The Wire That Listened

The small wireless cabin of an ocean liner on the North Atlantic at night, white-painted board walls, a round brass porthole showing black sea, a caged electric bulb giving warm yellow light, on the wall a flat polished mahogany box forty-seven centimetres wide, on its front two large black ebonite discs left and right, between them two short coils with dark magnets and brass terminal screws, a thin bright wire band running over both discs, brown fabric cables hanging down, the box plain and unmarked, below on a shelf black headphones, a hand in a dark serge sleeve winding the clockwork with a small brass key.