Chap­ter IV — Mem­oir of Fleem­ing Jenkin recounts a crit­i­cal episode dur­ing one of Jenkin’s cable-lay­ing mis­sions, filled with uncer­tain­ty and engi­neer­ing risk. Off the coast, his team attempts to retrieve a com­pro­mised sec­tion of under­sea cable that has shown signs of dete­ri­o­ra­tion. With cau­tious opti­mism, they low­er dredg­ing equip­ment, ful­ly aware that any fur­ther strain could snap the already frag­ile line. The ten­sion builds as the cable, strained and worn by sea con­di­tions, is brought aboard inch by inch. When visu­al signs sug­gest a break is near­by, con­cern inten­si­fies. Yet, test­ing reveals the rup­ture lies clos­er to shore, leav­ing the sea­ward por­tion intact—a nar­row but valu­able suc­cess.

Even with this pos­i­tive result, com­mu­ni­ca­tion from Spartiven­to sud­den­ly halts, stir­ring fresh wor­ry about the con­di­tion of the crew sta­tioned there and the over­all sta­bil­i­ty of the sys­tem. Jenkin, unwill­ing to leave the issue unre­solved, quick­ly orga­nizes the lay­ing of a new cable from their posi­tion to the shore­line. This urgent but care­ful­ly exe­cut­ed task is car­ried out beneath a qui­et night sky, the calm con­trast­ing sharply with the stakes at hand. Their des­ti­na­tion, Fort Genois, becomes the anchor point for the replace­ment cable. After secur­ing the con­nec­tion, the crew turns their atten­tion to retriev­ing the remain­ing seg­ments of the failed line. With these tasks com­plet­ed, prepa­ra­tions are made to move oper­a­tions toward Spartiven­to to fur­ther diag­nose the prob­lem.

The nar­ra­tive then moves inward, reflect­ing changes in Jenkin’s per­son­al habits. His pre­vi­ous­ly reg­u­lar prac­tice of keep­ing jour­nals and writ­ing diary-style let­ters begins to fade, a sign of either shift­ing pri­or­i­ties or emo­tion­al exhaus­tion. How­ev­er, frag­ments of pro­fes­sion­al cor­re­spon­dence from this peri­od remain, pre­serv­ing his insight into ongo­ing tech­ni­cal chal­lenges. One notable exam­ple involves the lay­ing of the Norder­ney cable, where Jenkin’s let­ters reveal a bal­ance of tech­ni­cal pre­ci­sion and human endurance. His words cap­ture the grind of man­ag­ing cable under pres­sure, against both envi­ron­men­tal and logis­ti­cal odds. The let­ters also reflect how engi­neer­ing suc­cess required not just intel­lect, but per­sis­tence and adapt­abil­i­ty.

Through­out this chap­ter, Jenkin’s resilience in the face of lay­ered adver­si­ty stands out. Each cable-lay­ing attempt involved unpre­dictable factors—weather, ter­rain, mate­r­i­al fatigue—and yet, he approached each with method­i­cal patience. These chal­lenges were met not with dra­mat­ics but with action, adjust­ment, and tech­ni­cal clar­i­ty. His lead­er­ship held the team steady through long nights and com­pli­cat­ed recov­er­ies. At no point does he dwell on set­backs; instead, he ana­lyzes, adapts, and push­es for­ward. This spir­it becomes a defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic, shap­ing how oth­ers remem­ber him and how future engi­neers mod­el per­se­ver­ance.

This blend of prac­ti­cal action and qui­et intro­spec­tion adds emo­tion­al weight to the tech­ni­cal achieve­ments. Jenkin is not por­trayed as a detached sci­en­tist but as some­one deeply engaged with both the process and the peo­ple involved. The pres­sure of under­sea com­mu­ni­ca­tion projects is immense, yet his let­ters rarely show frus­tra­tion. Instead, they doc­u­ment an engi­neer think­ing sev­er­al steps ahead, always with an eye on both prob­lem-solv­ing and safe­ty. Even when progress stalls, Jenkin’s tone remains focused, nev­er cyn­i­cal. His belief in the pur­pose of the work car­ries him through the phys­i­cal and men­tal strain.

By inte­grat­ing the tech­ni­cal sto­ry with per­son­al reflec­tion, the chap­ter gives a more com­plete view of Jenkin’s con­tri­bu­tions. The cable might lie beneath the sea, unseen, but the effort to place it was filled with vis­i­ble labor, emo­tion, and deci­sion-mak­ing. Jenkin’s com­mit­ment was­n’t con­fined to his profession—it reflect­ed a larg­er dri­ve to con­nect and improve the world. His jour­ney at sea was not only about over­com­ing resis­tance in wires, but also about nav­i­gat­ing doubt, fatigue, and iso­la­tion with courage. These expe­ri­ences, stitched togeth­er by his own words and oth­ers’ obser­va­tions, con­tin­ue to res­onate as lessons in char­ac­ter and com­mit­ment.