The old captain had been a fireman since the days when the Sunday
fights between the volunteer hose companies in Philadelphia had been
the “only mode of public worship on the Sabbath” there. When those
fights had culminated in riot, bloodshed, and the burning of churches,
he had come to New York, and run with the “goose-necks” and defied the
“leather-heads” until the paid brigade was formed and he took service
with it. He had been living among men and politicians ever since; and
to the natural cunning of the north of Ireland “sharp-nose” he had
added a cynical experience that filled him to the full with the sort of
wisdom that comes of such a life. Lieutenant Moore had been so simple
to him that the “boy’s” attempts to supplant him, with the aid of the
Fire Commissioner and the “Jiggers,” had amused him like a game. He
looked at Moore, now, with a bitter contempt.
“You youngsters in the department,” he said, “yuh’re great politicians.
But what yuh don’t know about a fire’s enough to keep yuh from tryin’
to do tricks with one--er it ought to be.”
Moore shook his head, dazedly.
“Yuh’re goin’ to get yer fingers burnt now. An’ it serves yuh damn well
right.”
Moore turned away in silence and stumbled out to the engine room.
Captain Keighley, having watched him go, proceeded to examine the
shaft tunnel at his leisure. He found nothing but a ball of cotton
waste, which he stuffed into his pocket. Then he leaned back calmly and
waited for his crew to return.
They were in the engine room, standing in the thickening smoke, waiting
for nothing, with the quietness of disgusted despair. Sparks were
beginning to fall down through the gratings. Little splashes of hot
water sprinkled on them from above. They looked up at the reflection of
the flames that were purring overhead, speaking in low voices to one
another; and every now and then a man who had gone forward toward the
stoke holes, or been down on his face crawling below the machinery,
came back to them from a vain attempt to find a safer spot, and made
the gesture of failure. A young German stoker was biting his lips and
whining like a frightened dog.
The last slow pulse of the engines stopped; the electric lights
died out, and the glare of the fire reddened the shining metal of
columns, cylinders and piston rods. No one moved. They watched, as if
fascinated, the approach of a burning horror that seemed to be fighting
its way down to them through the bars of the gratings, snarling.
At last an engineer joined them with a lamp from the stoke hole, and,
after consulting with the German officer, he led them all back to the
dark shaft tunnel. He passed them through, and slid over the steel
door until there was only a narrow aperture left unclosed. He squeezed
himself through that slit, and then with hammer and cold-chisel drove
the door home until the opening was merely a crack wide enough to admit
the finger ends. The men plugged this crack with their coats. He put
his lamp on top of a shaft-bearing.
It showed Captain Keighley still standing there.
“Don’t do that,” he said to one of the firemen who had begun to strip
to the skin. “Yuh’ll want all yuh can get between yuh an’ the metal, as
soon’s that after cargo gets goin’.”
The man grumbled, “We’ll be sittin’ on top of a redhot stove in a
minute.”
Captain Keighley replied, “Yuh can go outside an’ sit _in_ one, if yuh
want to.”
Lieutenant Moore took a quivering breath through dry nostrils and shut
his teeth on the trembling of his jaws. He could hear a low murmur from
the fire that was roaring above decks. The little lamp flared dully on
the bearings. Beyond that, there was nothing but darkness and silence
and the heat that choked.
“Well?” Captain Keighley challenged them.
No one replied.
“I guess yuh got what yuh been workin’ fer, ain’t yuh? Yuh got me into
trouble. Yuh been tryin’ hard enough to push me into a hole ever since
I broke Doherty.”
“Look here, sir,” a fireman named Cripps spoke up. “We’re all in this
together. There’s no use jawin’.”
“That’s right,” another added plaintively.
Captain Keighley nodded. “If yuh’d been all together from the first,
we wouldn’t be here, d’ yuh see?”
Several of the men answered, “Twasn’t our fault.” They looked at the
lieutenant, who had dropped his head and was gazing, empty-eyed, at his
feet.
“No?” Keighley asked suavely. “Well, it wasn’t mine, was it?”
No one spoke again until Cripps asked weakly, “Can yuh get us out, sir?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. If yuh live long enough, an’ _I_ do, I’ll get
y’ _all_ out.... I’ll get out ev’ry man o’ yuh that’s breathin’, any
way.... We got to wait here till that fire burns down; that’s all.”
The young stoker had begun to sob. Lieutenant Moore opened his parched
lips to speak, but his tongue, swollen and dry, like a piece of flannel
in his mouth, was too thick to turn a word. The sound of flames rose
suddenly to a muffled grumble.
Captain Keighley said, “Here’s some cotton waste I hunted up. Pull a
wad off to plug yer noses, an’ tie somethin’ over yer mouths. We’ll be
breathin’ scorch before we’re through.”
He tore off a ball of waste and passed the roll to Moore. It travelled
down the line from hand to hand--as if for a sign of union and peace
among them--like a “pax.”
“Now,” he ordered, “get away from the sides o’ that cargo room, an’ lay
yerselves out ’s flat ’s yuh can.”
The majority of the men obeyed him meekly.
“That’s right,” he said. “Stay there now. It’s goin’ to be so hot in
here that some o’ yuh’ll be goin’ off yer heads. Yuh don’t want to do
that. Yuh want to hang on, see? Keep still an’ hang on. An’ if yuh feel
yerself goin’ loose, get a hold o’ the floor, anyway, an’ don’t let go.”
He took up the engineer’s hammer, stepped down to the door, and put
his back against it. “I’ll brain any man that tries to open this door
before I give the word,” he said.
They were a mixed lot--Keighley’s crew--picked from all the battalions
in the city to serve on the new _Hudson_. There was “Shine” Conlin, a
blue-jowled Bowery type, who had been newsboy, boot-black, (whence the
“Shine”) wharf-rat, deck-hand, plug-ugly and leader of his gang; he had
come into the department from the ranks of the “Con Scully Association”
to earn a regular salary for the support of “th’ ol’ crow,” his mother;
and he was the most aggressive “Jigger” in the company. Even now, he
did not obey Keighley’s orders. Instead of lying down, he sat up
against a shaft bearing; and instead of covering his mouth, he filled
it with “fine-cut” from a package in his hip pocket and tried to chew
it nonchalantly. His mouth was so dry that he felt as if he were trying
to chew excelsior; it was tasteless. He turned it over and over in his
jaw, until it was pulverized, like chaff. Then he blew it out, with an
oath.
At his feet lay a huge truck driver named Nicholas Sturton and
nicknamed “The Tur’ble Turk.” He was of the captain’s faction,
because he was by nature loyal to appointed authority and solemnly
conscientious in the fulfilment of all his duties. He had tied the red
rags of a bandana handkerchief over his mouth and plugged his hairy
nostrils with the cotton waste; and his eyes stared and his great
chest heaved in his efforts to breathe through his gag. When he looked
at Keighley, it was with the mute and patient appeal of a big boy, in
pain, looking at the doctor who is watching over his suffering.
Lieutenant Moore, like “Shine,” was sitting, but with his head in his
hands, the cotton waste forgotten in them, his mouth fallen open. He
had had a good education in the public schools; he was cursed with the
imagination of the trained mind; and he suffered all the horrors of
death every time he gasped. He was ready to weep with pity for himself,
but his tears dried up before they reached his scorched eyelids. He was
the pride of his parents, and the dominant note of his self pity was
a sympathy for them in their disappointment in his end. “A hell of a
finish,” he was saying to himself. “Here’s a hell of a finish.”
Cripps, a sly youth, freckled and sandy, had lain down carefully on his
side, in silence, with the instinct of a trapped animal to “lie low”
and wait. He had joined the “Jiggers” because the Fire Commissioner
was of their party and he looked for promotion to come when the old
chief, Borden, should be deposed and his successor named from the
faction which the Commissioner favored. He refused to consider his
present situation as more than a temporary interruption of his plans.
He kept his mind off the thought of death, and busied himself trying to
make his mouth “water” with the thought of cool lager beer in foaming
schooners. He even achieved a secret smile.
The other men lay quiet--some flat on their backs, staring glassily at
the steel beams overhead; some panting with convulsive chests as the
heat increased; some on their faces with their heads on their arms,
gagged and stifling; some drawn up in strained and twisted attitudes,
as if in pain. In their swollen eyeballs sudden lights darted and
burst. Above the noise of the blood in their ears, they heard a sound
of moaning. A choked voice began to struggle in the first wanderings of
delirium.
“Steady, there! Steady!” Captain Keighley called out. He was standing
up, his arms crossed, his face drenched with perspiration--in absolute
and unquestioned command at last.
He was still standing there when the lamp burned low, flickered and
went out.
The darkness was soon unbearable with heat; and Keighley put down his
hammer and began to strip himself to his underclothes and rubber boots.
He could hear the men tearing at their woolen underwear as they ripped
it off. Someone was singing a German ballad in a shrill nasal whine.
Suddenly there was an outbreak of oaths. “Shine” had begun to curse.
Having arrived at an insane notion that Keighley had penned them all
in there, he was promising himself an indescribable revenge if he ever
escaped. He kicked out at Cripps--who had torn the bandage from his
mouth to get more imaginary beer, and was gurgling to himself over
it--and that started a confusion of crazy voices and weak complaints.
A man crawled over Sturton and screamed when “Turk” seized him by
the throat, struggling, with an uproar that set all bedlam loose.
The men began to fight, clutching at one another, rolling about with
feeble blows, writhing like eels baked alive in an oven, like the lost
souls in old pictures of hell. “Shine” leaped on Keighley and went
down under a blow that almost split his forehead. The place was a
pandemonium--awful--indescribable....
Fifteen minutes later the silence of exhaustion had settled down on
hoarse breathings and low groans. And Captain Keighley, sitting with
his back to the door--his knees drawn up, his head resting on them,
nauseated--was struggling against a whirling lapse of consciousness.