Schumways knew nothing of ambergris or its value—that fact was quite plain—but it would never do to leave it lying in the scupper, and Harman having poked his head up through the hatch and found a clear deck, they got it down, stowed it in a spare bunk occupied by a filthy rug, a suit of oilskins and a paraffin tin, covering it with the rug.
Then they came on deck, and the captain of the Oskosh, coming down from the bridge, introduced them to the engine-room and Sellers, a wire-drawn Yankee, six feet two, who introduced them to the engines and the stokehold.
“Chinks are firin’ her now,” said Sellers, “but you’ll hold yourself ready to take a hand at the shovellin’ if wanted. I’ll larn you how to shoot the stuff; that’s a pressure gauge—you’ll get to know it before you’ve done—and that’s an ile can—you’ll get to know her too.” He led the way down a passage four foot broad to a transverse passage eight foot broad, where, under a swinging oil lamp, Chinks, naked to the waist, were firing up. He opened the door of a long blazing tunnel and seized a shovel, the coal came down a chute right on to the floor, and taking a shovelful he demonstrated.
“Stokin’s not shootin’ coal into a fu’nace, it’s knowin’ where to shoot it. Every fu’nace has hungry places: there’s one, that dull patch up there, and there’s the food for it.” A shovelful of coal went flying into the gehenna right on to the dull patch, and, dropping the shovel, he seized an eight-foot bar of steel. “M’r’over, it’s not all shovellin’, it’s rakin’. Here’s your rake and how to use it. Then you’ve got to tend the ashlift, and when you’ve larnt not to stick your head in the fire when she’s pitchin’ hard you’ll be a stoker; ain’t nothin’ to it but the work an’ the will.”
“But see here, cully,” said Mr. Harman. “We ain’t signed on for stokin’ in this packet; engine-room fiddlin’ is stretchin’ a point with A.B.’s, but stokin’s outside the regulations. Clear, and by Board o’ Trade rules——”
“That’s them on board the Oskosh,” said Sellers, producing a revolver, which he exhibited lying flat in the palm of his huge hand as though he were showing a curiosity. “Six rules an’ regulations, soft-nosed—and don’t you forget it, son!”
Through days of blazing azure and nights of phosphorescent seas the Oskosh plugged steadily along on her course. She was square-rigged on the foremast, and used sail-power to assist the engines when the wind held, and always and ever, despite her dirt, her disorder, and the general slovenliness of her handling, she kept a bright eye out for strangers. When Schumways was not on the bridge using the binoculars, they were in the hands of the Savage Island bo’sun—a fact noted by Billy and Bud when those unfortunates had time to note anything in the midst of their multitudinous occupations.
They were not always put to stoking in this horrible ship, where things went anyhow and work was doubled for want of method. They would be oiling in the engine-room under command of Sellers when, maybe, the voice of Schumways would come ordering “them roustabouts” up to handle the sails: sail-handling, greasing, emptying slush tubs, helping in engine-room repairs, “lendin’ a hand in the stoke’old”—it was a mixed meal of work that did not please the appetites of Billy or Bud. Yet they had to swallow it. Kicking was no use. Harman tried it, and was kicked by Sellers, and took the injury and insult without retaliating. Fighting was a mug’s game, but deep in his soul Billy Harman formulated an oath of revenge, swearing that somehow, somewhere, and somewhen he would be even with the Oskoshites to the ultimate limit of their back teeth and the last short hairs of their persons.
He communicated this darkly to his fellow-sufferer, who laughed.
They were seated at breakfast feasting on the leavings of Schumways and Sellers and Davis told him to close up.