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.