Free The Loss of the Jane Vosper by Freeman Wills Crofts Page A

Steps were taken to deal with the outbreak, but before anything could be put into operation there were further explosions and No. 2 hold was pierced and became flooded. The fire had not penetrated above the level of this flooding and was therefore automatically extinguished.
    Angus Mactavish, the chief engineer, was the next witness. After the usual questions as to qualifications and experience, he was asked to tell in his own words what he knew of the affair.
    He said that on the evening before the explosions they had had a little trouble with one of the main bearings of the auxiliary engine which worked the dynamo, which had been inclined to heat. He had decided to light by oil and stop the engine to remetal the bearing. This had been done in the small hours of the morning, and the engine was then tested. He had lain down earlier, but had got up to inspect the work and to be present at the test. It thus happened that he was in the engine room at the time of the first explosion.
    He did not know where the sound came from. It was not very loud, being muffled by the sound of the engines. He had wondered whether the trouble was in the stokehold, and had looked in. Everything, however, seemed to be right. As he had turned back to the engine room to make a closer inspection, the telegraph had rung for S LOW A HEAD . Directly he had slowed the engines and seen that the fire draught was reduced, the bridge speaking tube whistled. The captain had asked if anything were wrong, and he had reported all well in the engine room.
    He had left the second engineer in charge of the engines and had gone back to the stokehold to make further enquiries about the noise. The firemen and trimmers on duty agreed that it was an explosion of some sort, apparently in the adjoining hold. While he was speaking to them the second explosion had come, and it sounded close as well as very heavy. He agreed it was in the hold at the other side of the stokehold bulkhead. So far as he could ascertain, however, no damage seemed to have been done to the ship.
    On his own initiative he immediately got steam to all the pumps, so that if they should be wanted they could be brought into use with the minimum of delay. He was back in the engine room engaged in this work when the third explosion came. He ran into the stokehold but again he could not find anything wrong. However, he heard the ominous sound of water pouring into the ship, and ran back and started the pumps. The bridge whistled again on the speaking tube, and he reported accordingly.
    Asked if he could estimate from what he had heard either the size or position of the hole, Mactavish said that he could not do so with any certainty. It sounded to him, however, as if it were in the bottom somewhere amidships. At all events the sound of flowing water was loudest in the centre of the ship, and grew more muffled as he moved towards the sides. As to the size, he had since worked out a rough calculation from the approximate time the hold had taken to fill, and it would seem to him that the hole must have been somewhere about two feet in diameter.
    The captain had then called him up on the bridge for a consultation. No. 2 hold was by this time about full and the ship was badly down by the head. The captain had discussed the situation and it had been agreed that as the bulkheads might have been damaged by the explosions, they should be shored. He had then returned to the stokehold to get the shoring under way.
    He was actually in the stokehold when the fourth explosion came. This was quite different from the preceding three. It was very much sharper and more severe, and the entire ship vibrated as if she had got a blow from some sort of giant hammer. The bulkhead had buckled; he had actually seen it coming forward. For a moment he thought it was going to give way entirely, which would, of course, have ended all their lives. It hadn’t done so, fortunately. It had remained curving inwards and for a moment it