Part 58

Linnell continued his rounds, sparing a nod here; a nod there, almost a full smile at times, and at times, too, a sharp snap of criticism. Lavis in his rear caught the pursuing comment. He was the kind, was the chief, to soon let you know where you stood. And right he was. And no one would begrudge him what he could make of the passage, if so be he could make a bit more of reputation out of it, for surely his heart was in his work. Never one to loaf, by all reports, but this time!--not a single watch without his full rounds below.

Lavis followed the engineer up a narrow iron ladder, and thence up a wide iron ladder, to where, from a heavily grated brass-railed platform, Linnell surveyed his engines.

He laid a hand on Lavis's shoulder and extended an eloquent arm. "Worth looking at, aren't they? The largest engines ever went into a ship, those engines you are looking at now, Mr. Lavis. It is something to have charge of the likes of them. Wait till I see some of my old mates!" His was a low, chuckling laugh. "I'll be having a word to say, they better believe, of ship's engines! Talking of their ten and twenty thousand tonners--ferry-boats, river ferry-boats, that's what I'll tell 'em they have alongside o' this one. And everything working beautifully"--he hesitated a moment--"leastwise in my division. An' why shouldn't it, Mr. Lavis, after four days and three nights now of never closing an eye for more than two hours together? But two nights and another day now, an' 'twill be all behind us. And something to put behind a man, that--a record-breakin' maiden passage of the greatest ship ever built. And--but I'm gassin' again. We'll be moving on."

Lavis followed Linnell to where a man in grimy blue dungarees was standing silent watch. Before him was a row of levers and beside him a dial on which were words in very black letters: FULL SPEED, HALF SPEED, and so on. To one side was a disk around which two colored arrows, one red and one green, were racing. A gong was at the man's ear. At his feet was a pit into which a great mass of highly polished steel was driving in and out, in and out, up and down ceaselessly.

Linnell studied the colored arrows as they sped around the disk. "Port engine a bit the best of it?" He had to speak into the man's ear to make himself heard.

The man in dungarees nodded. "A wee bit, sir."

"How's all else?"

"Couldn't be better, sir." He had to yell to make himself heard. "Are we holding our own, sir?"

"A full revolution better than any watch since we left port."

The man nodded as if he had been expecting it, but presently chuckled and swung one foot playfully toward the glittering gray cross-head as it went driving down into the pit. "A full revolution!" he echoed--"t-t-t"--and spat with obvious significance into the pit.

"T-t-t--" mimicked Linnell, and slapped him lightly on the shoulder before he turned to Lavis.

"Will you go farther or wait here?"

"I'll wait here, if you don't mind, and stand part of the watch with Andie."

"Very good! I'll pick you up later."

Lavis, standing beside Andie and gazing into the pit, pointed to the great cross-head driving by. "If that were to fly out and go through the bottom of the ship, Andie, would it sink her?"

Andie projected his lower lip. "It might sink her, sir, though it don't seem possible-like. But if it did sink her, 'twould be about the only way to sink her, sir."

Lavis let his eyes roam above and about him. Andie observed the direction of his gaze. "A wonderful sight, aren't it?" he commented. "What wi' so many polished rods an' shafts all whity-gray, an' all them many beams an' bars so beautiful green an' red-painted!"

Lavis, still interested in the wonderful machinery, felt the deck lifted the least bit under him. It was as if the ship had risen to a rolling head sea. He laid hold of a handy stanchion to steady himself, but he saw Andie, unsupported, go sliding easily, gently, irresistibly to the bulkhead behind them. Lavis saw Andie brace his legs, and then, remindful and resentful, bound back to his station and set a hand to each of two levers. The iron deck beneath them was still rolling easily; from beneath the deck came a chafing noise, a slow, heavy grinding.

Lavis saw that with hands to levers, eyes on indicator, and ears to gong, the man in dungarees had become oblivious to all but the expected order from the bridge. It came after a time--the warning clang and the needle pointing to ASTERN SLOW.

Andie shifted his levers. Rods and shafts reversed. Andie, eyes set on the bridge dial, waited.

Lavis could hear Linnell's voice sharply hailing somebody in the boiler-room passage. Presently he saw him running by the bulkhead door; and then, from the far end of the passage, his voice cracking out like a whip: "Back, I say! Back, you dogs, back to your stations! I'll tell you when you're to go."

He came bounding in and past Lavis and Andie, up the narrow iron ladder, up the wider one above it. Again Lavis heard him: "You thought to forelay me, eh--and breed panic above? You misbegotten spawn, I'd kill you as I'd kill a cockroach--and every last one of you, if you force me. You dogs--go back!"

Cries and oaths, then the thud of a heavy weapon on bone and flesh, the falling of stumbling bodies on the iron grating above. A silence, and then Linnell's voice again, now more controlled: "You there, Wallace? Well, stay there. An' let not a single one of 'em pass without my orders. Shoot 'em down if you have to, but keep 'em below."

The ship was still backing. Wh-r-r-i-ng! went the gong. Stop! commanded the indicator. Andie shifted the levers. The tremendous machinery hung motionless.

All was quiet. Not a quiver from out of the great compartment. Through the grating over his head Lavis saw the figure of the chief hurriedly descending. He saw him turn, pause a moment at the head of the narrow ladder, and then come sliding down.

"Doing our best, some of 'em will get up above," he said quietly. "But we've enough left for a watch." He stepped to Andie's side, all the while with his eyes roaming over the machinery. "She answered her bells promptly, Andie?"

"To the stroke, sir."

"Good! Stay by her. Pass the word to me if aught goes wrong."