The daily Alaskan., 1913-02-07
THE BLACK SQUAD
erimy VuIeans That Feed inc
 Fires on Ocean Liners.
HEROES OF THE SToKEHOLO.

NuEtN WQQnlh NI FleNueN NtfN
 tioaliy Brave Death Every Tine They
 Face the Blistsrins Soaring Blasts of
 Heat Frou, the Glowing Furnaces,
 An inferno. all smoke and heat and fire and nakedness, Is the stokehold of an ocean liner. AS you enter it pick Ing your way over the burning ashes, the hot blast from the furnace mouths smites you in the face; it scorches your eyes and sears your lungs with every gasping breath yor draw. Your im- pulse is to turn and ly. Lite seems impossible in such an atmosphere.
 And yet the inferno huns with life lnd strenuous. almost savage, industry. Opposite the huge boilers, quivering with suppressed power, like so many chained giants, are the figures of men as if carved in ebony, elisteDing with the sweat that streams from every pore. They are working furiously' with muscles swelling and knotting as if 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 baffle bis skill.
 Gathering up a shovelful of coals each man propelS them with a qulck forward thrust of the body into the white hot heart Of the furnace and with a dextrous turn of the wrist spreads them evenly over the fire. Then. quick as the eye can follow, an other shovelful succeeds and another, as it life itself hung on the breathleSs Of the sequence.
 Such Is the stokehold in which the yulcans of our mammoth liners and battleships feed the greedy furnaces, which keep the propellers revolving to the tune or twenty knots and more ar 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 uecks. toll thus for four hours at a stretch, until the last ounce" IS taken out of them, and they crawl back to their quarters for well earn. ed eight hours of rest
 If a fireman faints. overcome by the heat and exhaustion, he is quickly laid aside In some corner, with a little tepid water dashed on his face, and there he is left until he "comes round, while his fellows ply shovel and slice the latter to clear the fire periodically
 rom refusel with a fercer energy than before, adding the fallen mans labor to their own. The moment be re covers consciousness he struggles to his feet. seizes the shovel and Is at h again. "Go oH watchYn 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 VIII die rather than give in-they are he roes who tace death every time they enter the stokehold. as lightheartedly as other men would sit down to thelr dinners At any moment a fusible plug may iy, a boiler tube collapse, a gauge glass may splinter, and the cap tain may have occasion to regret that some good man or other has fall en a victim to his duty.
 His ship may be sinking the thrush. ing water swirling knee deep over the plates on which he is standing, but no thought of the boats and an escape Co life Is for him. He must stick Co his post until the last fire is drawn and h be has time to race up the escape lad der to the boat deck well and good, If not-the odds are an against him-hC goes down, a mute inglorious" hero, to his death. It is all part of the days work for which he draws his meager pay, with a cheerful acceptance of the fact that his life win be short and cer- tainly not merry, for you find few stokers who have passed their forty. 6fth birthday.
 It Is not only that the freman's mus. cles and stamina must bear this inhu' man strain. He must watch the gauge glasses with the keen eyes Of lynx to see that the line of bubbling beads never rises above or falls below the level that denotes safety He must know his boilers as a jockey knows his mount; which of them requires coaxing and which requires forcing Co stimu- late its sluggishness, for boilers, it Is said, have as many whims and caprces as a woman
 On the whole, the stoker is no un- amiable man. He may growl at his food. though he often fares "Hke a fighting cockr aboard; he may have @ vocabulary which would make the av- craze bargee green with envy, but he will laugh you to scorn if you suggest that bis work is too hard and that he i' not game" to the backbone.-London Areyrore