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There was a door to the right of the piano, which, I conjectured, led to the captain's state-room, right abaft; and the side bulkheads, which like the rest of the woodwork of the cabin were painted in white enamel, were each pierced by two doors, close together, which, I had no doubt, gave access to state-rooms.
At first the passengers were quite frightened, but Captain Anderson hastened to reassure them. In fact, there could be no immediate danger. Divided into seven compartments by watertight bulkheads, the Scotia could brave any leak with impunity. Captain Anderson immediately made his way into the hold.
Paint's inches thick on the bulkheads, and a shell in here would start fires all over the place. Bunje, if you want to write letters you'd better go somewhere else and do it." The Indiarubber Man thumped the blotting-paper on his freshly written sheets and looked up with his penholder between his teeth. "I've finished, Number One. Admit your hired bravoes."
There were bolts on the door, but the upper one alone could be pushed home. With this in its place felt secure from spies. Yet not too secure. I was not certain that the bulkheads were without crannies from which I could be watched. The crack by the door-hinge might, for all I knew, give a very good view of the inside of the cabin.
Before the cabin bulkheads on the starboard side, the captain had fitted up a sort of sail-room to contain the spare sails in case we should require them.
These swung back and forth with every roll of the vessel, giving rise to a brushing sound, as of trees against a roof or wall. Somewhere a boot thumped loudly and at irregular intervals against the wall; and, though it was a mild night on the sea, there was a continual chorus of the creaking timbers and bulkheads and of abysmal noises beneath the flooring. The sleepers did not mind.
General Weller!! There's some horrible mistake. It was the Vulcan. Everything depended on her bulkheads, the captain said. There was a hole as big as a barn door in the Vulcan. The pumps were going night and day." Mrs. General looked at Mrs. Assistant as the light began to dawn on both of them. "Then it wasn't the engines, but the pumps," she said.
Probably it was the working of these bulkheads and the water-tight doors between them as they are supposed to work that saved the Titanic from foundering when she struck the iceberg. These bulkheads were of heavy sheet steel and started at the very bottom of the ship and extended right up to the top side.
I had pictured in my mind's eye all the objects around, and had the whole of my prison mapped out clearly in my brain, as I supposed it to exist. Perhaps it was not exactly according to reality. There were the kelson and the stout ribs of the ship, the planking over them, the water-butts on either side, the stout bulkheads.
Walking around the floor, Mike carefully secured the four bulkheads, two leading back to the morgue; two leading forward to the north pole end of the hub. And then, jumping catlike upward and grasping the access ladder to the central axis tube, he carefully bolted that one, too. Dropping back to the floor he stepped over to the intercom and switched in Captain Nails' circuit.
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