Deep Six

The Leonid Andreyev was listing twenty degrees to port. Thousands of gallons of oil had spilled out into the sea and ignited. The water around the jagged opening caused by the blast was a mass of fire. The entire midsection of the ship was a blazing torch. The tremendous heat was turning steel plates red hot and warping them into twisted, grotesque shapes. White paint was blistering black, teak decks were nearly burned through and the glass in the portholes popped like gunshots.

The flames spread with incredible speed as the ocean breeze fanned them toward the bridge. Already the communications room was consumed and the officer in charge burned to death at his radio. Fire and swirling smoke shot upward through the companion-ways and ventilating ducts. The Leonid Andreyev, like all modern cruise liners, was designed and constructed to be fireproof, but no precise planning or visionary foresight could have predicted the devastating results of a fuel tank explosion that showered the ship like a flamethrower.

An immense billowing cloud of oily smoke reached hundreds of feet above, flattening in the upper air currents, stretching over the ship like a pall. The base of the cloud was a solid torrent of flame that twisted and surged in a violent storm of orange and yellow. While below, in the deeper reaches of the hull, the flames were an acetylene blue-white, fed into molten temperatures by the intake of air through the shattered plates, creating the effect of a blast furnace.

Though many of the passengers were able to fight their way up the stairways, over a hundred lay dead below, some trapped and burned in their cabins, others overtaken by smoke inhalation during their attempt to escape topside. The ones who made it were being driven by the flames toward the stern and away from the lifeboats.

All efforts by the crew to maintain order were engulfed by the chaos. The passengers were finally left to fend for themselves and no one knew which way to turn. All port lifeboats were ablaze, and only three were lowered on the starboard side before the fire drove the crew back. As it was, one boat was beginning to burn by the time it hit the sea.

Now people began jumping into the water like migrating lemmings. The drop was nearly fifty feet, and a number of those who had life jackets made the mistake of inflating them before plummeting over the side and broke their necks on impact. Women stood spellbound with terror, too frightened to leap. Men cursed in desperation. In the water the swimmers struck out for the few lifeboats, but the crews who manned them started up the engines and sailed beyond reach for fear of being swamped by overloading.

In the middle of the frenzied drama, the container ship arrived. The captain eased his vessel within a hundred yards of the Leonid Andreyev and put his boats over as fast as they could be lowered. A few minutes later, U.S. Navy sea rescue helicopters appeared and began plucking survivors from the sea.

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Loren gazed in abstract fascination at the sheet of advancing fire. “Shouldn’t we jump or something?” she asked in a vague tone.

Pitt didn’t answer immediately. He studied the slanting deck and judged the list to be about forty degrees. “No call to rush things,” he said with expressionless calm. “The flames won’t reach us for another ten minutes. The further the ship heels to port, the shorter the distance to jump. In the meantime, I suggest we start heaving deck chairs overboard so those poor souls in the water have something to hang on to until they’re picked up.”

Surprisingly, Larimer was the first to react. He began sweeping up the wooden deck chairs in his massive arms and dropping them over the railings. He actually had the look on his face of a man who was enjoying himself. Moran stood huddled against a bulwark, silent, noncommittal, frozen in fear.

“Take care you don’t hit a swimmer on the head,” Pitt said to Larimer.

“I wouldn’t dare,” the senator replied with an exhausted smile. “They might be a constituent and I’d lose their vote.”

After all the chairs in sight had gone over the side, Pitt stood for two or three seconds and took stock. The blast from the heat was not yet unbearable. The fire wouldn’t kill those packed on the stern deck, at least not for a few more minutes. He shouldered his way through the dense throng to the port railing again. The waves rolled only twenty feet below.

He shouted to Giordino, “Let’s help these people over the side.” Then he turned and cupped his hands to his mouth.

“There’s no more time to lose!” he yelled at the top of his lungs to make himself heard over the din of the frightened crowd and the roar of the holocaust. “Swim for it or die!”

Several men took the hint and, clutching the hands of their protesting wives, straddled the railing and slipped out of sight below. Next came three teenage girls who showed no hesitation but dove cleanly into the blue-green swells.

“Swim to a deck chair and use it for a float,” Giordino instructed everyone repeatedly.

Pitt separated families into a group and while Loren cheered the children, he directed their parents to jump and latch onto a floating deck chair. Then he held the children over the side by the hands as far as he could reach and let them drqp, holding his breath until the mother and father had them safely in tow.

The great curtain of flame crept closer and breathing became more difficult. The heat felt as though they were standing in front of an open furnace. A rough head count told Pitt only thirty people were left, but it would be a close race.

A great hulking fat man stopped and refused to move. “The water’s full of sharks!” he screamed hysterically. “We’re better off here, waiting for the helicopters.”

“They can’t hover over the ship because of air turbulence from the heat,” Pitt explained patiently. “You can burn to a cinder or take your chances in the water. Which is it? Be quick, you’re holding up the others.”

Giordino took two paces, tensed his powerful muscles and lifted the fat procrastinator off his feet. There was no animosity, no expression of meanness in Giordino’s unblinking eyes as he carried the man to the side and unceremoniously dumped him overboard.

“Send me a postcard,” Giordino shouted after him.

The diverting action seemed to motivate the few passengers who hung back. One after the other, with Pitt assisting the elderly couples to take the plunge, they departed the burning ship.

When the last of them was finally gone, Pitt looked around at Loren. “Your turn,” he said.

“Not without my colleagues,” she said with a feminine resolve.

Pitt stared below to make certain the water was clear. Larimer was so weak he could barely lift his legs over the rail. Giordino gave him a hand as Loren jumped arm in arm with Moran. Pitt watched anxiously until they all cleared the side and swam away, admiring Loren’s endurance as she shouted words of encouragement to Larimer while towing Moran by the collar.

“Better give her a hand,” Pitt said to Giordino.

His friend didn’t have to be urged. He was gone before another word passed between them.

Pitt took one last look at the Leonid Andreyev. The air around shimmered from the blasting heat waves as flames shot from her every opening. The list was passing fifty degrees and her end was only minutes away. Already her starboard propeller was clear of the water and steam was hissing in white tortured clouds around her waterline.

As he was poised to leap, Pitt abruptly went rigid in astonishment. At the outer edge of his peripheral vision he saw an arm snake out of a cabin porthole forty feet away. Without hesitation, he picked up one of the still soggy blankets from the deck, threw it over his head and covered the distance in seven strides. A voice inside the cabin was screaming for help. He peered in and saw a woman’s face, eyes wide in terror.

“Oh, my God, please help us?”

“How many are you?”

“Myself and two children.”

“Pass out the kids.”