Harry Harrison: A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!

“I could not leave you, Father, nor will I. It is my decision.”

“Nonsense. Marry him quick because you won’t have to worry about caring for me much longer.”

“You won’t—!”

“Yes I will. I had better. Man can only make a fool of himself on his deathbed, or admit he’s been a fool. After that he had better die. Now send that physician fellow in for I need a bit more help.”

It was the mighty will inside that frail body that kept it going, for the attack should have felled him long since. Medicine helped, as medicine does, but it was the strong spirit that buoyed him up. At the Grand Banks Station a stretcher was waiting and he was carried across to the other train while the passengers were rushed in their transfer; no sightseeing this time. Down into the tunnel again with Sir Isambard staring ahead fixedly, as though all his will were needed for the process of breathing and staying alive, which perhaps it was. A few minutes later the door opened and Gus looked up, then hurriedly climbed to his feet while Iris curtsied towards the young man who stood there.

“Please, don’t bother,” said he. “We were all concerned about Sir Isambard. How is he?”

“As good as might be expected, Your Highness,” answered Gus.

“Fine. Captain Washington, if you have a moment my mother would like to speak with you.”

They left together and Iris sat by her father, holding his cold hand in both of hers until Gus returned.

“Well?” Sir Isambard asked, his eyes opening at the sound of his entry.

“A very fine woman indeed. She congratulates us all on this work. Then she mentioned a knighthood—”

“Oh, Gus!”

“—Which I refused, saying that there was something I wished more, something for my country. She understood completely. There has been much talk of independence since the tunnel began and apparently the foreign minister, Lord Amis, has been after her continually, seeing more good in the colonies, she says, than he does in England at times. It seems that the wheels have been working below the surface and there will be independence for America at last!”

“Oh Gus, darling, then it has happened! What you have always wanted.”

“Should have taken the knighthood, let the damned colonies take care of themselves.”

Sir Isambard looked out of the window and fretted while they kissed, long and passionately, until with a rush and a burst of light the dark tunnel ended and the green potato fields of Long Island appeared.

“So there,” Sir Isambard said, with some satisfaction, stamping his cane on the floor. “So there! Transatlantic tunnel, under the entire ocean. A wonderful day.”

He closed his eyes, smiling, and never opened them again.

Across the verdant Cheshire countryside the churchbells sounded their merry call and anyone hearing them could not but smile at their pleasant sound. The church itself, an ancient graying Norman pile of Bulkeley, close by the ancestral Brassey manor of Bulkeley Old Hall, was so surrounded by hedge and flowers that only its tower was visible from the road. Behind it, bordered by the color and perfume of a carefully tended rose garden, was a small yard and here three friends stood.

“I can never thank you too much,” said Gus Washington.

“Nonsense!” Alec Durell answered. “A distinct pleasure to stand up for you. Never been a best man before, in fact haven’t been in church for donkey’s years. In any case, plenty of perks involved. Bit of extra leave, more credit with my tailor for this morning suit, always needed one, chance to kiss the bride. In fact think I’ll try that again.”

And he did while Iris’s eyes shone and she laughed aloud, a vision in white and lace, happy as only brides can be.

“You are sure that you cannot stay for the reception?”

“Positive. Love to, of course, but duty calls. Signed off the old wombat of the Queen Elizabeth, too much of a milk run, back and forth across the Atlantic, might as well go under it in your tunnel like everyone else, for all I saw of it in my engine rooms. Took up my commission again, I did, Queen’s shilling and all that, and they were damned glad to have me.”

“Couldn’t run the R.A.F. without you,” Gus laughed.

“Too true,” he lowered his voice and looked around. “Strictly confidential now—you read the papers of course so you know about this spot of nastiness on the Continent. Count upon foreigners to make trouble any time. It’s the Saxons again, almost as bad as the Prussians, this time after the French. They have been trading shells back and forth across the Rhine which no one cares about as long as they blow up a few pigsties and such, but they hit one of the resort towns with the H.E., blew off the front of the hotel. Can’t have that, British subjects staying there. Being evacuated of course, but still. That’s what battleships are for, as someone said.”

They walked him as far as the garden gate where, after shaking Gus’s hand, he was presumptuous enough to kiss the bride again, something that, surprisingly enough, none of them seemed to mind.

“I’m on the Invincible, sister ship to the old Courageous, supposed to be identical but ten years more modern in every way. Four stokers in my engine room so we can feed the furnaces manually if the automatic equipment goes out. Fourteen steam turbines spinning her props, seven in each wing. The range is a secret but it is really something, I can assure you, plenty of armament, light and heavy machine guns, small cannon in turrets on top of the twin tails, with two seven-inch recoilless cannon in a turret in her nose. Just wait until she flies along the old Rhine and puts a few bursts across their bows, they’ll think twice about shelling Englishmen!”

He started down the lane, shoulders back in the best military manner, then turned to wave with a most unmilitary smile at the happy couple who stood, arms about one another, and called out.

“Meant to congratulate you on the American independence. A good thing. Why don’t you run for President, Gus, President Washington, has rather an odd sound but a nice one. I bet you could do it.”

Whistling, he went around the turning and out of sight.