Read the Iron

OilFour ports, each with a sight cup. Port II lies under the crank housing at the back of the actuator; get down on your belly to reach it. Port III is the barrel’s own cup, out along the catwalk. Oil comes from the drum in the Stores Cage, far forward. Pour with the flask held above the funnel.

CoolantThe tall glass on the coolant tank shows its level. Fill it at the filler on top. Coolant comes from the cistern tap aft; carry it in canisters, or a bucket if you are brave. When the cistern runs low, work its pump.

PressureGrip the great wheel and drag to turn it. Keep the needle resting in the green. Too high and a joint splits; too low and the leg goes weak.

PowerThree cells in the shed beside the actuator. Spent ones glow dull: carry them to the charger in the Stores Cage. Burnt fuses show a dark filament. Spares hang in the clips along the foot of the fuse panel itself, and the stores runners keep them topped up; the little jig at the panel’s end winds a burnt fuse new if you hold it there.

The feedThe flank gun eats from the feed table beside the actuator. Shells come up the ordnance hoist, aft, and roll off it onto the ready rack beside its cage, where they wait for you; ring the bell if the rails are bare. LMB takes one into your arms, and another, and another, up to five; you walk slower under every one. At the table, E sets them on the rails. The gate lifts, the shell runs in and the ram heaves the column up a notch; twelve stand in it. LMB elsewhere sets them down.

The pressBeside the deck furnace stands the shell press, and another beside the pyre below. Iron thrown into the fire comes out of the press as shells. Over the fire's mouth hang four lamps: a small piece of scrap lights one, a big piece two or three, and four lit make a shell. Scrap lies about the decks, nuts and brackets and cogs and plate, and comes again slowly when it has been cleared. LMB takes a piece into your arms, and another, up to five; at the fire, E tips the lot in. The ram comes down, the gate lifts, and the shell rolls out hot onto the trough and waits there; four will lie in it. When the hoist sends nothing, this is where shells come from. And when there is not one to be had anywhere, listen: now and then one that rolled away in some old lurch works loose again.

The cartA cart carries eight. Stand it by the rack and E loads it; whatever is put in a cart is made fast and stays there. Take the handle and walk: it comes after you, through any door you came through yourself. Leave it by the table and E unloads it onto the rails. Let go and it stands on its brake.

The haltOnce in every day the horns blow the halt. The engine stands and the guns fall quiet. It lasts a minute or two. Eat. Lie down. It will not be offered again until tomorrow.

The wrenchSix or eight lie about the ship, clipped to tool boards and rails, strapped on shelves or put down where a job was done, and never in the same places twice. Take one up and it rides on your back; it comes out by itself when a job wants it. Steam from a split joint wants a wrench. A jammed feed gate wants striking.

Making fastNothing aboard stays where it is set down. The shelves have fiddle rails and strap points; the bulkheads carry tool boards, ring racks, cradles and hooks; the rails carry clips; carts and crates lash to eye rings. With a thing in your hands, E at a strap, clip, ring or hook makes it fast, and LMB unbuckles it again. With your wrench on your back, E at an empty tool clip hangs it up. Look at a cart or crate beside a ring and E lashes it; take hold of it and the lashing is cast off.

The ritesCandles on the altar ledge, incense in the censer, purity seals on the plaques, the litany at the lectern. The actuator’s temper shows in its eye.

The ramThe great ram keeps wants of its own and will not say them. Open one of the hatches in its skin and listen. The last keeper left a log on the crate by the stove; it says the rest.

The veinThe great vein climbs the barrel beside the skin ladders to its crown. Hard blows split its collars: a bang, then a scream that does not stop, and the leg weakens with every stroke. The gauge on the flank deck tells you how high. Carry a wrench up and close it.

RuinNothing stays mended, and nothing left broken stays still. Let faults stand and the whole of her goes, a little worse every few minutes, and each stage brings its own wreck: the ribs groan; the walls sweat oil that pools on the deck; rivets let go like shots; relief vents weep and then blow open across the passages; fires take the narrow ways and smoke hangs in them; the lamps die deck by deck and the light turns sick; the plating splits to the sky; men lie where the steam caught them; and at the last, pieces of her come down around you. Mend what is wrong and she comes back the other way, however far gone. What ails her engine and her limb counts for far more than the vents and fires it has brought on, so see to the causes first: the smoke clears, the lamps are relit, the dead are carried off. She goes over only when both come at once: ruin that has been let pile up in her, and the line broken around her in the field.

The housingWhen the actuator’s iron weakens, a seam in the flank of its housing springs its rivets and breathes steam. Hammer them home with a wrench and draw a patch over it, and the iron is that much stronger again. Run clean, the iron knits of itself.

Vents and fireA blown vent is cranked shut with a wrench; get low to pass beneath its jet. Fire wants coolant poured on it, and oil only feeds it. A big fire will not let you by, unless you lean into it and pay.

The hullA split in the plating can be strapped with a wrench. Put your eye to a gash and you will see the field below.

Your footingKeep a hand on something. Hold fast to a rail, a wall or a shipmate and you are anchored: nothing slides you and no blow takes your feet, though you will be shaken where you stand. While you work at something you have a hand on the pipework: a blow staggers you, but it will not throw you off your feet.

OutsideThe country she crosses is never the same for long. She sets out in one (forest or fen, river country, steppe, moor, snow, sand, salt, red rock, a dead city, the old battlefield) at whatever hour the watch began, and every few minutes of her march another shows on the skyline ahead, with its own weather, and she walks into it. Look out of a porthole now and then and see where she has got to.

Your sizeStanding, you are a little taller than your eyes; crouched, not much more than half that; flat on your belly, low enough to pass under a mess table. The iron keeps no list of where you may go. Wherever your body fits, it passes, and where it will not fit you cannot rise. Mind the open steelwork: its lowest bar rides a hand above the plates.

RefuseRags, tins and scrap gather wherever men pass, and filth near the actuator sours it. The furnace in the gallery wall and the pyre on the sump walk take whatever is thrown in.

Your bodyThe ration chute fills at the bells: 06:30, 12:30, 19:00. Your bunk is in Bunk Room Four, or there is the pallet by the actuator, if you would sleep with it in your ear. The actuator will not wait while you sleep. Go down, scalded or burnt or starved, and you are not done: someone drags you to your bunk, and the hours you lie there she goes untended.