Engine Room Telegraph For Half Speed example essay topic

The passengers on the ferry had nowhere to sit and almost nowhere to stand. Only the ship's officers ad a little space and this was on the bridge, which, along with the wheelhouse, was situated on a wooden platform erected over the engine-room. Here the captain of the vessel was in command. The bridge and wheelhouse were separated from the rest of the platform by a little wooden gate, secured only with a string catch. 5 The captain was distinguished from his fellow officers by his hat, a black felt trilby punched out into a dome and secured to his head by a silk ribbon beneath the chin.

He showed no interest in the proceedings around him. No nautical preparation could hold his attention; instead, he sat at the back of the bridge, sucking on a pipe and deciding who should be allowed to pass through the gate. The competition for his honour, personally bestowed, was all the greater because of the 10 discomforts of standing anywhere else in the boat, by few who applied were chosen. Just before departure a man limped down the quay, leaning on another.

The limping man was dressed in blue overalls which were stained with blood that had seeped from a heavily bandaged wound on his head. His face was grey, and he could hardly stand. The captain beckoned him to join the party on the bridge, and he stumbled up the steps and into a corner, where he fell in a heap and bled 15 quietly for the duration of the crossing. The ferry tooted its steam horn, the bow-gate was ordered to be raised, and under the direction of a man in an orange vest, the first officer, the voyage began. A few years ago one of the ferried met a large wave in mid-stream and overturned. There were no survivors; by the time anyone on either bank noticed that the ferry was overdue, all trace of it had disappeared.

On this present occasion the ferry chugged away from the quay with its bow- 20 gate still low enough for water to flow over it past the car deck and back to the engine-room. The captain remained unconcerned and continued to suck his pope and gaze ahead while the bow-gate was adjusted and the surplus water slowly drained away. Not long afterwards, the chief engineer, in fact the only engineer, abandoned his post and came to the bridge to dry out. As he passed through the gate, there was a rush of passengers behind 25 him, led by a voluble character who insisted on addressing the other passengers in French, the second language of the country. It took minutes of detailed and elegant argument, he speaking in French, the officers in English, before he agreed to withdraw. While this was taking place, the gate remained ajar, so firmly wedged in the helmsman's back that he could hardly manage the wheel.

The first officer all this time was pointing our rocks and reassuring all who would listen that 30 though the river was broad and deep, its navigation required calculations of the greatest delicacy. When the helmsman was eventually free again, the ship responded to the wheel very slowly. A glance at the wheel cable showed that it had been clumsily repaired with thin wires in several places. But the captain's calm was not disturbed, until the very last moment it seemed that he would not once need to remove his pipe from his mouth. Then as the ferry approached its 35 destination, disaster loomed.

The quay drew closer, so the first officer rang the engine-room telegraph for half speed, forgetting that it would not be answered because the chief engineer was still beside him on the bridge. Consequently the boat went past the landing-ramp on the quay at full speed. No sooner was the bow rope in the hands of the dockers than it was wrenched back again as the bows raced 40 on towards the beach. The chief engineer in his haste to stop the engines, and not feeling up to further discussion with the one man who continued to block the gat to the bridge, jumped off the edge of the platform and began to fight his way among the passengers, cars and goats towards the engine-room. Then the captain came to life. He leapt to his feet, pushed the helmsman aside, seized the wheel, 45 and ordered "full astern" on the telegraph.

There was no response since the engineer was still some way from the engine-room, , and the captain, assuming that the telegraph was jammed, began banging the brass handle back and forth "full ahead" to "full astern" like a motorist trying to change gear. The dockers meanwhile had somehow managed to get hold of the ferry's stern rope and make it 50 fast, but the first officer shouted at them to let it go or it would break. Just before the chief engineer reached his controls, the stern rope went taut and snapped, to lie in the wake of the ferry, directly in line with the propellers, as the vessel at last began to reverse full astern away from the beach and back towards the quay, once more showing an excellent turn of speed. As it sped alongside the quay again, a number of passengers, deciding that this might be their last chance, 55 started to leap off. Children, old man, goats on leads, enormous parcels, and enormous women crossed the divide between the rolling boat and the concrete quay.

By some chance none fell between the two. The first officer continued to shout instructions at the dockers, the dockers at the chief engineer, and the captain at the first officer while he banged the telegraph handle. Backward and forward went the telegraph handle, back and forth went the boat, now threatening 60 to hit the beach, now to make for the deep water once more. At that point the chief engineer decided to ignore instructions from the bridge and to dock the boat himself with the aid of the dockers whom he could see through his open door.

As he did so, there was a rush of passengers to the boat's rails. Those who would not risk their lives by jumping on the quay ran from side to side of the deck in a frenzy of impatience, creating an 65 alarming instability in the vessel. Finally, the bow-gate clanged down on to the ramp and the remaining passengers scrambled thankfully ashore. Throughout all this, there was only one calm place in view. On the car deck just below the bridge there was a new police truck. The policeman inside it, in their crisp uniforms, ignored the surrounding panic.

They sat upright and gazed straight ahead through the spotless glass, while 70 the passengers scrambled around their vehicle. All correct they sat, not a scratch on their paint work, not a crease in their uniforms out of line, like new toys on a shop shelf. Attached to their wind-screen was a little sticker - "this is a wide-zone toughened windscreen" - which recalled the world of accident prevention and road safety. But what of the correct procedure in the event of approaching a quay too fast? This must have seemed as remote from the world they controlled 75 as rescue must have seemed to the occupants of that earlier ferry which had overturned in mid-stream while nobody noticed.

The last person to leaver the boat was the grey-faced man with bandaged head. He stumbled off as he had stumbled on, still bleeding, and made his way towards the town, and the police drove past unhurriedly, models of detachment and moderation.