It was not safe, he knew, to take any book he was reading into the Engine-room. Its cover would betray him to the Warrant Officer who kept the watch, to the stokers who worked near him, and to Aggett should he enter suddenly. It was impossible to read on watch.... But he found that he could write with impunity. He took with him a small, marble-covered notebook of the pattern customarily used by midshipmen for rough engineering sketches--diagrams of the lead of pipes, plans of the boiler-rooms showing the feed system, and the like. To make these sketches during the idle stretches of a watch was regarded, not as an offence, but as a sign of laudable enthusiasm. So long as the usual pattern of notebook was used everyone assumed that only professional matter was entered in it; and John encouraged this belief when he was writing by moving his position from time to time, by stooping with an air of curiosity and interest over auxiliary engines that his eyes scarcely saw, and by gazing upward occasionally in the direction of the pipes that he might have been sketching. Everyone was not deceived. After the performance had been repeated through many watches a Warrant Officer said suddenly: “You’ll be gettin’ the hang o’ them pipes before long, Mr. Lynwood?” “Yes,” said John. “Just a few sketches in case Aggett asks questions.” “But always the same pipes?” “Oh no.” The Warrant Officer seemed to smile. “Makin’ a speciality like o’ the condenser connections?” “No. Why?” “You’ve been payin’ ’em partickler attention these last watches you’ve had with me.” John wondered how much was known. He went away to feel the crank-head bearings, leaning far over the guard-rail, his hand stretched out so that the warm, revolving brasses swept against his fingers. As his eyes stared down into the crank-pit, where a dark liquid slushed to and fro with the rolling of the ship, he wondered how many men, engaged as he now was, had slipped, lost their hold on the guard-rail, and fallen below the crank to be mashed instantly to death. Would a man so falling have time to cry out? The engines would be stopped, not because the stopping of them was of any use, but because some drastic unusual action is demanded by the sudden entry of death. There would be momentary commotion. Stokers would stare, their shiny, sweating faces lurid beneath the electric light; and, as they recovered from stupefaction, a wave of pity would pass over them all as they stood transfixed among the steel. The auxiliary engines would rattle more loudly in the main engines’ silence. Water would trickle down the gleaming rods from the piston glands. And presently the engines, with a little hiss and groan, would start again, and the blood be pumped out with the bilge. Overpowered by this dreadful vision, John screwed up his eyes as if to shut it out. He walked towards the Warrant Officer, intending to ask if ever in his experience this thing had happened.