TWENTY FATHOMS DOWN
side, three in a tier. One or two of those opposite were occupied. An iron ladder led from the floor to a closed hatch above. Everything was painted white and sweated moisture. A table disputed the center of the compartment with the ladder and about it four men, in soiled and greasy dungarees, were seated. Further aft a sixth man was in evidence. He was drawing coffee at a steaming urn, and Nelson knew him for the cook. There was an electric range beside him, and, opposite, food lockers. Beyond the galley end of the compartment a watertight door stood open, revealing a vista of further compartments. Everywhere ran pipes and wires, with a multitude of valves and switches. The odor which had puzzled him at first now yielded certain recognizable ingredients: hot coffee and food; battery fumes; moist clothing.
He was beneath a cover of two gray blankets. They had removed his outer clothing and it lay, half dried, across his feet. He sniffed longingly at the coffee streaming from the faucet of the shining urn, and when, after a moment, the cook approached the table with three aluminum cups of it in hand, he found his voice.
"May I have some, please?" he asked weakly.
The cook, a lad not much Nelson's senior, with
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