Lister's Great Adventure by Harold Bindloss

The engine-room floor-plates slanted, and light and shadow played about the throbbing machinery. It looked as if the lamps swung in a semicircle, but they did not. All else slanted at an ever-changing angle; the swiveled lamps were still. Overhead the dark and bulky cylinders cut against the reflected glimmer on the skylights; below, valve-gear and connecting-rod flashed across the gloom, and the twinkling cranks spun in their shallow pit. One saw the big columns shake and strain as the crosshead shot up and down; the thrust-blocks groaned with the back push of the propeller.

A door in the bulkhead was open, and now and then a blaze from the stokehold lighted the engine-room. Shovels clanged and the thud of a hammer jarred upon the throb of machinery. Men moved about like ghosts. Their feet made no noise; for a moment one saw their sweat-streaked faces and then they vanished. Lister sat on a tool-box, an old pipe in his mouth, and was happier than he had been for long. For one thing, his men were getting sober and he saw they knew their job; then he was satisfied with his engines and relished the sense of control. He was _chief_, and until the tug came back from Africa the engines were his.