“Just had a star-turn in Number Four stoke-hold,” he remarked. “Stoker off his chump.”
“Mad?” Nick said.
“Fightin’ mad. Up with his shovel and started layin’ about him. But they brought him down all right—no damage, except to him. He’s unconscious. They’ve got him in the Sick Bay, but they can’t bring him round. All over with him, I’m told. Only a question of hours now.”
“That means a funeral,” said Nick gloomily. “Burials at sea are depressing affairs.”
“Don’t wonder he went mad. The heat’s fierce, an’ four hours in every twelve isn’t a kid’s job. Hope it don’t take the others the same way. We’re short enough o’ stokers as it is, without ’em dyin’ off.”
“You can hardly blame them for dying, Aggett,” the Commander put in from his distant seat.
“You stand rebuked,” Nick said.
Aggett drained his glass. “The Commander hasn’t got to run the boiler-rooms,” he observed. “It would be different, wouldn’t it, sir, if the Chief Boatswain’s-mate kicked the bucket?”
“Nothing to jest about.”
“No, indeed.”