Angels I have heard on high

This is a shot of the research ship Pioneer pushing across the Pacific up by the Aleutian Islands with some large swells hitting us on the nose.

One of my old buddies, Milton, steering the ship. I never did get to do that!

Good old Mr. Peasly. He sucked in the gut when he saw me with my camera. He knew more about what went on in that engine room than anyone I knew.

In 1961 while working our way between Hawaii and Alaska on the Research vessel, Pioneer. you could tell when you got close to Hawaii. The smell of the islands are unmistakable. On the other end of the sweep, the Aleutian islands also have a smell of their own. Working in the engine room was a life all of it's own. We had huge blowers moving air down from deck level. In the engine room you had noise, lots of noise. You also had diesel fuel vapors in the air. But standing under the blower vents you could almost tell how far we were from land. We all took turns going topside for a few minuets of quite, fresh air, a bite of something to eat, or a restroom break. Our shifts at sea were four hours on, and four hours off. Around the clock.

I worked in the (aft) engine room. It had all its own controls, and also backup controls to the forward engine room. Both engine rooms had the twin diesel engines that could be engaged to the prop shaft one at a time, or both at the same time. The aft engine room also has things that the forward engine room did not. Aft, we had two generators that we would run one at a time to power up all things electric for the ship. We also had a steam boiler and an evaporator to distill sea water into fresh water. The engineer on duty would usually stay at the main control panel, but would cover any open spots for breaks that we all needed during our shifts.

Like I have said, the noise levels are way off the charts in the engine rooms, so we used hand signals, passed notes, or by holding your cupped hands over the other persons ear, you could yell and be understood. My engineer, Mr. Peasly was a huge man, tall with a beer gut over his belt buckle and had been a sea going man all of his adult life. He was somewhere in his fifties when I worked with him. He knew the ship inside and out, every valve, every pipe, and what was in that pipe. The ship was plumbed to carry everything we needed, from fuel, steam, sea water, fresh water, everything.

One of those long shifts in the middle of the night I was sitting in front of the steam boiler and evaporator distilling sea water, filling the fresh water tanks and supplying the ship with steam. Everything was looking right on target in the boilers. You have to balance the fuel to the boiler, the amount of sea water going into the evaporator, the amount of fresh water going into the steam boiler. Lots of tweaking valves to keep it all dancing to the same rhythm of the ship.

I had just gotten down below from a quick break and was tweaking everything back where I wanted it. In the few minutes I was topside, very little had to be done, just watched so nothing went too far out of balance. About a half an hour after my break, I thought I heard something, something that was not the normal noises that we all get used to. I looked over at Mr. Peasly to see if he showed any reaction to what I was hearing. I signaled him with a quick wave, and pointed to one of my ears, like, do you hear anything? He took a few moments glancing around and listening, looked at me and shrugged his shoulders, meaning, nope, nothing. I went back to tweaking and watching.

A short time later I thought I heard something again, only this time, all other sounds left me. It was just like when you go unconscious from a conk on the head, or you run our of air for whatever reason. This time I heard singing, beautiful singing. Way high pitched, like angels singing. Again I looked over at Mr. Peasly. I felt like I was in a fog, but I could see, and the only thing I was hearing was that beautiful singing. I waved again and motioned, pointing to my ear. Mr. Peasly did his best to hear what I was hearing, but, nothing again. The sound of the engine room came back and the singing went away. The whole thing lasted for maybe ten seconds. I went back to tweaking and watching all the gauges.

Once again, after a short time, I get goose bumps, this is new, my hearing changes and the singing starts up. Again I look at Mr. Peasley, nothing from him. This time I wave to get his attention. I signal him that I need to go topside for a couple of minuets. He looks over at my gauges and gives me the OK. I don't know why, but someone is telling me something. The third time is no mistake. I get up and into fresh air, its the middle of the night, maybe three am. I take my few minutes topside, take a deep breath of the cool night air and head back down.

As I clear the second level of stairways, (ladders) I can hear the unmistakable sound of escaping steam, lots of escaping steam. As I clear the last few steps, Mr. Peasley is finishing closing the last valve to isolate the broken fitting. Like I said, Mr. Peasley knew this ship inside and out. No panic, no yelling, just calmly doing what he was really good at. Keeping the ship moving. Almost everything had redundant piping and valving, and this engineer knew all about it. We set about changing the problem steam fitting and putting the engine room back into ship shape.

Our shift was over and we were relieved by the next crew. We all went up topside for some air and discuss what happened. Mr. Peasley sat the three of us young guys down and started with me. What was I hearing just before that fitting had blown apart? I told him what I was hearing, but I didn't know how to interpret it, but the third time I had it in my head I felt like it was a warning of some kind. Mr. Peasley looked at me and said, "If you were in that seat where you had been, we would be calling a medical emergency and heading for the nearest port. It may not have killed you, but you would never have been the same person". Then he did something I would not have expected from an old sea dog like him. He leaned over real close and all but whispered "keep your eyes, and ears open young man, someone wants you in one piece for something". Old sea dogs don't talk like that very often, and I gained more respect for a man who shows very little emotion, but seemed to recognize when power from another source places his hand on someone and encourages promptings from above.