Deep in the bowels of the ship, amid the click and whir of oiled machinery, Chief Petty Officer Ahern began his evening watch. He was a man of about thirty years, with a well-muscled body, and keen, blue Irish eyes. In six years he had risen from Fireman Second Class to Chief Machinist’s Mate.
At the moment, Ahern was the only man in the engine room of the Gatoon. Lieutenant Allen, the Engineer Officer, was in his own stateroom, cleaning up for the evening meal. The other Machinist’s Mates were off watch. The nearest members of the “black gang” were sweating in the boiler room, forward.
Ahern was whistling an old Irish ditty as he moved about, checking the smoothly running machinery. Thought of danger was the farthest thing from his mind as he paused to glance up at the stars shining through the fiddley hatch above his head.
All at once his body stiffened as if in agony. His hands clawed at his throat. Mouth open and eyes popping from their sockets, he reeled backward in a grotesque dance of death.
As he fell, struggling, to the iron deck, a man in ordinary seaman’s uniform dodged past him toward the main steam line. There was a quick sharp hammering; a hiss of escaping steam. Then the seaman reappeared, his features covered by a white handkerchief.
Briefly he stooped over Ahern’s limp body, fumbling at the swollen, purple neck. The next moment, swift as a startled rat, he slipped out of sight behind a bulkhead.
Five minutes later, Lieutenant Allen came on deck for a breath of air before going to mess. Glancing toward the fiddley hatch, he noticed a wisp of steamy vapor rising from it. In alarm he sprang forward to look below. The heavy reek of hot engine oil met his nostrils as he bent over the hatch. The hum and clink of smoothly moving metal rose with it to reassure him. Only the steamy mist between decks, and a slowing of the engine’s rhythmic beat spelled danger to the officer.
Turning to the engine room ladder, Lieutenant Allen made the lower deck in record time. Through a mist of steam, he made out the body of the Chief Machinist’s Mate. Pausing beside it only long enough to read the signs of death, he pressed on as far as he dared toward the broken steam line.
Up on the Gatoon’s bridge, Lieutenant Darnley caught the engine room’s urgent signal. Picking up the speaking tube, he barked a short acknowledgement.
“Allen speaking,” came the terse reply. “Inform Captain Riggs of attempt to sabotage the ship’s engines. Chief Machinist’s Mate Ahern is dead at his post. Must stop engines and pull boiler fires at once.”