This image portrays a merchant stoker working at the open door of a boiler. A fireman, known as a stoker in the Navy, needed to feed five tons of coal a day into the ship's furnace. The space is confined, dark and hot, emphasized by the sleeveless top of the sailor. The heat of the boiler is conveyed by the glow from the furnace, which illuminates the man's arm and front, and the large ventilation shaft behind the ladder. The only light shines from the bulkhead to the right. The artist has emphasized the feeling of being in the depths of the ship by the use of a vertical ladder, down which another sailor descends, and the rope ladder hanging to the right. The height of the space has deliberately been accentuated. The painting has been signed by the artist and is dated '1942'.

In the early part of the Second World War, Carr worked mainly as a painter of the war in England, and from 1942 to 1945 he was an official war artist with the First Army in North Africa and Italy. He painted portraits of many eminent people connected with the war.