Prosie: The Launch of the <i>Mauretania</i> described in <i>The Only Way to Cross</i>

About

by John Maxtone-Graham. Tons of interesting-sounding words, half of which I cannot comprehend on their own, but which together conjure an unmistakable image of naval architecture and shipyard activity.

"The Mauretania was poised, ready for her majestic entry into the Tyne. There were still men under the bilges and the thump and clatter of their hammers continued right up to the last. The entire timbered substructure, taking the full weight of sixteen thousand tons of steel hull, creaked and groaned alarmingly. Then the Duchess was asked to turn the miniature capstan. There was an appalling crash as the giant steel triggers dropped from their retaining slots on the moving ways. For an instant, nothing gave. Swan was seen to raise his hand, as though to signal the engineers standing by hydraulic rams to assist with a nudge. But he was caught in mid-gesture as the electric bell shrilled joyously and the immense rivet-studded wall began to move. The Duchess christened her hastily "Mauretania!" and flung the bottle of champagne at the receding stern, where it splintered and foamed. The only injury of the afternoon was sustained by a workman below, struck on the head by a piece of broken glass.

Down she went, cracking and squealing. Now the rivercraft saluted with a deafening chorus of whistles and sirens. First the rudder, then the propellers and finally the graceful counter thrust into the Tyne, sending up twin sheets of water, the naissance of a tidal wave that soaked watchers lining the opposite shore. As she entered her natural element, the first buoyant lift raised up the midships hull and the fore-poppet under the bows took on the added weight. Exactly as designed, portions of it crumbled into a splintery cushion. Pine screamed against oak in dreadful conflict on ways already stripped clean of their lubricants.

As she passed down the ways, opposing banks of spectators suddenly were revealed to each other. They joined their cheers with those of the workers who rose from between the ways over which the Mauretania had just traveled, caps off and cheering "as only hearty British Workmen know how to cheer," a local paper exulted the following day. The band, music forgotten, shook their instruments in schoolboy glee. Over the launch platform rippled a sea of glistening, waving toppers.

Moving at fourteen knots, the bows dropped from the land. The union jack at the masthead dipped in frantic salute and the riding crews clutched the rail as the stem plunged down. Another wave lashed back up the berth. The hull recovered and then the tricing lines took up the vital business of arresting that backward rush. In successive pairs, the piles of drag chain leapt into life, snaking and roaring along the edge of the berth in pursuit of their charge, driving up monstrous divots and clouds of dust. The stern cable tautened on cue and a fleet of six tugs left off their salutes long enough to harry their giant sister to a stop. From across the Tyne, even high on the hills, it was the steam from the tugs and ferries that finally obscured the glistening white hull as she floated, unnaturally light, riding higher out of the water than she ever would again. But the sense of particular ceremony that is a launch, the combination of engineering miracle, opening night and stupendous passage, was complete: in the roiled muddy Tyne, cluttered with chain and timbers, the Mauretania was afloat at last."