer to your question, no, it has not altered the situation appreciably. Extra sections were constructed, reserve sections, in case faults developed in any of the others during construction. The final section is on its way now and will be placed during the night.”

“Would you care to comment upon the fact that Mr. J. E. Hoover, of the Long Island region branch of the Colonial Bureau of Investigation, thinks that sabotage may be involved with the broken cable and that he has a man in custody?”

“I have no comment since I know no more about it than you do.”

Gus kept all emotion from his voice, giving no hint that this was not the first case of attempted sabotage to the project. The reporter was now turning an interesting shade of green and noticed nothing. Yet he persevered with his questions despite a growing glassiness of the eye and a certain hoarseness of voice.

“Since the accident the bookmakers’ odds have fallen from five to three in your favor to even money. Does the immense amounts wagered upon your reaching London in time bother you at all?”

“Not in the slightest. Gambling is not one of my vices.”

“Would you tell me what your vices are?”

“Not answering that sort of question is one of them.”

They both smiled at this light exchange, though Biamonte’s smile had a certain fixed, or frozen, quality. He definitely was green now and had some small difficulty speaking as Boadicea charged the briny hills with undiminished energy.

“More seriously then… would you explain… the importance of these stations… in the ocean… for the tunnel.”

“Certainly. If you had before you a three-dimensional map of the world with all the waters of the oceans stripped away, you would see that the seas bordering the British Isles and North America are quite shallow, relatively speaking. Here we have the continental shelf, shoal water, stretching along our coast up to Canada and out past the island of Newfoundland to the. Grand Banks that border the abyssal plain. An underwater cliff begins here steep, sharp and deep, dropping more abruptly than any mountain range on earth. You saw the artificial island that is the beginning of the Grand Banks Station, it stands in sixty-six feet of water. Beyond this the bottom drops sharply down to over fifteen thousand feet, three miles in depth. The British Point 200 in the Great Sole Bank stands in forty-two feet of water, also at the edge of a three-mile drop. These two stations mark the limits of our shallow water operations, and beyond them we will have to use different types of tunnels and different types of trains. Therefore, train junctions must be built as well as…”

He did not finish because the reporter was no longer there. With a strangled gasp he had clutched at his mouth and rushed from the room. It was something of a wonder to Gus, who had a cast-iron constitution when it came to things of this sort, why people behaved like this, though he knew some did. But the interruption was timely since it gave him an opportunity to get some rest. He found the captain on the bridge and after a brief but interesting talk concerning the technologies of this newfangled craft the captain offered his own quarters for the use of his visitor. The bed was most comfortable and Gus fell at once into a deep though not undisturbed sleep. Complete relaxation was not possible and his eyes were already open when the messboy brought in a cup-like container with a spout in its top. “Coffee, sir, fresh from the thermos, sugar and cream like I hope you like. Just suck on the top there, splashproof valve, easy enough to work once you catch on.”

It was, and the coffee was good. After a wash and a quick shave Gus felt immensely better as he climbed back to the bridge. Astern the sea was washed with golden light as dawn approached, while ahead dark night still reigned though the stars were going and the low outline of Long Island could be clearly seen. The lighthouse on Montauk Point flashed welcome and within a few minutes its form could be clearly seen against the lightening sky. The captain, who had not quit his bridge the entire night, bid Washington a good morning then passed him a piece of paper.

“This was received by radio a few minutes ago.” Gus opened it and read.

CAPT. G. WASHINGTON ABOARD HMS BOADICEA. FINAL SECTION INSTALLED SEALING CONTINUED AS PLANNED. EOC EIGHT FEET GOWAN WILL UNIFY ALL IN THE GREEN. SAPPER.

“I am afraid the radio operator was quite mystified,” said Captain Stokes. “But he had the message repeated and says this is correct.”

“It certainly is, and the news could not be better. All of the sections of the tunnel are in place and are being sealed together for a water-tight bond. As you undoubtedly know, other sections of the tunnel were extended back from the Grand Banks Station to meet the ones coming the other way. Surveying is not easy on the ocean floor, plus the fact that we wanted some leeway when the two tunnels met. While we can manufacture sections of tunnel underwater, we cannot shorten sections already fabricated. Our error of closure was eight feet, almost exactly what we estimated it would be. Right now mud is being poured between the ends and this will be stabilized with the Gowan units, they will freeze it solid with liquid nitrogen so we can bore through. Everything is going as planned.”

Gus had not realized that the others on the bridge, the steersman, sailors and officers, all of them, had been listening as he spoke, but he was made aware of this as a cheer broke out from them.

“Silence!” the captain roared. “You act like a herd of raw boots, not seamen.” Yet he was smiling as he said it for he shared their enthusiasm. “You are destroying the morale of my ship, Captain Washington, but just this once I do not mind. Though we are Royal Coast Guard, and as loyal to the Queen as any others, we are still Americans. What you have done, are doing, with your tunnel, has done more to unify us and remind us of our American heritage than anything I can remember. This is a great day and we are behind you one hundred percent.”

Gus seized his hand, firmly. “I shall never forget those words, Captain, for they mean more to me than any prizes or awards. What I do I do for this country, to unite it. I ask no more.”

Then they were entering the outer harbor at Bridgehampton, slowing so the spray no longer rose in great sheets around them. This sleepy little town near the tip of Long Island had changed radically in the years since the tunnel had begun, for here was the American terminus of the great project. A few white frame houses of the original inhabitants remained along the shore, but most had been swallowed in the docks, ramps, boat-works, assembly plants, storehouses, marshaling yards, offices, barracks, buildings, boom and bustle that had overwhelmed the town. Boadicea pointed towards the beach and slid over the surf and up onto the sand where it finally settled to rest. As soon as the storm of blowing particles had ceased a police car raced across the hard-packed surface and slid to a stop. The driver opened the door and saluted as Washington came down the ramp.

“I was told to meet you, sir. The special train is waiting.”

As indeed it was, as well as a cheering crowd of early risers, or rather nonrisers and nonsleepers most of whom must have spent the coolish night here hr vigil, warming themselves around now cold bonfires, rousing up to listen to every word of Washington’s progress as it was passed down from the tunnel headquarters. They were on his side and he was their hero sp the general joy and noise rose to a fever pitch when he appeared, while the mob seethed and churned like a soup pot on the boil as everyone wanted to get closer at the same time.

A platform had been erected, draped with flags and bunting, where a red-faced band sat and trumpeted loud but unheard music that was drowned completely by the thunderous ovation. Everyone there wanted to greet Washington, shake his hand, touch his clothing, have some contact with this man upon this day. The police could not have prevented them, but a gang of navvies could and did, they surrounded him with the solidness of their bodies and boots and tramped a path towards the waiting train. On the way they passed the stand which Washington mounted, to shake hands quickly with the silkhatted dignitaries there and to wave to the crowd. They cheered even more loudly then fell almost silent so his words reached all.

“Thank you. This is America’s day. I’m going now.”

Concise but correct and then he was on his way again to the train where a strong bronze hand reached down to half lift him into the single coach behind the electric engine. No sooner had his feet touched the step than the train began to move, picking up speed quickly, rattling through the points and rushing at the black opening framed by the proud words, Transatlantic Tunnel.

Gus had no sooner seated himself than that same elevating bronze hand became a bearing hand and produced a bottle of beer which it presented, open and frothing, to him. Since beef and beer are the life-blood of the navvies he had long since accustomed himself to this diet, at any hour of the day and night, so that he now seized the bottle as though he normally broke his fast with this malt beverage, as indeed he had many times, and raised it to his lips. The owner of this same bronze hand had another bottle ready which he also lifted and half drained at a swallow, then sighed with pleasure.

Sapper Cornplanter, of the Oneida tribe of the Iroquois nation, head ganger of the tunnel, loyal friend. He was close to seven feet of copper-skinned bone and sinew and muscle, black haired, black of eye, slow to anger but when angry a juggernaut of justice with fists the size of Virginia hams and hard as granite A gold circlet with an elk’s tooth pendant from it hung from his right ear and he twisted it between his fingers now as he thought, as was his habit when deep concentration was needed. The twisted elk’s tooth by some internal magic twisted up. his thoughts into a workable bundle and when they were nicely tightened and manageable he produced the result.

“You’re cutting this whole operation mighty fine, Captain.”

“A conclusion I had reached independently, Sapper. Do you have any reason to think that I won’t make it?”

“Nothing—except the fact that you have no leeway, no fat in the schedule at all in case of the unforeseen and I might remind you that the unforeseen is something tunnelers always have to take into consideration. The tunnel sections are all in place and the tremie seals between the joints poured, everything is going as well as might be expected. The last five tunnel sections are still filled with water since we need some hours for the joints to seal. On your orders. Want me to phone ahead and have them drained?”

“Absolutely not since we need as much time as possible for the setting. Just make sure the equipment is ready so we can get right at it. Now what about my connection at the station?”

“The RAF helicopter is already there, fuelled and standing by. As well as the Wellington in Gander. They will get you through just as long as the Great Spirit showers his blessings, but there is a chance that He will shower more than blessings. There is a weather low out in the Atlantic, force nine winds and snow, moving in the direction of Newfoundland, and it looks like heap big trouble.”

“May I get there first!”

“I’ll drink to that.” And he was as good as his word, producing two more bottles of Sitting Bull beer from the case beneath his seat.

With ever increasing speed the train drove deeper into that black tunnel under the Atlantic, retracing the course beneath the sea that the hovercraft had so recently taken above it. But here, far away from the weather and the irregularities of wind and wave, over a roadbed made smooth by the technical expertise of man, far greater speeds could be reached than could ever be possible on the ocean above. Within minutes the train was hurtling through the darkness at twice the speed ever attained on the outward trip so that after a few more beers, a few more hours, a hearty meal of beef and potatoes from an extemporized kitchen—a blow torch and an iron pot—they began to slow for the final stop.