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By the time they had left their staterooms and reached the elevator, the smell of smoke had become more pronounced and distinct.
On the A Deck shopping avenue outside the wedding chapel, the crew was retreating in its battle against the fire. The portable extinguishers were used up. All the fire-control systems were inoperative, and to add to their desperation, the hoses could not be attached because the valve caps were frozen closed and could not be removed by hand. McFerrin sent a man down to the engine room to bring back pipe wrenches, but it was an exercise in futility. Two men using their combined strength still could not untwist the caps from their threads. It was as if they had been welded shut.
To the men fighting the fire, frustration turned to terror as the situation worsened. With the fire doors unable to close, there was no way to isolate the blaze. McFerrin hailed the bridge. "Tell the captain we're losing control down here. The fire has burned through onto the salon deck into the casino."
"Can't you keep the fire from spreading?" asked Sheffield.
"How!" McFerrin yelled back. "Nothing works. We're running out of extinguishers, we can't connect the hoses and the sprinkler systems won't flow. Is there any way the engine room can override the systems and close the fire doors?"
"Negative," answered Sheffield, anxiety obvious in his voice. "The entire fire-control program is down. Computers, fire doors, sprinklers, the works-they've all failed."
"Why haven't you sounded the alarm?"
"I can't alarm the passengers without the captain's authority."
"Where is he?"
"He went down to judge the situation for himself. Haven't you seen him?"
Surprised, McFerrin searched the area but saw no sign of Waitkus. "He's not here."
"Then he must be on his way back to the bridge," replied Sheffield, becoming uneasy.
"For the safety of the passengers, give the alarm and send them to their lifeboat stations in preparation for abandoning the ship."
Sheffield was aghast. "Order sixteen hundred passengers to abandon the Emerald Dolphin? You're overreacting."
"You don't know what it's like down here," McFerrin said urgently. "Just get the show on the road before it's too late."
"Only Captain Waitkus can give such a
command."
"Then for the love of God, man, give the alarm and warn the passengers before the fire breaks onto the stateroom decks."
Sheffield was swept by indecision. He'd never faced an emergency like this in his eighteen years at sea. It was why he'd never wanted to be a captain. He'd never wanted the responsibility. What should he do? "You're absolutely certain the situation warrants such drastic action?"
"Unless you can get the fire control systems operational in the next Jive minutes, this ship and everybody on it is doomed," McFerrin shouted.
Sheffield was becoming disoriented now. All he could think about was: His career at sea was in jeopardy. If he made the wrong decision now. . .
And the seconds ticked away.
His inaction would ultimately cost over a hundred lives.
2
The men struggling to contain the inferno were well trained in fighting shipboard fires, but they were working with both hands ned behind their backs. Dressed in their fireproof suits with full helmets and oxygen tanks on their backs, each of them was becoming increasingly frustrated. With all the fire-fighting systems and equipment inoperative or useless, they could do nothing but stand helplessly and watch the blaze burn unchecked. Within fifteen minutes, A Deck was a holocaust. Flames consumed the shopping avenue and spilled out on the nearby boat decks. Crew members preparing to launch the lifeboats scattered for their lives as a torrent of fire surged over the port and starboard lifeboats. And still no alarm had sounded.
First Officer Sheffield appeared to be in denial. It was with fearful reluctance that he took over command of the ship, still unable to accept the possibility that Captain Waitkus was dead, or that they were all in mortal danger. Like all modern cruise ships, the Emerald Dolphin had been constructed to be fireproof. That flames could have spread with such lightning speed went against all the marine architect's safety designs.
He wasted valuable time by sending men to find the captain, and waiting until they all reported back that he was nowhere to be found. Sheffield entered the chartroom and studied the course line across a large chart. The last marking from the Global Positioning System, laid by the ship's fourth officer less than thirty minutes previously, showed the nearest landfall to be the island of Tonga, more than two hundred miles northeast. He returned to the bridge and stepped out onto the bridge wing. A rain squall was sweeping down upon the ship and the wind had risen, increasing the height of the waves marching against the bow to five feet.
He turned and looked back, aghast to see smoke erupting from amidships and flames eating at the lifeboats. The conflagration seemed to be devouring everything in its path. Why had all the fire-control systems failed? Emerald Dolphin was one of the safest ships in the world. It was unthinkable that she might end up at the bottom of the sea. As if immersed in a nightmare, he finally set off the ship's fire-alarm system.
By now the casino had been turned into a fiery Hades. The incredible intensity of the heat, combined with the total lack of fire-fighting systems and equipment to slow it down, melted any object it met or consumed it within seconds. The fire tore through the theater and quickly turned it into an incinerator, the stage curtains exploding in a flaming shower of fireworks, before the flames moved on, leaving a blackened and smoldering shell. The fire was now only two decks below the first of the lower staterooms.
Bells clanged and sirens whooped throughout the ship, the only warning system that had functioned on command. Drugged by sleep, 1,600 passengers came awake, confused and questioning the harsh interruption. They reacted slowly, mystified by the emergency alarm going off at 4:25 in the morning. At first, most were calm and went about the business of pulling on comfortable, casual clothes. They also put on their life vests as they had been instructed to do during the drills before moving to their lifeboat stations. Only those few who stepped out on their verandas to see what the fuss was all about were confronted with reality.
