Three days later, a grim-faced Rand and the carpenter, Gronberg, pounded on the captain's cabin door. When they stepped inside, Gronberg was holding a shattered glass tube.
“What do you have there, Chips?”
“The thermometer from number two hatch, sir. Burst from the heat.”
The captain stood speechless for an instant.
Rand spoke up. "The coal in hatch two is burning. The ship's afire, sir.”
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.