Devil's work

‘She was launched on the 23rd of July 1879. Her maiden voyage was to the Isle of Man und by the end of the year she had sailed to her first foreign port. She’s been a working ship und a fighting ship in the Great War. She’s travelled to Trinidad und Brazil und Barbados. She’s navigated fog und ice und hurricane. She is three-masted with a deadweight of about 300 tons und her engine is a marvel, that is to say, a thing of beauty.’

Herr Oppenheim, a German engineer, knows his subject by heart and it holds him in thrall. ‘The ship dimensions are 115 ft. in length, breadth 25 ft., depth of hold 12 ft.’

We descend iron stairs into darkness. He begins to raise his voice over the roar. ‘Our speed is approximately six knots thanks to the 32 horse power single cylinder semi-diesel engine. Quite reliable.’

The immediate thing that assails me in the engine room is not the intense heat, nor the stifling gloom, nor the pungent reek of diesel and coal, nor even the terrific thunderous crank of the pump. Instead it’s the bone-jarring throb, which shudders from my toes to my fingers and drowns all other sensation.

He turns to me and shouts. ‘Are you okay? You seem rather, shall we say, distracted.’

I nod, but in truth I’m still seething from a conversation with my father only this morning. ‘It’s nothing.’ I can’t bear to have this all yelled at such a pitch.

Oppenheim is not so easily dissuaded. ‘Your father wants only what is best for you.’ As I've said, he’s an astute man.

I recall my father’s recent words of encouragement when, at last, I confront him about being working passengers. ‘My intention isn't to make your life a misery, Harry. I’m trying to make you a man. Work is good for you, Harry. The devil finds mischief for idle hands to do.’

As I consider his notion of a Christian work ethic I notice a movement in the recesses of the room. Two shining orbs bore through the gloom. Lights? I feel the hair on the back of my neck rise and a cold chill run down my spine.

They’re not lights … they’re eyes.

No sooner do I make this discovery than an extraordinary thing happens. That great thing of beauty, the ship’s 32 horse power engine heart, stutters, splutters and dies. Yet, still the vibrations run through me.