"Conrad, Josph - Youth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Conrad Joseph)

erly for Java Head. The winds were light. Weeks
slipped by. She crawled on, do or die, and people at
home began to think of posting us as overdue.

"One Saturday evening, I being off duty, the men
asked me to give them an extra bucket of water or so--
for washing clothes. As I did not wish to screw on the
fresh-water pump so late, I went forward whistling, and
with a key in my hand to unlock the forepeak scuttle,
intending to serve the water out of a spare tank we kept
there.

"The smell down below was as unexpected as it was
frightful. One would have thought hundreds of par-
affin-lamps had been flaring and smoking in that hole
for days. I was glad to get out. The man with me
coughed and said, 'Funny smell, sir.' I answered negli-
gently, 'It's good for the health, they say,' and walked
aft.

"The first thing I did was to put my head down the
square of the midship ventilator. As I lifted the lid a
visible breath, something like a thin fog, a puff of faint
haze, rose from the opening. The ascending air was hot,
and had a heavy, sooty, paraffiny smell. I gave one sniff,
and put down the lid gently. It was no use choking my-
self. The cargo was on fire.

"Next day she began to smoke in earnest. You see it
was to be expected, for though the coal was of a safe
kind, that cargo had been so handled, so broken up with
handling, that it looked more like smithy coal than any-
thing else. Then it had been wetted--more than once.
It rained all the time we were taking it back from the
hulk, and now with this long passage it got heated, and
there was another case of spontaneous combustion.

"The captain called us into the cabin. He had a chart
spread on the table, and looked unhappy. He said, 'The
coast of West Australia is near, but I mean to proceed
to our destination. It is the hurricane month too; but
we will just keep her head for Bankok, and fight the fire.
No more putting back anywhere, if we all get roasted.
We will try first to stifle this 'ere damned combustion by
want of air.'

"We tried. We battened down everything, and still
she smoked. The smoke kept coming out through im-
perceptible crevices; it forced itself through bulkheads
and covers; it oozed here and there and everywhere in