Where Phileas Fogg proves himself equal to the situation

An hour later the steamer the Henrietta passed the lightship marking the mouth of the Hudson, went around the headland of Sandy Hook and put out to sea. During the day it followed the coastline of Long Island, keeping well clear of the beacon on Fire Island, then headed rapidly eastwards.

At midday on the following day, 13 December, a man climbed on to the bridge to take the ship’s bearings. It would seem safe to assume that this man was Captain Speedy. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was Phileas Fogg, Esq.

Captain Speedy meanwhile was quite simply locked up in his cabin and was howling away, giving vent to a quite understandable anger that was reaching fever pitch.

What had happened was perfectly simple. Phileas Fogg wanted to get to Liverpool, but the captain didn’t want to take him there. Phileas Fogg had then agreed to travel to Bordeaux and during the thirty hours he’d been on board he had put his banknotes to work so effectively that the crew, the sailors and the stokers – a motley collection of individuals who were on pretty bad terms with the captain – had been won over. This is why Phileas Fogg was in command instead of Captain Speedy, why the captain was locked up in his cabin and, lastly, why the Henrietta was heading for Liverpool. It was, though, very clear from the way he set about things that Mr Fogg had been a sailor.

It was too early to tell how things would work out. However, Mrs Aouda was worried, without letting it show. Fix had been simply dumbfounded to start with. As for Passepartout, he found the whole thing absolutely wonderful.

‘Between eleven and twelve knots’ was what Captain Speedy had said and, sure enough, the Henrietta kept up this average speed.

And so if – but there were a lot of ifs – the sea didn’t get too rough, if the wind didn’t veer to the east, if the vessel was spared accidental damage and mechanical breakdown, it was possible for the Henrietta to cover the 3,000 miles separating New York and Liverpool in the nine days between 12 and 21 December. It is true that once he’d arrived, the business of the Henrietta coming on top of the business at the Bank of England could well cause the gentleman more complications than he’d like.

For the first few days conditions for sailing were excellent. The sea wasn’t too difficult, the wind seemed settled in the north-east, the sails were set, and under its try-sails the Henrietta went like a real transatlantic steamer.

Passepartout was delighted. He was full of enthusiasm for his master’s latest exploit, though he didn’t want to think about its consequences. The crew had never seen such a high-spirited and nimble fellow. He was very friendly towards the sailors and amazed them with his acrobatics. He treated them to compliments and tempting-looking drinks. For him they went about their work like gentlemen, and the stokers stoked like heroes. Everyone was susceptible to his infectious good humour. He’d forgotten about the recent past, the problems and the dangers. The only thing he thought about was the goal that they were so close to reaching, and sometimes he was boiling over with impatience, as if he’d been heated up by the Henrietta’s own furnace. The worthy fellow often circled around Fix, looking at him knowingly but not saying a word, because there was no longer any closeness between the two former friends.

In any case, it has to be said that Fix no longer had a clue about what was going on. This whole sequence of events, the takeover of the Henrietta, the bribing of the crew and Fogg navigating like an experienced sailor, had him baffled. He just didn’t know what to think. But after all a gentleman who started out by stealing £55,000 could easily end up stealing a sailing ship. And Fix naturally went on to conclude that under Phileas Fogg’s command the Henrietta was not heading for Liverpool at all but for some other part of the world where the thief, who had now turned into a pirate, could safely spend the rest of his life. It has to be admitted that this was a perfectly plausible explanation, and the detective was beginning seriously to regret ever having got caught up in this business.

Meanwhile Captain Speedy continued to howl away in his cabin, and Passepartout, who had been given the task of providing him with food, only did so with the greatest of caution, despite his own physical strength. Mr Fogg, on the other hand, no longer seemed to suspect there was a captain on board.

On the 13th they reached the tail-end of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. These are dangerous waters. Especially during the winter, fog is common and the storms are frightening. The previous day the barometer had dropped suddenly, a sign that a change in the weather was imminent. And, sure enough, during the night the temperature changed, the cold became more intense and at the same time the wind veered to the south-east.

It was a setback. In order to stick to his route Mr Fogg had to take in the sails and increase the steam. Nevertheless, the ship’s progress was slowed down by the state of the sea with high waves breaking against its stem. The ship began to pitch violently and this further affected its speed. The wind was gradually reaching hurricane force and it already looked as if the Henrietta might not be able to face the waves full-on. But if it had to run before the storm that would be a leap into the unknown, with all the dangers that this entailed.

Passepartout’s face became as dark as the sky, and for two days the worthy fellow was on tenterhooks. But Phileas Fogg was a bold sailor who knew how to stand up to the sea and he kept straight on, without even reducing steam. When the Henrietta couldn’t rise above the waves it went straight through them, and although the deck was swamped the ship carried on. Sometimes, too, the propeller was lifted clean out of the water and the blades whirred madly in the air as a mountainous wave raised the stern, but still the ship continued on its course.

Nevertheless, the wind didn’t freshen as much as might have been feared. It wasn’t one of those hurricanes that reach speeds of up to ninety miles per hour. The wind didn’t go beyond gale force, but unfortunately it kept on blowing from the south-east and made it impossible to put the sails out. However, as will soon become apparent, the wind would have been very useful for helping out the steam power.

The 16th of December was the seventy-fifth day since they had left London. In a word, the delay to the Henrietta was still not serious. Half the crossing had almost been completed and the most difficult waters were already behind them. If it had been summer, success would have been guaranteed. As it was winter, they were at the mercy of bad weather. Passepartout didn’t make his views known. Deep down he was hopeful and, if the wind failed, he was counting on steam to get them there.

As it happened, on that particular day the engineer went on deck, met Mr Fogg and had quite a sharp conversation with him.

Without knowing why – no doubt by a premonition – Passepartout felt a vague sort of uneasiness. He would have given his right arm to hear what was being said. However, he did manage to catch a few words, including the following, spoken by his master, ‘Are you sure that what you’re saying is true?’

‘Absolutely certain, sir,’ replied the engineer. ‘Don’t forget that since we set out we’ve been going full blast, and even if we had enough coal to go at low steam from New York to Bordeaux, we don’t have enough to go at full steam from New York to Liverpool.’

‘I shall decide what to do,’ replied Mr Fogg.

Passepartout had understood. He suddenly became extremely worried.

They were going to run out of coal.

‘Oh, if my master can get us out of this one,’ he said to himself, ‘then he really is somebody.’

After bumping into Fix, he couldn’t help telling him about the situation.

‘So,’ the inspector replied, gritting his teeth, ‘you really think that we’re heading for Liverpool.’

‘But of course.’

‘Idiot!’ answered the inspector, as he walked away, shrugging his shoulders.

Passepartout was about to take strong exception to this word, even if he wasn’t in a position to understand its full significance, but he said to himself that poor old Fix must be very disappointed and that his pride must have taken a battering at the idea of having gone around the world on a wild goose chase, and so Passepartout let the remark pass.

So what would Phileas Fogg’s decision be? It was hard to imagine. However, the phlegmatic gentleman seemed to have made up his mind because that very evening he sent for the engineer and said to him, ‘Stoke up the boilers and go full steam ahead until there’s no fuel left.’

A few moments later the Henrietta’s funnel was belching out clouds of smoke.

So the ship continued on course at full steam, but just as he had warned, two days later, the 18th, the engineer announced that they would run out of coal during that day.

‘Don’t let the fires die down,’ replied Mr Fogg. ‘On the contrary. Keep up the pressure in the engine.’

That day, at about midday, after taking a bearing to calculate the ship’s position, Phileas Fogg sent for Passepartout and told him to go and fetch Captain Speedy. It was like telling the good fellow to go and unleash a tiger, and he went down to the poop deck saying to himself, ‘He’s going to go absolutely berserk.’

A few minutes later, amid shouting and swearing, a bomb duly landed on the poop deck. This bomb was Captain Speedy. It was obvious that he was about to explode.

‘Where are we?’ were the first words he uttered, choking with anger, and it was clear that if this worthy fellow had had a weak heart he would never have survived.

‘Where are we?’ he repeated, red in the face.

‘770 miles east of Liverpool,’ replied Mr Fogg, with total composure.

‘Pirate!’ exclaimed Andrew Speedy.

‘I sent for you, sir – ’

‘Sea rover!’

‘ – sir,’ continued Mr Fogg, ‘to ask you to sell me your ship.’

‘No. Like hell. No.’

‘The fact is that I’m going to have to burn it.’

‘Burn my ship!’

‘Yes, at least the upper works, because we’re running out of fuel.’

‘Burn my ship!’ exclaimed Captain Speedy, who had difficulty getting the words out of his mouth any more. ‘A ship worth $50,000!’

‘Here’s $60,000,’ replied Phileas Fogg, handing the captain a wad of banknotes.

The effect on Andrew Speedy was spectacular. No true American can fail to be moved by the sight of $60,000. For a moment the captain forgot about his anger, his imprisonment and all his grievances against his passenger. His ship was twenty years old; this deal was worth a packet. The bomb was no longer going to explode. Mr Fogg had removed the fuse.

‘But I’ll still have the iron hull left,’ he said, sounding remarkably calmer.

‘The iron hull and the machinery, sir. Are we agreed?’

‘Agreed.’

With that Andrew Speedy grabbed the wad of banknotes, counted them and stashed them away in his pocket.

During this scene Passepartout was white as a sheet. Fix, for his part, almost had a heart attack. Nearly £20,000 had already been spent and now here was Fogg giving away to the vendor the hull and the machinery, in other words almost half the total value of the ship. It was just as well that the amount of money stolen from the bank was £55,000.

When Andrew Speedy had put all the money away in his pocket, Mr Fogg said to him, ‘Sir, let me explain something to you. If I am not back in London by eight forty-five in the evening on 21 December I will lose £20,000. The fact is that I missed the steamer from New York and because you refused to take me to Liverpool –’

‘And I did the right thing there, I’ll swear that by the devil,’ exclaimed Andrew Speedy, ‘because I’ve made at least $40,000.’

Then he added, rather more calmly, ‘Do you know ssomething, Captain …’

‘Fogg.’

‘Captain Fogg, well, there’s a bit of the Yankee about you.’

And after giving his passenger what he thought was a compliment, he was about to go when Phileas Fogg said to him, ‘So this boat belongs to me now, doesn’t it?’

‘Well, from the keel to the top of the masts, everything made of wood, that is.’

‘Good. Take out all the internal fittings and use them as firewood.’

It is easy to imagine how much dry wood needs to be burnt to keep the steam up to sufficient pressure. That day the poop deck, the deck-houses, the cabins, the crew’s quarters and the spar-deck all went.

The following day, 19 December, they burnt the masting, the spare masts and yards, and the spars. They chopped down the masts and cut them up with axes. The crew set about their task with incredible energy. Passepartout was slicing, cutting and sawing away, doing the work of ten men. It was an orgy of destruction.

The day after, 20 December, the rails, the bulwarks, the dead-works and most of the deck were fed to the flames. The Henrietta was now so low it looked like a pontoon, not a ship.

But that day they sighted the coast of Ireland and the Fastnet lighthouse.

However, by ten o’clock in the evening the ship was still off Queenstown.1 Phileas Fogg only had twenty-four hours left to get to London. That was precisely how long it would take the Henrietta to get to Liverpool – even if it went at full steam. And steam was just what the daring gentleman was running out of!

‘Sir,’ Captain Speedy then said to him, as he had now come round to showing an interest in his plans, ‘I feel really sorry for you. Everything’s against you. We’re still no further than Queenstown.’

‘Ah!’ said Mr Fogg. ‘Is that the town we can see, where the lights are coming from?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can we enter the harbour?’

‘Not for another three hours. Only at high tide.’

‘Let’s wait, then,’ Phileas Fogg replied calmly, without letting it show on his face that he was about to attempt once again to overcome his bad luck by another master stroke.

Queenstown is, as it happens, a port on the Irish coast where transatlantic liners from the United States drop off their mail-bags. These letters are taken to Dublin by express trains that are always ready and waiting. From Dublin they go to Liverpool via high-speed steamers – cutting twelve hours off the time taken by the fastest vessels of the shipping companies.

Phileas Fogg thought that he, too, could make up twelve hours, as the mail from America did. Instead of arriving in Liverpool on the Henrietta the following evening he would get there by midday, which would allow him time to get to London by eight forty-five in the evening.

Towards one o’clock in the afternoon the Henrietta entered Queenstown harbour on the full tide, and Phileas Fogg, after receiving a vigorous handshake from Captain Speedy, left the latter on the flattened carcass of his ship, which was still worth half what he had got for selling it.

The passengers disembarked immediately. Fix, at that moment, felt a great urge to arrest Fogg. He refrained from doing so, however. Why? What struggle was going on inside him? Had he changed his mind about Mr Fogg? Did he realize at last that he’d been wrong? Nevertheless, Fix did not let go of Mr Fogg. Along with him, Mrs Aouda and Passepartout, who was in such a rush he didn’t pause for breath, he got into the train from Queenstown at half past one in the morning, reached Dublin as dawn was breaking and immediately got on to one of those steamers – real steel rockets that are all engine – which do not bother to rise with the waves but invariably go straight through them.

At twenty minutes to midday on 21 December, Phileas Fogg at last landed at Liverpool docks. He was only six hours away from London.

But at that moment Fix went up to him, put his hand on his shoulder and, showing him his warrant, said, ‘You are Phileas Fogg, are you not?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘In the name of Her Majesty the Queen, I arrest you.’