Chapter 24: Back to Sea Part 4
"Supper is on, engineer." Sam called through the door. "Henrichs asked me to be sure you were awake as you're in the wrong part of the ship to hear the bells."
"Thanks, Sam."
Cal dressed and headed for the mess. She filled her plate and sat with Sam.
"How long have you been working at sea?"
"Me da was a sailor. Got hurt, not as bad as Adam, but bad enough he retired and opened a bar. Told mum he was an expert on bars. I went to sea that year as cabin boy on a coaster. A year back I signed onto the Peregrine. I'm still the youngest, but at least I'm not the boy no more."
"Wouldn't I be the youngest now?"
"Don't matter, Cal. You're an engineer, makes you more like an officer, but you work harder."
"I heard that, Sam." Henrichs called from a table behind them.
Sam ducked his head, but grinned at Cal. She grinned back. After supper, she picked up her earplugs and headed down.
"Ah, Cal." Monky waved her in. "This be Bran, he's learning the ropes, same as you." For the next hour Monky talked her through the boiler in detail, each valve, what they did and how to replace them. Mostly by emptying the boiler, cooling it off and hammering at it with a big wrench. "T'morrow's the engine itself."
They left Cal for the rest of her shift. Bran was taller than Cal and kept banging his head, but he stuck with it.
Through the night Cal watched the pressure and went over the boiler, naming each valve in turn. She spotted the one which was the equivalent of the pressure control valve on the steam carriage, but this was as big as her head.
Captain Cully came and relieved her and Cal climbed up to her berth to clean up and sleep.
Cal ate mostly with Sam. They played cards on the rare occasions he had a little extra time. The rest of the time, Cal sketched. She started at the bow and worked her way toward the stern, drawing the ship in the same way she created the schematic for Hans. When she ran out of ship she started drawing the engine room from memory, labelling each part as she went. As she drew, the pictures in her head showing stress and failure points grew clearer. Some of it didn't make sense, but whoever built it had to know what they were doing.
Pentam ignored her completely. The others greeted her, but they were busy on their own schedule.
The conversations with the crew were very different from the ones with the scientists, though they still centered around the goal of the expedition.
"Don't know that it's wise to be looking for a sea serpent." An older sailor glanced over at the scientists, still speculating about what they might find. "None of the stories say it's a good thing to see one."
"This is the modern age," Sam said. "Science is all about learning new things." He winked at Cal.
"Learnin's all well and good." The old sailor glared at Sam. "But it don't mean we can't be sensible. Somethin' hit the ship. It weren't no wave."
"Maybe it was a whale." Cal said.
"You seen any whales, Missy?"
Two weeks after the accident, Captain Cully told Cal she was being put back on reserve. That afternoon they buried the injured man at sea. Cal stood staring at the water heaving around them with her father's arm around her shoulder.
"Tomorrow, we enter the region of the Sargasso Sea." Sir Shillingsworth told her. "I need my artist on deck."
"She'll be there."
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