At an order a party of lascars assembled for the purpose of securing any of the cargo that might have broken adrift. Presently Anstey, wearing sea-boots, made his way along the lurching deck. He was not at all keen on this particular job. Hounding about in the semi-darkness of the hold and in momentary danger of being crushed by a mass of shifting metal was not a pleasing outlook. But it was duty, and Anstey was not a shirker.
The lascars cast off a portion of the tarpaulin and removed the aftermost of the metal hatches, disclosing the rusty coaming and the upper portion of a vertical ladder of iron—or, to be more precise, a ladder that was nominally vertical. In present conditions it was swaying with the ship, and describing an erratic curve with a maximum heel of twenty degrees.
Steadying himself by the coaming, Anstey felt with his left foot for the topmost rung. Then, gripping the sides of the ladder, he began the descent.
Very little daylight found its way into the narrow space afforded by the displaced hatch. In fact Anstey soon found himself in gloom approaching total darkness. The air too, after being confined for weeks, was dank and distinctly unwholesome. There was an acute smell from the fumes given off from the red oxide with which the steelwork had been coated.
With his rubber-soled boots slithering on the slippery rungs as the vessel rolled, and gripping strongly with both hands, the Third Officer descended until at length his feet came in contact with the metal floor of the hold. The din was terrific. Without, the seas were hammering on the comparatively thin hull-plating. Bilge-water was foaming and hissing in the cellular bottom, while the vibration of the engines—the noise intensified in the confined space—added to the turmoil.
To these noises Anstey paid scant heed. He was listening intently to a metallic sound, which told him that Preston's precautions had not been taken in vain. Somewhere in the for'ard part of the hold there was a regular metallic thud. It came from a mass of metal that had worked loose from the securing chains.
Anstey's first intention was to order a couple of lascars below.
"May as well do the jolly old job myself," he soliloquized, on second thoughts.
Fumbling in his pocket he produced his electric torch. For some minutes he was dazzled by the blinding glare. Then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the light, he could form a good idea of the difficulties of his surroundings.
He was standing in a narrow fore-and-aft passage. The walls consisted of red-painted girders piled up to a height of ten feet on either side of him. Although secured by chains and upright steel bars they presented a formidable appearance, as alternately each wall towered obliquely over his head, the whole mass straining and groaning at its lashings like a Titan striving to burst his bonds.