Hell Around the Horn

7. Fire Down Below

Captain Barker climbed the ladder to the poop deck, followed by the mate and the carpenter. He was surprised to see a dozen pair of eyes looking up toward him. Half the crew had drifted aft and stood in silence, watching. Had the carpenter talked about the fire or had the mate? He had sailed two trips with Gronberg and knew the carpenter to be a tight-lipped old Kraut, if there ever was one. It had to have been the mate.

With more than half the crew watching him, Captain Barker knew he had to act decisively. He always preferred a frontal assault. "Mr. Rand, call all hands and work the coal out of number two hatch till you come to the seat of the fire. Pile the coal on deck and keep clear of the pin rails. I want not a single pound lost over the side. Do you understand me?”

There was a moment of silence as the mate glared at the captain.

“No, sir. I will not." Rand replied. "No, sir. Rio de Janeiro is only a hundred miles to leeward. If we square the yards and run for the port, we can be there tomorrow. I sure as hell won't sail this ship round Cape Stiff with a bellyful of burning coal. And that goes for every man jack aboard. All I have to do is say the word and they's with me.”

Diverting to Rio would cost them both time and money. The gang bosses would gouge the ship for all they could. Nothing like a smoldering hold to drive the price of shore labor skyward. The voyage would be sure to be a loss, once the vultures got through with them. But money was the least of it. A mate didn't give orders to a captain. Ever. To do so was mutiny, plain and simple.

Captain Barker opened his mouth to speak, but was simply too filled with rage. A fire in the hold was bad, but mutiny was far worse. He turned and strode below to his cabin, where his wife was sewing, as the children played on the cabin sole. He unlocked a cabinet drawer and took out a pair of loaded pistols.

“Hello, James. What are you doing?" she asked, seeing the revolvers in his hands.

“I've business to attend to," he snapped. He stormed out, not bothering to close the door behind him.

When he reached the poop deck, the carpenter had returned to the main deck and Rand was standing, looking forward, apparently serene. He had stood up to the captain and the captain had backed down. Or so he thought.

“Mr. Rand," Captain Barker roared.

“Yes, Captain," Rand replied, turning, only to find the barrels of both pistols jammed into his stomach.

“A few minutes ago, I gave you an order, mister. When I give an order, it is to be obeyed." He shoved the guns for emphasis. "Do you understand me, Mr. Rand?”

The mate was now visibly pale, the color seeming to have drained from his tanned face.

“Yes, sir," he replied softly.

“Now, mister, will you sail around Cape Horn on this ship or are you still thinking of Rio?”

“I'll sail with you, Captain.”

“Good, because I'll see you in hell before you disobey another order of mine." The captain stepped back and lowered the pistols.

“Now, call all hands and get to work. You know my orders.”

“Yes, sir," the mate replied sullenly. Then he turned, and as if nothing had happened, bellowed, with a will, "All hands, all hands.”

Captain Barker stood watching the mate. A moment before he had threatened mutiny and now he rousted out the crew as if nothing had happened. The captain wondered whether he would be fighting his first officer as well as the cargo, the wind and the sea all the way around Cape Horn.

Fire. The word had spread in the fo'c'sle like a flame in dry grass. Mr. Rand had told a few men in each watch and soon everyone knew.

Fire. There were few things on shipboard more terrifying. Like the rest, Fred knew the stories too well. Would they end up like the Cospatrick that sailed from London for New Zealand in 1874? She caught fire in the lonely South Atlantic and of the nearly five hundred emigrants and forty crew, only three souls were found alive, badly burned, drifting in a lifeboat. The stories the survivors told were too horrible to think about, especially with a fire smoldering somewhere beneath the coal in number two hatch.

Fred stood with the rest just forward of the main mast, looking aft. They couldn't hear what was being said on the poop deck but they could see the pistols in the captain's hands. Fred had kept a running plot of their position in his notebook. They were not far off the Brazilian coast. They could be safe in port in a day. Rand had boasted in the fo'c'sle that he would make the Old Man change course for Brazil. It didn't look like the captain was taking Rand's advice. If the ship was going to burn, they would all go with it.

“I don't think that we will be sailing for Rio," Fred mused to Donnie, who was standing next to him. 'What'dya think the captain will do? Flood the hold?”

The Irishman laughed. "Sure enough, that'd be one way to fight a fire. Sink the bloody ship and the fire goes out. Wouldn't be my first recommendation, however.”

Fred looked at Donnie, annoyed. Now did not seem to be the time for sarcasm.

“Then what would you recommend? How would you put the fire out?" Fred asked.

“Well, there are mostly two choices. You could button up all the vents. Seal every opening and try to cut off the oxygen to the fire. Smother it. A good choice, unless it doesn't work and the fire keeps spreading and gets completely out of control.”

“And the other choice?”

“You go at it head on. Throw off the hatches and dig down to the hot spot. 'Course, you do that, you are letting a lot of oxygen straight into the fire, which could set it burning hotter and faster.”

“So what's the answer?" Fred asked.

“Don't never be on a ship afire," Donnie replied.

“Sounds like good advice," Fred said. "I'll remember that for future reference.”

Mr. Rand came bounding down the poop deck ladder as if nothing out of the ordinary had just taken place, as if every order he had ever received was punctuated by the poke of a pistol barrel in his gut.

“Rig a tackle, gantline and vang to the mainstay," he bellowed. "Get baskets and shovels." They all jumped to the flurry of orders. Shovels used for shifting ballast were hauled out of bosun's stores beneath the fo'c'sle head, as were heavy cargo baskets. Pugsley and two sailors hauled out tarpaulins to spread on the deck.

Finally, all that could be done was done, save the opening of the hatch. They all stood around, looking at the covered rectangle but not daring to move closer. Finally, Mr. Rand pushed through the crowd of sailors and swung a mallet to break out the hatch wedges. He pulled back the canvas covering the hatch covers. Tossing away his mallet, he yanked the first hatch cover up, and with an angry shout, tossed it aside.

A column of smoke rose from the hold, white and boiling like a genie from a bottle, and the crew all took a step back.

“Get to work, you lazy bastards," Rand roared. "Get the other covers off and start digging, you motherless whores. Put out the fire or burn in hell with it.”

Fred walked over and grabbed one handle of a hatch cover as Jerry the Greek grabbed the other. They both lifted and pulled the pine cover free. Others followed suit, hoisting the covers and shifting the cover braces until they revealed the hot, black and shining coal, with faint wisps of smoke escaping from the obsidian surface.

Gronberg, the carpenter, jumped into the open hatch with a bundle of thin, threaded iron pipes and a mallet. He pounded a length of pipe down into the coal, and then threaded on another and kept pounding until the bottom of the pipe reached the depth he wanted. He carefully lowered down the spare thermometer. He methodically recorded the temperature in his notebook, then began pulling up the sounding piped to move to another spot. Not a word was spoken on deck while Gronberg worked, pounding down the pipes and taking temperatures, working from one end of the hold to the other. The only sound was the ring of his hammer on iron pipe, the relentless drone of the wind and the creaking of the rigging. Finally he looked up. "Mr. Mate," he said at a half a shout, "except for the starboard aft corner, the cargo is cool enough. Starboard aft—that is where fire is.”

One of the apprentices let out a whoop, before being silenced by a quick jab from the senior apprentice, Paul Nelson. When Fred looked over he saw Captain Barker, still standing at the break of the poop deck, the distant king watching his servants closely.

“All right, finish rigging the gun tackle and drag those baskets over here." If Mr. Rand was aware of the captain looking over his shoulder, he gave no sign of it. "Eight men with shovels digging, six hauling on the gantline, four piling the coal with hand trucks and two with buckets to cool it down. Now get to work. This weather may not last.”

Pugsley rigged the tackle over the hatch from the mainstay. A heavy gantline with a hook at one end was rove through the block and led down to a block at the hatch coaming. Fred, Tom, Harry and three others were on the heaving line as three apprentices and three sailors clambered in the hold with their shovels. Fred and the rest lowered two round baskets, each four feet in diameter made of bent wood with steel straps, on the gantline hook into the hold and were surprised how fast the first was full when they heard the command "heave away.”

Harry started up the shanty and all on the line grinned at his choice of song when they heard the first line. They all hauled on the alternate beats.

“She was just a village maiden with a fair and rosy cheek…”

All joined in, singing, "to-me way hay he-hi-ho.”

“She went to church on Sunday and she sang those anthems sweet...”

Then with gusto they all sang the chorus:

“And there's fire, down below.”

The heavy basket rose from the hold and Otto and Santiago hauled on the vang to swing it over the tarp on deck, where they dumped it. They swung it back over the hold and lowered it, just in time to begin all over again and haul up the second basket. In the meantime, Otto and Santiago started shoveling the coal into a pile near the hatch coaming while two apprentices doused the coal with buckets of seawater.

“There's fire in the fo'c'sle and the coal is the crew,

Oh there's fire down below.”

In the short breaks between hauling up the coal, Fred kept looking forward at the shape tied up in canvas just aft of the fo'c'sle head. He knew there was a perfectly good steam engine sitting idle that could haul the coal up from the hold. Donnie saw him looking and shook his head. "You'd think the Old Man would let us fire up the donkey boiler and steam winch instead of having us hauling on this gantline like oxen, wouldn't you.”

Fred shrugged. "That would cost the son-of-a-bitch captain his bloody coal." He thought a second. "Let's see. The coal in Cardiff cost ten shillings four pence a ton, and they say it will sell in Chile for four pounds ten a ton. So if we used a ton of coal in the donkey boiler, it would rob the owner of about four pounds. And as we get the lordly sum of three pounds a month, they might as well just let sailors' sweat instead of using steam. Who needs a donkey engine when you have donkeys like us? Unless of course, the coal burns out of control because we can't get to it fast enough. But then we all die, so they don't have to pay us wages.”

Donnie muttered, "Well, there's that, to be sure. Are you the bloody ship's mathematician?”

Fred grinned, "No, I'm the bloody prince regent.”

“Good to know," Donnie replied, as Harry started singing again and they hoisted another quarter ton of coal from the hold. Fred glanced back at the captain on the poop and swore under his breath.

After two hours, the gangs were rotated and Fred and the others on the line climbed down into the hold along with two apprentices who had been on the bucket brigade. Shirtless and sweating even before they started to dig, they broke up into four gangs of two, shoveling at the four corners of the pit that grew marginally deeper with each shovelful. In minutes, they were all covered in coal dust. The dust and wisps of smoke choked them as they shoveled, and the pit only grew hotter as they dug deeper. Their two-hour trick felt endless until finally they climbed back on deck to haul again on the gantline.

In the evening, they were given a half-hour break to eat. Jeremiah handed out pantiles from a bread barge to the exhausted crew. He laughed at the sailors, covered in coal dust and sweat. "I ain't the blackest man on this ship no mo'. No mo' indeed." When Jeremiah came to Jensen, he glared and tossed him the biscuits. Jensen just ignored him. The cook could be heard to mumble to Otto, "Did ya see? He danced with the debil in the moonlight on that very hatch and now she be afire. Didn't I tell ye?”

Will was slumped on deck next to Donnie and Fred. "Spontaneous combustion, that's what I've heard," he said to no one in particular.

Donnie looked over at the youngster, the smallest sailor aboard, who now looked like a black dwarf. "Load coal wet and it can start a fire all on its own, they say. The week before we started loading, it rained real hard. Coal probably sat uncovered in rail cars. About all it takes.”

“But how can water cause a fire?" Will asked.

“How should I know?" Donnie replied. "Ask our scholar over here," cocking his head toward Fred, who just shrugged. "Stranger things happen," Fred replied.

“Well, that's true, I guess," Will replied.

In a few minutes Mr. Rand began bellowing. "Back in the hold, you lazy blaggards. Don't want to burn alive just because you sons of bitches are too lazy to get off your arses.”

The mates kept them all working until midnight, when one watch was allowed to sleep for four hours while the other kept digging, until they too got four hours rest, before all hands were turned to again, shoveling and hauling. The more they dug, the hotter the coal became, whether because they were getting closer to the fire or whether the digging was feeding more oxygen to the buried flames, they couldn't tell.

Fred kept digging methodically, his muscles aching with each shovelful, blinded by his own sweat and the coal dust. The sulfurous smoke burned his nostrils and made him choke as he dug ever deeper. He was reminded of Dante's Divine Comedy and decided he preferred reading of the inferno in Italian to digging at it with a shovel.

The only rest they got in the hold was when they had filled a basket with a quarter ton of coal. They could lean on their shovels while the deck gang hauled it to the deck. Will was in the hold, doling out water to the diggers. He staggered in the smoke.

Fred called over to him, "Be sure to drink some of that water yourself, Mr. Jones. Don't want to have to haul you out of the hatch as well. Coal's heavy enough as it is.”

They dug for four days, and each day the pit got hotter as the piles of coal on deck grew. The soles of their feet burned as they dug. They gasped for air in the coal dust and acrid smoke. As he climbed out of the hold at the end of his shift, Fred heard Santiago tell of a voyage to Calcutta where he saw fakirs, Hindu mystics, who walked on coals. "I thought they was loco. Never thought I'd be one of 'em.”

On the fourth day the baskets of coal themselves were on fire as they rose from the hold. Extra hands were put on the bucket detail to make sure that the flaming coal didn't set the deck ablaze. Finally, they dug past the embers and ash to where there was no flame. Gronberg climbed down into the pit for his inspection. When he declared the fire out, the steward served out a healthy tot of rum to everyone save the apprentices, who sat glumly along the hatch coaming.

For a few moments, at least, all seemed well with the world. The fire was out, they wouldn't be burned alive on an empty ocean. The only fire now was the rum in their bellies.

Fred kept looking at the sky behind them. It was early afternoon and the sky was a darker blue than it should have been. He snorted wearily, and then muttered, "Damn. Shit. Damn. Damn.”

He looked at the poop deck, and there was Captain Barker. Had he moved in the last four days or had he kept his vigil, watching them dig and haul coal from the fiery pit? Fred felt himself growing to hate the man. The bastard wouldn't put into port to use shore crews to put out the fire. He wouldn't burn his precious coal to use the donkey boiler and engine. And now a storm, a real snorter by the looks of it, was brewing and they were rolling along with an open hatch and tons of coal on the deck. "Damn," he repeated to himself.

The captain and the mate could read the weather as well as any sailor, and Mr. Rand soon had the crew hurriedly shoveling the coal back into the hold. At least when reloading the coal, there was less hoisting to be done and they could breath again in the open air. Except when called to shorten sail, they kept shoveling and dumping the coal as the wind rose and they drove ever farther south into the Roaring Forties.

An ominous swell began to roll from the southwest. The wind was rising and the motion of the ship as she rolled along under topsails and t'gallants added urgency to their shoveling. They filled the two baskets and then used hand trucks to roll them over to the hatch coaming to be tipped into the hold. The coal dust that rose as they dumped each load disappeared in the gusting wind. Everyone kept an eye out to weather at the approaching storm. No one wanted to be caught in a storm with an open hatch cover, ready to swallow up the first breaking sea and the next and the next, until the ship disappeared beneath he waves.

What took them four days to dig and hoist only took one to load. As the last coal disappeared into the hold, the hatch covers were dragged in place and the tarpaulin stretched over the hatch, secured by heavy deal planks, as the Lady Rebecca pitched and rolled wildly in the swells. Fred finally worked his way to the fo'c'sle cabin. Time to tie on his foul-weather gear before the storm hit.