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"Yes, sir. Smotherified feelin, ain't it?" "Do you hear anything?" "Only me own teeth chatter." "Hush, then." They were drawing near the man-hole. The boy was sweating, shivering. He was living in death. A very little, and he would have had one of his old screaming panics of the night-nursery.
The effort was too much for him and he fell to the floor where he laid in an almost unconscious condition. He dimly remembered hearing the straining of chains, then the man-hole was opened and a voice inquired: "How is it?"
From this a ladder led straight up through a man-hole in the ceiling to the light-room store, set round with shining oil-tanks and stocked with paint-pots, brushes, cans, signalling flags, coils of rope, bags of cotton waste, tool-chests. . . . A second ladder brought them to the kitchen, and a third to the sleeping-room; and here the light of the lantern streamed down on their heads through the open man-hole above them.
Anxious to see what the strange little craft could do Lieutenant Muchmore sent his launch back, and went below with Captain Henderson. He was astonished at what he saw, and unlike most Englishmen was willing to say so. Mr. Henderson then went to the conning tower. He directed the man-hole cover to be clamped on, and then filled the tanks.
Where houses are near enough to make the use of a public sewer advisable, the aggregate of these soil-pipes, having almost constantly an upward current, will make such a draught upon the sewer, to be supplied by a downward current through the man-hole covers, as will maintain a perfect and continuous ventilation.
There ain't no one but you; coming into general headquarters with a flutter in the stack, so full that you can't whistle, air-pump a-squealing 'count of water, smeared from stack to man-hole, headlight smoked and glimmery, don't know your own rights, kind o' runnin' wildcat, without proper signals, imagining you're first section with a regardless order.
The boy was alone in Hell, and the Devil was stalking him. Kit turned round. Under the man-hole squatted old Toadie. The light bathed his hunched shoulders, his receding forehead, his projecting teeth. The horror of it, the darkness, here in the bowels of the earth, hidden from sun and wind and light of heaven, undid the boy. He tried to scream and could not.
It is easier to lead somebody who believes you to be brave than to let him know you are a coward especially if he's a soldier. The thought tickled him, and his heart surged upward. They were very near the man-hole now. Kit turned and pointed. Knapp put out his tongue in reply. The patch of light on the floor was dim and chequered. The old bush then was in its place.
Half-way down the drain a dim patch brightened the black floor. There was the man-hole; there was the danger-point. He crept forward with groping hands. The bricks were cold and sweating, the atmosphere that of the grave. It seemed to smell of dead men. The boy felt as though a mountain was smothering him. He found himself breathing deep as though in difficulties.
In the top of the conning tower a man-hole cover stood propped up. It was through this opening that the workmen entered or left the boat. From outside the shed several wires ran in. In dark weather these wires carried the current for electric lights in shed and boat. "I won't ask you aboard until the foreman and other workmen arrive," explained Mr. Pollard. "It'll be only a few minutes to wait."
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