Harry Harrison: A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!

The guards were lined up beside the locomotive when he passed, burly, no-nonsense looking soldiers of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, elegant in their dark kilts and white gaiters, impressive in the steadiness of their Lee-Enfield rifles with fixed bayonets. Behind them was the massive golden bulk of the Dreadnought, the most singular and by far the most powerful engine in the world. Despite the urgency of his mission Drigg slowed, as did all the other passengers, unable calmly to pass the gleaming length of her.

Black driving wheels as tall as his head, drive rods thicker than his legs that emerged from swollen cylinders leaking white plumes of steam from their exhausts. She was a little travel-stained about her lower works but all her outer skin shone with the seamless, imprisoned-sunlight glow of gold, fourteen-karat gold plating, a king’s ransom on a machine this size.

But it wasn’t the gold the soldiers were here to guard, though that was almost reason enough, but the propulsive mechanism hidden within that smooth, unbroken, smoke-stackless shell. An atomic reactor, the government said, and little else, and kept its counsel. And guarded its engine. Any of the states of Germany would give a year’s income for this secret while spies had already been captured who, it was rumored, were in the employ of the King of France. The soldiers sternly eyed the passersby and Drigg hurried on.

The works offices were upstairs in the station building and a lift carried him swiftly to the fourth floor. He was reaching for the door to the executive suite when it opened and a man emerged, a navvy from the look of him, for who else but a railway navvy would wear such knee-high hobnailed boots along with green corduroy trousers? His shirt was heavy canvas and over it he wore a grim but still rainbow waistcoat, while around his pillar-like neck was wrapped an even gaudier handkerchief. He held the door but barred Drigg’s way, looking at him closely with his pale blue eyes which were startlingly clear in the tanned nutbrown of his face.

“You’re Mr. Drigg, aren’t you, sir?” he asked before the other could protest. “I saw you here when they cut’t‘tape and at other official functions of t’line.”

“If you please.”

The thick-chewed arm still prevented his entrance and there seemed little he could do to move it.

“You wouldn’t know me, but I’m Fighting Jack, Captain Washington’s head ganger, and if it’s the captain you want’t‘see he’s not here.”

“I do want to see him and it is a matter of some urgency.”

“That’ll be tonight then, after shift. Captain’s up’t‘the face. No visitors. If you’ve messages in that bag, I’ll bring ’em up for you.”

“Impossible, I must deliver this in person.” Drigg took a key from his waistcoat pocket and turned it in the lock of the portfolio then reached inside. There was a single linen envelope there and he withdrew it just enough for the other to see the golden crest on the flap. Fighting Jack dropped his arm.

“The marquis?”

“None other.” Drigg could not keep a certain smug satisfaction from his voice.

“Well, come along then. You’ll have to wear overalls, it’s mucky up’t‘face.”

“The message must be delivered.”

There was a work train waiting for the head ganger, a stubby electric engine drawing a single open car with boxes of supplies. It pulled out as soon as they were aboard and they rode the footplate behind the engineer. The track passed the town, cut through the fields, then dived into a black tunnel where the only light was a weak glow from the illuminated dials so that Drigg had to clutch for support fearful that he would be tossed out into the jolting darkness. Then they were in the sunshine again and slowing down as they moved towards a second tunnel mouth. It was far grander than the other with a facing of hewn granite blocks and marble pillars that supported a great lintel that had been done in the Doric style. This was deeply carved with the words that still brought a certain catch to Drigg’s throat, even after all his years with the company.

TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL they read.

Transatlantic tunnel—what an ambition! Less emotional men than he had been caught by the magic of those words and, even though there was scarcely more than a mile of tunnel behind this imposing façade, the thrill was still there. Imagination led one on, plunging into the earth, diving beneath the sea, rushing under those deep oceans of dark water for thousands of miles to emerge into the sunlight again in the New World.

Lights moved by, slower and slower, until the work train stopped before a concrete wall that sealed the tunnel like an immense plug.

“Last stop, follow me,” Fighting Jack called out and swung down to the floor in a movement remarkably easy for a man his size. “Have you ever been down t’tunnel before?”

“Never.” Drigg was ready enough to admit ignorance of this alien environment. Men moved about and called to each other with strange instructions, fallen metal clanged and echoed from the arched tunnel above them where unshielded lights hung to illuminate a Dante-ish scene of strange machines, tracks and cars, nameless equipment. “Never!”

“Nothing to worry you, Mr. Drigg, safe as houses if you do the right things at the right time. I’ve been working on the railways and the tunnels all m’life and outside of a few split ribs, cracked skull, a broken leg and a scar or two I’m fit as a fiddle. Now follow me.”

Supposedly reassured by these dubious references. Drigg followed the ganger through a steel door set into the concrete bulkhead that was instantly and noisily slammed shut behind them. They were in a small room with benches down the middle and lockers on one wall. There was a sudden hissing and the distant hammering of pumps and Drigg felt a strange pressure on his ears. His look of sudden dismay was noticed by Fighting Jack.

“Air, just compressed air, nothing more. And a miserable little twenty pounds it is too I can tell you, as one who has worked under sixty and more. You’ll never notice it once you’re inside. Here you go.” He pulled a boiler suit from a locker and shook it out. “This is big enough to go over your clothes. I’ll hold that wallet for you.”

“It is not removable.” Drigg shook out the length of chain for inspection.

“No key?”

“I do not possess it.”

“Easily solved.”

The ganger produced an immense clasp knife with a swiftness and economy of motion that showed he had had sudden use for it before, and touched it so that a long gleaming blade shot out. He stepped forward and Drigg backed away.

“Now there, sir, did you think I was going to amputate? Just going to make a few sartorial alterations on this here garment.”

A single slash opened the sleeve from wrist to armpit and another twitch of the blade vented the garment’s side. Then the knife folded and vanished into its usual resting place while Drigg drew on the mutilated apparel, the portfolio easily passing through the rent cloth. When Drigg had it on Fighting Jack cut up another boiler suit—he had a cavalier regard for company property apparently—and bound it around the cut sleeve to hold it shut. By the time this operation was completed the pumps had stopped and another door at the far end of the airlock room opened and the operator looked inside, touching his forehead when he saw Drigg’s bowler.

A train of small hopper wagons was just emerging from a larger steel door in the bulkhead and Fighting Jack pursed his lips to emit an ear-hurting whistle. The driver of the squat electric locomotive turned at the sound and cut his power.

“That’s One-eyed Conro,” Fighting Jack confided to Drigg. “Terrible man in a dustup, thumbs ready all’t‘time. Trying to even the score you see for the one he had gouged out.”