II

They were three days out of New York on the Red Un's second round

trip when the Second, still playing the game and almost despairing,

made a strategic move. The Red Un was laying out the Chief's

luncheon on his desk--a clean napkin for a cloth; a glass; silver; a

plate; and the menu from the first-cabin dining saloon. The menu was

propped against a framed verse:

_But I ha' lived and I ha' worked!

All thanks to Thee, Most High._

And as he placed the menu, the Red Un repeated the words from

McAndrew's hymn. It had rather got him at first; it was a new

philosophy of life. To give thanks for life was understandable, even

if unnecessary. But thanks for work! There was another framed card

above the desk, more within the Red Un's ken: "Cable crossing! Do

not anchor here!"

The card worked well with the first class, resting in the Chief's

cabin after the arduous labours of seeing the engines.

The Chief was below, flat on his back in a manhole looking for a

staccato note that did not belong in his trained and orderly chorus.

There was grease in his sandy hair, and the cranks were only a few

inches from his nose. By opening the door the Red Un was able to

command the cylinder tops, far below, and the fiddley, which is the

roof of hell or a steel grating over the cylinders to walk

on--depending on whether one is used to it or not. The Chief was

naturally not in sight.

This gave the Red Un two minutes' leeway--two minutes for

exploration. A drawer in the desk, always heretofore locked, was

unfastened--that is, the bolt had been shot before the drawer was

entirely closed. The Red Un was jealous of that drawer. In two

voyages he had learned most of the Chief's history and, lacking one

of his own, had appropriated it to himself. Thus it was not unusual

for him to remark casually, as he stood behind the Chief's chair at

dinner: "We'd better send this here postcard to Cousin Willie, at

Edinburgh."

"Ou-ay!" the Chief would agree, and tear off the postcard of the

ship that topped each day's menu; but, so far, all hints as to this

one drawer had been futile; it remained the one barrier to their

perfect confidence, the fly in the ointment of the Red Un's content.

Now, at last---- Below, a drop of grease in the Chief's eye set him

wiping and cursing; over his head hammered, banged and lunged his

great babies; in the stokehole a gaunt and grimy creature, yclept

the Junior Second, stewed in his own sweat and yelled for steam.

The Red Un opened the drawed quickly and thrust in a hand. At first

he thought it was empty, working as he did by touch, his eye on the

door. Then he found a disappointing something--the lid of a

cigar-box! Under that was a photograph. Here was luck! Had the Red

Un known it, he had found the only two secrets in his Chief's open

life. But the picture was disappointing--a snapshot of a young

woman, rather slim, with the face obscured by a tennis racket,

obviously thrust into the picture at the psychological moment. Poor

spoil this--a cigar-box lid and a girl without a face! However,

marred as it was, it clearly meant something to the Chief. For on

its reverse side was another stanza from McAndrew's hymn:

_Ye know how hard an idol dies,

An' what that meant to me--

E'en tak' it for a sacrifice

Acceptable to Thee._

The Red Un thrust it back into the drawer, with the lid. If she was

dead what did it matter? He was a literal youth--so far, his own

words had proved sufficient for his thoughts; it is after thirty

that a man finds his emotions bigger than his power of expressing

them, and turns to those that have the gift. The Chief was over

thirty.

It was as he shut the drawer that he realised he was not alone. The

alley door was open and in it stood the Senior Second. The Red Un

eyed him unpleasantly.

"Sneaking!" said the Second.

"None of your blamed business!" replied the Red Un.

The Second, who was really an agreeable person, with a sense of

humour, smiled. He rather liked the Red Un.

"Do you know, William," he observed--William was the Red Un's

name--"I'd be willing to offer two shillings for an itemised

account of what's in that drawer?"

"Fill it with shillings," boasted the Red Un, "and I'll not tell

you."

"Three?" said the Second cheerfully.

"No."

"Four?"

"Why don't you look yourself?"

"Just between gentlemen, that isn't done, young man. But if you

volunteered the information, and I saw fit to make you a present of,

say, a pipe, with a box of tobacco----"

"What do you want to know for?"

"I guess you know."

The Red Un knew quite well. The Chief and the two Seconds were still

playing their game, and the Chief was still winning; but even the

Red Un did not know how the Chief won--and as for the two Seconds

and the Third and the Fourth, they were quite stumped.

This was the game: In bad weather, when the ports are closed and

first-class passengers are yapping for air, it is the province of

the engine room to see that they get it. An auxiliary engine pumps

cubic feet of atmosphere into every cabin through a series of

airtrunks.

So far so good. But auxiliaries take steam; and it is exceedingly

galling to a Junior or Senior, wagering more than he can afford on

the run in his watch, to have to turn valuable steam to

auxiliaries--"So that a lot of blooming nuts may smoke in their

bunks!" as the Third put it.

The first move in the game is the Chief's, who goes to bed and

presumably to sleep. After that it's the engine-room move, which

gives the first class time to settle down and then shuts off the

airpumps. Now there is no noise about shutting off the air in the

trunks. It flows or it does not flow. The game is to see whether the

Chief wakens when the air stops or does not. So far he had always

wakened.

It was uncanny. It was worse than that--it was damnable! Did not the

Old Man sleep at all?--not that he was old, but every Chief is the

Old Man behind his back. Everything being serene, and the

engine-room clock marking twelve-thirty, one of the Seconds would

shut off the air very gradually; the auxiliary would slow down,

wheeze, pant and die--and within two seconds the Chief's bell would

ring and an angry voice over the telephone demand what the several

kinds of perdition had happened to the air! Another trick in the

game to the Chief!

It had gone past joking now: had moved up from the uncanny to the

impossible, from the impossible to the enraging. Surreptitious

search of the Chief's room had shown nothing but the one locked

drawer. They had taken advantage of the Chief's being laid up in

Antwerp with a boil on his neck to sound the cabin for hidden wires.

They had asked the ship's doctor anxiously how long a man could do

without sleep. The doctor had quoted Napoleon.

* * * * *

"If at any time," observed the Second pleasantly, "you would like

that cigarette case the barber is selling, you know how to get it."

"Thanks, old man," said the Red Un loftily, with his eye on the

wall.

The Second took a step forward and thought better of it.

"Better think about it!"

"I was thinking of something else," said the Red Un, still staring

at the wall. The Second followed his eye. The Red Un was gazing

intently at the sign which said: "Cable crossing! Do not anchor

here!"

As the Second slammed out, the Chief crawled from his manhole and

struggled out of his greasy overalls. Except for his face, he was

quite tidy. He ran an eye down the port tunnel, where the shaft

revolved so swiftly that it seemed to be standing still, to where at

the after end came the racing of the screw as it lifted, bearded

with scud, out of the water.

"It looks like weather to-night," he observed, with a twinkle, to

the Fourth. "There'll aye be air wanted." But the Fourth was gazing

at a steam gauge.