another time I was picked up for dead off Natal and
rolled on a barrel till I came to. But that racket
aboard the Zampa was the worst yet.

"When I jumped in among the men the smoke
was creepin' out between the lids of the hatch. We
ripped that off and began diggin' up the cargo--
crates of chairs, rolls of mattin', some spruce scantling
--runnin' the nozzle of the hose down as far as
we could get it. There were no water-tight compartments
which we could have flooded in those days as
there are now, or we could have smothered it first
off. What we had to do was to fight it inch by inch.
I knew where the explosives were, and so did the
captain and purser, but the crew didn't--didn't even
know they were aboard, and I was glad they didn't.
We had picked most of 'em up at Rio--or they'd
made a rush maybe for the boats, and then we'd had
to shoot one or two of 'em to teach the others manners.
In addition to every foot of hose we had 'board I
started a line of buckets and then rushed a gang below
to cut through the bulkhead to see if we could get at
the stuff better.

"The men fell to with a will. Fire ain't so bad
when you take hold of it in time, and as long as there
is plenty of steam pressure--and there was--you can
almost always get on top of it, unless something turns
up you don't count on.