DISABLED ENGINES
Spring had come, and all down the wild West Coast the tall pines had
shaken off their load of snow and the rivers were thundering in their
misty canyons, but there was very little sign of it at sea when one
bitter morning a cluster of deeply bronzed men hung about the
_Adelaide_'s engine-room skylights. They were lean and somewhat grim of
face, as well as ragged and suggestively spare of frame, for they had
borne all that man may bear and live through during the winter they had
spent in the ice-bound wilderness. Now they were going back to
civilization with many ounces of gold, and papers relating to auriferous
claims, to invoke the aid of capital before they once more turned their
faces toward the frozen north.
It was noticeable that although they were of widely different birth and
upbringing there was the same stamp which revealed itself in a certain
quietness of manner and steadiness of gaze upon them all, for these were
the pick of the mining community, men who had grappled with the
wilderness in its most savage moods long before they blazed a new trail
south from the wilds of the Yukon. They had proved their manhood by
coming back at all, for that winter the unfit had died. Still, though
they had endured things beyond the comprehension of the average city
man, they were glad of the shelter of the tall skylights, because the
_Adelaide_'s flush deck was swept by a stinging wind and little showers
of bitter spray blew all over it. She was rolling viciously across a
waste of gray-blue sea which was flecked by livid froth, and her
mastheads swung in a wide sweep athwart a sky of curious dingy blue.
There was no warmth anywhere in the picture, and apparently very little
light; but for all that, every sea stood out from its fellows, and those
back in the clear distance were etched upon the indented horizon with
harsh distinctness. One of the men shook his head as he gazed at them.
"They look like the pines on the ridge did the day the blizzard struck
us down on the Assiniboia Creek," he said. "It was a full-powered one.
The boys who'd camped ahead of us were frozen stiff by morning. The two
we scraped the snow off were sitting there like statues, and we didn't
worry 'bout the others. There was ten feet over them, anyway. I've no
use for this kind of weather."
One of his companions swept his glance astern toward the smear of smoke
on the serrated skyline, which was blotted out next moment when the
_Adelaide_ swung her stern aloft.
"If you're right in your figuring, I'm glad I came along in this boat,"
he said. "Anyway, she's bigger, though I 'most took my berth in the
_Shasta_. Seems to me we're quite a long while getting away from her."
The others agreed with him, for they had seen that smear of smoke on
the skyline since early morning. Then they turned to watch the engineer,
who came out of a door close by, and glanced up to weather, blinking in
the bitter wind. He was a big loosely-built man in dungarees, with the
pallid face of one accustomed to the half-light and heat of the
engine-room, but in his case it was also unhealthily puffy. Then he
slouched right aft, and stood still again looking down at the dial of
the taffrail log which records the distance run, while he fumbled in a
curious aimless fashion with the blackened rag in his hand.
"That," said one of the miners, "is a man I'm no way stuck on. Now,
you'll most times find hard grit in an engineer, but this one kind of
strikes me as feeling that there was something after him he was scared
of."
"Well," said one of the others reflectively, "it's not an uncommon
thing. There was a man down on the flat where we struck it who had a
kind of notion that there were three big timber wolves on his trail.
Kept his rifle clean with the magazine ram full for them, but one night
they got him. A sure thing. Tom was there."
The man at whom he glanced nodded. "Now and then I wish I hadn't been,"
he said. "Lister was sitting very sick beside his fire that night. Said
he heard those wolves pattering in the bush--there were thick pines all
round us--'most made me think I did."
"Well?" said one of his companions.
The miner made a little expressive grimace. "Longest night I ever put
in. Sat there and kept them off him. Anyway, I tried, but he was dead at
sun-up."
None of the others showed any astonishment, and the man who had asked
the question glanced back toward the engineer.
"Guess the man who runs this steamboat should be getting rich by the way
they strike you for a drink," he said. "I'm bringing down 'most two
hundred ounces, but I wouldn't like to fill that engineer up at the
tariff."
"Never saw him making a traverse, anyway. He walks quite straight," said
a comrade.
"Well," said the other, "I've seen his eyes."
Just then the man they were discussing turned toward the bridge, from
which the skipper was beckoning him. A minute or two later they went
into the room beneath it, and the engineer sat down looking at the man
in front of him with narrow, half-open eyes. The latter was young and
spruce in trim uniform, a man of no great education, who had a favorable
opinion of himself.
"Can't you shove her along a little faster, Robertson?" he said. "We'll
be thirty knots behind our usual run at noon."
"No," said the engineer, in a curious listless drawl. "I've been letting
the revolutions down. That high-pressure piston's getting on my nerves
again."
"Shouldn't have thought you had any worth speaking of," said the
skipper, with a quick sign of impatience. "You give one the impression
that they've gone to pieces long ago. Take a drink, and tone them up."
He flung a bottle on the table, and watched his companion's long greasy
fingers fumble at it with a look of disgust. Robertson half-filled his
glass with the yellow spirit, and drained it with slow enjoyment. Then
he breathed hard, and, leaning his elbows on the table, looked at the
skipper heavily.
"Well," he said, "you want something?"
"I do," said the skipper, and taking down a chart unrolled one part of
it. "I want to shake her up until we get away from the _Shasta_, for one
thing. Wheelock has been hanging on to us as far as his boat's speed
will allow it the last two or three runs. I can't quite figure what he's
after."
Robertson looked almost startled for a moment as though an unpleasant
thought had occurred to him, but his heavy, puffy face sank into its
usual lethargicness again.
"Wants to scoop your passengers. Done it once or twice," he said.
"Well?"
"For another thing, I want to get round this nest of islands before the
breeze that's brewing comes down on us. It will be a snorter. If I were
surer of your--old engines, I'd try the inside passage, though the tides
run strong. Now, if I head her up well clear of the islands I'm throwing
miles away, and letting the _Shasta_ in ahead of me. Wheelock has
apparently an engineer who will stand by him."
Again a curious furtive look that suggested uneasiness crept into
Robertson's eyes.
"He's always just ahead or just astern, and we've altered our sailing
bill twice," he said, as if communing with himself.
"I guess you dropped on the reason. Anyway, if you can give me a little
more steam, we'll be clear of this unhallowed conglomeration of reefs
and tides by this time to-morrow. If it's necessary, you can run her
easier afterward."
Robertson laid a grimy finger on the chart. "She'll be feeling the
indraught now--it's running ebb," he said. "If I can read the weather,
you'll soon have the breeze strong on your starboard bow."
The skipper flung a swift glance at him, in which there was a trace of
astonishment. "How'd you come to know just where she is?"
"Taffrail log," said Robertson. "I generally run a rough reckoning in my
head. Well, you want another knot or two out of her until you have the
big bight to lee of you? See what I can do, though I'd sooner take a
knot off her. That high-press piston's worrying me."
He jerked himself heavily to his feet, and when he shambled out of the
room the skipper, who made a little gesture of relief, took up his
dividers and laid their points on the chart. One of them rested in the
middle of the mark left by the engineer's greasy finger. After that he
rolled the chart up and stowed it away from the others in a drawer
beneath his berth, and the look of annoyance in his face had its
significance. He did not like his engineer, and although he had no
particular reason for distrusting him he remembered that when the latter
had found it necessary to stop his engines at sea, as he had done once
or twice during the last trip or two, it had generally been in the last
spot a nervous skipper would have desired. Then he went out, and climbed
to his bridge.
"You can head her out two points more to westward," he said to the
mate.
"Very good!" said the latter. "Still, we decided that the course she was
on would keep her off the land."
"We did," said the skipper dryly. "Anyway, you'll head her out. We're
going to have a wicked breeze from the west before this time to-night."
In the meanwhile the second engineer was leaning out from a slippery
platform that swung and slanted as the _Adelaide_ lurched over the long
gray seas, listening to the dull pounding of the high-pressure engine.
His face was as near as he could get it to the big cylinder, and after
glancing at a little glass tube he looked down at a man with a tallow
swab who clung to the iron ladder beneath him.
"I don't like the way she's slamming, Jake," he said. "There's mighty
little oil going into her, either. Who's been throttling up the feed?"
"The chief," said the man on the ladder. "He was slinging it red-hot at
Charley 'bout heaving oil away. Guess I'd have fed it to her by the
gallon after seeing that new piston-ring sprung on."
The second pursed up his face, for there is an etiquette in these
affairs at sea which the man, who had come there fresh from a sawmill,
apparently did not understand. "Well," he said, "I guess Mr. Robertson
bossed the putting in of that ring, and he knows his business. Anyway,
if he tells you you will run her dry."
Then a big, loosely-hung figure came shambling down the ladder, and the
second withdrew. However, he stood among the columns below, and watched
his superior stop and glance at the tube through which the oil flowed
before he went about his work again. Robertson was apparently
satisfied, and after slouching round the engine-room and unscrewing a
little further the throttle valve which turns steam on to the engines,
he crawled back to his greasy room. He sloughed off his jacket and
boots, and drawing a bottle from beneath the mattress of his bunk poured
himself a stiff drink of whisky before he stretched himself out.
He slept soundly, and did not hear the roar of the engines below him
when the _Adelaide_ flung her stern out and the lifted screw whirred
madly in the air. The thud of green water on her deck passed unheeded
too, though the second heard it as he watched the maze of clanking,
banging steel, until the young third relieved him. The latter came down
dripping, and shook a little shower of brine off him when he stopped
beside his superior.
"It's blowing quite fresh, and she seems to be plugging it mighty hard
since you shook her up," he said. "The chief must have given up worrying
about that piston, or he wouldn't have had you take the extra knot or
two out of her."
"Keep your eye on the--thing," said the second. "It's going to make us
trouble yet. If I were boss of this job, I'd slow her down right now
instead of pressing her."
He went up and also went to sleep, and, since the telegraph stood at
full-speed ahead, the young third clung to a greasy rail, all eyes and
ears, with one hand on the gear that would throttle down the steam,
while the rolling grew more vicious and the plunges steeper. Quick as he
was, there was a thunderous clamor every now and then as the big
compound engines, which were twice the size of those of a modern boat
of equal tonnage, ran away, and he commenced to long for the close of
his watch while the perspiration dripped from him. He had not been very
long at sea, and there is a responsibility upon the man on watch when
the whirring screw swings clear. At last there was a heavier plunge than
usual, and, though the third did all he could, the big engines span and
clamored furiously as the stern went up. Then there was a harsh,
grinding scream, and a crash. After that came sudden stillness, and the
third frantically span the wheel that cut off the steam, while grimy men
went sliding and floundering over the slippery plates and platforms
toward the high-pressure engine.
The sudden portentous silence and the roar of blown-off steam that
followed it roused every man on board the ship, and Robertson crawled
sluggishly out of his berth. He had reasons for knowing exactly what had
happened, and he showed no sign of haste, but there was a furtive look
in his eyes, and he sat on the ledge of the bunk shivering a little
while he thrust his hand beneath the mattress again. He felt that he
needed bracing, for he had once spent several anxious hours in a
half-swamped lifeboat after the steamer to which it belonged had gone
ashore, and he was aware that somebody is usually held accountable for
mishaps at sea. There was not very much left in the whiskey-bottle when
he thrust it out of sight again, and shambled out of his room. The
_Adelaide_ was rolling viciously, and when he reached the engine-room he
came near falling down the slippery ladder. Indeed, most men would have
gone down it headlong if they had braced themselves as he had done, but
habitual caution made him feel for a good hold, and he descended safely
to where his subordinates were clustered beneath the high-pressure
cylinder. Their faces showed tense and anxious in the flickering light
of the lamps which swung wildly as the steamer rolled, and the young
third engineer hastily related what had brought about the stoppage.
"Rig the lifting tackles while she cools," said Robertson. "Get the
stud-nuts loose. We'll have the cover off soon as we can."
Then he turned and saw, as he had partly expected, a quartermaster
standing just inside the door above him, and with a word or two to his
second he crawled back up the ladder and went with the man to the room
beneath the bridge. The young skipper who stood there with a furrowed
face regarded him grimly.
"How long are you going to be before you start her again?" he asked.
Robertson blinked at him with furtive, half-open eyes. "I don't quite
know--it's a heavy job. We have to heave the piston up," he said.
"Besides that, she has knocked things loose below."
The skipper appeared to have some difficulty in restraining himself.
"Unless you can get steam on her in the next few hours she'll be
breaking up by morning. The reefs to lee of us are not the kind of ones
I'd like to put a steamer ashore on, either."
Then he took a bottle from a drawer with a little grimace of disgust,
for he remembered that skippers are comparatively plentiful, and the man
he could scarcely keep his hands off was for some reason apparently a
favorite with his employer.
"Oh, take a drink, and hump yourself," he said. "I guess that's the only
thing to put a move on you."
Robertson hesitated for a moment, for he realized that he had still a
part to play. Then it occurred to him that his companion might draw his
own conclusions as to his reasons for any unusual abstemiousness, and he
helped himself liberally.
"Well," he said when he had drained his glass, "I'll be getting back
again. Do what I can--but it's a heavy job."
He shuffled out, but his potations were commencing to have their effect,
and when he reached the top platform in the engine-room he felt
carefully for the rail that sloped as a guide to the ladder. It was as
usual greasy and Robertson's grip not particularly sure, while the
_Adelaide_ rolled wickedly to lee just then. As the result of it, her
engineer went down the ladder much as a sack of coal would have done,
and fell in a limp heap on the floor-plates with a red gash on his head.
The second stooped down and shook him before he turned to the other men.
"Heave him on to the tool locker, one or two of you," he said. "We can't
pack him up to his room with this job in front of us. See if you can fix
that cut for him, Varney, and then go up and tell the skipper."
A man went up the ladder, and the skipper, who sent an urgent message
back with him, turned to the little cluster of miners who were waiting
about his room.
"Something wrong with the engines?" asked one.
"There is," said the skipper, who knew his men and would not have
admitted to the ordinary run of passengers what he did to them. "It will
probably be some hours before they start again, and the shore's not very
far away to lee. If you feel inclined to lend a hand at getting sail on
her I guess it would be advisable."
The miners were willing, and set about it cheerfully, though it was
blowing hard now and the long deck heaved and slanted under them. There
is very seldom an unnecessary man on board a steamer, and the
_Adelaide_'s mate was glad of a few extra strong arms just then. That
they were drenched with bitter spray and occasionally flung against
winch and bulwarks did not greatly trouble them. Things of that kind did
not count after facing the wild turmoil of northern rivers and living
through destroying hazes of blizzard-driven snow. So they got the canvas
on her, forestaysail, gaff-headed foresail, mainstaysail, and a
blackened three-cornered strip abaft the mainmast, and the skipper felt
a trifle easier when he found that he could steer her. She crawled
through the water at perhaps two knots an hour, dragging her idle screw,
but she also drove to leeward nearer the deadly reefs.