Signor Marconi's Magic Box (37 page)

Wireless hams were confined to a relatively short wavelength - two hundred metres or below - in the belief that this would stop them sending messages long distances. It was Marconi who was largely responsible for the notion that only very long waves generated by powerful transmitters and huge aerials could be sent and received over hundreds or thousands of miles. Short waves like those generated by Heinrich Hertz in his laboratory, for reasons Marconi did not understand, appeared to travel only short distances. But this was a fundamental error which arose from a failure to understand how wireless waves behaved, and was compounded by Marconi’s early successes with long waves. Once it was understood that wireless signals of all wavelengths were reflected back to the earth from a conducting layer in the upper atmosphere, the reliance on long waves for distance was abandoned. Marconi acknowledged his error, which he discovered during the First World War while experimenting with very short waves. But in 1912 the potential of short waves for long-distance wireless communication was unknown, and the US government believed that restricting amateurs to waves of two hundred metres or less would dampen their enthusiasm, clearing the airwaves for the serious business of commercial and naval telegraphy.

The amateurs soon found their way round the regulations, but the trauma of the
Titanic
was a turning point in the early history of wireless telegraphy. Marconi was at the very height of his fame, and his companies were dominating the airwaves, but the spectre of government regulation in America was looming. The exciting pioneer days were over, and though Marconi and his engineers were to continue developing and improving the technology for
many years, they would not remain leaders in the field for long. This was not because they failed to notice what was going on in America, where the spark transmitter was being replaced by high-speed alternators which could transmit speech, and improved versions of the de Forest audion were being adopted as the favoured receivers. Up to 1912 the company policy of sticking with well-tried technology had paid off, as the
Titanic
rescue dramatically demonstrated, and a vigorous enforcement of Marconi’s patents had silenced the opposition. But the company had no claims on the new wireless technology, and could keep pace with it only by buying out the rights to it. It had the money and the will to do so, but history was no longer on Marconi’s side - and by the autumn of 1912 it was apparent that his luck was running out.

A
fter the excitement of the
Titanic
rescue, Marconi went to inspect wireless stations in Pisa and Coltano. He took Bea with him, on the advice of family and friends who were anxious that the marriage was yet again under threat. As always, Marconi was fêted in Italy. King Victor Emmanuel and Queen Elena visited Coltano and invited them to their country home at San Rossore, near Pisa. Bea had brushed up on her Italian, only to discover to her dismay that the Italian royals spoke French most of the time; but she was honoured with an appointment as one of Queen Elena’s ladies-in-waiting.

On 25 September the Marconis set off for Genoa, from where Guglielmo was to sail back to America, in a brand-new Fiat with Guglielmo at the wheel, Bea in the front passenger seat and the chauffeur and a secretary in the back. On a sharp bend they smashed head-on into another vehicle, and the Fiat was wrecked. The company magazine the
Marconiograph
reported: ‘Mr Marconi was on the way to America when the accident happened at Foce, near Spezzia. His automobile was going at a moderate speed, but the other that ran into his was going very fast. One cause of these motor-car accidents in Italy is that the drivers are very careless about keeping the rule of the road. They run all over the place. Indeed both coachmen and chauffeurs act as if no rule of the road existed.’ Everyone except Marconi himself escaped with minor
injuries. The other vehicle had ridden up and over the Fiat, and in the impact Marconi had suffered a blow to the right side of his head. A car belonging to a local naval officer took him to hospital for first aid, and at first it was thought he had had a lucky escape. But the doctors discovered that his right eye was badly damaged, and that they could not save it. To protect the good left eye from sympathetic damage the right eye was removed at a clinic in Turin.

For a few days Marconi had a temporary glass eye. But he wanted the very best, and travelled to Venice to be fitted by the ageing Professor Luigi Rubbi, who was considered to be the most skilful maker and setter of glass eyes, reproducing not only the colour but the tiny veins and streaks of the original. It took nearly a week for the eye to be adjusted once Professor Rubbi had created it. Marconi’s new eye was removable, and was taken out every night to be cleaned, like false teeth. Marconi’s daughter Degna wrote later that it was a long time before she realised her father had a glass eye, which was a testimony both to Professor Rubbi’s skill and to the very little time Marconi spent with his children.

Marconi’s public adulation in Italy never dimmed. While he was recuperating in Venice in November 1912 he and Bea went to a performance at the Teatro Rossini opera house. According to the
Marconiograph
: ‘As soon as his presence was observed the whole of those present rose and cheered, the ladies waving their handkerchiefs. Three times, Mr Marconi, who was greatly touched by the ovation, rose and bowed to the assembly.’

It was around this time that Marconi appears to have allowed his youthful caution and reserve to drop, and to make some uncharacteristically wild predictions about the future of wireless telegraphy. Interviewed by
Technical World
magazine, he was reported as saying:

The interview, published in October 1912, marks a turning point in Marconi’s thinking, from pragmatist to visionary. From this time on he became more and more embroiled in politics - a subject he would have done much better to leave alone.

When he returned to London the following year, the newspapers were bristling with the story of the ‘Marconi Scandal’. Before the
Titanic
disaster Godfrey Isaacs and Marconi had been able to raise capital for the American company by the successful issue of a new block of shares which were floated on the New York and London stock exchanges or sold to major US companies. Marconi took ten thousand himself, and Isaacs had one hundred thousand, a proportion of which he sold, some to members of his large family - he was one of nine children. Over lunch at the Savoy with his brothers Harry, who was in the fruit trade, and Rufus, who had risen rapidly as a lawyer to become Attorney-General in Asquith’s Liberal Cabinet, Godfrey offered them American Marconi shares at a very favourable price. Harry took fifty thousand and then another six thousand to distribute amongst family members. Rufus took none immediately, but Harry soon persuaded him to buy ten
thousand. Rufus then passed on a thousand shares each to Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Lord Murray, the Liberal Chief Whip.

When the Unionist and Conservative opposition got wind of this there were accusations of corruption. At the same time as the Isaacs brothers were dealing out American Marconi shares, the British Marconi Company was close to winning a contract from the government for the creation of what was known as the Imperial Wireless Scheme. The whole of the British Empire was to be linked by a series of wireless stations built and operated by the Marconi Company, which would profit enormously. In July 1912 a contract had been signed, but it had to be approved by Parliament. Was Rufus Isaacs buttering up the government with some potentially lucrative Marconi shares? Suspicions of skulduggery were heightened when Lloyd George and Lord Murray denied that they had bought any Marconi shares, but later admitted that they had been given shares in the American subsidiary. Investigations dragged on into 1913, and Marconi felt that his name was being dragged ‘through the mire’, although he was not in any way implicated himself. Though it was generally agreed that those members of the government involved had behaved unwisely, a Parliamentary Select Committee loaded with Liberals cleared them of misconduct, and the Imperial Wireless Scheme was begun towards the end of 1913.

Marconi, accustomed as he was to adulation, was shaken by the scandal. What he badly needed was another heroic wireless rescue at sea. The danger posed to shipping by icebergs was receding, as much more effective use was being made of wireless warnings. But in October a drama unfolded which was to place Marconi firmly back on his pedestal as the guardian of those at sea. This time the enemy which struck in mid-Atlantic was not ice, but fire. The saviour was once again what newspapers still called ‘the magic of wireless’.

The
Volturno
was built in Glasgow in 1906 for the British Uranium Steamship Company, and named after the principal
river in southern Italy. Its main function was to carry emigrants and cargo, and when it left the Dutch port of Rotterdam on 2 October 1913 for a regular run to New York with a one-day stop-over in Halifax, Nova Scotia there were only twenty-two first-class passengers out of more than five hundred on board. Most of those crammed below decks in steerage were poor Russians, Austrians, Croatians and others from Eastern Europe. Stowed beneath them were most of their worldly belongings, with which they hoped to start a new life in America. As well as its human cargo, the
Volturno
carried in its hold wines and spirits, barrels of tar and various chemicals. The crew of ninety-six were mostly Dutch, under the command of a British captain, Francis Inch. Manning the Marconi wireless cabin were twenty-two-year-old John Pennington and Walter Sedden, one year younger.

When the
Volturno
was in mid-Atlantic a storm blew up from the north-west. The steerage passengers had a miserable time huddled in their crowded quarters. A pull on a rough cigar, a pipe or a cigarette was some comfort, but it was strictly forbidden below decks, and carried a $5 fine. However, rules were always being broken, and if a steward came by the easiest way to avoid a penalty was to knock out a pipe or bury a cigarette between the deck boards. That was perhaps how the luggage stacked below steerage caught fire. In the early morning of 9 October smoke began to billow up from the hold as the
Volturno
rode the mountainous waves. The fire spread rapidly, and before it could be brought under control the liner was shaken by several explosions as the flames burned through to the tar barrels and liquor in the cargo hold.

While Captain Inch and his officers went to investigate, passengers on the upper deck, convinced that the ship would soon sink, launched two of the
Volturno
’s lifeboats. All those who scrambled and jumped into them were swept away, some under the ship’s huge propellers, others smashed against the side of the liner by the heavy seas. They all died, adding to the toll of sixty crew and passengers killed in the explosions. Captain Inch then took control,
and passengers were shepherded to the aft of the ship, away from the fire. Their only hope was that other ships riding the same Atlantic storm might come to their rescue. An ‘SOS’ was sent out from the Marconi cabin, giving the
Volturno
’s position, 49.12N 34.51W, and the message: ‘Nos. one and two holds blazing furiously. Please come at once.’ At just after 10 a.m. Sedden and Pennington received a reply from a fellow Marconi operator, P.B. Maltby, who was on duty on the Cunard liner
Carmania
, en route from New York to Liverpool: they were coming as fast as they could.

Captain Barr of the
Carmania
calculated that the
Volturno
was seventy-eight miles away. He ordered the stokers and engineers to bring the liner up to her maximum speed of twenty knots, and they rode into the storm. At the same time other ships heard the
Volturno
’s distress call, and turned about to go to her assistance. The
Carmania
relayed the ‘SOS’, and kept in constant touch with the
Volturno
. Four hours later they saw the blazing ship drifting helplessly in the storm. Captain Barr drew alongside and tried to throw out lines to the
Volturno
, but the sea was too rough, and he had to abandon the attempt for the safety of his own ship. One of the
Carmania
’s boats was lowered, but the crew gave up their rescue attempt after two hours. As night fell more ships arrived on the scene, but none could get close to the
Volturno
as the fire raged in the storm and spread to the midships. By nightfall nine ships, Russian, German, French and British, were standing by, able only to look on and wait for the storm to abate.

Captain Barr had a wireless message sent appealing for any oil tankers within range to join the rescue so that they might calm the seas by discharging some of their cargo onto them. A tanker of the Anglo-American Oil Company, the
Narragansett
, Morsed back: ‘Yes, we will come with the milk in the morning.’ The vigil went on through the night with the passengers and crews of the rescue ships watching in awe as the
Volturno
blazed, its terrified passengers screaming for help. From the wireless cabin came desperate appeals: ‘For God’s sake help us, or we perish.’ But there was nothing that could be done until daybreak. Captain Barr asked
the
Narragansett
if it could not make better speed. The tanker did its best, cutting an hour off its estimated time.