The Wire

Indeed

Your Humble Scribe was sitting, waiting for inspiration and the Muse to strike, when he recalled that his pontification about Catton's South Canadian Civil Unpleasantness wasn't done; we have briefly looked at rifles, and railways and bridges, indeed the beginning of a new age of warfare.  As mentioned briefly yesteryon, the Prussians, who regarded themselves as Tier Alpha of Tier One when it came to military achievement, sniffily dismissed the SCCU because of the lack of professionalism -

     Hang, on, what were you expecting?  "A gritty police drama set on the streets and within the institutions of Baltimore"  Art?

     What a remarkable coincidence!  Fortunately 1) Conrad is wearing his armoured underwear and 2) I think I watched some of the first season and wasn't that enamoured of it.

     Where was I?  O yes, I'd about gotten to the "f" in "pontification".  Today's title is a reference to yet another military innovation, that is: The Telegraph.  Art!

     Art, I'm charging up the Industrial Elephant Tazer as I type -

Better.

     Perhaps I should be merciful, I did capitalise after all.  ANYWAY, the humble telegraph became of immense practical significance once war broke out, because it linked generals and politicians across very long distances.  You may not be aware, gentle reader, but South Canada is VERY large indeed.  Especially if you're moving from Point A to Point B.

Proof and underlining

     Up until 1861, communications between various different formations, generals, headquarters, politicians, capitals and so on would have been by courier on horseback, perhaps including a railway journey.  My point is, it would have taken days for a despatch from say General Grant to reach Abraham Lincoln, and days for a reply to get back.  With the Wonder Wire in use, these two could (and did) communicate in real time, immediately.  General Sherman, off making Georgia squeal WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS! Art!

The State of Georgia.  Perverts.

     - kept his superior, General Grant, constantly up-to-date with what he was doing ("Day 47 of pillage and arson -") even though the two were one thousand five hundred miles apart.  The Rebels knew well how important telegraphy was to their opposition, and their cavalry chevauchees took care to cut the Wonder Wire at every opportunity.  The Rebel's telegraph network had been far smaller when war broke out, and a lot of the operators were from the North, whence they returned.  Ooopsies.  Not only that, the Confederate telegraph operators refused to share their lines or traffic with the military, because $$$ one suspects, leading some commanders to use martial law to Wonder Wire messages.  Nor did they have the kind of industrial backing that could remedy shortages.  If the war had been Over By Christmas this wouldn't have mattered a great deal.  But -

A Wonder Wire wagon

     No, that's not a ghost at lower port.  Photography at that time needed long exposures, so if a person went marching out of shot, you get ethereal shadowy figures.

     Motley!  Put on the record-playing apparatus and let the sounds of "Pink Flag" resound around The Mansion!

Do you see wh - O you do

Crunching Of Numbers!

I did threaten you with this, so you've had fair warning.  Okay, recall if you will Conrad's repetition of a few lines from "The Kraken Wakes", where the unseen alien invaders have brought marine transport to a complete halt.  Ol' John then fudges up a compromise that two large freight aircraft working round the clock could substitute for a single ocean transport.  Art!

     Hmmmmmm.  Colour Conrad unsure.  Using statistics from 2010, the UK ports dealt with 500,000,000 tons of freight that year.  Assuming an ability to transport 150 tons of cargo per plane, which is being VERY generous, you would need over THREE MILLION flights to bring in that much cargo.  Is that possible?  Which is quite besides the logistics of where they land on the Continent to bring this cargo in.  Where would the fuel come from?  North Sea Oil wasn't a thing when Ol' John wrote his opus; would the evil alien invaders bother with the oil rigs out there or not, given that they're static installations?

     Of course, I could be over-thinking this ...

An Amusing Detail Often Overlooked At The Apocalypse

Ol' John didn't go into this kind of detail, because he was British and it was 1953 and discussing sanitation and hygiene simply wasn't done.  ANYWAY that's our tenuous link for today, since I am currently watching "All Of Us Are Dead", that Sork zombie horror drama.  Art!

     So, we have a group of survivors trapped in a school classroom, and another group of politicians trapped in an hotel, neither able to venture outside and yet with a desperate need for toilets.  They're only human, after all, and the water closet is an invention taken for granted - until the zombie apocalypse arrives.  So!  We have both groups improvising fiendishly, and I shall leave it at that.

I Finally Realised!

Why "Tormentor" is so-called.  Because Eric Miller is about to undergo torment, thanks to a vengeful spirit and the intercession of Luma.

A shiver of fright went through him.  There was another person in the cell, impossible though that was.  They were standing upright, in the corner, facing away from him.

He whimpered, suddenly aware of the chill air in the cell, a freezing fog that settled slowly on his soul. 

Nobody could have gotten in here!  The cell had been bare-metal empty when he came in.  Slowly, reluctantly, he turned his head to face the silent figure.

A short, ginger-haired girl, face tucked into the corner of the cell.  Track-suit bottoms and a loose top, all soiled and dirty and rumpled.  Impossible!  Impossible, he continued to think, impossible impossible impossible.  He recognised the clothes, recognised them and that tell-tale ginger hair, too.

‘Hello. Hello Eric,’ came a slow and repellent gurgling croak he could only just decipher as words.  The figure turned around, to Eric’s pant-wetting horror, revealing a torso cross-hatched with slash and stab wounds beneath the torn fabric.  Her throat consisted of dark purple bruising that entirely covered it, her tongue lolled dark and swollen from her gaping mouth and her grotesquely battered face came in shades of yellow and purple and blue. 

‘I’ve come back to you,’ slurred the figure, lurching as the van began to move.  Eric shrieked so hard he hurt his throat.

Of course the hateful thing vanished when the detective outside drew back the inspection panel and looked in.  Nor did it reappear when the panel slid shut with a warning not to “**** about”.

Eric huddled in a corner of his metal cubicle after that, trying to tell himself that the apparition of Jennifer Hargreaves came about as a result of dodgy acid he’d dropped months or years ago, an acid flashback coming at a most unwelcome time.

His frame of mind was not improved when the cell was opened to release him into the courtyard of Wandsworth Prison.

‘I’ve not gone away,’ hissed a voice from nowhere, coming from a point about five inches from his left ear.  ‘We aren’t going to be easily parted, Eric.’

     Conrad doesn't think Eric's going to have a happy ending here.  Maybe just an ending.

Finally -

Have we hit the Compositional Ton yet?  <checks> O we have.  In that case I shall bid you goodbye and continue with "Redemption Ark", ta very much.