III
The steam-whistle-pipe was bracketed to the funnel: so when the funnel went, the whistle-pipe would go with it. Hence the escape of steam—from the broken pipe. That much was clear to every engineer the moment they heard the shocking news.
Now there was an emergency cock, for shutting off steam to the whistle: and there were two ways of getting at it. One was on the boat-deck, just to windward of where the funnel had been. But this one, being out of their province, they hardly gave a thought to; except to presume it was impossible to move on deck at all in these conditions. Looking back, one can at least say this: if they had drawn the captain’s attention to it, a deck officer would have found some means of getting there: though he would likely have gone down the funnel-hole into the smoke-box, in the attempt, when another one would have tried his luck.
The other approach to this cock was on top of the boilers, close to the actual break.
This was the only one they thought about. But how to get to it? Being near the break, it would still be defended by hot steam. Nor, with the furnaces blowing back, could you get near the boilers at all.
An engineer’s first duty (even without the captain’s express orders) is to keep up main steam at all costs. But the furnaces were blowing back; and when they blew back, several of them altogether blew out, leaving hot oil squirting out of their nipples, running out of the fire-doors onto the stokehold floor. Mr. MacDonald’s first instinct was that they must be re-lit. He and the Second were standing at the stokehold door, as close as they dared, when the furnace nearest to the door blew out like this.
“Heh, a torch!” yelled Mr. MacDonald: “Relight the aft-centre furnace!”
A Chinese fireman, dripping wet, slipped by them, drew the torch from its container, lit it at the next fire, and thrust it into the oven-like hollow of the extinguished furnace.
There was an explosion, blasting the furnace door clean off. For a moment the air was all flame, in which the only black thing was the Chinaman, in the heart of it, his arms up to guard his face. It licked both engineers, singeing their very skin. They heard the Chinaman screech. Then blackness; so black indeed that MacDonald and Soutar stood dazed, lights still flashing in their strained eyes.
Something was crawling between MacDonald’s legs, coming out of that stokehold. He grabbed it, terrified—to find the fireman.
“Are you hurt?” cried Mr. MacDonald.
“My belong velly allight,” said the Chinaman, quietly.
At that moment Mr. MacDonald found it was necessary for him to go to his room, to change his clothes: so he went, leaving Soutar in charge.
As soon as the chief was gone, Soutar called Gaston.
“We got to get at that leak, and turn off the cock,” he said.
“Aye,” said Gaston: “But we can’t do it with the fires blowing like this.”
“Then we must put them out,” said Soutar: “put some of them out, so we can get to the boilers.”
Now Gaston had noticed that the flames did not lick the floor: at their ends, they curled up instead. So Soutar and Gaston each took a broom handle, and lying flat on their faces they crawled into the stokehold—beneath the flames, like chops under a gas-grill. Then, reaching up with the broom handles, they contrived to turn off the fuel-cock of one furnace after another, their faces in the hot oil, their backs scorched with the flames. Thus they were able to get almost to the boilers. But one furnace defeated them. It was a double arrangement —two furnaces with a single combustion-chamber. The after one they extinguished all right: but the forward one continued to blow back through it, and they could not get round to turn off the cock of that one too.
There was only one thing to be done: they must turn off the fuel-oil at the main supply. That meant extinguishing everything. Nor would it be easy, once the furnaces were cold, to light them again, with no funnel and no forced draught.
Not only would steam be gone—the fires would be out too.
Yet it seemed inevitable. Until the leak was checked, the fires could not raise steam, they were only a danger. The first thing was to check the leak. Once the escaping steam was turned off, the problem of re-lighting the furnaces could be reconsidered.
The chief being away, Mr. Soutar, on his own responsibility, turned off the fuel, extinguishing everything. It was ten o’clock now: less than three hours after the captain’s exhortation to keep up steam at all costs: and now the steam was gone, the fires were out.
By ten o’clock, then, the “Archimedes” was totally dead. Everything about her worked by steam or by electricity—so little, on a modern ship, is left to man-power. There being no steam, there was also no electricity. She was dark everywhere, but for the pin-points of a few electric torches and oil-lamps. Water still poured down her gaping fore-hatch—but the pumps were perforce idle. The wireless apparatus, being dependent on main electricity, was dumb. Her propeller was still; her rudder immovable. She was dead, as a log is dead, rolling in the sea; she was not a ship any more. She was full of men, of course; but there was no work for them to do, because ships having once discarded man’s strength, cannot fall back on that strength in an emergency.
A well-found schooner of a mere two hundred tons, supposing she had weathered that storm, would not have been dead like that. Her pumps would have still been working, because they would have been worked by men: they could be worked as long as her crew lived. Her masts, of course, would have gone overboard; but once the storm relaxed, it would have needed mere carpentry to step spars against their stumps, rig jury-sails, repair the rudder, and so limp home. The very distance a great modern steamer has advanced beyond the little schooner is the measure of what a steamer’s crew have to face, once her power has failed. Captain Edwardes, in charge of this lifeless log, in command of all these willing but unusable men, was well aware of that.
He found Mr. MacDonald in his room, still (after half an hour) changing his clothes; and they returned to the engine room together.
Chapter V
(Thursday)
At mid-night, Captain Edwardes went to the saloon. A gimballed oil lamp was burning. The place was a horrid mess. It was tilted steeply on one end, and the lower end was awash; with splintered chairs and smaller rubbish floating in it, and the water slapping up occasionally to the higher end. There deck-officers, boys, and a few engineers—all mixed for once—had wedged themselves behind a table, upright. No one would have thought of sleep, even if it had been possible: they were waiting for the expected lull, now so long overdue. The Chief Steward (a rotund, butler-like chap) was with them. What little food—mostly biscuits—he had in the pantry, he had locked up pending the Captain’s orders; for it would have to serve officers and crew both, English and Chinese. The storeroom was flooded, he could not get out any more till the pumps were working again. The only thing he had plenty of in the pantry was spirits. But, curiously, no one seemed to want any, not even a nip.
There was a smell of stale sea, stale food, and stale air: but there was another smell too: bitter, ammoniac. It was quite faint, but the Captain knew it. You do not forget it, if you have ever smelt it. It was the smell of fear. Disciplined men can control their muscles, even their facial expressions. But they cannot control the chemistry of their sweat-glands.
Captain Edwardes sniffed, and knew that the men needed some encouragement; so he gave it; his shaggy eyebrows sticking out like horns over his brilliant eyes, his tubby body planted like a light-house on a rock. For he felt himself full of power, like a prophet, with enough courage to serve out round the ship in ladles.
When the storm began, he had been worried: for this was not the first time he had run his ship into a tropical storm. Once before, when a young man, he had been caught in a typhoon, in his first command. It had not been a storm as fierce as this one, of course, and he had come through it without damage; but there is no need to get caught in typhoons nowadays, the text-books tell you: it is your own fault: and Owners believe the text-books. Moreover, what he had do
ne that time had been deliberate: he had deliberately run into its expected path, though if he had stayed where he was the storm would have missed him. Yes; but where he was, that was an intricate net-work of channels and islands. There might be not one chance in ten that the storm would catch him, there: but if the tenth chance did catch him, with no room to move, his ship was as good as lost. On the other hand, if he put out to the open sea, it was nine chances out of ten the storm would catch him. Yes, but with plenty of room to move, there was no real danger if it did. He had argued like that; gone out: got caught in it, and came through safely. Still, it had been difficult to prove his policy to his Owners. In the end, they had forgiven him: but not forgotten. Owners do not forget. Or, if they do, they have only to consult their files to be reminded of everything.
So now that ill-luck had repeated history, and he was caught a second time, he might not be forgiven a second time. True, this time he had not flouted the text-books, he had done everything they recommend: and even then had got caught. Not a deliberate risk taken this time, just ill-luck. But he knew well that while a wise, deliberate risk may sometimes be forgiven, ill-luck is never forgiven.
Yes, he had been worried. But that was only at first. For soon the storm reached such a height that plainly this was no longer an issue between himself and his Owners, but become an issue between himself and his Maker. That altered things. That suited him better. From then on, he was like an artist in a bout of inspiration.
The boys were the turning-point; when they came rushing up on to the bridge, courageous themselves, and confident in him. It was they who lit him. Then, later, as the storm increased to its immense height, so the flame brightened: his whole mind and body were possessed by intense excitement. No room for thought of his Owners. No room in him for anything but a gigantic exhilaration, and a consciousness that for the time-being all his abilities were heightened.
But back to the saloon. He was talking about the coming lull. “—shall need all hands then,” he was saying. “There may be trouble with the Chinese. I rely on you gentlemen to put that right. You know, as well as I do, there’s no danger to the ship if we all do our duty. By the afternoon it will all be over: be out in the sunshine. But the Chinese don’t know that: they think they’re going down. They’re ignorant, and they got the wind-up. And when a Chinaman gets the wind-up he sits on his behind and don’t do damn-all. It’s up to you to show ’em, gentlemen. Let ’em see in your faces there’s nothing to be afraid of. Then they’ll do all you ask ’em. Cheerfulness. You know we’re right as rain: well, let the Chinese see you know it.”
A few moments later he popped his head back into the saloon. “When the lull comes, all Deck-officers will report on the Bridge.”
He had to roar all that, to make himself heard.
II
It was not till nearly two in the morning that the behaviour of the weather showed any change. Up till then, the wind had come upon them from the northeast almost in a single movement continuously. Now it grew fitful. It came from all sides, in blasts, as if big shells were being burst close about them. Gusts still very strong, but totally uncertain in direction.
Some of these gusts, coming up from what had been leeward with the lifting-force of an explosion, almost seemed as if they could blast the heeled ship back on to an even keel. But the weight of her sodden cargo held her implacably down: and other gusts, coming again out of the east and north, instead pinned her even lower.
Such an area of violent chaos, Edwardes knew, was commonly the torn fringe of the dead windlessness of a hurricane’s centre. That centre must at last be near. It might not give a long respite: they must be ready for it. He whistled down to the saloon to call the officers. He sent Buxton on a tour of the Chinese quarters.
Buxton took his chance, in a dash across the well-deck, to reach the “sailors’ fo’c’sle.” It was a single large room, with bunks all along one side and both ends, each bunk with a different coloured curtain (for Chinese seamen are particular about privacy). The whole room is usually very neat and clean: practically no smell: a Chinese calendar hanging on the bulkhead. But it looked different now. It was washed right out. No curtains, no bedding, no calendar: swirling water, and some burst straw mattresses floating: bare bunks.
No Chinamen there.
On the opposite side were the petty-officers’ rooms. These, being meant for Europeans when the ship was built, were more comfortable than might seem necessary for the Chinese petty-officers that now used them (roughly, any specialist counts as a petty-officer: “idlers,” they are called in sail). These too were deserted—except the carpenter’s room. The carpenter was not there. But Mr. Rabb was.
He was standing, as if in meditation, holding on to the side of the bunk. Mr. Buxton told him to report on the Bridge: and he went without answering. Buxton wondered how long he had been there: it was a long time, he suddenly realised, since he had seen Mr. Rabb about anywhere.
Mr. Buxton made another dash across the well-deck, back to the centre-castle. It was there, in the two open spaces each side of the engine-room, that he found the Chinese seamen. They had gone hardly human. They were piled up, like a pile of half-dead fish on a quay. A lot of them were sick. With each lurch of the ship the pile spilt, or even skiddered entire against one bulkhead or the other; when the men in it showed they were alive by a faint bleat.
Mr. Buxton looked at them, appalled. How on earth would it be possible to get any useful work out of them? It was no good beginning to try to rouse them now. Wait till the lull came: they might feel better then. He returned to the Bridge.
III
All the other officers were already there, when he got there. Even Dr. Frangcon, and “Sparks,” were there. Waiting. The lull should have come by now.
But by now, Buxton had begun to doubt if it ever would come. Many hurricanes are like that, he knew: no really calm centre at all, only a turmoil. They do not all do what the Air Ministry tells you.
Or again, perhaps the true centre was not going to pass directly over their ship. Perhaps it would pass a little to one side; this fringe would be all of it they would touch. He caught the Captain’s eye: saw the Captain was thinking the same thing. Captain Edwardes, moreover, was doing some calculating in his head. They had taken a rather unusually long time to reach this centre—seventeen hours. It was quite on the cards it would take them another seventeen hours to come out on the far side. A lot of water can go down open hatches in that time. If as much went down as had gone already, she would capsize. The hatches must be repaired before the second bout.
“We’ll begin right away,” he said: “The wind’s easing. Mr. Buxton will take charge of the fore-hatches, Mr. Rabb will take charge of the after-hatches. Mr. Watchett will go with Mr. Buxton. Mr. Foster, you see to getting the timber along: the engineers have it ready. Doctor, you stand by.”
“If I were to speak to the Chinese, Sir, they know me better than the deck-officers,” said Dr. Frangcon (which was true, for he had made a hobby of them in his search for strange music).
“Do what you can, Doctor.”
Then, just as they turned to go, a terrific wave shivered the ship; tore the starboard gangway loose, so that it began to pound on the ship’s side like a steam-hammer. Captain Edwardes crabbed his way to the bridge end, peering down with his torch to see what made the racket. He guessed what it was: but could guess no way to secure it. Luckily however the sea found its own way: after a few minutes it tore the gangway off altogether, and swallowed it, before it had time to batter a hole.
Then the Captain returned to the wheelhouse. That place was a wreck. He flashed his torch round. The wind had not only smashed the windows, it had blown nearly every last chip of glass out of the frames, and now poured through the gaps. He had thought it deserted: but his light showed two men there, crouched down out of the wind-stream as if it were bullets.
Captain Edwardes flashed his torch again. They were Rabb, and Dick Watchett.
Dick, you know, had
been shut in his room, unable to do anything except try to keep still, all day: ever since two in the afternoon, when the steering went. For the first hour he had thought about the ship going down: and claustrophobia clawed at him till he nearly went mad. He must find some way to banish it. He must compel himself to think hard about something else. At first therefore he tried to think about God: but God slipped about, and was shadowy. His home likewise: that slipped about, and cheated him. There was only one thing brilliant enough to hold his mental eye, during that time of strain: Sukie’s body. He could hold that all right, he found. It was something brightly-lit and solid, among shadows.
Presently, though, his thinking turned to a queer quirk: for the image of her nakedness began to take hold of his body as well as his mind. He was sad about this, in a way; because he knew that he could not love her as he believed he did, if he could think about her like that. Yet he deliberately continued. For his plight was so desperate: it was worth even spoiling his love, to keep himself sane.
But at last one of the huge buffets, when the wind unsteadied after mid-night, released the jamming of his door, and he got out. The prolonged effort of imagination had left him weakened: and with an added cause for fear, in that he felt God could hardly favour him now. He went straight from his room to the saloon, without going on deck: and stayed there with the others, till the order came for them all to report on the Bridge.
Thus his arrival on the Bridge had been his first contact with what the air was really doing now: he had not come to it gradually, as the others had.