At the Back of the North Wind or The Last of Moffat

1. Chapter One

The whole agglomeration would not have looked out of place half a century ago, in the late Professor Jedermann’s laboratory. Copper cylinders, sheets and - somewhat surprisingly given the name of the contraption - wire were watched over by sturdy men in oil-stained clothing, though there was nary a drop of oil in the “Marconi Room”. Guglielmo issued instructions in his Irish-tinted English. He gave me the briefest nod: which cut me a little, since it was he who had been so insistent I attend the great event. I had shared a few Irish whiskeys with the Italian during the voyage from New York. He would became quite maudlin about his mother, whose family had been distillers in Ireland. The story of how she had met his Bolognese father might have been interesting, but he declined to tell me it. Instead, he prefered to bamboozle me with words like ‘coherer’ and ‘oscillator’. Even so, I listened and nodded when I thought it appropriate, Mr Marconi bought the whiskey, after all.

I had boarded the SS St Paul some 6 days previously, finally deciding to return to England after fifty years in the Americas. I had long since sent a letter to the office of John Brown & Son, King Street, Seahouses, though it would surely have been the son who received it. Said letter was to be forwarded to a Miss Ellen Pardoner, if such a one were still in communication with the Notary Public. I meant to discover why the man in the mirror still resembled someone in the prime of life, when the image should have been that of a drooling dotard. Beneath all the folkloric piffle and tall tales I had been served with since first encountering the Family Jedermann at Gibbous House, there surely had to be an explanation, and I intended to have it, come what may. I only hoped that Professor Jedermann's outlandish experiments were not responsible.

Marconi began to speak very slowly, one of the oily men was sitting at the telegraph key. He began to tap the key. At last I felt something other than ennui. Was Guglielmo really going to send a message through the ether, along no wires but the ones connecting the ‘sending terminal’ here on the liner? The message was short, but the show was not over. Marconi beckoned to me. We stood by a hand-operated printing press. The type was set for a newspaper masthead, it read sǝɯᴉꓕ ɔᴉʇuɐʅʇɐsuɐɹꓕ ǝɥꓕ. The telegraphist was still scribbling. Vague stories about the crime rate in London and some scandal in Belgravia, doubtless.

‘The first newspaper published at sea, think of it Alasdair!’ Marconi said.

I smiled, forebearing to mention the missed opportunity of having the first long distance use of wireless telegraphy on a front page, even if it were only one of his own making.