In Hazard by Richard Hughes Page B

waves, and at his own foolish sawn-off trouser-legs, his silly life-belt: and felt his ears burning red.
    That is what comes of going to sleep, he thought.
    Oil was the only thing: and quickly.
    There were latrines both ends of the ship: forward, latrines for the firemen and the seamen: aft, latrines for the pilgrims—male to port, female to starboard. Ships ought to have special arrangements for hand-pumping oil onto troubled waters: but they have not, and latrines are the next best thing. The only trouble with latrines is the baffle on the outside, which stops the oil from dropping really clear of the ship.
    There was a reserve tank of lubricating oil in the top of the engine-room, up by the door. Captain Edwardes had it broached, for it was in a convenient position: the Chinese engine-room staff filled five-gallon drums from it, and trundled them as far as the well-decks, fore and aft. They would not go out into the open: so the deck-officers took over from there.
    Watchett was sent to take charge of the forward latrine.
    Just then the boy Bennett appeared again, out of the Captain’s cabin, looking fit as a fiddle now: the slight boy, not very strong; so they sent him aft, into the female latrine, to do the pouring there, while Buxton and the other bigger boy Phillips were to keep them both supplied. Bennett had a bundle of tow to use as a stopper, so that he could let the oil drip out slowly and regularly, instead of in one big wasteful splodge. You only want a very little oil to control leaping water: even for so big a ship, one drum ought to last for an hour or two.
    Bennett made a dash, and managed to win the big iron slice-shaped room, with its long row of squatting-places: they rolled a drum in after him, and the big iron door clanged to. It was pitch dark, the air charged with the smell of citronella (Essential Oil had been stored there, to avoid tainting the holds). The ship’s list had laid this starboard latrine down almost to water-level: and as she rolled the sea came up through the vent, gurgling like the waste of a gigantic bath, swirling about the boy’s knees. He made a dash for the door, in a panic: but it would not open: the iron latch, outside, was a swing one, and the angle the ship was heeled to kept it swung into the locked position: it could only be opened from without. If the ship rolled just a little more, of course, the room would fill, and drown him. Coal-miners, in an accident, have sometimes been saved from drowning by the air-pressure: fleeing to the end of an ascending gallery, the water has not been able to rise to them because there was nowhere for the present air to escape. But latrines are properly ventilated, in accordance with strict regulations: in fact are designed to drown anyone locked inside them for sure, as neat as a mouse in a mousetrap.
    Well, never mind; at present it did not seem to come above his knees, and only that once in a while. So he got busy. Fixed his tow plug, broached his drum, began pouring. He could not tell if it was doing any good: only the chaps outside could tell that.
    The chaps outside could see that the effect of the oil was magical. A thin film only a few molecules in thickness (once it had spread out), it bound millions of tons of water. Huge spires of water would dash at the ship, like maddened cathedrals: then the oil spread over them: they rounded, sank, passed away as harmless as a woman’s bosom. Or even if they broke, it was only harmless dead water.
    In an hour and a half Bennett’s drum was finished: and no one came with more.
    They did not come, because at the time they thought they could not. The wind was in one of its worst paroxysms. A man might manage to cross the well-deck in a wild dash emptyhanded: but not carrying a drum of oil. So the engineers started pouring it over amidships, with buckets. A wasteful way; but better than nothing, they thought.
    Wasteful, and not nearly so effective. It was soon plain that