“Now,” he ordered, “get away from the sides o’ that cargo room, an’ lay yerselves out ’s flat ’s yuh can.”
The majority of the men obeyed him meekly.
“That’s right,” he said. “Stay there now. It’s goin’ to be so hot in here that some o’ yuh’ll be goin’ off yer heads. Yuh don’t want to do that. Yuh want to hang on, see? Keep still an’ hang on. An’ if yuh feel yerself goin’ loose, get a hold o’ the floor, anyway, an’ don’t let go.”
He took up the engineer’s hammer, stepped down to the door, and put his back against it. “I’ll brain any man that tries to open this door before I give the word,” he said.
They were a mixed lot—Keighley’s crew—picked from all the battalions in the city to serve on the new Hudson. There was “Shine” Conlin, a blue-jowled Bowery type, who had been newsboy, boot-black, (whence the “Shine”) wharf-rat, deck-hand, plug-ugly and leader of his gang; he had come into the department from the ranks of the “Con Scully Association” to earn a regular salary for the support of “th’ ol’ crow,” his mother; and he was the most aggressive “Jigger” in the company. Even now, he did not obey Keighley’s orders. Instead of lying down, he sat up against a shaft bearing; and instead of covering his mouth, he filled it with “fine-cut” from a package in his hip pocket and tried to chew it nonchalantly. His mouth was so dry that he felt as if he were trying to chew excelsior; it was tasteless. He turned it over and over in his jaw, until it was pulverized, like chaff. Then he blew it out, with an oath.
At his feet lay a huge truck driver named Nicholas Sturton and nicknamed “The Tur’ble Turk.” He was of the captain’s faction, because he was by nature loyal to appointed authority and solemnly conscientious in the fulfilment of all his duties. He had tied the red rags of a bandana handkerchief over his mouth and plugged his hairy nostrils with the cotton waste; and his eyes stared and his great chest heaved in his efforts to breathe through his gag. When he looked at Keighley, it was with the mute and patient appeal of a big boy, in pain, looking at the doctor who is watching over his suffering.
Lieutenant Moore, like “Shine,” was sitting, but with his head in his hands, the cotton waste forgotten in them, his mouth fallen open. He had had a good education in the public schools; he was cursed with the imagination of the trained mind; and he suffered all the horrors of death every time he gasped. He was ready to weep with pity for himself, but his tears dried up before they reached his scorched eyelids. He was the pride of his parents, and the dominant note of his self pity was a sympathy for them in their disappointment in his end. “A hell of a finish,” he was saying to himself. “Here’s a hell of a finish.”
Cripps, a sly youth, freckled and sandy, had lain down carefully on his side, in silence, with the instinct of a trapped animal to “lie low” and wait. He had joined the “Jiggers” because the Fire Commissioner was of their party and he looked for promotion to come when the old chief, Borden, should be deposed and his successor named from the faction which the Commissioner favored. He refused to consider his present situation as more than a temporary interruption of his plans. He kept his mind off the thought of death, and busied himself trying to make his mouth “water” with the thought of cool lager beer in foaming schooners. He even achieved a secret smile.
The other men lay quiet—some flat on their backs, staring glassily at the steel beams overhead; some panting with convulsive chests as the heat increased; some on their faces with their heads on their arms, gagged and stifling; some drawn up in strained and twisted attitudes, as if in pain. In their swollen eyeballs sudden lights darted and burst. Above the noise of the blood in their ears, they heard a sound of moaning. A choked voice began to struggle in the first wanderings of delirium.
“Steady, there! Steady!” Captain Keighley called out. He was standing up, his arms crossed, his face drenched with perspiration—in absolute and unquestioned command at last.