第93节

o the

engine room. He had to find somewhere better.

One of the M'Call loaders had told him that arrangements had been made

to accommodate the journey-men on the main through-deck. Steve had a

hunch it could be the one immediately above his head, where the

out-going cargo had been stacked. Tonight was probably the last night

when the guards would either be absent or at a minimum. But how to get

up there?

The only set of stairs he could see ran from the centre of the

engine-room floor, up between the two boilers, to meet a walkway

running across the vaulted section.

From there, the upward journey was continued via a second flight of

stairs placed at either end. From where he lay he could not see the

top but, presumably, there had to be a means of access to the deck

above. Simple enough, except he could not negotiate the stairs without

being seen; the table at which the sweating engineers were feeding

their faces lay across the bottom of the stairs and less then six feet

from the first step.

Casting his eyes around in search of another exit, Steve saw a shadowy

gap in the centre of the forward stack of logs and decided to

investigate. He crawled along to the far end of the port stack then

angled round over the main store. The wood here was six rows deep.

He kept close to the wall where the darkness was almost complete then

carefully climbed down into the gap between the front stacks. He had

guessed right again.

There was a sliding door set into the forward wall of the engine

room.

He opened up a crack to see what was beyond. He could see no lights

nor hear any sound of activity.

Looking back towards the crew table, he saw that two of them had begun

to play some kind of a game with stones and the others had crowded

round to watch. The game seemed to be a source of entertainment,

triggering cries of amazement and bursts of laughter from both players

and spectators. Steve waited for a particularly noisy outburst then

slid the door open and stepped through. When he tried to close the

door behind him it jammed half-way. Shit... Fortunately, it was even

darker here than in the far recesses of the engine room but if any of

the engine room staff got bored with the game and wandered in his

direction he was done for.

Steve paused for a moment to tune into his surroundings.

He was in a narrow passageway leading under the bow deck. As his eyes

adjusted he detected a feeble glimmer of light at the far end and what

looked like a ladder. He moved slowly towards it, feeling the walls on

both sides to discover if they contained any doors or recesses. His

fingers brushed across a series of rectangular panels. Those in the

bottom half of the wall had solid inserts; those at the top were

pierced screens of latticed wood. Running his toes along the skirting,

he located a groove that indicated the presence of a sliding door. A

door meant access to a space beyond, a space that could be occupied by

a sleeping Iron Master. He put his ears to the screens and listened

intently. It was hopeless. Every piece of wood creaked and vibrated

in sympathy with the rest of the boat. He tried easing back one of the

panels. It slid part-way open with what seemed an alarmingly loud

noise. Hardly daring to breathe, he poked his head gingerly inside.

Nothing. A black, impenetrable void.

Leaving the door as it was, Steve headed towards the ladder, climbed up

and peered over the rim of the hatch.

To the right and left, almost within reach, were sticks of grain and

what, by their smell, appeared to be rolled buffalo skins. What lay

beyond was as much of a mystery as what lay on either side of the

passage below.

The light that had cast its feeble glow onto the ladder came through a

latticed square in the ceiling above his head. Its source was one of

the fore-deck lanterns. The light was eclipsed briefly as the guard he