ere they fell they had leave to lie unless their
bodies were in the way of their fellows' feet. And so, patch upon patch,
and a patch over all, the starboard supporting-column was clouted; but
when they thought all was secure, Mr. Wardrop decreed that the noble
patchwork would never support working engines; at the best, it could
only hold the guide-bars approximately true, he deadweight of the
cylinders must be borne by vertical struts; and, therefore, a gang would
repair to the bows, and take out, with files, the big bow-anchor davits,
each of which was some three inches in diameter. They threw hot coals at
Wardrop, and threatened to kill him, those who did not weep (they were
ready to weep on the least provocation); but he hit them with iron bars
heated at the end, and they limped forward, and the davits came with
them when they returned. They slept sixteen hours on the strength of it,
and in three days two struts were in place, bolted from the foot of the
starboard supporting-column to the under side of the cylinder. There
remained now the port, or condenser-column, which, though not so badly
cracked as its fellow, had also been strengthened in four places
with boiler-plate patches, but needed struts. They took away the main
stanchions of the bridge for that work, and, crazy with toil, did
not see till all was in place that the rounded bars of iron must be
flattened from top to bottom to allow the air-pump levers to clear them.
It was Wardrop's oversight, and he wept bitterly before the men as he
gave the order to unbolt the struts and flatten them with hammer and the
flame. Now the broken engine was underpinned firmly, and they took away
the wooden shores from under the cylinders, and gave them to the robbed
bridge, thanking God for even half a day's work on gentle, kindly wood
instead of the iron that had entered into their souls. Eight months
in the back-country among the leeches, at a temperature of 84 degrees
moist, is very bad for the nerves.

They had kept the hardest work to the last, as boys save Latin prose,
and, worn though they were, Mr. Wardrop did not dare to give them rest.
The piston-rod and connecting-rod were to be straightened, and this
was a job for a regular dockyard with every appliance. They fell to it,
cheered by a little chalk showing of work done and time consumed which
Mr. Wardrop wrote up on the engine-room bulkhead. Fifteen days had
gone--fifteen days of killing labour--and there was hope