"Boys," exclaimed Kennedy, "there's a call for volunteers for the stokeholds! How about it?"
"Firemen on strike?" enquired an Australian, as he tumbled out of a comfortable attitude on a locker, and stretched his arms and gave a prodigious yawn.
"No, chum," replied Kennedy. "The convoy has to increase speed--we're about to cross the intensive zone--and the old tub requires a lot of whacking up."
"Then I'm on," said his questioner with alacrity.
Fortescue, Selwyn, and Carr were also amongst the volunteers, and after breakfast twenty men paraded in dungarees to take their "trick" below.
"Hanged if I'd like to do this for a living," remarked Malcolm, as the men gingerly made their way down the greasy and polished perpendicular ladder, one of many that gave access to No. 2 stokehold. "It's all right for the novelty of the thing. What with this pitching and rolling it reminds me of Point Elizabeth Colliery in an earthquake."
"If a blessed torpedo should----" began one of the Anzacs, but Kennedy promptly shut him up.
"Less chin-wag going; you'll want all your energy for elbow grease," he exclaimed. "Now then, chum, give the word and we'll do our best."
The last sentence was addressed to one of the regular hands, who, stripped to the waist like the rest of the Pomfret Castle's firemen and greasers, was responsible for this particular stokehold.
"Just you wait till we've got shot of this crush," said the man, indicating a number of South Africans who had just completed their two-hours' voluntary task. "They've stuck it jolly well. If you chaps do as good we'll make the old boat hop it like billy-oh."