Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius (68 page)

Warships.

He could sink navy craft filled with weaponry -- battleships whose only aim was to wage war.
 
In so doing, he could prevent the slaughter of innocents, stop warships in their tracks, and sink their deadly cargoes to the bottom of the sea.

He could make a difference, and only the guilty need pay the ultimate price.

Nemo felt no loyalty to any particular nation.
 
He had seen patriotism used as an excuse for further bloodshed, and he wanted none of it.
 
No more innocents must die -- even if that meant
he
had to strike against the murderous ones, the invaders, the soldiers.
 
The warmongers.

With the
Nautilus
, Nemo could declare war
on war itself
.

vii

As chance would have it, the first battleship they encountered flew the Union Jack of the British Empire.
 
With running lights extinguished, the
Nautilus
passed five fathoms beneath the broad wooden hull.
 
Nemo’s crew peered upward through the portholes, assessing the size of the war vessel.
 

Standing off at some distance, the
Nautilus
surfaced like a dozing whale.
 
Her front lights glowed a brilliant yellow.
 
Nemo climbed the ladder and opened the upper hatch.
 
With a spyglass to his eye, he peered toward the warship as the sun set, coloring the distant horizon with yellows and orange.

“Mr. Harding, prepare for our first . . . statement.”
 
Nemo studied the ship and counted the cannons protruding from hatches above the waterline.
 
Wearing a grim expression, he descended back to the sub-marine’s bridge.
 
As if wearing blinders, he fixed his thoughts on a single point in the future, not allowing himself to think too much on what he was doing.
 
He had made up his mind and would not be swayed.

“She is a vessel of war, gentlemen,” Nemo said.
 
“Perhaps even a privateer, government-sponsored pirates who are free to attack other ships . . . so long as those ships fly the flags of an enemy nation.”

Aboard the British warship, men in Royal Navy uniforms marched the decks and gathered to look at the distant metal-hulled sea creature.
 
Lying partially submerged, the
Nautilus
must have appeared to be a strange monster with a razor back, armored skin, and glowing yellow eyes.

Nemo’s crew fidgeted, though they had discussed their plans at great length.
 
Scratching stubble on his dimpled chin, Cyrus Harding voiced his reservations, which echoed those of the other men.
 
“Britain was my home, Captain, a long time ago -- and that warship carries a good many English sons.
 
Where --”

Nemo raised a hand to interrupt him, not in a display of temper, but of firm resolve.
 
His anger was directed outward, not at his crew.
 
“The
Nautilus
is our only country now, men.
 
We have no allegiance and no territories.
 
If that were a war vessel from France, I would be just as willing to strike our blow.
 
We have separated ourselves from the rest of our race.
 
And, ironically, we must become crusaders for the rights of humanity.”

“But, Captain, what about the humanity aboard that ship?” Harding persisted.
 
“Do they all deserve to die?”

Nemo glowered, agonized, but intent on his decision.
 
Like ravens’ wings, he heard the dying screams of innocents around his ears.
 
“Gentlemen, that vessel was built to serve one purpose alone --
to commit acts of war
.
 
Her crew is trained to fight and kill.
 
Should we follow her until she fires her cannon, until she spills more innocent blood, and then take our revenge?”
 
He could not drive away the image of burned Rurapente, the thoughts of Auda and young Jules drowning after their fleeing boat was sunk by enemy cannons.

“We must attack any target we find, any bully of the seas.
 
By doing so, we save every person that battleship would have killed and prevent the destruction those cannons would have caused.
 
The only victims are the warmongers themselves, not the innocents . . . like our families were.”
 
The other men looked away, cowed and ashamed.
 
“Today -- now -- we remove one more weapon from the hands of the world’s navies.”

Seeing the blaze in their captain’s eyes, the men went back to their stations.
 
The air stank of nervous sweat.
 
Nemo stood motionless at the bridge and waited, gathering his nerve.
 
Finally, speaking for himself as well as the crew, he said, “Men who make a living by waging war do not deserve our mercy.
 
Remember Rurapente.
 
Remember what happened to your wives and children.”
 

He pushed away images of Caroline and his happy times with her, the five weeks in a balloon over Africa, their precious intimate moments aboard the ship on the way back to France.
 
No, those memories would not keep him strong.
 
“Remember.”

In his mind, Nemo saw it all again: the flames, the screams, the scars . . . the warlords fighting each other.
 
The Light Brigade led into slaughter in the Crimea.
 
The villains like Caliph Robur and the ruthless slavers in Africa.
 
The pirates who had sunk the
Coralie
and slain Captain Grant --

Nemo gave the order for the
Nautilus
to submerge.
 
He had never tested his beloved vessel in such a terrible manner, but he knew the integrity of his design.
 
He knew what the
Nautilus
had been created to do.
 

He closed his dark eyes for just a moment and summoned an image of beautiful Auda and little Jules.
 
He tried to find peace, tried to find a purpose.
 
But he could no longer think of them without envisioning the charred bones in the ruins of Rurapente.
 
He thought of Auda murdered, of young Jules pulled beneath the dark water, trying to suck in a breath of air as their ship sank --

“Full ahead,” he said.
 
“Ramming speed.”

The engines growled, and the propellers turned.
 
The
Nautilus
leaped forward like a hungry shark, spewing a wake just below the surface.
 
Yellow eyes from the forward lamps burned the seas ahead of them.
 

“Brace yourselves, mates,” Cyrus Harding said, cool and collected, an engineer to the last.

The dark shadow of the British warship’s hull loomed closer and closer.
 
The
Nautilus
streaked toward it, picking up speed.
 
The armored metal saw-ridge on its bow was sharp, ready to eviscerate.

With a hideous, resounding crunch, the sub-marine boat crashed into the underbelly of the battleship.
 
The impact sent a deafening
clang
through the hull of the
Nautilus
, and the shock hurled the crew to their knees.

The relentless engines continued to roar.
 
The sub-marine boat sawed like a battlefield surgeon’s blade amputating a diseased limb.
 
The hull of the British warship tore open, a mortal wound that shattered its keel and burst the bulkheads.

“Full stop!” Nemo called and turned to watch, sickened at what he had done and yet refusing to regret his actions.

The gutted warship seemed unable to grasp what had just happened.
 
An explosion sent a muffled boom through the water, probably from a ruptured powder storehouse ignited by stray sparks.

At a safe distance, Nemo gave the order to surface again.
 
Several silent, awestruck crewmen climbed up through the hatch to stand on the outer hull of the undersea vessel, where they observed the death throes of the warship.
 
At least they were far enough away that they could not hear the cries of pain and pleas for rescue from the doomed British crew. . . .

Then, with a morbid fascination, Nemo submerged the sub-marine boat and cruised beneath the wrecked hull.
 
The shattered warship continued its slow and ironically graceful plunge toward the bottom.
 

Outside the windows of the salon, he could see burned and broken hull timbers, tangled rigging, and bodies . . . many bodies of dead navy men who’d had the misfortune to go to sea on the wrong battleship.
 
His breathing became quick and shallow.

Many of the
Nautilus
crewmen turned away, but Nemo stared with glassy eyes.
 
He had a mission in his hardened heart now, and he owed it to himself and his crew to face his conscience, to see the frightening reality of what he had done.

When he left the salon and addressed the crew, his voice carried no guilt.
 
“Henceforth, if a warship bears arms and carries cannon to sink other ships -- then I declare that vessel fair game.”
 
He drew a deep breath and stared at the destruction for another long moment, trying not to let questions rise like spectres in his memory, trying not to think of the people who had been on board that vessel.
 

“We will show no mercy.”

viii

Back in Paris, Jules Verne continued to write and read, using his imagination for extraordinary voyages, which the readers devoured.
 
He studied the newspapers every day.
 
World events gave him ideas to add to the adventures Nemo had shared with him aboard the
Nautilus
.
 
Sitting alone in his study, he could hardly bear the excitement of the stories he intended to tell.
 
He was glad he didn’t have to waste time actually experiencing the adventures. . . .

For months now, the international press had carried remarkable stories about warships sunk, vessels attacked and destroyed by a terrible “sea monster.”
 
Oddly, the creature attacked only ships of war, but did not discriminate as to nationality.
 
The naturalists of the world held a conference in London and argued about the origin of this creature, imagining a gigantic narwhal or some prehistoric beast arisen to attack ocean-going craft.

Day after day Verne read the reports with interest and horror, unable to deny the obvious answer.
 
He told no one, of course, but he understood immediately what must be going on.
 

The
Nautilus
, an armored sub-marine boat designed for purposes of warfare, had to be the culprit.
 
And Nemo himself was behind the attacks.

ix

French readers loved Jules Verne’s
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
, published in two volumes beginning in 1869.
 
Verne accepted his success in a daze, believing the wonderful comments he heard, and finally he allowed himself to revel in it.
 
He felt his heart swell with the long-sought literary fame.

At lunchtime, as Honorine prepared a plate of cold meats, cheese, and fresh berries, Verne received his copies of the newly released gift edition from Hetzel.
 
The book had been released several days before, but Verne often didn’t see copies of his own novels until some time later.
 
Engrossed in new stories, he often didn’t notice.

Opening the package, he held up the volumes, delighted with the illustrations and pleased to see his name on the cover.
 
A good wife, Honorine dutifully admired the books, as if they were her husband’s trophies.
 
She never read his stories, but she placed them lovingly on shelves and displayed them for all visitors.