Young Sherlock Holmes_ Red Leech - Andrew Lane [55]
Some of the smaller pipes terminated in pressure gauges – large instruments about the size of Sherlock’s clenched hands with dials showing the steam pressure in the pipes. Presumably the engineers could check the pressures and tell if the ship’s engine needed more coal or whether the pressure was building up too fast and needed to be vented. Other pipes had large metal wheels attached which probably opened or closed valves, allowing the steam into different pipes at differing rates.
Looking up, Sherlock could see two large pressure vessels in the ceiling space. A lot of the pipes led towards them. They seemed to open out to the deck level. It took him a moment to work out that they probably led to the Scotia’s two funnels, providing a means of venting the steam that had done its work.
Everything was made of thick, black metal that was hot to the touch, and everything was fastened together with rivets the size of Sherlock’s thumb. The machinery wavered in the heat-haze caused by the burning coal: the air itself rippling and making it hard to judge distances.
The smell of the engine room made Sherlock’s nose prickle uncomfortably. Mainly it was a sulphuric smell, like rotten eggs, but there was a tarry odour beneath that, and something else that reminded Sherlock of the taste of blood in his mouth but which was probably hot iron.
A figure moved out of the shadows. Sherlock flinched, expecting it to be Grivens, but it was another member of the crew, an engineer. He was naked to the waist and massively muscled, and where his skin wasn’t blackened with coal dust it was streaked by sweat, so that his face and body were covered with a series of black and white stripes, like the engravings of zebras that Sherlock had seen in books about Africa in his father’s library. His moleskin trousers were sodden with sweat, and he carried a shovel over his shoulder. His entire demeanour – the way he carried himself, his expression, everything – spoke of bone-aching weariness. As Sherlock watched he walked along past the pounding engine and vanished through another doorway without looking up, probably heading for a swinging hammock in the dark depths of the ship.
Aware that Grivens was only moments behind him, Sherlock hurried along the balcony until he got to a ladder that led both upward and downward. Which way to go? Upward would lead him towards the deck, but there might not be a way out up there. He’d certainly never seen any of the engineers or stokers on deck. They were probably forbidden from emerging into the open; condemned to spend the entire voyage in the darkness below. Down, then, and he just had to hope there were other ways out of the engine room.
He clambered down the iron ladder as fast as he could, his fingers burning on the hot rungs. The vibration of the engines was transmitted through his hands to the point where he could feel his teeth shaking. The heat and the lack of breathable air were making him feel weak; twice his sweat-slicked hands slipped off the rungs and he nearly fell. Eventually he got to the bottom, and rested his forehead gratefully against the ladder before he pushed himself away and moved off.
Up on the balcony the door smashed open again. Sherlock could hear it striking the wall. Silence for a moment, and then a pair of booted feet clanked on the metal grille flooring.
Sherlock slipped into an alley running between two large parts of the engine: irregular masses of black iron festooned with pipework. His shoulder brushed against one of them and he flinched back. It was boiling hot.
The alley ended in a rivet-covered curved metal surface; part of a pressure vessel of some kind. It was a dead end. No way out.
The shadows between the parts of the engine shielded him. He tried to make himself as small and as quiet as possible.
Footsteps on the ladder, and then silence as the newcomer reached the floor.
‘Kid,’ shouted Grivens’s voice, ‘let’s talk about