Three pair drawers, I mind
I found - to begin upon - an' I needed them all. It was the
coldest cold I remember in all my experience.
"Syne I went aft to the engine-room. The Grotkau sat on her own
tail, as they say. She was vara shortshafted, an' her gear was all
aft. There was four or five foot o' water in the engine-room
slummockin' to and fro, black an' greasy; maybe there was six foot.
The stoke-hold doors were screwed home, an' the stoke-hold was tight
enough, but for a minute the mess in the engine-room deceived me.
Only for a minute, though, an' that was because I was not, in a
manner o' speakin', as calm as ordinar'. I looked again to mak'
sure. 'T was just black wi' bilge: dead watter that must ha' come
in fortuitously, ye ken."
"McPhee, I'm only a passenger," I said, "but you don't persuade me
that six foot o' water can come into an engine-room fortuitously."
"Who's tryin' to persuade one way or the other?" McPhee retorted.
"I'm statin' the facts o' the case - the simple, natural facts. Six
or seven foot o' dead watter in the engine-room is a vara depressin'
sight if ye think there's like to be more comin'; but I did not
consider that such was likely, and so, yell note, I was not
depressed.
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