A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! Read Online Free PDF Page B

financial success.
    Most important of all was the bearing this had upon a more important factor. Deep down he nursed the unspoken ambition to clear his family name. Unspoken since that day when he had blurted it out to his sis-ter Martha and she had understood, when they had been no more than children. Everything he accom-plished, in some manner, reflected on that ambition, for what he accom-plished in his own name was also done in the name of that noble man who had labored so hard for his country, who in return for his efforts was felled by a volley of English bul-lets.
    “Captain Washington, Captain Washington, sir.”
    The voice penetrated the darkness of his thoughts and as it did he real-ized he had been hearing it for some time and not heeding. He started and took the envelope that Drigg held out to him, opened it and read it, then read it a second time more slowly. It was as Lord Cornwallis had said, the motion had been passed, he was being offered the post.
    “If you will come with me, sir.”
    He rose and brushed the wrinkles from his waistcoat and buttoned his jacket. With the note still in his hand he followed the secretary to the boardroom to stand at the foot of the long dark table. The room was silent, all eyes upon him, as Cornwallis spoke from his place at the head of the table.
    “You have read and understood our communication, Captain Washington?”
    “I have, sir. It appears to be a request to fill, in a single capacity, the dual positions now occupied by Sir Winthrop and Mr. Macintosh. You indicate that these gentlemen approve of the change?”
    “They do.”
    “Then I am most pleased to ac-cept—with but one reservation be-fore I do. I would like to know Sir lsambard’s feelings on the change.” It was the waving of a red flag to a bull, the insulting of the Queen to a loyal Englishman, the use of the word frog to a Frenchman. Sir Isambard Brassey-Brunel was on his feet in the instant, leaning both fists hard on the polished rosewood of the table, fire in his eye and white anger in the flare of his nostril. A small man before whom, in his anger, large men trembled, yet Washington was not trembling because perhaps he was not the trembling type.
    A study in opposites they were, one tall, one slight, one middle-aged and smooth of skin whose great breadth of forehead grew greater with the passing days, the other with a forehead of equal magnitude but with a face browned and lined by sun and wind. A neatly turned out English gentleman from the tips of his polished, handcrafted boots to the top of his tonsured head—with a hundred guineas of impeccable Sav-ile Row tailoring in between. A well-dressed Colonial whose clothes were first class yet definitely provincial, like the serviceable and rugged boots intended more for wear than show.
    “You wish to know my feelings,” Sir Isambard said, “you wish to know my feelings.” The words were spoken softly yet could be heard throughout all of that great room and perhaps because of this gentleness of tone were all the more ominous. “1 will tell you my feelings, sir, strong feelings that they are, sir. I am against this appointment, com-pletely against it and oppose it and that is the whole of it.”
    “Well then,” Washington said, seating himself in the chair placed there for his convenience, “that is all there is to it. I cannot accept the ap-pointment.”
    Now the silence was absolute and if a silence could be said to be stunned this one certainly was. Sir lsambard was deflated by the answer, his anger stripped from him, and as anger, like air from a balloon, leaked from him he also sank slowly back into his seat.
    “But you have accepted,” Corn-wallis said, baffled, speaking for all of them.
    “I accepted because I assumed the Board was unanimous in its decision. What is proposed is a major change. I cannot consider it if the man by whom I am employed, the master ar-chitect of this construction, the lead-ing engineer and contractor in the