by B. TRAVEN
The lamps used in the stoke-hold and in the engine-hold were the same the Yorikke carried when she was making old Carthage on regular trips from Tyre on the coast of ancient Phoenicia. In the British Museum one still can see such ancient lamps. They were iron vessels big enough to hold a pint. From the bottom of this vessel, going outside and upwards, a funnel was stuck in. Inside of this funnel there was a wick. The wick was as far from a real wick as this lamp was from being a lamp. The company did not supply wicks. We had to get them somewhere. When we knew the engineer was not in the engine-hold, we sneaked in and searched the box where the engineers kept the rags with which they tightened up leaks in the fittings. To explain it more clearly, the wicks were of the same kind that were used in the quarters and which had their origin in the woolen petticoats of the seven virgins who kept their candles burning all night to guard their worthless virtues. Suppose they had not had candles lighted at night; some guy might have mistaken them for pretty girls and gone off with their virtue.
The fuel for these lamps was the same famous diamond oil. But while the fuel for the lamps in the foc’sle still, sometimes, had a slight touch of real kerosene, the fuel we got for these
stoke-hold lamps was pure burned-out and scratched-up oil and grease from the bottom of the engine-hold and from the catchers beneath the bearings and cushions of the engine.
Four times during one hour the wick had to be pulled out of the funnel because it burned off so quickly. You had to pull out the wick with bare fingers; no other instrument was at hand to do it with. After your first watch you left the hold with your nails half burned off and your finger-tips scorched.
Stanislav had already worked a double watch that day. Later it will be understood what a double watch on the Yorikke really meant, and then only will it be fully understood what kind of a guy Stanislav was when he decided to help me during my first watch before the boilers. He could hardly crawl by himself. None the less he stayed with me a full hour helping me shovel coal into the stoke-hold.
The fireman had to wait upon nine fires, three for each boiler. Two boilers would have been sufficient to produce the necessary steam for the Yorikke. One boiler was meant to be the reserve boiler, to rely upon in case something happened to one of the other boilers. But since all pipes were leaking, too much steam was lost, and therefore the reserve boiler, which should be used only in port to feed the winches and windlasses, had to be used permanently, otherwise the Yorikke would never have had steam enough to weather off a rough sea and gales.
It was the duty of the drag to haul into the stoke-room all the coal needed to feed these nine fires.
Before the coal could be hauled in, there was a heap of other work to do. The fires, of course, did not take into consideration any other job save swallowing fuel.
So to complete all the work that was already waiting, quite a huge load of ready coal had to be held in reserve before the boilers. This heap of coal had to be furnished by the watch that was leaving now; that is to say, when the watch went off duty, it had to leave an amount of fuel ready large enough so that the new watch could work before the boilers one full hour without having to haul in more coal. When the present watch was relieved, it also had to leave behind a similar amount of ready coal, to be used by the next watch.
Only during the two middle hours of one’s watch could this great extra supply be hauled in — in my case, from one to three. At three o’clock the drag of the relief watch came, and with his help the ashes that had accumulated in the stoke-hold were cleared out. For this reason at three o’clock there had to be in the stoke-hold sufficient fuel ready to serve the nine fires during the hour while the ashes were cleared, plus the fuel which had to be left over for the relieving watch. Naturally, during the two hours in which the hauling of the fuel went on, the fires of the ship under full steam were incessantly fed, eating and eating away from the heaps of coal you were hauling in. Whoever had not superhuman strength, a heart like a sledge-hammer, and lungs which worked like the sails of a racing yacht could not make it, regardless of how willing he might be. He collapsed for sure. In one case which I remember he never stood up again and died in less than six hours.
The back of the stoke-hold was toward the bow, and the boilers, lying parallel to the keel, were located in such a way that the doors of the furnaces looked toward the bow. The engine-hold was situated behind the boilers in the direction of the stern.
At the back of the stoke-hold there were two huge coal-bunkers. When they were well filled, only the gates had to be heaved and the coal would fall right in front of the boilers. This was honey to the drag. There was practically no work for him to do — just shovel the coal still nearer to the furnaces to make it easier for the fireman.
The Yorikke, though, was obviously cursed, because whatever sort of work was to be done on her was the hardest work one can think of. Nothing was easy on her. If for some reason you had a sunny day, then you could be sure that the next fifty days would be only that much harder for you. So it is not to be wondered at that in those coal-bunkers, at the back of the stoke-hold, only very seldom was there any coal at all. And if there was, the second engineer, that devil of a pickpocket, locked the gates. He did not open them until all other coal on the ship, no matter where it was housed away, had been taken out first. In the meanwhile the Yorikke coaled afresh in some port, and the hard job of hauling in fuel from the farthest holds of the Yorikke began again. To be honest, hard as it was for us to haul fuel all the time from the far bunkers, there was some sense in keeping the gates to the stoke-hold bunkers locked. In the heavy gales which might break upon us at any time, it would mean the safety of the ship to have fuel in reserve so close at hand. For in a very heavy sea it might have been near impossible to haul sufficient coal from the other bunkers.
The regular work on the Yorikke for the fireman and the drag would have been considered on any decent ship the work of four healthy well-fed men. Since even galley-slaves develop pride, why shouldn’t we? There are galley-slaves who are proud of being good galley-slaves. When the overseer who sings out the strokes walks up and down the plank with his whip in his hand, lashing here and there, and he looks with approving eyes on a husky fellow who is hauling out with long sweeping strokes, then that husky feels like a soldier called for at an honor parade to be decorated with a bronze medal by Mr. Pershing. “That’s nothing,” says the worker close to a collapse, “I can still do better; just watch me and see what a real guy can do.” All right, the medal is yours, keep it and be happy; some day you will tell your grandson how smart a slave you were. Honors are so cheap, you can pick them like fallen leaves in November.
The fireman stirred open three fires, skipping two of each boiler and going from one boiler to the next. After having worked boiler number three, he returned to boiler number one, breaking up fire number two, then going to boiler number two, breaking up fire number two, and so on. On each furnace door the numbers of the fires were written with chalk, beginning with number one and finishing with number nine.
Breaking up the fire was done with a long heavy poker. The slags and cinders were broken off the grate-bars to clean the fire and let it have all the draft it needed to keep it going with full force. Artificial fans were not known on the Yorikke. All the draft was provided by nature.
When the furnace doors were opened, a tremendous heat flared into the stoke-hold. The glowing cinders were broken off the bars and pulled out of the furnace. The fire inside the channel roared like an angry beast ready to jump at the troublemaker. The more cinder was broken off and cleared away, the wilder the fire seemed to act. In front of the furnace the glowing slags mounted until the fireman had to jump back, lest he be scorched. He yelled: “Agua, water, cool’m off.” I had to spray water over the cinders to kill them. With each spray a cloud of hot steam sprang up and filled the stoke-hold with a hot fog, making it difficult to see what was going on.
As soon as the fireman heard the hissing of the water on the slags, he hurriedly beg
an to shovel coal into the furnace. He did it so quickly that one hardly could follow his movements. Before the steam cloud had disappeared, he was done with the job, and with a bang he closed the furnace door. He wiped his forehead with one stroke, jumped to furnace door number four, opened it, poked off the cinder, yelled: “Get the water, hell and devil!” and began at the same time throwing up coal by the shovelfuls, wiped off the sweat, swore, and jumped to furnace door number seven, jerked it open, crashed off the slags from the grate-bars, howled: “Agua!” and threw in the fuel. Like a black tiger he jumped to boiler one, pulled open furnace door number two, and so the work went on: Jumping tiger-like, yelling for water, throwing up fresh fuel, closing the doors with a bang, swearing, spitting, wiping off the sweat, jumping again.
We wore only pants. On his feet the fireman wore a sort of cloth slipper. I had shoes. Now and then the fireman jumped back with a curse and shook off the cinders that leaped upon his bare arms and naked chest. There were no hairy apes around with lurking strains of philosophy for stage purposes. No time for thinking and looking under dames’ skirts. Five seconds lost thinking of anything else but your stoke-hold might cause twenty square inches of your sound flesh to be burned away. A stoke-hold in a stage-play or in a movie is something different, at least more pleasant. People in evening dress would not like to see the thing as it is and still pay for it.
More often than upon his breast and arms the embers sputtered upon his feet. Then he danced and swore and howled like a savage. The embers slipped inside of his footwear, where they scorched his flesh before he could even find them and get them out.
After three fires had been broken up, the poker became so hot that the fireman could handle it only by wrapping thick rags around his hands.
The cinders taken out from the furnaces and accumulated in front of the fires gave forth such heat that it became impossible for the fireman to go near the furnaces. That bowl of water shed upon the cinders and ashes when the fireman working at the furnaces sang out: “Agua, for devil’s sake!” did not suffice to kill the cinders thoroughly. Only the surface got slightly cooled off for a few seconds, giving the fireman just a breathing-space to hurry up to finish this particular fire. When he was through with all nine fires, and the heat had become unbearable, the cinders had to be cooled more completely. The stoke-hold had almost to be flooded to accomplish this. They never could be cooled entirely until they were thrown overboard. For, underneath, the embers kept glowing and they spread the fire to any bit of coal among the ashes not fully burned.
This flooding of the stoke-hold brought up thick clouds of scalding steam, from which we could protect ourselves only by jumping into the farthest corners of the hold.
The stoke-hold was ridiculously small. The space between the boilers and the back of the stoke-hold was considerably shorter than the length of the fire-channels beneath the boilers. Pulling out the poker from the furnace could not be done straightway, because the end of the poker would hit the back of the stoke-hold long before the whole poker was out of the fire. Therefore the fireman had to go sideways and jerk the poker up and down to get it out. He had to do a real dance about the stoke-hold to handle the poker properly. In heavy weather, when the ship rolled hard and fell off big breakers, the dances the fireman had to do looked funny enough to anyone watching it. But there was anything but fun about it. The fireman was then thrown about; he fell with his face upon the red-hot poker, with his bare breast or back upon the heaps of white-hot slags, tumbled over the mounds of fuel against the open furnace, lost his clogs and stepped right into a hill of embers. Incidents like that happen on any ship and in any stoke-hold when there’s a rough sea. But in a good-sized stoke-hold the horrible consequences of such incidents can be avoided to a great extent. On the Yorikke, however, these dreadful burnings, scaldings, and scorchings could not be shunned, regardless of how hard one might try. Here they were part of the job. Working before the boilers meant getting burned, scalded, and scorched, all over.
Death ship; yes, sir. There are several kinds of death ships. In some the carcasses are made inside the hull; in others dead sailors are made outside. And then there are death ships that make fish-fodder everywhere. Yorikke made carcasses inside, outside, and everywhere. She was a model of a death ship.
While we were cleaning up the fires, the fireman of the former watch finished his bath. All the time he was washing himself in the bucket, entirely stripped, he was in danger of being burned or scorched either by the poker or by sputtering embers. He did not mind. He felt sure that since he was dead nothing could happen to him. From his face, after he had washed himself, one could see that he was really dead.
His face and body had been washed fairly well with the help of white ashes and sand. But he could not rub the ashes into his eyes, and consequently his face was white while his eyes had big black rings around them. Perhaps this was the reason why he looked like a man with a death skull instead of a face. His cheeks were hollow, his cheek-bones stood out, and they were white and polished like billiard-balls. There seemed to be no flesh in his face.
He put on his pants and his torn shirt. He groaned a deep “Ough,” which he meant perhaps as a good-night. Tired and heavily he climbed up the ladder. When he had reached the landing, I just caught a glimpse of him doing the snake-dance.
Stanislav had meanwhile been busy dragging coal into the stoke-hold to build up a pile for me to have on hand until I had found myself.
When we were breaking up fire number six again, Stanislav came to me and said: “Well, brother, I am sinking now. I can’t do it any longer. I am finished. Guess I have to shuffle off. It’s about half past one. I am on the spot now for almost sixteen hours. At five I have to hop on again and heave ashes with you. It’s a great thing that we have you with us now. I could not have done it any longer. I have to make a confession which I should have made earlier. But you see, bad news is always told too early. It is like this, we are only two coal-drags on this bucket, if I count you in. That means that each of us has two watches with six hours each; and taking in each watch one hour extra for clearing ashes, it makes seven hours,
or, to make it quite clear to you, fourteen hours’ tough work within every twenty-four hours, as long as twenty-four will last. Tomorrow we will have still more extra work. We have to clear the whole deck of the mountains of ashes left there while the can was in port. You know, in port no ashes must be cleared into the water. That’s all left on deck until the can is in the open again. It will cost us another four hours’ extra work.”
“Of course, all these hours more than the regular watch of four hours are overtime, aren’t they?” I asked.
“Yes, buddy,” Stanislav said, “you are right, all this is overtime. But it won’t make you any happier. You may write it down on paper, all the hours you call overtime. Only you mustn’t expect anybody to pay for it.”
“Oh, I settled that with the old man when I signed on,” I said.
“Now look here. Don’t be a sucker. Whatever you settled here when you signed on or after has no value. Only what you have got in your pocket, that’s what you may rely on, as long as it isn’t pinched by somebody in the foc’sle. And don’t you ever think that you get paid here. Not in your life-time. What you get is advances and advances. Just enough to get drunk and get a dame under your legs. Sometimes there is just a bit left to buy a shirt, a pair of pants, or new clogs. You never get enough to buy you a complete outfit. You see, if you look like a respectable citizen, you might get some ideas into your head and walk off and become alive again. Nothing doing. Get the trick now? As long as you haven’t got money, and as long as you are in rags, you cannot get away here. You stay dead. If you try, he orders you arrested for desertion and they keep you in jail until the very minute the Yorikke is putting out. Then they bring you aboard, and all the costs for jailing you are cut off your pay. And the old man fines you two or three months’ pay extra for desertion. That’s in the regulations. He can do it. And he does it. Then you
go to the old man on your knees and beg for a peseta and you apologize. Because you must have likker. You can’t do without. Or you go all nuts. You need the shots and the dames. Without, you can’t stand it. Believe me, buddy, it’s a lie that the dead has no feeling. You will learn how much a dead one still can suffer before he has become accustomed to it. I won’t wash myself. I cannot lift my hands any more. Good night. All the luck, and I wish that no grate-bars fall out. That costs life-blood, Pippip. Good night.”
I could not answer him. I had no words. My head was humming. I saw him dragging his tired body up to the landing at the middle of the gangway. As in a dream, I saw him doing the snake-dance. For a second it looked as if he had lost his hold and was about to fall below. Then he climbed farther up and disappeared in the dark hole through which I could see a few stars sparkling in the black sky.
“Holy Virgin, Santisima Madre, Purisima en el cielo. Thousand holy sons of skunks. Damn the whole —”
The fireman was howling as though bitten by a mad dog. He took a breath, and then he began again to curse whatever came into his mind, which for a long while seemed to be the meeting-place of degenerate individuals and animals with over-animated sex deviations. Nothing was left of the purity of the Heavenly Virgin, or of the holiness of the saints. They all were dragged by him into the gutter. If ever hell had held any horror for him, he now did not care any more. He smashed hell, with a few good words, into an insignificant dung-hole, and he cursed the devils to useless mongrels disrespecting their mothers. He was no longer afraid of anything on earth or in hell. He was in a state where he could not be punished by anybody or by anything. For when I asked: “Hey, fire’m, what is up?” he beat his chest like a jealous gorilla and, with blood shooting into his eyes, he roared savagely: “Hell is upon me, six grate-bars have dropped. Holy alligator-tail and ogress-mouse.”
