Occasionally, however, someone was late heading to the bow to depart the vessel. The Purser repeated the message every five minutes and then, again, a minute or so before the Captain ordered the Mate to lift the stage, thereby severing all connections between the sternwheeler and the shore. This steamboat will be departing in 15 minutes. Inside the Purser’s Office, forward on the Boiler Deck, the Chief Purser pushed a button and spoke into the microphone activating speakers located throughout the steamboat: Whether it was fear or respect for the big man, the pilot’s gripes rarely, if ever, included the giant captain. The only exceptions were, generally speaking, the pilots of the steamboat who griped about nearly everything and everybody. Practically everyone within earshot of the sound, up to five miles away depending on the direction and velocity of the wind, loved what emanated from within the depths of the brass whistles. On the aft end of the Texas Deck, the “Professor” seated at the calliope keyboard ran their hands across the keys of the electronics keyboard to jettison any condensation lingering within the brass whistles of the “god-awful musical instrument from hell” and broke into a tune best known to the ears of long-dead citizens of nearly two centuries earlier. Once satisfied that all was ready, the Engineer answered the EOT signaling the Pilot that the “shoving end” of the vessel was alert, prepared, and standing by. The Engineer-on-watch and his apprentice “Striker” scrutinized last-minute details with the engines, feedwater pumps, boilers, firebox, steam siphons, cylinder cocks, and the dozens of other checks.
Two hundred feet aft of the bow, on the Main Deck, the nearly ear-splitting cry of the Engine Order Telegraph (EOT) announced the departure of the steamboat within 15 minutes. Immediately, the three-chimed, gold-plated Lunkenheimer whistle mounted on the bonnet of the smokestack joined the cacophony of bells, shouts, and scurrying feet. Nearby, the capstan man muttered within earshot of the deckhand holding onto the Belly Block pull, “Or you’re liable to break your damned necks.” Amused, both men laughed at the capstan man’s comment. THERE’S PLENTY OF TIME,” the Mate bellowed. “WAIT… WAIT… DON’T LEAVE WITHOUT US… the chorus bustling down the sandy bank pleaded. Onshore, shouts from late-arriving passengers and crewmen racing toward the long gangway bridging the gap to the steamer now fully awake and snorting bull-like and impatient to break the bonds fastened it to the land. Squeaking pulleys, the metallic sigh of the landing stage as a heel-tie line slackened and the stage flexed and relaxed from the strain it had been in reaching the shore added to the symphony. “BREAK UP,” the Mate screeched to the clutch of deckhands appearing suddenly like apparitions from nowhere. Immediately, the three-chimed, gold-plated Lunkenheimer whistle mounted on the bonnet of the smokestack joined the cacophony of bells, shouts, and scurrying feet comprising the panoramic bustle of a steamboat aroused from slumber while dozing against a Mississippi River shoreline. “RINGING NINE,” the Master gleefully shouted as he heaved on the steel cable attached to the cast iron clapper within the mouth of the magnificent bell.
MOVING DOCK TOSIDE SERIES
A matronly bystander screamed in terror as the silver-bronze bell she’d been standing alongside exploded into a series of three sets of three eruptions.
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