Innocent on the run. Part 43.

The engine room was huge and the network of pipes like enormous spaghetti, winding around the machinery spaces and disappearing through bulkheads into other compartments. The engineers and greasers were cleaning up after some major overhaul, as the deck plates were up and people were lying face down taking tools from others who could not be seen, in the bowels of the ship. The noise was incredible, and the main engines were not running yet. Ricky reported to an engineer in a white boiler suit and shouted that the Bosun had sent him to help. He nodded and led Ricky off to one side where there was a pile of black, oily, cotton waste in a pile, with oil oozing out from under it. He shouted in Ricky's ear to stuff it in a bag, then clean the deck up under it. When he'd done that he was to carry it up the ladders and dump it in the waste bin on the jetty. It was a filthy, disgusting job, as Ricky found out that it was not just oil that had been cleaned out of the bilges underneath the plates, it smelled strongly of urine as well. He struggled up the ladders with the bags of waste and dumped them in the bin alongside the ship. He leaned on the hand rails of the ship for a breather and a voice shouted, 'I thought I told you to get down the engine room.' The Bosun had come outside and spotted him. 'I'm dumping the rubbish.' Ricky retorted. 'No you're not ! You're wasting time leaning over the side. Now get below.' Ricky turned and went back to the engine room, boiling with anger. He wiped the decks clear of oil and muck, and polished the steel plates until they shone. He vented all his anger on the job, and felt a little better when the Second Engineer saw him rubbing the plates furiously and came over. He grinned and shouted, ` Don't rub the plates away, they're only thin.' He beckoned Ricky to follow him and led the way into the boiler room. There were two enormous boilers in there, and the temperature must have been in the nineties. One boiler was working supplying steam to the pumps and machinery and the other was open at the front. The Second indicated that Ricky should climb inside the boiler into the firebox, and help the firemen drag out the sacks of scale and soot that were being filled. He sweated streams and got dirtier and dirtier as the soot stuck to his skin. The firemen were stripped to the waist, and had cloths tied around their foreheads to stop the sweat dripping into their eyes. Ricky found some rag and did the same. At the end of two hours the boiler was finished and the bags out on the deck plates. The Engineers started reassembling the front of the boiler, and the Second told Ricky to carry some of the bags up top and ditch them in the bin. After that, he bellowed, 'knock off,' and he thanked Ricky for his help. By the time he'd manhandled two of the bags up to the deck and thrown them in the bin, he was black, soot and boiler scale in his hair and clogging up his nose, and streaks of dirt running down his body. He didn't waste time, but went down to the cabin and found a towel in among the linen that Mac had left for him. He stripped off all his clothes and hid the belt of money under his pillow. The bathroom was opposite the cabin and he showered the muck off, before washing his clothes by hand in the large china sink. There was a drying room off the bathroom, heated by pipes from the boiler room and he hung his clothes up to dry. When he got back to the cabin, Mac was already in bed reading, and Ricky was surprised to discover that it was eleven thirty. `What did they get you doing ?' he asked. `Boiler cleaning, and bilge work.' Mac laughed. `They won't let you rest, you'll see. They'll work you all the way to the U.K.' `Well, as long as I'm going home, I don't care.' He made up his bunk and turned in, relaxing and thinking that it wouldn't be long before he was home. It seemed like he'd been away for years. The engines starting up woke him later, but he turned over and went back to sleep. Chapter 16. At six a.m. Ricky and Mac were called to start work, and they got themselves ready and made their way up to the mess room for a cup of tea. The crew started drifting in, and by six thirty those not on watch were ready for work. The Bosun got them out on deck and they started painting. The weather was beautiful, the sun already shining in a clear blue sky. The ship steamed through the calm waters of the Caribbean at full speed, with no cargo to slow her down, just the necessary ballast to keep her trim. After lunch the Bosun told Ricky to go back to the engine room as they needed help. He spent the rest of that day down in the generator room helping the engineers strip down a generator. It was hot, dirty work and the sweat poured out of him. The noise in the machinery spaces was so loud that they had to communicate by hand signals. It was like heaven to come out of the noise for dinner, and once they had eaten, in the special little mess room set aside for the engineers, they went back down again. The generator that they were working on was stripped down to the main bearings, and the engineers fitted new shell bearings to it, and then measured up the wear in the cylinders. They found that they had to fit a new set of piston rings to each of the pistons, and as the time was nearly midnight, decided to resume the work the following day. The Second told Ricky to come back down at eight in the morning, so he dragged himself up the ladders, showered and turned in. The exhausting work and the heat took their toll, and Ricky found it hard to get out of his bunk when the Bosun called him at six a.m. He washed and dressed and sat in the mess room with a cup of tea. At six-thirty, the Bosun had them out on deck painting again. After breakfast, Ricky told the Bosun that the Second Engineer needed him down below again, and he let him go, scowling in bad temper. Ricky enjoyed working in the engine room. It was hot and noisy, but at least the men were happy and liked to have a joke. They taught him how to use tools properly, how to recognise different types of threads on the nuts and bolts, and to use the appropriate spanners. They taught him not to rush the job, work methodically and efficiently. It took them four days to overhaul the generator, but it was done properly, and when the time came to run it up , it started first time and ran like a sewing machine. The Second showed him how to increase the voltage output from it, and when it was producing exactly the same voltage as the others on the electrical switchboard, to throw the breaker and bring it into operation. He learned to take the temperatures of the main engine and the ancillaries, keep a check on the oil pressures and water levels used for cooling, and to watch the water pressure and temperature in the boilers. The burners in the front of the boiler were regularly changed, and the used ones had to be stripped down and cleaned, scraping carbon out, and re - seating the atomisers after soaking them in diesel oil. Work continued around the clock, the regular routine making the days flash by. Ricky continued helping out on deck when he wasn't needed down below in the engine room, and he noticed the weather changing as they got further North into the Atlantic. The swells were getting bigger and the wind picking up. The temperature was several degrees lower, and they started running into rain squalls. People working outside changed from their tropical wear into shirts and trousers again. The mood of the men had changed as they got nearer to their home country, and people were actually smiling as they went about their tasks on deck. Copyright Deric Barry 2005.