Why go into the agony of the next two hours? Wearily, without relief, my men heaved water, ice, slush, whatever the flying buckets scooped up, indiscriminately into the yawning void inside that boiler; just as wearily, with aching shoulders, Cole and his little group labored, unrelieved and unshielded from the bitter cold on deck, heaving that barrel up and down; while from the deckhouse, the more and more frequent cries of Spell O! showed that at the undermanned pump, backs were fast giving way under that inhuman strain.
And in spite of all, I could see that we were going to lose. Another hour yet to fill the boiler to the steaming level, but from the rate with which the flood waters were still rising, in another hour it would be too late—the water would be over the grates. Hoping against hope that perhaps I was wrong, that perhaps the water was going into that kettle faster than I thought, I crawled myself to the top of the boiler. Keeping as clear of Bartlett as the scant space allowed, not to slow up the stream of buckets, I seized the torch and in between the dumping of those cumbersome buckets peered through the ice-rimmed manhole into that Scotch boiler. As I feared. The upper tubes down there were still uncovered; the crown sheets of the furnaces were still perhaps a foot above the level of the slush (I could hardly call it water) line. As I looked, Bartlett, sprawled out beside me, sent another bucketful splashing through the manhole, which soaked my beard and almost immediately froze it into a solid mass. But I hardly noticed it, staring with leaden eyes into that still half-empty boiler. With a sinking heart, I slid away on the ice-coated cylinder from the manhole, and crawled down the breechings to stand once again on the thickening ice covering the flooded floorplates.
Dare I fire up without waiting further?
I was in a terrible predicament. To light fires under a partly filled boiler like that, with tubes and furnace plates not wholly covered with water, was not only the surest way to a courtmartial which would probably end my naval career, it violated also every tenet in my engineer’s code, violated every principle of safety, practically insured a boiler explosion! But if I did not get fires going right away, I would never have a chance to fire up, and not only that boiler but the ship herself and all her crew besides would vanish in that Arctic ice.
I must risk whatever came.
With flying buckets and tumbling barrel splashing and spilling water all around me, I applied a match to another oil torch, fanned it a moment in the chilly air till it blazed brightly, shoved it (in the narrow space still remaining between the flood waters and the grate bars) into the inboard furnace under the kindling, till the wood took fire and then hurriedly transferred it to the outboard furnace until that also lighted off. The extreme cold of the outside air favored me, creating a tremendous draft as soon as a little warm air filled the flues, and in no time at all it seemed, the wood was blazing up fiercely and igniting the coal which, shining brightly down through the grate bars onto the water flooding the lower part of the ash-pits, cast a lurid red glare out into the dark fireroom, evidently putting new life into the drooping sailors, for both below and on deck, a ragged cheer greeted that crimson glow.
“Keep that water going, lads; we haven’t won yet!” I warned, flinging open the furnace doors and heaving in more coal. “We’ve got to get that water level up over the crown sheets before they get red hot, or we’re all going straight to hell! Twice as fast now on those buckets!” And whatever it was, fear or hope, that inspired those coalheavers, a moment before ready to drop from utter exhaustion, the buckets started to fly faster than ever.
I finished heaving coal, slammed to the fire doors, and leaned back on my shovel. I was in for it now. Never in the history of steam, before nor since, has a boiler been fired under such weird conditions—furnaces half-flooded, no water showing in the sight glasses, slush and ice for what charge there was, and the boiler manhead still off! But I was relying on some of those very dangers to save my bacon—till I put the manhole cover back, there could be no pressure to cause real trouble; and till we had melted down and warmed up that ice and slush, I counted on that chilly mixture and the water still splashing in to soak up heat so rapidly as to keep the bare tubes and exposed crown sheets from getting red hot and collapsing.
My other fears I need hardly go into—the dangers of bringing up steam suddenly in a cold boiler instead of gradually warming up first for twelve hours as was usual; of frozen gauge glasses; of frozen feed pumps—all these I deliberately put out of my mind. Only one thing counted now—to get some steam at any cost whatever before the water reached the grate bars and flooded out my fires.
And we did. With only a few inches left to go, came at last from Bartlett the long-awaited cry,