I asked Mr. Benbow if he could repair the boiler. He replied, "I think I can do it." He added that it was still too hot to examine. The time was then between nine and ten a.m. Mr. Benbow, assisted by the leading stoker R.N., who had been stationed on deck as stretcher-bearer, drew the fires and pumped out the boiler, {300} when he found a hole some three inches in diameter, round which the plate had bulged inwards, its edges being torn and jagged. By the time the examination was completed, it was about eleven o'clock. Mr. Benbow then set to work to make a new plate with his own hands. He had brought with him from the depot at Wady Halfa some engineer's stores: a piece of sheet-iron, and some bolts and nuts; part of the equipment I had brought from Korti, when General Buller asked me if I was going to mend camels with them. I remembered his chaff in that hour. Mr. Benbow, with no other assistance than that of the leading stoker, had to cut a plate, 16 inches by 14, drill the holes in it to receive the bolts, drill holes in the injured boiler plate corresponding to the first to a fraction, and cut the threads of the screws upon bolts and nuts. The new plate being too thin to take the pressure, he also had to bolt an iron bar across it, drilling the holes through the bar, through the new plate, and through the injured boiler plate. During the whole time he was below in the stifling hot engine-room at work upon a task demanding at once great exertion and the utmost nicety, the fire from the fort never ceased. Bullets pattered continually upon the hull, some of them piercing it, and striking the wounded men who lay below. At any moment another shell might burst into the engine-room. But Mr. Benbow went on with his work.