The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 231: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

IN THE FLAG-SHIP’S STOKEHOLD. watertight compartments which al- lowed neither ingress nor egress, but which also provided ‘that any two or three could be shot-riddled without sinking the ship. Then all was quiet on deck. Every one” whose station allowed him the privilege strained his eyes to catch the first glimpse of the enemy’s forts through the fast-falling darkness. The engineer’s force, ‘the black gang,” absolutely isolated from the others, was still engaged, by the light of dim lanterns, in preparing for the battle. Stoppers were put on steam-valves, bolts and nuts were tightened, safety- valves overhauled and adjusted, the suction apparatus for the various com- partments examined. But even here the bustle was of short duration. In fifteen minutes the men, leaning on shovels, Sitting on overturned coal-buckets, or lounging against the bulkheads, began to feel the intense strain of inactivity. They longed for something to do. It was no use to talk, for such conver- sation consisted solely of one unan- swered question—‘‘ How far off are we?’’—unanswered because no one could know. The only communications with the upper decks, a telephone and a voice- tube, were for the sole use of the cap- tain or the admiral. In the engine-room oilers had their machines in a white lather of lubri- cant; machinists had every nut treht- ened to the breaking point; the ma- chinists’ mates were calculating what ‘the engine-room revolution-dials would read one minute—five minutes—ten minutes hence; what it would read when the first shot was fired; how much time must elapse at the present speed before each figure would be a &é a The officer of the watch and his junior, a mudshipman, were leaning over the log-desk reading some order. After a brief dialogue the midship- man, paper in hand, called several 933 names, and stationed men at flood- cocks, drain and discharge valves, and at the pumps. This done, all waited once more. The officer of the watch, cigar in mouth, paced ‘restlessly up and down the alleyway. The men pottered about as ‘before. In the fire-rooms the furnaces were choked ‘to capacity limit with coal. Hairy, naked men filled their shovels, dropped them, picked them up and filled them again and again, waiting impatiently for an opportunity to feed the furnaces until ‘the captain on the bridge complained of the excessive smoke. One man said that this wait was nothing to one he had had in the woodshed for three hours for his “old man to come and whale him.” The analogy was not at all perfect, however. These men suffered mainly from an unsatiated, maddening curiosity, a de- sire to know what was going on about them. ‘‘ How soon will we strike? How will we know whether we are winning or not?” were samples of the tormenting questions they asked them- selves. ; They were not afraid. None of them realized that, in case the ship went down fighting gamely to the last, they would go with it like rats in a trap. They did not care. One man in No. 2 fire-room did remark, with a childlike petulance, that he would give ten years of his life if he could be at that moment manning a gun on the decks above, but the words were scarcely out of his mouth before ‘““Serapper ’’ Maddox, a short, stocky water-tender, hit htm with a monkey- — “wrench. “We will have none of that in this joint,” he said. But the effect was good. It set the men thinking of their erievances. Here they were, absolute- ly indispensable to the success of the ship, yet forgotten entirely by the men at the fighting machines above. ‘They were stuck in their black tun- Gomichoo Sj (E@)