"250 revolutions and not a turn more can we get out of this Gott-verfluchte coal. That is the tenth man in the last quarter of an hour. There's no use in worrying us. We can do no more. Go and tell that to the Herr Kapitän and leave us to our work."
"It seems clear in front, but there is a couple of cruisers somewhere behind," observed the lieutenant in a placatory voice.
"I don't care if Hell's in front of us and the Devil himself behind!" roared the engineer, losing self-control in the exasperation of his nerves. "We should at least get something that would give some heat there. Gott sei dank! Do you know how many tons of this muck we are burning per hour?" he finished savagely.
The lieutenant waited for the answer.
"Thirty tons per hour—and we are only getting 250 revolutions—go and tell that to the Herr Kapitän!"
The lieutenant's own irritation was inflamed by this display of temper.
"We didn't supply the coal——"
The engineer overwhelmed him with a roar of curses, and finished with an angry order to leave his engine-room. His bulging, birdlike eyes glared with an insane hatred.
The lieutenant returned a bitter retort that had no justification in fact and climbed up the ladders to the deck. There he stood swaying for a moment or two, chilled to the bone by the change in temperature, although he was on the lee side of the superstructure. Raindrops splashed heavily upon him from above. The ship was plunging and rolling more than ever, and he noticed the motion after the comparative quiet below. The gale had evidently freshened. He shivered with cold and half-turned to go below again. Then he changed his mind and stumbled forward, slipping at every step on the wet, unstable deck.
In the forward turret was his friend Gunnery Lieutenant Arenschmidt. He opened the steel door and entered. The narrow metal box into which the breeches of two 8·2 guns protruded was lit by electric lamps behind wire guards. It was filled with the crews of the two guns, seated comfortably on the floor with their backs against the walls. In the shell-bins at the top of the ammunition-hoists a projectile lay ready for each gun. The gunnery lieutenant rose as his friend entered and held out his hand with a smile. He was a jolly young man, this lieutenant, whose manly beauty, marred though it was by a student sabre-cut, fluttered many a female heart. He spoke now with all his usual boisterous good-humour.