Never-Fail Blake

by Arthur Stringer

  XIV

  After seven cataleptic hours of unbroken sleep Blake awakened to findhis shoulder being prodded and shaken by the pale-eyed fourth engineer.The stowaway's tired body, during that sleep, had soaked in renewedstrength as a squeezed sponge soaks up water. He could afford to blinkwith impassive eyes up at the troubled face of the young man wearingthe oil-stained cap.

  "What's wrong?" he demanded, awakening to a luxurious comprehension ofwhere he was and what he had escaped. Then he sat up in the narrowberth, for it began to dawn on him that the engines of the _Trunella_were not in motion. "Why are n't we under way?"

  "They 're having trouble up there, with the _Commandante_. We can'tget off inside of an hour--and anything's likely to happen in thattime. That's why I 've got to get you out of here!"

  "Where 'll you get me?" asked Blake. He was on his feet by this time,arraying himself in his wet and ragged clothing.

  "That's what I 've been talking over with the Chief," began the youngengineer. Blake wheeled about and fixed him with his eye.

  "Did you let your Chief in on this?" he demanded, and he found it hardto keep his anger in check.

  "I had to let him in on it," complained the other. "If it came to ahue up or a searching party through here, they 'd spot you first thing.You 're not a passenger; you 're not signed; you're not anything!"

  "Well, supposing I 'm not?"

  "Then they 'd haul you back and give you a half year in that_Lazaretto_ o' theirs!"

  "Well, what do I have to do to keep from being hauled back?"

  "You 'll have to be one o' the workin' crew, until we get off. TheChief says that, and I think he's right!"

  A vague foreboding filled Blake's soul. He had imagined that theignominy and agony of physical labor was a thing of the past with him.And he was still sore in every sinew and muscle of his huge body.

  "You don't mean stoke-hole work?" he demanded.

  The fourth engineer continued to look worried.

  "You don't happen to know anything about machinery, do you?" he began.

  "Of course I do," retorted Blake, thinking gratefully of his early daysas a steamfitter.

  "Then why could n't I put you in a cap and jumper and work you in asone of the greasers?"

  "What do you mean by greasers?"

  "That's an oiler in the engine-room. It--it may not be the coolestplace on earth, in this latitude, but it sure beats the stoke-hole!"

  And it was in this way, thirty minutes later, that Blake became agreaser in the engine-room of the _Trunella_.

  Already, far above him, he could hear the rattle and shriek ofwinch-engines and the far-off muffled roar of the whistle, rumbling itstriumph of returning life. Already the great propeller enginesthemselves had been tested, after their weeks of idleness, languidlystretching and moving like an awakening sleeper, slowly swinging theirsolemn tons forward through their projected cycles and then as solemnlyback again.

  About this vast pyramid-shaped machinery, galleried like a Latinhouse-court, tremulous with the breath of life that sang and hissedthrough its veins, the new greaser could see his fellow workers withtheir dripping oil-cans, groping gallery by gallery up towards thesquare of daylight that sifted down into the oil-scented pit where hestood. He could see his pale-eyed friend, the fourth engineer, spannerin hand, clinging to a moving network of steel like a spider to itstremulous web--and in his breast, for the first time, a latent respectfor that youth awakened. He could see other greasers wriggling aboutbetween intricate shafts and wheels, crawling cat-like along narrowsteel ledges, mounting steep metal ladders guarded by hot hand rails,peering into oil boxes, "worrying" the vacuum pump, squatting andkneeling about iron floors where oil-pits pooled and pump-valvesclacked and electric machines whirred and the antiphonal song of themounting steam roared like music in the ears of the listening Blake,aching as he was for the first relieving throb of the screws. Stolidlyand calmly the men about him worked, threatened by flailing steel,hissed at by venomously quiescent powers, beleaguered by mysteriouslymoving shafts, surrounded by countless valves and an inexplicabletangle of pipes, hemmed in by an incomprehensible labyrinth of copperwires, menaced by the very shimmering joints and rods over which theycould run such carelessly affectionate fingers.

  Blake could see the assistant engineers, with their eyes on thepointers that stood out against two white dials. He could see theChief, the Chief whom he would so soon have to buy over and placate,moving about nervous and alert. Then he heard the tinkle of thetelegraph bell, and the repeated gasp of energy as the engineers threwthe levers. He could hear the vicious hum of the reversing-engines,and then the great muffled cough of power as the ponderous valve-gearwas thrown into position and the vaster machinery above him was coercedinto a motion that seemed languid yet relentless.

  He could see the slow rise and fall of the great cranks. He could hearthe renewed signals and bells tinkles, the more insistent clack ofpumps, the more resolute rise and fall of the ponderous cranks. And heknew that they were at last under way. He gave no thought to the heatof the oil-dripping pit in which he stood. He was oblivious of theperilous steel that whirred and throbbed about him. He was unconsciousof the hot hand rails and the greasy foot-ways and the mingling odor ofsteam and parching lubricant and ammonia-gas from a leaking "beefengine." He quite forgot the fact that his dungaree jumper was wetwith sweat, that his cap was already fouled with oil. All he knew wasthat he and Binhart were at last under way.

  He was filled with a new lightness of spirit as he felt the throb of"full speed ahead" shake the steel hull about which he so contentedlyclimbed and crawled. He found something fortifying in the thought thatthis vast hull was swinging out to her appointed sea lanes, that shewas now intent on a way from which no caprice could turn her. Thereseemed something appeasingly ordered and implacable in the mererevolutions of the engines. And as those engines settled down to theirlabors the intent-eyed men about him fell almost as automatically intothe routines of toil as did the steel mechanism itself.

  When at the end of the first four-houred watch a gong sounded and thenext crew filed cluttering in from the half-lighted between-deckgangways and came sliding down the polished steel stair rails, Blakefelt that his greatest danger was over.

  There would still be an occasional palm to grease, he told himself, anoccasional bit of pad money to be paid out. But he could meet thoseemergencies with the fortitude of a man already inured to the exactionsof venal accomplices.

  Then a new discovery came to him. It came as he approached the chiefengineer, with the object in view of throwing a little light on hispresence there. And as he looked into that officer's coldly indignanteye he awakened to the fact that he was no longer on land, but afloaton a tiny world with an autocracy and an authority of its own. He wasin a tiny world, he saw, where his career and his traditions were notto be reckoned with, where he ranked no higher than conch-niggers andbeach-combers and _cargadores_. He was a _dungaree_-clad greaser in anengine-room, and he was promptly ordered back with the rest of hiscrew. He was not even allowed to talk.

  When his watch came round he went on duty again. He saw the futilityof revolt, until the time was ripe. He went through his appointedtasks with the solemn precision of an apprentice. He did what he wascommanded to do. Yet sometimes the heat would grow so intense that thegreat sweating body would have to shamble to a ventilator and theredrink in long drafts of the cooler air. The pressure of invisiblehoops about the great heaving chest would then release itself, thehaggard face would regain some touch of color, and the new greaserwould go back to his work again. One or two of the more observanttoilers about him, experienced in engine-room life, marveled at thenewcomer and the sense of mystery which hung over him. One or two ofthem fell to wondering what inner spirit could stay him through thosefour-houred ordeals of heat and labor.

  Yet they looked after him with even more inquisitive eyes when, on thesecond day out, he was peremptorily summoned to the Captain's room.What took
place in that room no one in the ship ever actually knew.

  But the large-bodied stowaway returned below-decks, white of face andgrim of jaw. He went back to his work in silence, in dogged andunbroken silence which those about him knew enough to respect.

  It was whispered about, it is true, that among other things a large andugly-looking revolver had been taken from his clothing, and that he hadbeen denied the use of the ship's wireless service. A steward outsidethe Captain's door, it was also whispered, had overheard theshipmaster's angry threat to put the stowaway in irons for the rest ofthe voyage and return him to the Ecuadorean authorities. It wasrumored, too, that late in the afternoon of the same day, when the newgreaser had complained of faintness and was seeking a breath of freshair at the foot of a midships deck-ladder, he had chanced to turn andlook up at a man standing on the promenade deck above him.

  The two men stood staring at each other for several moments, and forall the balmy air about him the great body of the stranger just up fromthe engine-room had shivered and shaken, as though with a malarialchill.

  What it meant, no one quite knew. Nor could anything be added to thatrumor, beyond the fact that the first-class passenger, who was known tobe a doctor and who had stared so intently down at the quiet-eyedgreaser, had turned the color of ashes and without a word had slippedaway. And the bewilderment of the entire situation was furtherincreased when the _Trunella_ swung in at Callao and the large-bodiedman of mystery was peremptorily and none too gently put ashore. It wasnoted, however, that the first-class passenger who had stared down athim from the promenade-deck remained aboard the vessel as she startedsouthward again. It was further remarked that he seemed more at easewhen Callao was left well behind, although he sat smoking side by sidewith the operator in the wireless room until the _Trunella_ had steamedmany miles southward on her long journey towards the Straits ofMagellan.