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Sometimes even yet in his dreams he saw the yellow faces of that fiendish band and heard the blows of the iron bars on their shaven skulls, when old Mac and his husky stokers had jumped into the fray. How large a part he had played in that repulse he seldom allowed himself to dwell upon in thought and never referred to it in speech.
Some of the boys, keen on adventure, slipped quietly out of the ranks and down side streets, and in the evening other hard cases garbed themselves as stokers, walked boldly past the guard and spent the merriest of evenings in Hobart, to return, perhaps, to a term of C.B. which the holiday was well worth.
Does any reader of this venture to say that, on such a voyage, he ever dared to be pleasant? Do the most hardened stokers joke with one another? I don't believe it. Look into every single car of the train, and you will see that every single face is solemn.
I can't get it out of my head with shells in her engine-room, and the fires flying out of her furnaces, and the stokers and engineers scalded and dead. Men I've messed with, Smallways men I've talked to close! And they've had their day at last! And it wasn't all luck for them! "Disabled and sinking! I suppose everybody can't have all the luck in a battle. Poor old Schneider!
But he had no time to investigate; the press was too thick. By this time the engineer, his assistant and the stokers had recovered from their surprise and rushed to Jack's aid. Friend and foe alike grabbed up whatever weapon they could lay their hands on wrenches, hand-bars and heavy iron pokers.
Neville ordered; but the stokers, huddled in a frightened group, refused to leave the ladder. It was only a matter of seconds now before the fires would be drenched. Bilge-water was splashing against the under boiler-plates, filling the room with dense steam. Neville left the men and raced for the engine-room.
And Paris too is a motor, a boiler in which the future is boiling, while we scientists keep the eternal flame burning underneath. Guillaume, my good fellow, you are one of the stokers, one of the artisans of the future, with that little marvel of yours, which will still further extend the influence of our great Paris over the whole world."
Hope had flared up, to be damped down. How often the stokers nurses or doctors have to pile wet ashes on a too eager blaze! How seldom they dare to add fresh fuel! "I will tell you," said the doctor. "She was very much better all Friday, taking some nourishment. And there is no doubt the champagne did her good just a spoonful at a time, you know, not more. She isn't halfway through the bottle yet.
Now burst forth in the Lenox a storm of frenzied rage, such as was never seen perhaps upon any vessel since vessels were first built. From the commander to the stokers every heart was filled with fury at the insult which was put upon them.
He talked, not as Captains commonly talk to Leading Stokers, but as one man might talk to another who turned to him for advice in the bitter hour of need, drawing on the deep well of his experience, education, and kindly judgment. "Troubles shared are troubles halved."
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