An Engine-Room Affair

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVI, Issue 2, 13 January 1906, Page 13

An Engine-Room Affair

By

Arthur H. Henderson

THE Honorable John Oswald had quite enough money of his own without there being any need for him to spend his time driving marine engines for such wages as accrue from that somewhat precarious pursuit. His many friends did not understand it; neither did they approve. For months he would live decorously at his rooms in Piccadilly, and behave as an ordinary mortal of his class. Then he would disappear. Later some acquaintance would remark that he had met Oswald masquerading as engineer on a Norwegian tripper, or patching a donkey boiler on a Highland coasting steamer. This was unnecessary and erratic. Therefore it was also foolishness. He had served his time with a Clyde firm, and had extracted various special steam certificates out of the examiners of the Board of Trade. He never boasted, but his knowledge of marine engineering extended from the oseillating type of a penny steamboat to the latest form of turbine. He was reported to have assisted at the tinkering up of the flaw-shattered tail shaft of the liner Ocean Queen with a thousand souls on board in mid-Atlantic in an equinoctial gale; and he was said to have nearly lost his life when the tubes of a patent water-tube boiler blew out on Lord Lysington's craft —half yacht and half gunboat—in the Caribbean Sea. Then he would come home, and duly attend at Ascot and at Henley like a rational person. He could discuss with equal acumen the skirt dancing of the latest professional, or the recent eccentricities of a bilge pump. He had patented a new injection valve; he was an authority on the differing qualities of steam coals. He could tell you. if he liked, of a side of sea life known solely to firemen and greasers. Wherefore, it was not to be wondered at if he came to be regarded askance by the cautious old-fashioned parents of a certain most charming maiden. When Jack Oswald first met Nora Graham at a country licuse in Berkshire, he decided indifferently that he didn’t like her. Nevertheless he outstayed bis first invitation at the house, and then coolly—as he did most things —requested a second from his host. Soon other visitors learnt tacitly to drop away and leave the two alone. He rode with her; they shared the same punt;- she sang to him after dinner. He was a slight fair man wirii hair just tinging grey around the temples, quiet, active, and determined. She was a tall, dark, graceful girl whose appearance attracted attention everywhere. Directly he realised that he loved her, he asked her gravely to marry him. and—she refused. The Hon. Jaek Oswald forthwith made a voyage to the Black Sea as chief

on a grain boat, whose owner was a friend of his, and had no objection to the services of a highly competent engineer at lowest scale wages. Then he quietly returned to his suit as if he had never been rejected, and found that Miss Nora had meantime discovered that she liked him very much indeed. But this was where the parents unexpectedly intervened. There was the stormiest of scenes with old Colonel Graham, and there was a long lovers’ walk in Kensington Gardens. This 1 know because both of them told me about it afterwards on two consecutive days. Then the business seemed to drop. Jack said she was far too precious to be worried more than possible, and he must wait till semething should turn up to help them. Such waiting, however, is wearisome. In June the Grahams departed to the Mediterranean for a two months’ holiday on the Queen of England—one of those pleasure steamers with a mixed company of tourists, a brass band, and an itinerary which enticed the unwary by the allurements of Carthage, Athens, and Constantinople. I went in her too, and I thought Miss Nora looked a little tired with life when I met her on the tender at Tilbury. She seemed quite pleased to see me, and asked rattier shyly if I knew where Jack was. I didn’t; all trace of him had been lost for six weeks, until a bearded, grimy individual emerged from the engineroom hatchway one evening after dinner off Cadiz, and requested me to give him a pipeful of English tobncco. I handed over a spare tin of my best. That second engineer was Oswald. He warned me against the spreading of scandal, and I undertook the conveyance of a certain message for him to the saloon. He knew I should hold my tongue, and he was really in love, and suffering seriously. Mis Graham is my aunt: 1 don t think I have mentioned that before. A week later sire confided to me that Nora was a good girl, and seemed really getting over that unfortunate attachment to the Oswald man very well indeed. In fact, she would have been certain it was all forgotten had not her daughter betrayed rather more interest in the ship’s engines than was quite seemly in a lady passenger. However, these engineers, as far as Mrs Graham could see, were a harmless hairy lot. (I afterwards heard that Nora had spoken in the strongest disparagement of Jack’s pseudo-beard so that lie had nearly cast it from him furnacewards.) Colonel Graham lived in the smoking-room, where he told the same stories with regularity, and Mrs Graham slumbered for an undue portion of each day. Consequently. when I found that Miss Nora had sufficiently overcome that feminine

fastidiousness on the subject of oil to pay surreptitious visits to the regions of crank and cylinder. I was not surprised. Though it was all undoubtedly very wrong and deceitful. Oswald always avowed that the weeks of that cruise were the hardest in his life. When he was off duty he would see Miss Graham playing deck games with fascinating men who were only too anxious to flirt with her. When he was on duty it was worse, because imagination pictured her encouraging them artlessly. There were the usual concerts and a dance, when he was even driven to stuff up his ears with cotton waste, which no engineer, who feels the pulse of his engines by sound as much as by any other sense, should do. He says no one can appreciate the peculiarities of a passenger vessel properly till he has experienced them from the point of view of a second engineer. The moments of compensation when he was actually able to speak to his adored one were few and far between. One night, towards the end of the voyage, the crisis came; sometimes it does. The weather was fearfuly hot. and the Balearic Islands lay abeam mistily. When you mover! on the deck you panted with rhe exhaustion cf the effort, and down in the engine-room the heat must have be. n terrific. I felt that something was going t . happen, b.-eatiso everybody lay about on ehairs so complainingly, and gasped. Thunder clouds rolled up from the southward, and fierce lightning streaks glinted through the distant blackness. We were steaming sluggishly into a storm. The clack-clacking of the engines worried me unreasonably, and I knew that Oswald was down below on watch, sitting and talking to that machinery in lonely solitude. Sudden from the depths came a muffled crash, followed by the hiss of eseaping steam which surged through the engine-room skylight in a manner no steam should do. A hoarse shout rang startled through the smother. Then the heavy vibration of the whirring propeller ceased abruptly, and there was a moment of nerve-trying silence. An engineer raced along the deck in his shirt sleeves with visible perturbation. This in itself was unusual. The skipper betook himself to the bridge with speed, and without apology for his abrupt departure from a circle of admiring ladies whom he was entertaining at the time. Next the electric light went out, and amid the confusion and the darkness Nora Graham was clutching my arm, and I heard her voice saying to me quite quietly: ’’Take me to him. please, at once!" Never was an occasion when a girl had le s business in an engine-room. Yet she got there, no one seeming to

heed her in the turmoil. ''he swung herself lightly down the slip;»ery iron ladders, deftly clinging to the shining handrails between the narrow platforms. A steady clattering clang floated up through the stokehold matings. The situation was serious you could read this in the strained white faces streaked with oil and coal dust that were wrestling with that maze of bright machinery. Having all a passenger’s sublime ignorance of the details of the engines on which their lives may depend. 1 cannot explain exactly what had happened. Something connected with the high-pressure engine had blown away suddenly, and they carried the first engineer, who had been there at the time, a limp, senseless burden, which was not good to look at, into his cabin, where the doctor shut himself up with resolution. Smething else had promptly flung itself about wildly, and the next thing had jammed, and bits of flying steel bad smitten other pieces of adjacent steel in a manner that cracked and embarrassed delicate cranks and levers. The result appeared—even I could see this —a stale of chaos that was unsettling. And meanwhile, since the skipper—with a view to giving his passengers something to look at through their binoculars and amuse themselves by talking about—had laid his course that afternoon as close to the islands us he dared, the Queen of England was now drifting helplessly towards an evil shore in a six-knot current and a using sea. Abeam an ominous (lash came and went at r-guiar inteivaH, growing staringly brighter through the darkness. This was the glare of the lighthouse perched above certain vindictive rocks, which in the finest of weather are disliked by the mariner, and for which it is difficult to see any use in the economy of Nature. “In forty minutes we shall be ashore it you cannot get some way on her,” said the captain's voice, and the labouring coal-begrimed men in a dilapidated clothes set their teeth hard to their task. A figure, fa ;■ and hands black with oil and sweat crawl'd giddily from some curious d, th on to an upper platform, ai d his bi C'.it king quickened. It was O wald. I!is eyes were very tired, but into ih nt there came a sudden gleam as Ire saw the girl he loved. Nora Graham was in the evening dress she had worn at dinner. Iler throat was bare, and her white arms shone ■ strange! v in the light <>: a dickering oil lamp that-smoked evilly. Her hair was badly rumple.!. an! a coil of it had loosened and strayed over her small shoulder. She made a winsome picture standing there in the dimness against the dull background Of machinery. On deck they were hoisting out the boats with speed. ”1 was coming to find you," said Jack Oswald swiftly.

The girl looked nt him quietly. ••Oughtn’t you to stay there nelow?” “Yes.” “Isn’t there any chance of mending it all in time?’’ “Not much: a little perhaps.” Iler eyes dilated. “Then why are you leaving your post?” “To take care of you. Nothing else matters.” “Where is the first engineer?” “Dead, 1 expect,” was the grim an* fewer. “And you are the second ” “Yes.” “Then what are you doing here?” Fhe stamped her small foot and spoke as if he were a naughty child. “Go back at once!” “Will you go up to the boats then?’* he demanded. Something he read in her face seemed to steady him. “No. I shall wait here—for you.” “Thon I shall take you on deck,’’ said Jack Oswald, determinedly. There was a moment’s pause. Then the girl spoke, so low her voice was nhnost a whisper: “Do you really love me—still?” “I have loved you always.” “Then show it,” she said, fearlessly. •*And go back below—for me.” The tense lines of the man’s mouth (relaxed. His arms went round her roughly, ami for a second he held her close, her head nestling against his coat collar. Then he kissed her, and the colour leapt to her face like a flame. Next minute he swung himself down the ladder again, only calling to ine—hitherto unheeded —as he went. ’•You must look after her if I can’t. And unlace those boots of yours, old fellow—now!” My nerves were a little out of order, and I suggested to my companion a prompt return on deck. She rel marked with serene unconcern that I

might go if I liked, but that she should stay where she was. I remember some slight annoyance over this at the time. She followed up her expressed intention by seating herself calmly on the grating, where the grease spoilt her frock. Of course, it was folly pure and simple, but she declined to heed me at all. So she remained on that upper engine-room platform waiting stilly for whatever fate should send her, to be met together with her lover below. Some women are made like that—the best of them. I also stayed there, because I had been given charge of the first girl who had ever made me realise that love was a real thing. ~ Also Jack Oswald was my friend. It was uncommonly dull sitting there halfway up the engine-room by the side of the main steam-pump with one’s thoughts of what was about to happen for company. My predominant desire was for a smoke, ana I had left my matches in the cabin. The steamgauge by the starting-gear, with its stupid staring dial, irritated me senselessly. Thirty of the forty minutes allowed by the captain had passed, and I ftecmed to hear a dull roar above the noise on deck; probably it was fancy—it might have been breakers. Nora Graham’s face was white and drawn. I remember reflecting that women never look their best at sea. In fact, I came to the conclusion that they ought not to go there at all. Suddenly without warning, just as the strain of waiting was . becoming very bad, the electric light sprang out again, and blessed rays of wholesome brightness flashed over the polished surfaces of crossheads and lovers. There followed a hearty shout up the speaking-tube, and the sharp welcome ting of the indicator from the bridge. Huge shafts gradually revolved, and again the longed-for whirr of the propeller vibrated through the big ship. Above the slow clank of the moving machinery a faint cheer from on deek penetrated to the engine-room depths ■below. The Queen of England was saved. A tattered figure ran triumphantly up a ladder, and Nora Graham rose quickly to her feet. A very dirty hand went recklessly round the thin white dress, and left an oily stain there. A grubby pair of lips smudged a soft eheek as Oswald kissed his girl for the second time that night. “Don’t Jack!” she cried, fn alarm. “Someone -will see us.” He kissed her again, and I withdrew. It was only what other men are always doing to others girls, but the circumstances were unusual,and I was not needed there at the moment. Sb I joined certain jubilant shadows that danced about wildly behind the smoke-stack on the streaming deek—till someone suggested an adjournment to the saloon for champagne. I looked over the side of the ship, and I never want to be quite so close to that portion of the Balearic Isles again. It does not look healthy from the sea, but thanks to those fellows below in tne engine-room -—and above all to a slendr white figure who had kept their chief there —the outline of the land was rapidly growing more indistinct. A little later tfie skipper joined us at the table, and wiped his brow. Then he called sharply to the steward: “Take my compliments to the second engineer, and ask him if he can safely spare a few minutes. Tell him to come here just as he is.” When Jack appeared, which he did with manifest reluctance, it was a curious scene to see those white-shirted, high-collared itien and daintily dressed women, cheering hint with unrestrained excitement. He partook modestly of a whisky-and-soda, and kept his back turned with care to that corner of the saloon where Colonel Graham stood on a seat and shouted. A retired Indian Commissioner proposed a general testimonial. and proceeded to draft it on the spot. Miss Nora had managed to squeeze up dose to the hero of the hour, and her eyes shone enehantingly. After the hubbub had somewhat subsided. the gentleman with the testimonial inquired weightily of the skipper the name of their preserver. “Mr J. Oswald,” replied the captain with cordial interest. "The Honourable John Oswald.” corrected a girl's clear voice, though the owner of the voice was breathlessly rosy at the moment. A sudden shrill squeak betrayed the presence of my revered aunt. She burst

through the amazed throng of passengers, and I heard Colonel Graham say, “Good Lord!” quite distinctly. Then it was that the second engineer turned with a quick movement and caught his sweetheart's hand brazenly before them all, in a tight grasp, as if resolved to keep her against all comers. Explanations occurred tumultuously, and everybody talked at once. And the parental blessing that eventually followed was public, but not perfunctory. In fact, it made a very pretty romance, and the passengers never ceased to discuss it all the remainder of the voyage home to Southampton. Personally, I used to visit the engineers’ quarters and listen quite patiently while Jack discoursed on the perfect nature of woman. Though it has never been my own fortune to win the love of a girl, yet I understand a little now what such love must be worth since I have looked into Nora’s dark eyes and seen there the happiness which had come. The last time I saw Jack was in Piccadilly, after the honeymoon. “It is just the best thing on earth,” he said, in answer to my inquiries, “to be married to the woman you love.” Then, such is the inconsistency of human nature, he added almost regretfully, “But I have had to cut my engineering.” “Poor chap!” said I. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to us all if the lady, who is now the Honourable Mrs John Oswald, had acted differently that night.