“I thought it was a ghost,” blabbered Richter.
Barometer pressure rose when the Seriphus neared mid-Pacific. Ezra Morgan predicted a typhoon before the tanker was on the longitude of Guam. Long rollers came slicing across the Seriphus’ bow, drenched the forecastle, filled the ventilators and flooded the boiler-room.
Richter went below, braced himself in the rolling engine-room, listened to his engines clanking their sturdy song, then waddled over the gratings and ducked below the beam that marked the bulkhead door. An oiler in high rubber-boots lunged toward the chief engineer.
“There’s something inside th’ spare boiler!” shouted the man. “Th’ boiler-room crew won’t work, sir.”
Richter waded toward a frightened group all of whom were staring at the spare boiler. A hollow rattling sounded when the tanker heaved and pitched—as if some one were knocking bony knuckles against the stubborn iron plates.
“A loose bolt,” whispered Richter. “Keep th’ steam to th’ mark, or I’ll wipe a Stillson across th’ backs of all of you,” he added in a voice that they could hear and understand.
Superstition, due to the menacing storm and high barometer, the uncanny noises in the racked boiler-room, Richter’s bullying manner, put fear in the hearts of the deck crew. Oil-pipes clogged, pumps refused to work, valves stuck and could scarcely be moved.
“I’ve noo doot,” Fergerson told his Chief, “there’s a ghost taken up its abode wi’ us.”
Richter drank quart after quart of trade-gin.