Алистер Маклин - Ice Station Zebra

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 round 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’d been on watch in the manoeuvring-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 O.K. now and could we send smoke masks or breathing apparatus for himself 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.’

Hansen was on his way inside a minute. Five minutes later he was back again. He stripped off his breathing equipment. His face was pale and covered in 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. Has he not rung through?’

‘Twice, but–’ He broke off as the engine-room telegraph rang. ‘So. He’s still O.K. 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. Blank 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 centre, 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 lagging’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, crowbars, CO 2. Saturate the lagging 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 sombrely. ‘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 this thick insulation lagging wrapped all round 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 CO 2extinguishers 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 exclaimed. ‘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 lagging attracts it as a magnet does iron filings. And it’s as absorbent as blotting-paper.’

‘But what could have caused the fire?’

‘Spontaneous combustion. There have been cases before. We’ve run over 50,000 miles in this ship now and in that time I suppose the lagging 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 best part of twenty minutes now.’

‘Maybe. But he was just beginning to put his suit on – himself and Ringman – when I left. That’s not to say they went into the engine-room straight away. I’ll call the stern room.’ He did, spoke then hung up, his face grave. ‘Stern room says that they have 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 recognised as an enlisted man who had accompanied Raeburn: the other was Cartwright, the main propulsion officer.

‘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 none the less 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 and blast 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–’

‘Just for once, old boy, the hell with your navy regulations,’ Jolly said politely. ‘The main thing to remember, Commander, is that I’m aboard this ship too. Let us remember that we all – um – sink or swim together. No joke intended.’

‘But you don’t know how to operate those sets–’

‘I can learn, can’t I?’ Jolly said with some asperity. He turned and left.