The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1898-08-11
UNKNOWN HEROES.
DOWN TN THE sroKERooN.

DOWN IN The SToKER0oN.
Glimpse Of the Heroic Fellows Under
the Decks.
New York Press.
If landsman wants an experience
that he will not forget soon let him go
down into the stokehole of warsh1p.
Then he Will realize,- indeed, what 1t
means to be in the bowels OF vessel,
and, to an extent, what it means to be
buried alive. If be can face the roar
ing furnaces without Sinking and
stand in the steel walled pit without
feeling dread, he Will be a man OF
rare nerve.
Sunk in a shaft twenty feet below
the sea, men toll amid fierce tires
whose flames in chat confined space
lick out at them with every movement
of the long steel slice bars that are
used to feed the raging furnaces, as
savage Gagged beasts are fed, and, like
the beasts, the fires are raging to kill
the men, who master them only by
desperate labor.
There is no room to spare on mod
ern ship. Therefore, the mighty fur
naces are so crowded together that the
men who serve them have barely space
to move to and fro. before them. So
near them are the stokers and firemen
that until their skins are hardened to
it they blister and crack with the heat.
The chance visitor can bear it only a
few minutes, and even in that short
time he feels as ii the air were roasting
him alive.
Every time one of the red-hot disc
that serves as a furnace door is opened
the terrific fires within seem about to
leap out to destroy the ship. Fine
gray ashes make film in the air, and
suffocate one. The air that is forced
| into the stokehole from above catches
the heat so quickly that it is shrlvell
| ing almost as soon as it comes iron
the vent of the blowers.
| Slice bars and shovels are too hot TO-
any hand except that OF a hardened
fireman to touch. There is nothing t.
be heard OF the sounds of the sea or Q
the rushing of the ship. Noises ar
plentiful, but they are the noises o
soughing flames and OF groanlng ma
chinery.
That is stokehole when the ship j
going at ordinary speed and there ar
no especial demands on the stoke1
and the firemen. When there come
the time that ship must fight Tor he
life. chase, or run, the stokehcle be
comes a place of torment. When th
warship goes into action she calls .
every one OF her hundred and MOI
engines to be in readiness, and th
firemen must furnish every pound {
steam that they can give her. TIL
more they give her the louder are til
demands of the engineers for more, an
the men must work at the fires till the
fall. Forced draught is the order thel
and the stokehole is practically scale
up that no air may escape from it, e
cept through the furnaces. The fir
, grow fiercer and fiercer, and soon the
is no spot in the steel pit that is NJ
unbearably hot. Men watch the ind
Gators and shout for more steam. I'll
engineers yell at the tolling horde tn
. the fires are not hot enough to work
tug-boat The CRATES are choking wit
the steady rush Of ashes. Coal is pou
ing into the roaring mouths OF tt
furnaces in steady streams. So emo
nous is the draught that solid mass'
of it are sucked into them as it the
were feathers. The water-carriers ca
ry bucket after bucket to the pantir
men coated With ashes. Their make
bodies are hidden under the gray Goa
ing of the ashes, that are so thick
the air now that the electric ligh
shine only dimIy through them. Me
fall in queer limp heaps, and are dral
: ged away to die or to go mad. Reli
after relief is called to the burnir
hole, and still the open throttles of tt
ships engines take the steam FAST
than the furnaces can make it. VIII;
is going on above no man down the
knows. Sometimes a dull echoir
shock may tell them that the ship HI
been hit hard. News drifts to the
at intervals that the enemy is winnir
or losing, but Of the glory of the figh
ing they know nothing. They kno
: only that if the ship is torpedoed tht
!. will die, with no chance to swim
;, fight. Even if she sinks more slowl
from damages through cannon she
= they must stay at their posts till Il
!, end and when they get the word