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.”