draught from below, could cope with. The fuel-pumps were working smoothly.
Only Mr. MacDonald was not heartened. He was oldâcontest had no call for him. Doubt meant foreboding, not excitement. He was old, and he liked certainty, reasonable conditions under which to render reasonable service. Moreover, an engineer comes to feel the stresses in big engines as if those engines were his body. To someone else the grinding of those bearings was a thing outside; but Mr. MacDonald ached with it, as if in his own joints.
Captain Edwardes, in spite of his tubby shape, swerved about these strange places with all a seamanâs agilityâthat a seaman does not lose, at any age, till senility actually cripples him. He did not talk to the Chinese as he had talked to the officers; but they stole glances at him. He looked a very happy man: anyone could see, by looking at him, that everything was going all right. He entered the stokehold, and stood for a minute in the doorway, the light of the fires showing the immense secret pleasure in his face.
Then he left, to return on deck. It was as dark, by now, on deck, as it was below.
II
Coming out there into the blackness the blast hit him in the mouth, stopping his breath. He tried to gasp, but he could not: something pungent had filled his lungs, so that they retched and shuddered in the attempt to breathe. The wind was wrapping it round him in hot, greasy blasts. His unseeing eyes poured with water, smarted as in mustard-gas. He must be in a cloud of dense smoke: but he could not see it, of courseâthe night could be no darker than it was anyhow. He had no idea where it came from: possibly the fiddley. The thing to do now was to find his way to the Bridgeâif his lungs held out. Keeping his head with an effort of will, he began to feel his way along, holding his breath (what little breath he had), resisting the dangerous temptation to hurry.
Down below, they had no more idea than the captain had, what had happened; though there too it was plain enough something was wrong. Just as he left, they heard a pop from the stokehold. A super-heat element had gone, thought Mr. MacDonald: nothing serious. But the next moment the firemen came out from the stokehold like bolted rabbits. Wisely, too: for steam was escaping, they said (steam at 200 lbs. pressure to the inch, heated to 600° Fahrenheit). No time to see where the leak wasâonly time to get out: for in thirty seconds the stokehold was uninhabitable.
Meanwhile, in the engine-room, you could see on the gauges the pressure of main steam dropping back, dropping back. What had gone? A mere super-heat element would not give an escape like that. Nor was there any way of finding out. A naked man can move without discomfort in air heated to temperatures above boiling-point, provided the air is perfectly dry, because the rapid evaporation of sweat keeps him cool. But if there is the slightest trace of moisture in the air, retarding that evaporation, it would kill him at once. Any considerable amount of steam would kill him at half the temperature of dry air. So imagine that stokehold, full of steam heated four hundred degrees above boiling-point! If you had ventured in, you would have been scalded to death at once; and then would probably have burst, after a few minutes.
Captain Edwardes found his way to the bridge, the smoke following him in eddies. Mr. Buxton was still there, of course. He had noticed the smoke; but could no more explain it than the captain could. Some trick of the wind, that blew it down on deck and perhaps ... but that could hardly account for so much. They strained their eyes into the darkness till their eyes ached. But their eyes could not help them.
The roar of the storm was now so dense, so uniform, as to be the equivalent of a deep silence, in the way it wiped out all ordinary sound. You could not tell whether it was outside or inside you, like the pain in a deaf manâs ears.
A message came up
Only Mr. MacDonald was not heartened. He was oldâcontest had no call for him. Doubt meant foreboding, not excitement. He was old, and he liked certainty, reasonable conditions under which to render reasonable service. Moreover, an engineer comes to feel the stresses in big engines as if those engines were his body. To someone else the grinding of those bearings was a thing outside; but Mr. MacDonald ached with it, as if in his own joints.
Captain Edwardes, in spite of his tubby shape, swerved about these strange places with all a seamanâs agilityâthat a seaman does not lose, at any age, till senility actually cripples him. He did not talk to the Chinese as he had talked to the officers; but they stole glances at him. He looked a very happy man: anyone could see, by looking at him, that everything was going all right. He entered the stokehold, and stood for a minute in the doorway, the light of the fires showing the immense secret pleasure in his face.
Then he left, to return on deck. It was as dark, by now, on deck, as it was below.
II
Coming out there into the blackness the blast hit him in the mouth, stopping his breath. He tried to gasp, but he could not: something pungent had filled his lungs, so that they retched and shuddered in the attempt to breathe. The wind was wrapping it round him in hot, greasy blasts. His unseeing eyes poured with water, smarted as in mustard-gas. He must be in a cloud of dense smoke: but he could not see it, of courseâthe night could be no darker than it was anyhow. He had no idea where it came from: possibly the fiddley. The thing to do now was to find his way to the Bridgeâif his lungs held out. Keeping his head with an effort of will, he began to feel his way along, holding his breath (what little breath he had), resisting the dangerous temptation to hurry.
Down below, they had no more idea than the captain had, what had happened; though there too it was plain enough something was wrong. Just as he left, they heard a pop from the stokehold. A super-heat element had gone, thought Mr. MacDonald: nothing serious. But the next moment the firemen came out from the stokehold like bolted rabbits. Wisely, too: for steam was escaping, they said (steam at 200 lbs. pressure to the inch, heated to 600° Fahrenheit). No time to see where the leak wasâonly time to get out: for in thirty seconds the stokehold was uninhabitable.
Meanwhile, in the engine-room, you could see on the gauges the pressure of main steam dropping back, dropping back. What had gone? A mere super-heat element would not give an escape like that. Nor was there any way of finding out. A naked man can move without discomfort in air heated to temperatures above boiling-point, provided the air is perfectly dry, because the rapid evaporation of sweat keeps him cool. But if there is the slightest trace of moisture in the air, retarding that evaporation, it would kill him at once. Any considerable amount of steam would kill him at half the temperature of dry air. So imagine that stokehold, full of steam heated four hundred degrees above boiling-point! If you had ventured in, you would have been scalded to death at once; and then would probably have burst, after a few minutes.
Captain Edwardes found his way to the bridge, the smoke following him in eddies. Mr. Buxton was still there, of course. He had noticed the smoke; but could no more explain it than the captain could. Some trick of the wind, that blew it down on deck and perhaps ... but that could hardly account for so much. They strained their eyes into the darkness till their eyes ached. But their eyes could not help them.
The roar of the storm was now so dense, so uniform, as to be the equivalent of a deep silence, in the way it wiped out all ordinary sound. You could not tell whether it was outside or inside you, like the pain in a deaf manâs ears.
A message came up
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