Part 3 (1/2)
Audio-a.s.sessment told us later that the feature had an excellent reception figure. Coming so soon after the American announcement, we hit the peak of popular interest. Their Lords.h.i.+ps were pleased, too. It gave them the opportunity of showing that they did not always have to follow the American lead-though I still think there was no need to make the U. S. a present of the first publicity. Anyway, in view of what has followed, I don't suppose it greatly matters.
In the circ.u.mstances, Phyllis rewrote a part of the script, making greater play with the fusing of the cables than before. A flood of correspondence came in, but when all the tentative explanations and suggestions had been winnowed none of us was any wiser than before.
Perhaps it was scarcely to be expected that we should be. Our listeners had not even seen the maps, and at this stage it had not occurred to the general public that there could be any link between the diving catastrophes and the somewhat demode topic of fireb.a.l.l.s.
But if, as it seemed, the Royal Navy was disposed simply to sit still for a time and ponder the problem theoretically, the U. S. Navy was not. Deviously we heard that they were preparing to send a second expedition to the same spot where their loss had occurred. We promptly applied to be included, and were refused. How many other people applied, I don't know, but enough for them to allocate a second small craft. We couldn't get a place on that either. All s.p.a.ce was reserved for their own correspondents and commentators who would cover for Europe, too.
Well, it was their own show. They were paying for it. All the same, I'm sorry we missed it because, though we did think it likely they would lose their apparatus again, it never crossed our minds that they might lose their s.h.i.+p as well...
About a week after it happened one of the NBC men who had been covering it came over. We more or less shanghaied him for lunch and the personal dope.
”Never saw anything like it-never want to,” he said. ”They were using an automatic instrument pretty much like the one you people lost. The idea was to send that down first, and if it came up again okay, then they'd take another smack at it with a manned depth-chamber what's more, they had a couple of volunteers for it, too; funny the way you can always find a few guys who seem kind of bored with life on Earth.
”Anyway, that was the project. We lay off a couple of hundred yards or more from the research s.h.i.+p, but we had a cable slung between us to relay the television, so we could watch it on our screens just as well as they could on theirs.
”We did-awhile, but I guess it's one of those subjects you have to have majored in to keep the interest up. The way we saw it, it was more of a test-out. We were aiming to get our real stuff from the depth-chamber dive where there'd be the human angle, even though it'd not go down so far.
”Well, we watched the thing slung overside, then we went into our saloon to look at the screens. I guess what we saw'd likely be what you saw; sometimes it was foggy, sometimes clear, and sometimes there'd be quite a few screwy-looking fish and squids, and whole flocks of things that don't have any names I ever heard of, and, I'd say, don't need 'em, either.
”Over the screens was a lighted panel recording the depth-which was a good idea on account of it all looked like it might be going around on an endless band, anyway. By one mile down all the guys with better-trained consciences had taken them up on deck under the awning, with smokes and cold drinks. By two miles down, I was out there, with them, leaving two or three puritanical characters to cover it and tell us if anything new showed up. After a bit more, one of them quit, too, and joined me.
”Two and a half miles, and the last half-mile as dark as the Tunnel of Love and that wouldn't interest even fish a lot, from what they tell me,” he said.
”He drew himself a c.o.ke and started to move over towards me. Then he stopped short.
”Christ!” he said. And simultaneously there was some kind of yell from inside the saloon.
”I turned my head and looked the way he was looking-at the research s.h.i.+p.
”A moment before she had been lying there placid, without a visible movement aboard her, and only the sound of the winch coming over the water to tell you she wasn't derelict. And now she was...
”Well, I don't know what kind of thunderstorms you folks have over here, but in some places they have a kind where the lightning looks like it's running around all over a building. And that was the way the research s.h.i.+p looked just then. You could hear it crackle, too.
”She can't have looked that way for more than a few seconds, though it seemed a lot longer. Then she blew up...
”I don't know what they had aboard her, but she sure did blow. Every one of us. .h.i.t the deck in a split second. And then there was spray and sc.r.a.p coming down all over. When we looked again there wasn't anything there but a lot of water just getting itself smoothed out.
”We didn't have a lot to pick up. A few bits of wood, half a dozen lifebuoys, and three bodies, all badly burnt. We collected what there was, and came home.”
During the longish pause Phyllis poured him another cup of coffee.
”What was it?” she asked.
He shrugged. ”It could have been coincidence, but say we rule that out, then I'd guess that if ever lightning were to strike upwards from the sea, that'd be about the way it'd look.”
”I never heard of anything like that,” Phyllis said.
”It certainly isn't on the record,” he agreed. ”But there has to be a first time.”
”Not very satisfactory,” Phyllis commented.
He looked us over.
”Seeing that you two were on that British fis.h.i.+ng-party, do I take it you know why we were there?”
”I'd not be surprised,” I told him.
He nodded. ”Well, look,” he said, ”I'm told it isn't possible to persuade a high charge, say a few million volts, to run up an uninsulated hawser in sea-water, so I must accept that; it's not my department. All I say is that if it were possible, then I guess the effect might be quite a bit like what we saw.”
”There'd be insulated cables, too-to the cameras, microphones, thermometers, and things,” Phyllis said.
”Sure. And there was an insulated cable relaying the TV to our s.h.i.+p; but it couldn't carry that charge, and burnt out-which was a darned good thing for us. That would make it look to me like it followed the main hawser-if it didn't so happen that the physics boys won't have it.”
”They've no alternative suggestions?” I asked.
”Oh, sure. Several. Some of them could sound quite convincing-to a fellow who'd not seen it happen.”
”If you arc right, this is very queer indeed,” Phyllis said, reflectively.
The NBC man looked at her. ”A nice British back-hand understatement but it's queer enough, even without me,” he said, modestly. ”However they explain this away, the physics boys are still stumped on those fused cables, because, whatever this may be, those cable severances couldn't have been accidental.”
”On the other hand, all that way down, all that pressure...?” Phyllis said.
He shook his head. ”I'm making no guesses. I'd want more data than we've got, even for that. Could be we'll get it before long.”
We looked questioning.
He lowered his voice. ”Seeing you're in this, too, but strictly under your hats, they've got a couple more probes lined up right now. But no publicity this time-the last lot had a nasty taste.”
”Where?” we asked, simultaneously.
”One off the Aleutians, some place. The other in a deep spot in the Guatemala Basin. What're your folks doing?”
”We don't know,” we said, honestly.
He shook his head. ”Always kinda close, your people,” he said, sympathetically.
And close they remained. During the next few weeks we kept our ears uselessly wide open for news of either of the two new investigations, but it was not until the NBC man was pa.s.sing through London again a month later that we learnt anything. We asked him what had happened. He frowned.
”Off Guatemala they drew blank,” he said. ”The s.h.i.+p south of the Aleutians was transmitting by radio while the dive was in progress. It cut out suddenly. She's reported as lost with all hands.”
Official cognizance of these matters remained underground-if that can be considered in acceptable term for their deep-sea investigations. Every now and then we would catch a rumour which showed that the interest had not been dropped, and from time to time a few apparently isolated items could, when put in conjunction, be made to give hints. Our naval contacts preserved an amiable evasiveness, and we found that our opposite numbers across the Atlantic were doing little better with their naval sources. The consoling aspect was that had they been making any progress we should most likely have heard of it, so we took silence to mean that they were stalled.
Public interest in fireb.a.l.l.s was down to zero, and few people troubled to send in reports of them any more. I still kept my files going though they were now so unrepresentative that I could not tell how far the apparently low incidence was real.
As far as I knew, the two phenomena had never so far been publicly connected, and presently both were allowed to lapse unexplained, like any silly-season sensation.
In the course of the next three years we ourselves lost interest almost to vanis.h.i.+ng point. Other matters occupied us. There was the birth of our son, William-and his death, eighteen months later. To help Phyllis to get over that I w.a.n.gled myself a travelling-correspondent series, sold up the house, and for a time we roved.
In theory, the appointment was simply mine; in practice, most of the gloss and finish on the scripts which pleased the EBC were Phyllis's, and most of the time when she wasn't dolling up my miff she was working on scripts of her own. When we came back home, it was with enhanced prestige, a lot of material to work up, and a feeling of being set on a smooth, steady course.