to run until we were dead ahead of the carrier, her bow pointed right at us, zero angle on the bow, in submarine parlance, before we could turn in, bumping and swaying on the unpaved road, hanging on to the car for all we were worth. Once I nearly flew out of it, clutched the windshield and roof bar grimly to save myself.
The Enterprise had gone to fire quarters. Streaming all over her topsides like thousands of ants, uncoiling hoses, bringing fire buckets, carrying fire extinguishers, her crew had gone into action like the veterans they were. A veritable army raced across the gangway and plunged down into the smoke and gloom now shrouding her bottom.
'Other side!' I snapped. The jeep driver had made as if to head for the gangway. There were ample men there to do what could be done. On the other side, however, the starboard side, there was no gangway, and so far as I could see, no one fighting the fire.
We had approached close enough to see fairly well into the dry dock. I saw a tongue of flame shoot out through the smoke, licking the smoothly rounded side of the ship. Swiftly it scorched its way upward. The black paint of her bottom peeled, hung in shreds, and vanished as the fire hit it.
Within seconds the flame had reached gray paint and was mounting the side, up above e waterline.
Hanging over the how of the flight deck in a boatswain's chair was a man with what looked like a pot of paint hooked to the side of the seat. The fire had developed so swiftly that he still held the paint brush in his hand, and as I looked a section of the fire seemed to leap through the air and seize the rope on which the chair hung. The speeding jeep's motor was loud, the roar of the fire and the shrill cries of the fire fighters louder still, yet I almost could hear the poor fellows scream of terror.
On the flight deck someone began to haul up the line. The ridiculous, dumpy, gesticulating figure advanced by short jerks, a few feet at a time. The tongue of flame had disappeared, but a thin wisp of smoke issued from the rope near where it divided into two strands to form a bridle for the boat- swain's chair. The paint brush was now gone, the paint pot wobbled spasmodically with the successive heaves from the man on the flight deck. I could visualize the latter's yells for assistance, his desperate single-handed try to beat the insidious corrosion of the smoldering hemp.
The helpless figure in the chair at the end of the line waved his arms more rapidly, more frantically, and suddenly the jerky motion of the line ceased, and he rose smoothly, quickly, speedily. Evidently three or four other men had tailed on to the line and had run away with it. Eager hands stretched forth over the edge of the flight deck, but first the damaged section of the line would have to run across the deck edge…
The jeep had straightened out, was proceeding down the starboard side of the ship by this time, but I turned half- around, craned my neck to see the finish of the drama: 'Stop!'
I shouted. 'Stop! You can't make it! Pass him the good part of the line to grab, hold of!'
Startled, the driver of the jeep slammed the brakes, skidded to a stop, and killed the engine. I lurched against the dash, leaped out of it. He followed, and the hasty indrawn breath over my shoulder told me that he too had taken in the danger.
Even as we watched, the action reached its climax. The still- smoking section of rope passed over the deck edge, still under heavy strain from the sailors sprinting down the deck with it, and parted. The man in the sling had just reached the edge of the flight deck, I could have sworn at least one of the several pairs of hands reaching for him through the lifelines touched his own outstretched ones and, clutching, clawed empty air.
For a long moment the tableau remained static; the man in the sling, the broken end of the line to it flipped into the air, the unseen men reaching for him. Then, swiftly, with terrible certitude, the doomed figure plunged downward. The arms and legs remained rigid, fixed in the pattern they had last assumed. There was no point in struggling more, and he knew it, but there wasn't time, nor awareness, to assume a more dignified posture. There was time only to scream, to expend all his breath in a last hopeless denial of what was happening to him, to scream a piercing, shrieking terror all the way down until his slowly revolving body, still tangled in the boatswain's chair which had trapped him, vanished into the smoke which mercifully shrouded the concrete floor of the dry dock.
This time I heard it, all the way, including the sloppy splash which put a period to it.
Shaken, I turned away and nearly stumbled over my jeep driver. He was doubled over, retching.
A quick look at the carrier, just in time to see a flash of flame under her bottom. There was no one anywhere around on this side. Enterprise was concentrating her fire fighting on the other, the port side. No doubt the fire was worse there, but it was bad here, too. Down at the bay end of the dock was a small structure, perhaps a fire house of some kind. 'Come on!' I yelled, smacking the vomiting sailor on the rump.
Without really thinking about it, I hoped the unceremonious salutation would help him get over his sickness. It did.
Wiping his lips with his white jumper, sleeve, he jumped back into the jeep while I duplicated the move on the other side.
We covered the three hundred yards to the little building in nothing flat. We were in luck; it was not a fire house, but an emergency dock pumping station, nearly as good. The door was locked, but the jeep's bumper took care of that. Madly we began to unreel hose. It was a monumental task for two men to get the equipment laid out, let alone start the pumping engine, and I had not really made any thoughtful plan of action.
All I was conscious of was that the cloud of smoke was reaching ever higher into the sky, and that I could not only see fire but also feel the heat of it along the side of the threatened ship.
One end of the hose, the suction end, would have to go into the water of the harbor, just beyond the dry- dock gate would be the closest place. But the pumper had been made to Pump the dock dry in emergency, not take a suction from outside it, and the suction hose was too short. It reached no closer than five feet of the water. I stood there wondering what to do next, when I felt an authoritative hand take it from me, and a familiar voice say, 'Here, Captain, let's hook this to it!'
The voice was Kohler's, and I was never so glad to see any- one in my life. He carried another section of hose over his shoulder and several odd-shaped metal fittings in his hands.
One of them spanned the joint between the two dissimilar hoses, and in about two minutes we had a suction line of beautifully scrubbed white hose drinking thirstily of the filthy, oily waters of the harbor.
'I hadn't given thought, either, as to how the suction got started, but it was explained when we arrived back at the pumping station, for there stood Tom Schultz with Wilson, his leading Motor Machinist's Mate. The pump was churning up at a great rate, and more familiar faces were manning the nozzle, jumping down into the smoke of the dry dock, carry- ing tools, axes, carbon dioxide, fire extinguishers, and seeming- ly dozens of other pieces of paraphernalia. I lost myself in the mad swirl of events. Things happened in a kaleidoscopic sequence, and there is only one firm recollection of the remainder of that afternoon, the moment we could find no more fire to fight.
Jim was a sight, when I finally got a chance to talk calmly with him. He was splattered with black oil and completely soaked with dirty water. His trousers up to his knees were covered with black ooze from the bottom of the dock, and his shoes were filthy. I was not much better off. The fresh khakis we had put on only a few hours ago, in preparation for our return from patrol, how long ago that now seemed! — were com- pletely ruined.
'Some day, eh Jim? Thank God you were able to get off the ship when you did!'
Jim grinned. 'We had a hell of a time. The crane operator was going to leave us right then and there, with our big gang- way in mid-air when the fire broke out. It took some quick talking to make him take the time to set it in place for us.
'How did you do it?'
'I let myself down into the dock with a rope, once Walrus was down solid on the blocks, and swam ashore.' The light was dancing again in Jim's eyes, and he slammed his right fist into the palm of his left hand. I noticed the knuckles were bruised.
Following my look, Jim chuckled again. 'He did take a little persuasion, but it was worth it. First time I've ever poked a guy that high in the air!'
'Good Lord, Jim! You didn't climb up into his cab?' I let the sentence die. Jim grinned again by way of answer.
We were approaching the heavy steel-and-wood gangway which spanned the distance from the side of our dry dock to Walrus' deck. A group of our crew was already gathered there, and more were straggling in. I used the opportunity to tell Jim of my interview with Captain Blunt and of his own impending qualification for command of submarines.
It was quite a long gangway, and Walrus lay propped upright many feet below us. 'You'll have to draft the letter,' I was finishing, 'that can be your initiation to one of the more prosaic problems of command.' My gaze
