“You are sure of what you say, my lad?”
Captain Dunham put the question to Ned after the lad had breathlessly
related to him his alarming discovery. High up on the bridge, his face
lined by care and sleepless nights, the captain looked far different
from the gilded idol that he was in calm weather or in port. He was
clad in oil-skins like any old salt on a whaler.
“Absolutely, sir. I didn’t dare to say anything till I was quite
positive.”
“Very good, my lad,” said the captain, without betraying a trace of
the grave alarm that he must have felt for the safety of his ship.
“Daniels,” he turned to a quartermaster, “send Mr. Briggs to me at
once,--at once, do you hear?”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Daniels hurried off on his errand. Ned stood waiting the captain’s next
orders.
“When Mr. Briggs comes on deck, I’m going to send you with him to show
him where you discovered the fire, always supposing there is one,”
said the captain. “Of course, you haven’t said anything about this to
anyone?”
“No, sir, of course not, only to Coxswain Taylor, who was with me.”
“That’s right. A report such as that spreading through the ship might
cause untold trouble.”
Mr. Briggs, a big, active man, soon came bustling up. He saluted and
awaited the captain’s orders.
“Briggs, Gunner’s-Mate Strong, here, tells me that he thinks he has
discovered a fire in the forward port bunkers.”
Mr. Briggs nodded. For all the emotion that the two trained officers
displayed they might have been discussing some ordinary matter of ship
routine, instead of the vital danger which Ned had brought to the
captain’s attention.
“The forward bunkers on that side of the ship are next to the forward
magazines for Number One turret, are they not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will have the intervening bulkhead flooded at once. Strong tells
me that he heard that the coal in that bunker was damp when it was
shipped in San Francisco. Is that right?”
“It is, sir. It was the best we could get. I’ve been afraid of this
very thing and have had men watching the bunkers since we sailed. The
fire must have started at the top.”
“My idea exactly. The friction and disturbance caused by the ship’s
rolling must have set it on fire. Strong, take Mr. Briggs to the
ventilator where you discovered the smoke. Mr. Briggs, will you make
as speedy an examination as possible and report back to me? First,
however, give orders to have the space between the magazine and the
bunker flooded.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Followed by Ned, the chief engineer turned from the bridge and made his
way to the main deck. He instructed one of his assistant engineers to
have the latter part of the captain’s orders carried out at once.
The young engineer asked no questions, although he raised his eyebrows
at the order.
“I’ll see that it is done at once, sir,” said he and hastened off.
“Now, my lad,” said Mr. Briggs, “show me where you saw this smoke
issuing.”
Ned lost no time in escorting the officer to the pipe from whence he
had noted the alarming symptoms first. As they came abreast of the
pipe, all doubt that a mistake might have been made was removed. Puffs
of sulphurous smoke were coming from it in a constant stream now. Mr.
Briggs looked very grave.
“I’m sorry to say, Strong, that your conclusions were certainly
correct,” he said. “That bunker is on fire.”
Captain Dunham received the chief engineer’s report without moving a
muscle of his face.
“We must take immediate steps to fight the fire,” he said. “The
partition is flooded?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good. Strong, you will go to the master-at-arms and tell him to
assign you a squad of at least twenty men. They must be silent about
their detail and you will instruct the master-at-arms to say nothing.
You will report to Mr. Briggs in the fire-room and he will direct you
what to do.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Carry on.”
Ned hastened off while the two officers remained in grave consultation
on the bridge.
“Nasty situation, Briggs,” said Captain Dunham.
“Very, sir. The storm makes it all the worse. It is dangerous work in
the bunkers in such weather as this. There’s some fear, too, of the
coal sliding as the men get it out, even though we’ve got it timbered.”
“Then your plan is to empty the bunker?”
“If necessary, sir. Half-way measures will be no good in a case of this
kind. We shall have to get the coal out from below till we reach the
fire.
“Very good. I leave the matter in your hands. Try not to let the news
leak out, although I suppose it is bound to.”
“I’m afraid so, sir. You can’t keep the firemen quiet, and they are
bound to know about it as soon as the special squad goes to work.”
“Well, do the best you can, Briggs.”
“You can rely on me, sir. That Strong is a smart young fellow. If it
hadn’t been for him we might not have known of the blaze till it was
too late.”
“He is one of the brightest fellows on board,” said the captain warmly,
“that is why I am putting him in charge of this squad. Don’t let them
expose themselves unnecessarily to danger, Briggs.”
“I will not, sir.”
Mr. Briggs saluted and departed below. In less time than he would have
thought possible Ned and his twenty picked men joined him below. Among
the fire-fighters was Herc. They were all responsible men, chosen
for their ability and experience. They must have known that their
task was going to be difficult to a degree and dangerous, too. But no
traces of anxiety appeared on their faces. Such is the training of a
man-o’-war’s-man. He is taught not to flinch from any duty but to obey
all orders implicitly, even though he may sometimes doubt their wisdom.
The fire-room was new territory to most of the men on the special
fire-fighting squad. It was a place of darkness illumined only by
glaring lights which shone through a haze of black coal dust like
lamps in a fog, of sweating, half-naked firemen, of gleaming tongues
of flame and hissing jets of steam, of heat almost insupportable; and
the air was filled with a vibration that hummed like the bass string
of some gigantic viol under the tremendous force imprisoned in the
high-pressure boilers.
Mr. Briggs explained to the men what they were to do. Their task was to
get into the bunkers and remove the coal ton by ton till the burning
top part was reached. It was his plan, once this was accomplished, to
flood the bunker by high-pressure pumps and extinguish the fire in the
smoldering coal.
Sacks were brought and the men crawled into the bunker in squads of
three at a time, and as fast as the coal was shoveled into the sacks
it was dragged out by those remaining outside and dumped into an extra
bunker which happened to be almost empty.
The heat was fearful and the men in the bunker could not stand it for
more than fifteen minutes at a time; hence the squad took frequent
turns at the work.
“Phew! This is awful,” panted Herc, as he and Ned, black and begrimed
as any miners, worked side by side in the bunkers. “It’s worse than
being in an oven.”
“Stick to your job, Herc, and don’t talk so much,” counseled Ned,
who was wet and streaming perspiration. “We’re working to save the
ship,--isn’t that enough for you?”
“Suppose the heat should reach the magazine?”
“It can’t; to provide against just such emergencies there is a
partition all around the magazine which can be flooded.”
“It’s flooded now?”
“It is.”
“I’m glad of that. I wouldn’t like to be blown up.”
“As if you would ever know what hit you!”
In silence they shoveled on till their “trick” was finished. Then
in crawled their relief, and so, hour after hour, with a brief
intermission for dinner, the work went on. It was the hardest task
either of the boys had ever tackled. In the bunker the air was foul
with gases and thick with coal dust, which got in their eyes, nostrils
and mouths, blinding and choking them. Their hands grew sore and they
ached cruelly in every limb. But they stuck doggedly to their task,
“working to save the ship.”
Begrimed with black, and panting, men would stumble out of the bunker
as their “trick” was finished and sink down exhausted. But in a few
minutes they would be at it again, striving to keep up their good
spirits by laughing and joking over their task.
“From now on we’ll be the ‘Black Watch’,” said Ned.
“The black diamonds, you mean,” retorted Herc. “There’s one thing on
earth I’d never be.”
“What’s that?”
“A fireman. That isn’t a job, it’s punishment.”
“Just think what this fire-room must be like in time of action
under forced draught!” struck in another man. “I’ve heard that the
temperature runs up to one hundred and twenty degrees sometimes.”
“Wow! They’d bring me out a grease spot,” ejaculated Herc.
Supper was eaten in the fire-room and a brief rest followed, then at
it again they went. And all the time it grew hotter and hotter, till
it seemed that flesh and blood could not stand the strain much longer.
Only their healthy bodies and the clean lives they lived enabled them
to stand up to the work as they did. To make their task harder, too,
the ship was still rolling heavily, and it was difficult to stand
upright at times.
Ned and Herc had just entered the “Black Hole,” as they called it, to
take up their job once more, when Ned’s ear caught a rumbling sound.
The ship gave a heavier roll than usual at that instant, and the next
moment Ned grasped Herc’s arm convulsively.
“Herc! Come on! Get out of here, quick! For your life!”
Together both lads made a leap for the entrance of the bunker. As they
did so, behind them there sounded a mighty roar, like the voice of an
avalanche.
Ned found himself outside the bunker as, dislodged by the rolling of
the ship, tons of coal came sliding down into the place where they had
been digging.
It was not till that instant that he realized that Herc was not beside
him.
He had been too slow to escape the collapse of the coal and was trapped
in a living tomb. Ned’s senses swam, his vision blurred, and for an
instant he thought he was going to collapse.
The other men, alarmed at the sudden roar from within the bunker,
rushed forward. Ned’s glaring eyes and his terrible expression as he
pointed to the bunker apprised them that some accident had happened.
“What’s up?” cried one of them. “What’s happened, ship-mate?”
“The coal--the coal came down on us--and--and--Herc’s inside!” choked
out Ned frenziedly.