“Look here, sir,” a fireman named Cripps spoke up. “We’re all in this together. There’s no use jawin’.”
“That’s right,” another added plaintively.
Captain Keighley nodded. “If yuh’d been all together from the first, we wouldn’t be here, d’ yuh see?”
Several of the men answered, “Twasn’t our fault.” They looked at the lieutenant, who had dropped his head and was gazing, empty-eyed, at his feet.
“No?” Keighley asked suavely. “Well, it wasn’t mine, was it?”
No one spoke again until Cripps asked weakly, “Can yuh get us out, sir?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. If yuh live long enough, an’ I do, I’ll get y’ all out.... I’ll get out ev’ry man o’ yuh that’s breathin’, any way.... We got to wait here till that fire burns down; that’s all.”
The young stoker had begun to sob. Lieutenant Moore opened his parched lips to speak, but his tongue, swollen and dry, like a piece of flannel in his mouth, was too thick to turn a word. The sound of flames rose suddenly to a muffled grumble.
Captain Keighley said, “Here’s some cotton waste I hunted up. Pull a wad off to plug yer noses, an’ tie somethin’ over yer mouths. We’ll be breathin’ scorch before we’re through.”
He tore off a ball of waste and passed the roll to Moore. It travelled down the line from hand to hand—as if for a sign of union and peace among them—like a “pax.”