“It is.”
“I’m glad of that. I wouldn’t like to be blown up.”
“As if you would ever know what hit you!”
In silence they shoveled on till their “trick” was finished. Then in crawled their relief, and so, hour after hour, with a brief intermission for dinner, the work went on. It was the hardest task either of the boys had ever tackled. In the bunker the air was foul with gases and thick with coal dust, which got in their eyes, nostrils and mouths, blinding and choking them. Their hands grew sore and they ached cruelly in every limb. But they stuck doggedly to their task, “working to save the ship.”
Begrimed with black, and panting, men would stumble out of the bunker as their “trick” was finished and sink down exhausted. But in a few minutes they would be at it again, striving to keep up their good spirits by laughing and joking over their task.
“From now on we’ll be the ‘Black Watch’,” said Ned.
“The black diamonds, you mean,” retorted Herc. “There’s one thing on earth I’d never be.”
“What’s that?”
“A fireman. That isn’t a job, it’s punishment.”
“Just think what this fire-room must be like in time of action under forced draught!” struck in another man. “I’ve heard that the temperature runs up to one hundred and twenty degrees sometimes.”