“Well, not exactly volunteering, sir. But, well–who else is there?”
“The torpedo department aboard this ship,” Swanson observed acidly, “always did have a phenomenally high opinion of itself.”
“Let him try an underwater oxygen set,” I said. “Those smoke masks seem to have their limitations.”
“A steam leak, Captain?” Rawlings asked. “That what you want me to check on?”
“Well, you seem to have been nominated, voted for, and elected by yourself,” Swanson said. “Yes, a steam leak.”
“That the suit Murphy was wearing?” Rawlings pointed to the clothes on the deck.
“Yes. Why?”
“You’d have thought there would be some signs of moisture or condensation if there had been a steam leak, sir.”
“Maybe. Maybe soot and smoke particles are holding the condensing steam in suspension. Maybe- it was hot enough in there to dry off any moisture that did reach his suit. Maybe a lot of things. Don’t stay too long in there.”
“Just as long as it takes me to get things fixed up,” Rawlings said confidently. He turned to Hansen and grinned. “You stopped me once back out there on the ice cap, Lieutenant, but sure as little apples I’m going to get that little old medal this time. Bring undying credit to the whole ship, I will.”
“If torpedoman Rawlings will ease up with his ravings for a moment,” Hansen said, “I have a suggestion to make, Captain. I know he won’t be able to take off his mask inside there but if he gave a call-up signal on the engine telephone or rang through on the engine answering telegraph every four or five minutes we’d know he was okay. If he doesn’t, someone can go in after him.”
Swanson nodded. Rawlings pulled on suit and oxygen apparatus and left. That made it the third time the door leading to the engine compartment had been opened in a few minutes and each time fresh clouds of that black and biting smoke had come rolling in. Conditions were now very bad inside the control room, but someone had issued a supply of goggles all around and a few were wearing smoke masks.
A phone rang. Hansen answered, spoke briefly, and hung up.
“That was Jack Cartwright, skipper.” Lieutenant Cartwright was the main-propulsion officer, who had been on watch in the maneuvering room and had been forced to retreat to the stern room. “Seems he was overcome by the fumes and was carried back into the stern room. Says he’s okay now and could we send smoke masks or breathing apparatus for him and one of his men. They can’t get at the ones in the engine room. I told him yes.”
“I’d certainly feel a lot happier if Jack Cartwright was in there- investigating in person,” Swanson admitted. “Send a man, will you?”
“I thought I’d take them myself. Someone else can double on the ice machine.”
Swanson glanced at Hansen’s injured hand, hesitated, then nodded. “Right. But straight through the engine room and straight back.”
Hanson was on his way in a minute. Five minutes later he was back again. He stripped off his breathing equipment. His face was pale and covered with sweat.
“There’s fire in the engine room, all right,” he said grimly. “Hotter than the hinges of hell. No trace of sparks or flames, but that doesn’t mean a thing, the smoke in there is so thick that you couldn’t see a blast furnace a couple of feet away.”
“See Rawlings?” Swanson asked.
“No. Hasn’t he rung through?”
“Twice, but–” He broke off as the engine-room telegraph rang. “So. He’s still okay. How about the stern room, John?”
“Damn sight worse than it is here. The sick men aft there are in a pretty bad way, especially Bolton. Seems the smoke got in before they could get the door shut.”
“Tell Harrison to start up his air scrubbers. But for the lab only. Shut off the rest of the ship.”
Fifteen minutes passed, fifteen minutes during which the engine-room telegraph rang three times, fifteen minutes during which the air became thicker and fouler and steadily less breathable, fifteen minutes during which a completely equipped fire-fighting team was assembled in the control center, then another billowing cloud of black smoke announced the opening of the after door.
It was Rawlings. He was very weak and had to be helped out of his breathing equipment and his suit. His face was white and streaming sweat, his hair and clothes so saturated with sweat that he might easily have come straight from an immersion in the sea. But he was grinning triumphantly.
“No steam leak, Captain, that’s for certain.” It took him three breaths to get that out. “But fire down below in the machinery space. Sparks flying all over the shop. Some flame, not much. I located it, sir. Starboard high-pressure turbine. The sheathing’s on fire.”
“You’ll get that medal, Rawlings,” Swanson said, “even if I have to make the damn thing myself.” He turned to the waiting firemen. “You heard. Starboard turbine. Four at a time, fifteen minutes maximum. Lieutenant Raeburn, the first party. Knives, claw hammers, pliers, crow bars, CO2. Saturate the sheathing first, then rip it off. Watch out for flash flames when you’re pulling it off. I don’t have to warn you about the steam pipes. Now, on your way.”
They left. I said to Swanson: “Doesn’t sound so much. How long will it take? Ten minutes, quarter of an hour?”
He looked at me somberly. “A minimum of three or four hours–if we’re lucky. It’s hell’s own maze down in the machinery space there. Valves, tubes, condensers, and miles of that damned steam piping that would burn your hands off if you touched it. Working conditions even normally are so cramped as to be almost impossible. Then there’s that huge turbine housing with all that thick insulation sheathing wrapped all around it, and the engineers who fitted it meant it to stay there for keeps. Before they start, they have to douse the fire with the CO2 extinguishers, and even that won’t help much. Every time they rip off a piece of charred insulation, the oil-soaked stuff below will burst into flames again as soon as it comes into contact with the oxygen in the atmosphere.”
“‘Oil-soaked’?”
“That’s where the whole trouble must lie,” Swanson explained. “Wherever you have moving machinery, you must have oil for lubrication. There’s no shortage of machinery, down in the machine space–and no shortage of oil, either. And just as certain materials are strongly hygroscopic, so that damned insulation has a remarkable affinity for oil. Where there’s any around, whether in its normal fluid condition or in fine suspension in the atmosphere, that sheathing attracts it as a magnet does iron ffiings. And it’s as absorbent as blotting paper.”
“But what could have caused the fire?”
“Spontaneous combustion. There have been cases before. We’ve gone over fifty thousand miles in this ship now, and in that time I suppose the sheathing has become thoroughly saturated. We’ve been going at top speed ever since we left Zebra, and the excess heat generated has set the damn thing off. . . . John, no word from Cartwright yet?”
“Nothing.”
“He must have been in there for the better part of twenty minutes now.”
“Maybe. But he was just beginning to put his suit on–he and Ringman–when I left, and maybe, they didn’t go into the engine room right away. I’ll call the stern room.” He did, then hung up, his face grave. “Stern room says they’ve been gone twenty-five minutes. Shall I investigate, sir?”
“You stay right here. I’m not–”
He broke off as the after door opened with a crash and two men came staggering out–rather, one staggering, the other supporting him. The door was heaved shut and the men’s masks, removed. One man I recognized as an enlisted man who had accompanied Raeburn; the other was Cartwright.
“Lieutenant Raeburn sent me out with the lieutenant here,” the enlisted man said. “He’s not so good, I think, Captain.”
It was a pretty fair diagnosis. He wasn’t so good and that was a fact. He was barely conscious but nonetheless fighting grimly to hang on to what few shreds of consciousness were left him.
“Ringman,” he jerked out. “Five minutes–five minutes ago. We were going back–”
“Ringman,” Swanson prompted with a gentle insistence. “What about Ringman?”
“He fell. Down into the machinery space. I–I went after him, tried to lift him up the ladder. He screamed. God, he screamed. I–he–”
He slumped in his chair, was caught before he fell to the floor. I said: “Ringman. Either a major fracture or internal injuries.
“Damn!” Swanson swore softly. “Damn it all! A fracture. Down there. John, have Cartwright carried through to the crew’s mess. A fracture!”
“Please have a mask and suit ready for me,” Jolly said briskly. “I’ll fetch Dr. Benson’s emergency kit from the sick bay.”
“You?” Swanson shook his head. “Damned decent, Jolly. I appreciate it, but I can’t let you–“