A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! (5 page)

“Perfectly understandable, sir. Walk this way.”

The door closed silently behind his back and Washington looked around the partially tilled hall. In the darkness he could make only the fact that the audience seemed to be almost completely female and he wondered how he could possibly single out one singular and important female from all the others. They were listening in rapt silence to a small man with a gray and black skullcap who stood behind the lec-tern on the platform. Behind him, incongruously enough, there was a red plush divan upon which lay a rather fat and ordinary looking woman who was either unconscious, or sleeping. The juxtaposition of this strangely matched pair was so arrest-ing that, with no opportunity at the moment for seeking out Iris from the audience, despite himself, Washing-ton found himself listening to the speaker.

“…Have heard what Madame Clotilda has said, spoken the name Martin Alhaja Gontran, almost, in the understanding of her experience, shouted this name signifying the im-portance of said name. This relates to what I have spoken of earlier in the outlining of my theory of the multi-serial nature of time. There are these points in time which I have named alpha-nodes, and it is upon the existence of these alpha-nodes that my theory depends. If they exist, my theory has some validity and may be explored; if they do not exist then time flows on like a river, a single mighty stream, instead of the multibranching, parallel rivulets that I postulate. If the alpha-nodes are not there then I am wrong.”

“Hear, hear,” Washington said un-der his breath, searching for a singular dark and lovely head among all the rows of possibly dark and lovely heads before him.

“The search for a major alpha-node has taken years and Madame Clotilda is the first clairvoyant to have made contact, so difficult is the task. At first, with the greatest diffi-culty, she spoke the single word Gon-tran and I searched long and deep for the meaning. I thought I had found the correct reference and tonight before you it has been re-vealed that I was correct for when I said Martin she supplied the missing third part. Alhaja! The name, the all important complete name that pinpoints with exactitude our alpha-node. Martin Alhaja Gontran.

“Let me tell you who he was, this unimportant little man, this illiterate shepherd who held the creation of an entire world in the palm of his cracked and calloused hand. I ask you to consider the date the six-teenth of July in the year 1212. The scene is the Iberian peninsula and a mighty battle is in preparation be-tween the Christian and the Moslim forces.

They lie under arms in their separate camps, the watchfires burn low, they gather their strength for the battle of the morrow. But all are not asleep.

This shepherd, this Mar-tin Alhaja Gontran, has spoken to a friend about what he has planned to do and the friend has spoken to cer-tain others and Gontran is appre-hended by the Moors. These were uncivilized times and men did wreak pain and suffering upon their fellow men of a sort that I will not speak for the gentle ears of the members of the fairer inclination among my audience.

Suffice to say Gontran spoke be-fore he died, and revealed the fact that he had planned to lead Chris-tian troops that night by secret and unguarded paths that he knew of, being a shepherd, that would bring them behind the Muslim lines. He died and this was not done. Now I ask you to consider what might have happened if he had succeeded in his plan. It is very possible that the Christians instead of the Muslims might have won the battle of Navas de Tolosa the following day, possibly the most decisive battle of the pe-riod.

I ask you to speculate further. If they had won they might have gone on to further victories and the Ibe-rian Peninsula might be another Christian country like France or Prussia, instead of being Muslim and part of the Greater Caliphate. Of what importance to us is this distant part of the continent you may ask, and I answer of the utmost because cause is linked inviably to event. Cause and event. With Christian rulers in Iberia…“

Behind him on the platform the sturdy form of Madame Clotilda began to stir and move while from her throat there came a sound some-where between a sigh and a muffled gasp. The greater part of the au-dience gasped in echo and stirred as well so that Dr. Mendoza had to raise his hands for silence.

“It is fine, it is normal, do not dis-turb yourself I beg of you. See, the physician is here now, waiting ready in the wings in case of need. The strain upon the system is great for a clairvoyant and sometimes… ha-ha, there is a little reaction which is quickly taken care of. See, the curtains close, the doctor is at her side, all will be well. I ask the houselights to be raised, I will return in a mo-ment after a small intermission dur-ing which you will hear a recording of an Eskimo ritual chant I myself recorded in a winter camp of these hardy indigenees north of the Arctic Circle while determining the basic relationship of diurnal time to Circa-dian rhythms so important to the foundations of the alpha-node the-ory. I thank you.”

With these words the lights came on and the little doctor, after a brief struggle to find the opening in the curtain, vanished from sight while their ears were assaulted by an in-human and high-pitched wailing mixed with a dull thudding. Wash-ington seized the unexpected oppor-tunity and hurried down the aisle searching the audience for that cer-tain face.

And there she was, in the second row, just in from the aisle, dark hair drawn back and held sweetly by a golden clasp, features perfect for she was indeed a startling beauty whom the newspaper photographers loved to find at balls. Her lips were as full and red without the touch of artifice as any other girl’s after labor at the paintpot. As always he was without words when he first looked at her, filled with happi-ness to be in her presence. But she must have felt his eyes upon her for she glanced up and her startled expression broke into a smile of such warmth that, if possible, his powers of speech were removed even farther from accessi-bility.

“Why Gus, here! What a pleasant surprise.” He smiled in response, ca-pable of nothing more coherent. “Have you met Joyce Boardman? I don’t think you have, she’s just home from the far East. Joyce, my fiancé.

Captain Augustine Washington.”

He took the offered hand, bow-ing slightly, vaguely aware of an attractive female presence, nothing more. “A pleasure. Iris, I hate to break in like this but I’ve just come up from Cornwall and I’ll be going back in the morning. Would it be possible to see you now, to talk to you?”

Other words were on her lips but she must have detected something unusual in his manner, or his voice, for she changed them before she spoke, and when she did so it was with a firm decisiveness unusual in a girl just past twenty.

“Of course. Madame Clotilda’s fainting spell seems to have interrupted matters and if the doctor does speak again Joyce can tell me all about it tomorrow. That will be all right with you, won’t it, Joyce dear?” Joyce dear had little chance to an-swer, or protest, because Iris went on in a rush of words perhaps to fore-stall any utterance of this type. “That’s so kind of you. When the car comes tell them I’ve already gone home by cab.”

Then she was on his arm and they were going up the aisle. While the commissionaire was calling a cab Washington realized that the issue had to be faced at once.

“Before the cab comes I must tell you—your father and I have had a difference of opinion.”

“The easiest thing in the world to do. I am at it all the time. Poor Daddy is certainly the firmest minded man in the world.”

“I’m afraid this is more serious. He has forbidden me the house and, this is even harder to say, does not want us to see each other ever again.”

She was silent in thought for a long moment and the happy smile slowly vanished from her face. But she held his arm no less tightly for which he loved her, if it were pos-sible, ever much the more.

“Then we shall talk about it and you must tell me everything that has happened. We’ll go—let me see—to the lounge in the Great Western Ho-tel at Paddington. It’s on the way home and I remember you liked the tea and cakes there.”

In the privacy of the cab, while they crossed the rain-filled darkness of Hyde Park, he told her what had happened. Told her everything except the irrelevant details of his con-fidential talk with Cornwallis, ex-plained why the appointment was being made and how important it was both to the company and to him, then closed by repeating almost word for word the final and decisive conversation with her father. When he had finished they were already at the hotel and there was nothing more that could be said until they had climbed the grand staircase and been seated, ordered the tea and cakes, and it must be admitted a double brandy for him since he felt greatly in need of one, and the si-lence lasted until the tea had been poured.

“This is a terrible thing to have happen, Gus, a terrible thing.”

“You don’t think your father is right, do you?”

“I don’t have to think whether he is right or not, I only have to remem-ber that he is my father.”

“Iris, darling, you can’t mean that! You’re a girl of the Twentieth Cen-tury, not a Victorian shadow of a woman. You have the vote now, or at least you will next year when you are of age, women have a freedom under Elizabeth they never knew be-fore.”

“We do, and I know it, and I do love you, dear Gus. But this cannot do away with my family ties. And you said it yourself, I have not attained my majority, nor will I for six months, and I still remain in my fa-ther’s house.”

“You can’t mean—”

“But I do, and it hurts me to have to say it. Until you and Daddy resolve this terrible thing that has come between you I have only one thing I must do. Gus, darling Gus, I really have no choice.”

There was a gasp and a welter of emotion in the last words she spoke, while a tear brimmed from the cor-ner of each eye as she took the ring from the finger of her left hand and put it into his palm.

IV. ABOARD THE AIRSHIP

What a glorious June day it was. Ex-citement filled the streets of South-ampton and washed like breaking waves along her docks. The weather smiled as did the people, calling out to one another, drifting by twos and threes down towards the waterfront and the rapidly approaching hour of noon. Gay bunting and bright flags snapped in the offshore breeze while small boats scudded over the placid surface of the harbor like water bugs. A sudden sense of urgency came unto the strollers and they moved faster when a train’s whistle sounded from the hills. The boat train from London; the passengers were here!

The echo of the whistle drew Gus Washington from the well of his work, away from the blueprints, charts, diagrams, figures, plans, devices, pounds, dollars and worries that snapped up at him out of the welter of papers he had spread about the train compartment. He pinched at the bridge of his nose where a persistent pain of fatigue nibbled him, then rubbed his sore eyes. He had been doing a good deal, some would say too much, but it was just a great amount of work that could not be avoided.

Well enough for the mo-ment. The tracks curved down towards the docks and he folded the scattered papers and documents and put them back into his bulging case, a sturdy, no-nonsense, heavy-strapped and brass-buckled case of horsehide, pinto pony hide to be ex-act with the gay white and brown pattern of the hair still there, a pony he had once ridden and ridden well to a good cause in the Far West, but that is another story altogether.

Now as he filled the case and sealed it the train rattled across the points and out along the quay and he had his first sight of the Queen Elizabeth tied up at her berth ahead.

This was a sight for sore eyes that rendered them pain-free upon the instant. This was a marvel of engi-neering, of technical skill and daring the like of which the world had never seen before. So white she glistened in the sun, her bow pressed against the wharf and her distant stern far out in the stream. The gang-plank reached up to the foredeck where a Union Jack flew proudly from a flagstaff. Out, far out, to both sides stretched the immense wings, white and wide, with the impressive bulk of the engines slung beneath them. Four to each side, eight in all, each with a four-bladed propeller, each blade of which was taller than a man. The Queen Elizabeth, pride of the Cunard Line, the grandest and most glorious flying ship in exis-tence.

For six months she had been fly-ing with her select crew, around the world, showing the flag in every ocean and on the shores of almost every land. If there had been any difficulties at all during this trial period the company had kept them a close secret. Now her extended prov-ing flight was over and she would begin the run for which she had been designed, the prestigious North At-lantic route of the Queens, South-ampton to New York nonstop, three thousand miles or more. Nor was it any accident that Gus Washington was on this flight, a simple engineer who ranked almost at the foot of the passenger list, overshadowed by the dukes and lords, the moguls of in-dustry, the handful of European no-bility and the great, titled actor. One hundred passengers only and at least ten or a hundred applicants for every berth.

There had been pressure in high places, quiet chats over port at certain clubs, discreet telephone calls. The affairs of the tunnel affected both high finance and the court and both were in agreement that every-thing must be done to encourage the American financial cooperation in the venture.

Washington must go to the colonies, so let him go in the most fitting manner, a style that guaranteed the maximum publicity for the trip.

The maiden voyage of the flying ship was opportunity knocking.

Op-portunity that was admitted even be-fore she rapped, although it meant that Gus had to pack a fortnight’s work into five days. It was done, he was ready, the voyage was at hand. He sealed his case and opened the compartment door and joined the other passengers on the platform. There were not many and he held back so they could go ahead to the pop of flashbulbs and the click of the press cameras. Not all had come by train; the barrier that held back the swelling crowd was opened to admit two automobiles, high, black, pon-derous Rolls-Royces. As it began to close behind them there was an im-perious blast of a steam whistle from the street beyond and it hurriedly opened again to admit the extended form of a Skoda Steamer, a vehicle much favored by European royalty. It had six wheels, the rear driving pair almost twice the size of the two others, as well as a cabin to the rear that housed the engine and the sto-ker. It emitted a plume of steam again as its whistle sounded and it eased silently by trailing a faint cloud of smoke, the stately figures inside framed by the silver mounted window frames looking neither to right nor left. This was indeed a day to be remembered.