Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-09-27
THE BLACK SQUAD.
Grimy vuloans That Feed the Fires on
Ocean Liners.

Grimy Vuloans That Feed the Fires on
Ocean Liners.
An inferno, all smoke and heat and
fire and nakedness, Is the stokehold of
an ocean liner. AS you enter 1t, pick
ing your way over the burning ashes,
the hot blast from the furnace mouths
smites you in the face; 1t scorches your
eyes and sears your lungs with every
gasping breath you draw. Your i'm
pulse is to turn and fly. Life seems
impossible in such an atmosphere.
And yet the inferno huns with life
and strenuous, almost savage, indus
try. Opposite the huge boilers. quiver-
ing with suppressed power, like so
many chained giants, are the figures of
men as If carved in ebony, glistening
with the sweat that streams from ev-
cry pore. They are working furiously,
with muscles swelling and knotting as
II they would burst through their
sheath of skin-humans in quick sue
ceeding poses Of fierce labor which
would delight the eye Of the sculptor
and battle his skill.
Gathering up a shovelful Of Goals,
each man propels them with quick
forward thrust Of the body into the
white hot heart Of the furnace and
with a dexterous turn Of the wrist
spreads them evenly over the fire. Then
quick as the eye can follow, another
shovelful succeeds and another, as If
life itself hung on the breathless
swiftness Of the sequence.
Such Is the stokehold in which the
vulcans Of our mammoth liners and
battleships feed the greedy furnaces,
which keep the propellers revolving to
the tune of twenty knots and more an
hour-the men of the "black gang
who, clad in trousers almost as black
as their grimy bodies, and with a filthy
sweat rag" loosely knotted round their
necks, toll thus for four hours at q
stretch, until the last "ounce" Is taken
out Of them, and they crawl back to
their quarters for a we'll earned eight
hours of rest.
II a fireman faints, overcome by the
heat and exhaustion, he is quickly laid
aside in some corner, with little tepid
water dashed on his face, and there ne
is left until he comes round" while
his fellows ply shovel and Slice" (the
latter to clear the fire periodically
from refuse) with a fiercer energy than
before, adding the fallen mans labor
to their own. The moment he recov-
ers consciousness he struggles to his
feet, seizes the shovel and is at 1t
again. "Go off watch?" Not he! He's
as good a man as any, and the fireman
never knows when he's beaten.
To call such men heroes is no abuse
Of an often misunderstood word. They
are not only the last word In human
grit and pluck-for your fireman Will
die rather than give in-they are he
roes who face death every time they
enter the stokehold. as lightheartedly
as other men would sit down to their
dinners. At any moment a fusible plug
may fly, a boiler tube collapse, gauge
glass may splinter, and the captain may
have occasion to "regret" that some
good man or other has fallen victim
to his duty.
His ship may be sinking, the In
rushing water swirling knee deep over
the plates on which he is standing, but
no Thought of the boats and an escape
to life is for him. He must stick to his
post until the last fire is drawn and II
he has time to race up the escape lad
der to the boat deck we'll and good. If
not-the odds are all against him-he
goes down, a mute, inglorious" hero
to his death. 1t is all part Of the days
work for which he draws his meager
pay, with a cheerful acceptance or the