“Spell O!”
There was a break in the rhythmic thumping, a new gang stepped in and relieved the men at the handles, then the monotonous throbbing was resumed. Spell O, the cry for relief, already coming from the first gang manning the pumps! Backbreaking work that, all right. How long could the sixteen men we had on deck, even relieving each other frequently, keep those handles flying up and down fast enough to give us a chance in the fireroom? Not for long could human muscles stand that pace, I feared. It would be nip and tuck between us and the rising water.
From atop the boiler came the banging of metal on metal and the muffled curses of Bartlett as sprawled out in the scanty space between boiler and deck beams overhead, he fought with sledge and wrench to loosen the manhole bolts. Lauterbach came cautiously down the fireroom ladder, balancing a huge armful of kindling. I motioned him to toss it onto the grates, then to join Boyd, Iversen, and Sharvell with the buckets. In silence, we waited below, listening to the mingled chorus of the banging sledge hammer, the rasping screech of rusty nuts, and the fluent profanity of Bartlett, prone on his stomach, a fantastic fur-clad demon with his distorted face showing up intermittently in the flickering flame of the torch, battling the boiler beneath him. No one could help him; there wasn’t room for two men to work in those confined quarters. And there was no use giving him any advice either. So below we stood, straining our eyes impatiently toward Bartlett, while inch by inch the water rose on us and the margin between water level and furnace grates shrank. The hand pumps on deck were losing out—they had slowed up the rise, but they could not stop it.
My chilled legs felt cramped. Instinctively, not taking my gaze off Bartlett, I tried to flex my knees to relieve them, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. I found I could not lift either leg. Looking down sharply, I saw for the first time what before in the poor light had escaped my notice—in that intense cold, far below zero, the water was turning to slush, ice was forming here and there over its surface, and both my feet were solidly frozen down to the iron floorplates on which I stood!
I gripped my legs one at a time with both hands, savagely tore them free.
“Keep moving, boys!” I warned the men in the water alongside me. “If you stand still a minute, you’ll be frozen down!” And standing there in that fast freezing water, at 29° below zero, I was at least thankful for the four pairs of wool socks, the three suits of blue flannel underwear, and the two pairs of woolen mittens which encased me under my fur suit and boots, for otherwise by now, between cold water and cold air, I should have been frozen stiff as a board.
Bang!
With a final blow of his sledge, Bartlett knocked free the last dog, lifted out the boiler manhead, shouted,
“All clear, chief!”
“Start those buckets!” I ordered, but it was unnecessary. Already Boyd had dipped the first one full, was passing it up to Bartlett, who dashed the contents through the open manhole into the boiler, where splashing over the frigid iron plates inside, I haven’t the slightest doubt but that it promptly became ice.