by John Brunner
This was therefore not an ideal place to let the contract for an expensive boat late in the season.
But Gordon was too enthusiastic to wait until spring; Parbury was desperate to witness the realization of his dream; and Stowey was free with assertions that his and that other vessel would be clear of the yard tomorrow—next week—at latest by month’s end!
And there was one sound argument in favor of, if not Cincinnati, then some other northern city. Down south, factories did not yet exist capable of building engines, boilers and piping light enough to be economic, yet strong enough to withstand the high operating pressure necessary if the Nonpareil were to run out her competitors. Stowey & Vandersteen had already built one such steamer, and she was at work and showing a fair profit.
For Woodley this was what counted above all. Having kept his promise and sold his old boat for what little she would fetch, not only was he anxious to have his money working for him again, but also—as he admitted to Gordon in a burst of frankness—on his own he would have had to wait a lifetime before commanding so splendid a vessel, and he was eagerly looking forward to her debut.
So Gordon had put his foot down in Stowey’s favor, and there had been one hitch following another, and countless excuses… and now they would all learn whether their gamble had come off.
The clerks, caterer and steward of the Nonpareil were to join her tomorrow, but her mates, engineers, carpenter and pilots had reported yesterday and were assembled in the cabin, awaiting Gordon.
Woodley had greeted them and found an excuse to slip away. Now he was in the pilothouse, staring—still with amazement—at the reality of his new command.
Who would have guessed that his casual exclamation, meant mainly to impress, would lead to this? His confession to Gordon had been all too candid: he had truly never expected to find himself with such an awesome responsibility.
But he was going to discharge it well. He had sworn a private oath to that effect. He was going to run this boat like fine clockwork. She was going to break speed records, yet never fail to meet her published schedules. Above all, she was going to endow him with the status he had dreamed of long and long.
Or perhaps she had done so already. Half a dozen times recently a wealthy acquaintance had made a pointless bet with him and duly lost. Not until it dawned on him that these unexpected winnings were in each case about enough to pay off an existing debt did he realize that he must have passed some sort of test.
Was it solely his appointment to the Nonpareil that had settled the matter? He preferred to believe he had made most of the distance under his own steam.
But there was no doubt the beautiful new vessel must have helped.
And yet, all was not, even now, perfect. He was in partnership—albeit on a small scale—with Parbury and Gordon, and that was fair enough. As time went by he would enlarge his share. But in another way he was still far from being his own master.
Laying one hand on the huge wheel—which, sparing no expense, Gordon had caused to be made of the finest South American mahogany—he thought about the haughtiness of pilots. Some steps had been taken to regulate their arrogance; in his view, not nearly enough. And Drew, damn him, had made matters infinitely worse by training a colored cub, who now thought himself one of the lords of creation—that same who had so insulted him last year when he was teasing the quadroon girl outside Griswold’s. He had seldom thought about that episode again, for it was too shaming. Miraculously it had not been noised abroad; of the witnesses to his humiliation, Tyburn had not a grain of malice in his makeup, and Whitworth had been persuaded to silence by the assurance of the job he now held. But would the day come when niggers were to order captains about?
Shuddering, he turned his thoughts into a more positive course.
Granted, it was a stroke of luck that two of the best-reputed pilots on the river had volunteered their services as soon as they learned there was to be another Nonpareil: stocky, red-cheeked Dermot Hogan and massive Colin Trumbull.
Even so, Woodley was sorry they were joining under long-term contracts. That had been Gordon’s doing. In most other respects they saw eye to eye, but the Scot had held forth at length about the stupidity of hiring and firing on a trip-to-trip basis and lauded the vision of a crew who would grow attached to the boat.
And, Woodley glossed sourly, would wind up thinking it belonged to them. Might as well hymn the advantage of slaves who had grown attached to their plantations. That hadn’t stopped them turning on their masters during the war.
No, for all their pretensions pilots were and must remain hired hands. If only he had thought in good time of the scheme he now favored! Since any boat accepting way-business was obliged to make a certain number of intermediate stops, and since conditions on the river could change magically overnight, why should pilots not specialize in one particular stretch and arrange to serve on steamers going alternately up and down—under contract not to a single vessel, but to a packet line? There was no shortage of such nowadays; the free-for-all of prewar years had been rudely interrupted, and cooler counsels had led to the creation of groups of half a dozen to a dozen boats running regularly in cooperation rather than competition.
At least that was the theory. All too often these “lines” broke up in their first season. One boat would gain an edge over the others, and then her captain would reneg…
Or was it the captains who defaulted? Was it not more the responsibility of the hired pilots, who were not in command but were allowed to act as though they were? There were rumors about pilots who took bribes to miscalculate awkward bends and stranded boats on sand reefs just long enough for rivals to overtake. Once or twice he himself had suspected that the man at the controls of the Hezekiah Woodley—
A shrill call came from below. Gathering his wits with an effort, he realized that Gordon was being ushered up the stage—and, simultaneously, that his right hand was still resting on the great wheel.
And moreover that, unless invited, this was the last time he would dare lay a finger on it.
Cursing, he hastened down the stairs.
As Stowey and Gordon reached the top of the stage with Matthew trailing in their wake, they were greeted by a thin, ill-shaven man supervising a gang of black workers busy filling the Nonpareil’s boilers for the first time, with hand pumps and hoses dangled overside.
“Eb Williams, fourth engineer!” the man said, doffing his cap and extending his hand. “I just want to say, sir, how proud I am to be working aboard your fine steamer, sir!”
Gordon looked him over thoughtfully, not taking the proffered hand. It was extremely dirty. The fact suddenly dawned on Williams. Face crimson, he let it fall.
“Williams, eh?” Gordon said at last. “I shall remember you.”
Before the engineer could say anything further, a man affecting garb like a preacher’s appeared from the entrance to the main cabin.
“Harry Whitworth, sir,” he presented himself to Gordon. “Second mate. Captain Parbury and the rest of the officers attend you. Come this way.”
Someone had thought to light a stove, and it was blessedly warm in here. At the head of the largest table Captain Parbury turned his black-barred gaze on the new arrivals. All around, sipping strong coffee which lent its fragrance to the air, stood men whom Matthew regarded with interest. Until now they had been, with a few exceptions, no more than names signed to a letter.
He had met the pilots, Hogan and Trumbull, back in New Orleans. He had seen the chief engineer, Peter Corkran, when he visited the shipyard to check on progress, and recognized him again now by a discolored patch on his right cheek, as though furnace ash were ingrained under the skin.
But Corkran’s deputies were strangers to him: Brian Roy and Victor Steeples, the former gaunt and balding, the latter brown-haired and nondescript.
Also present was a man missing two fingers of his left hand. His hair was gray—what was left of it—and he had lost several teeth also. A chance clue informed Matthew of his
identity: from the breast pocket of his coat protruded the yellow-and-yellow of a brass-hinged boxwood rule. So that must be Hiram Burge, who had worked on the old Nonpareil and literally begged for a post on the new one. Clearly, given his disability, he could no longer serve as an engineer, but at Parbury’s insistence he had been engaged as carpenter. The steamer’s woodwork was of good quality; it would call for minimal attention during her first couple of years, and in time he could be persuaded to retire. The pioneering days were past when sometimes a steamer had to make repairs fifty miles from the nearest settlement. Burge’s chief responsibility would be to make sure the hog chains were always properly tensioned.
He also clearly caught the name of the first mate, Solomon Underwood, when he was presented to Gordon.
Satisfied he knew everybody of importance, and mentally rehearsing the names of those who would report for duty tomorrow and the next day—McNab, Iliff, Katzmann, Bates—Matthew withdrew into an alcove as Gordon took the chair facing Parbury and sat down, gesturing for Woodley and the other officers to do the same.
“And who exactly may you be?” a voice demanded at his elbow.
Starting, he realized the questioner was the man who had greeted them on deck.
“I’m Mr. Gordon’s amanuensis,” he said after a pause.
“Is that so?” Whitworth said incredulously. “Well, if that don’t beat all get out. You always say that when people ask you?”
Matthew licked his lips. He was invariably at a loss when people inquired about his work. It seemed like such an empty occupation. Dignifying it with a high-sounding classical name had served to impress his few friends back at Catskill. During his travels, however, he had met so many boys his own age working at such demanding, adult tasks…
He gathered his forces and contrived a smile. “Well, Mr. Whitworth,” he said, “that’s what he pays me for!”
Thinking an appeal to commercial interest would work where all else failed.
There was a pause. Whitworth was getting set to respond, when he suddenly realized everyone else was seated and waiting for him. He ducked into a vacant chair beside Underwood. Throughout the subsequent discussion he kept casting puzzled glances at Gordon, and would have done the same to Matthew but that the boy was at his back.
“We’re all here, then,” Gordon said. “Except Williams!”
“He’s still on deck,” Corkran said promptly. “Shall I send—?”
Gordon cut him short with a wave.
“There’s liquor on his breath, and it’s too early in the day!”
A moment of dead silence followed. At length Steeples said, “For him, Mr. Gordon, it ain’t early anymore. He came on board at three o’clock.”
“And at that hour,” supplemented Burge, “a nip of whiskey can revive the heart.”
“You believe in drinking on duty?” Gordon barked. “Then you quit now!”
Burge tripped over his tongue. “All I meant was—”
“I’m doing the talking! I put up the money for this boat, remember, even though she’s to Captain Parbury’s design!”
Parbury smiled slowly; it was like watching lock gates open.
“Corkran, you recommended this man Williams, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve served with Eb on the Luke A. Horner, the Indian Chief and the Battleaxe.”
“And at his age he is still fourth engineer?”
The sally told. Corkran shrugged and looked anywhere but at his interrogator.
“He’s a good man in his way, sir. And he has children to keep.”
“Is he kin of yours?”
Another awkward pause, then a sigh. “Yes, sir. Married one of my cousins.”
“Sir!”—sharply from Underwood. “I’ve served with men a hundred times worse than Eb. You can’t expect perfection on a riverboat.”
“Can’t I? But I do!” Gordon barked. “So does Captain Parbury! And so does Captain Woodley! Don’t you?”—the last directly.
“I would never settle for less,” came the prompt reply.
“What are we to do about a man like that, then?”
For a second it seemed the boat’s new master was baffled; then, however, he leaned both elbows on the table and gazed with a serious expression to right and left.
“Don’t they say no man shall be judged guilty until it’s proved against him? With all respect, Mr. Gordon, in my time I’ve had a whiskey breath on a cold morning like today. So long as any man can discharge his duties, I’ll support him. But let him once neglect them, for whatever reason, and…!” A snap of the fingers. Nods welcomed his Solomonic statement, and he added, “Yourself, sir—you’ve been known to indulge.”
“Not when I had charge of someone else’s property,” Gordon growled. But the mood of the gathering was against him.
“The morning of a steamer’s first trials, sir,” Underwood offered, “is scarcely a rehearsal for her first paying trip.”
“And Eb,” Corkran said, “did turn out before dawn to make sure the trials would go well.”
The door from the larboard deck opened. Williams himself came in, smiling broadly.
“Any time you care to raise steam,” he announced, “she’s right and ready.”
Before anyone else could speak, Parbury rose. “I hanker after the smell of smoke,” he said. “A riverboat don’t feel natural without it.”
“Move it, then!” Woodley jumped to his feet. “Corkran—Roy—Steeples—get below!”
Standing shyly in his alcove, Matthew wondered whether anybody but himself had noticed that the three engineers were already out of their seats before Woodley issued his order.
Patient until full pressure had been reached, Hogan and Trumbull made a final inspection of the pilothouse, with Parbury on the padded bench behind them. None of the three was a sentimental person.
But when Hogan ventured diffidently, “Y’know, this is kind of like waiting for a baby to be born…”
The others spoke no word to contradict him.
It was not so much that the Nonpareil came alive as that residues of life within her were aroused and together made a new and active whole.
A match was struck. The splinter had been part of a tree scant months ago.
The flame was set to a bit of cotton waste. The fields that had yielded bolls to make it were still bearing. Moreover it had been dipped in oil, owed to living things of the far past.
So was the coal heaped in the furnaces, which from kindling wood picked up the yellow flame and turned it redder first, then hotter.
Borne on bars of iron, the fire gave up its heat to eight iron tubes, boilers running lengthwise with their furnace doors toward the bow so that the wind of her going would be added to the suction of her chimneys. The boilers were filled with water that lately had been part of a process which poets often compared with life: the stream of a great river.
The breath of fire transformed it. Suddenly it was what men called—with excellent reason—live steam.
To feed the mighty engines lying sternward, pipes interlaced across, above, around the boilers. They were of copper, for the most part; where they met iron their union was cemented with hexagonal nuts of bright new brass. First the boilers, then the piping, then the engines themselves, creaked and sighed, repeating in the context of the finished boat what until now they had only undergone separately.
Meantime the hull too was adjusting. Under the weight of all the water that had been pumped aboard, the wooden portions of the Nonpareil, from her keelsons to the flimsiest bit of gingerbread work in the ladies’ cabin, settled against each other and the nails and pegs that held them snug. For the first time her loading pattern was established; it was like nearing a magnet to the underside of paper strewn with iron filings and watching the lines of force appear.
The piano in the main cabin uttered its first sound since arriving on board when its bass string resonated to the cry of an iron bar: part of a midships hog chain that accepted more than its share of the burden f
rom the boilers.
Studying it and its fellows, striding busily to and fro in the hold, Burge hoped privately that he looked as important as he felt even though, when he spotted excessive slack in the chains, some anonymous black now had to tighten them.
Thoughtful, intent, concentrated, Solomon Underwood walked the length of the main deck and guards while Whitworth made similar rounds on the boiler deck, seeking any sign of bad workmanship or structural weakness. From the bank Stowey watched with field glasses to his eyes. Gordon had said he would prefer not to have the boatbuilder along during the trials, making it plain that he expected faults and wanted to make it easier for those who recognized them to speak freely. Stowey had had the sense to agree.
There was little solid evidence to back the notion, but the impression was widespread that people did not gainsay Hamish Gordon without paying for their temerity.
So far as payment went: it was no particular secret that when all the accounts had been honored for every item supplied by every specialist manufacturer involved in the creation of the Nonpareil, including such miscellanea as ice chests, barbershop fittings, and brushes and polish for the bootblacks, the partnership of Gordon, Woodley and Parbury would have laid out more than two hundred thousand dollars.
Nor was it private knowledge that this impressive sum had been administered by the Marocain Bank.
Confidence in which had consequently soared.
With Matthew at his heels, Gordon prowled throughout the Nonpareil as the business of waking her continued. At last he returned to the engine room and waited until the steam gauges indicated normal working pressure: 160 psi.
Then, shouting to overcome the noise—for in this empty steamer every rattling shovel-load of coal was amplified by echoes—he demanded of Steeples as he completed a final round of inspection, “Anything amiss?”