And now I am quite at an end of journal keeping; diaries and
diary letters being things of youth which Fleeming had at length
outgrown. But one or two more fragments from his
correspondence may be taken, and first this brief sketch of the
laying of the Norderney cable; mainly interesting as showing
under what defects of strength and in what extremities of pain,
this cheerful man must at times continue to go about his
work.
‘I slept on board 29th September having arranged
everything to start by daybreak from where we lay in the roads:
but at daybreak a heavy mist hung over us so that nothing of land
or water could be seen. At midday it lifted suddenly and
away we went with perfect weather, but could not find the buoys
Forde left, that evening. I saw the captain was not strong
in navigation, and took matters next day much more into my own
hands and before nine o’clock found the buoys; (the weather
had been so fine we had anchored in the open sea near
Texel). It took us till the evening to reach the buoys, get
the cable on board, test the first half, speak to Lowestoft, make
the splice, and start. H— had not finished his work
at Norderney, so I was alone on board for Reuter. Moreover
the buoys to guide us in our course were not placed, and the
captain had very vague ideas about keeping his course; so I had
to do a good deal, and only lay down as I was for two hours in
the night. I managed to run the course perfectly.
Everything went well, and we found Norderney just where we wanted
it next afternoon, and if the shore end had been laid, could have
finished there and then, October 1st. But when we got to
Norderney, we found the Caroline with shore end lying
apparently aground, and could not understand her signals; so we
had to anchor suddenly and I went off in a small boat with the
captain to the Caroline. It was cold by this time,
and my arm was rather stiff and I was tired; I hauled myself up
on board the Caroline by a rope and found H— and two
men on board. All the rest were trying to get the shore end
on shore, but had failed and apparently had stuck on shore, and
the waves were getting up. We had anchored in the right
place and next morning we hoped the shore end would be laid, so
we had only to go back. It was of course still colder and
quite night. I went to bed and hoped to sleep, but, alas,
the rheumatism got into the joints and caused me terrible pain so
that I could not sleep. I bore it as long as I could in
order to disturb no one, for all were tired; but at last I could
bear it no longer and managed to wake the steward and got a
mustard poultice which took the pain from the shoulder; but then
the elbow got very bad, and I had to call the second steward and
get a second poultice, and then it was daylight, and I felt very
ill and feverish. The sea was now rather rough—too
rough rather for small boats, but luckily a sort of thing called
a scoot came out, and we got on board her with some trouble, and
got on shore after a good tossing about which made us all
sea-sick. The cable sent from the Caroline was just
60 yards too short and did not reach the shore, so although the
Caroline did make the splice late that night, we could
neither test nor speak. Reuter was at Norderney, and I had
to do the best I could, which was not much, and went to bed
early; I thought I should never sleep again, but in sheer
desperation got up in the middle of the night and gulped a lot of
raw whiskey and slept at last. But not long. A Mr.
F— washed my face and hands and dressed me: and we hauled
the cable out of the sea, and got it joined to the telegraph
station, and on October 3rd telegraphed to Lowestoft first and
then to London. Miss Clara Volkman, a niece of Mr.
Reuter’s, sent the first message to Mrs. Reuter, who was
waiting (Varley used Miss Clara’s hand as a kind of key),
and I sent one of the first messages to Odden. I thought a
message addressed to him would not frighten you, and that he
would enjoy a message through Papa’s cable. I hope he
did. They were all very merry, but I had been so lowered by
pain that I could not enjoy myself in spite of the
success.’
