  For a split second, Sandy and Jerry stood rooted in helpless anger. It was bad enough that the drunken, clumsy mate had set the galley ablaze. But now he had shifted the blame to them! The injustice of it was an outrage, and for the space of that split second, the two youths were so stunned that they could not move. Then they sprang into action. And to Jerry James’s amazement, Sandy Steele turned and ran from the flaming room. “Sandy!” Jerry called. “Sandy, come back!” But Sandy Steele kept on running up the passageway, and Jerry could not believe what he saw. Then, when Sandy disappeared into the cabin where Cookie had been placed, Jerry understood. “Good old Sandy,” he said proudly, and then he whirled and dashed down the passageway in the other direction—hunting for a fire extinguisher. Cookie was half out of his bunk when Sandy rushed through the opened door. The little man had heard Mr. Briggs’s shout, and he had immediately dragged himself from his pillows. He was going to help put out the fire! But he was too weak to get very far, and he lay half in, half out of his bed, panting, when Sandy burst in on him. “Quick, Cookie!” Sandy said. “The galley’s on fire.” “I know, boy,” Cookie gasped. “I heard the mate.” His eyes were sad as he gazed at Sandy. “How could you do it, Sandy?” “I didn’t!” Sandy gritted between clenched teeth, as he stooped to wrap blankets around Cookie, before coming erect in the fireman’s carry. “But the mate said—” “He did it, not us!” Sandy replied. “Come on, Cookie—there’s no time for explanations.” Gently supporting the little man on his right shoulder, Sandy hurried from the room. He took him to the cabin farthest from the blaze. Once inside, he placed Cookie on the bunk. The weakened little man looked around him in astonishment. “This is the mate’s quarters,” he burst out. “You can’t put me in here, boy.” “Never mind that,” Sandy said grimly. “I’d put you in the captain’s quarters, if I thought it would be safer. I’m not taking any chances on your getting trapped by the fire, Cookie.” “Is it really that bad?” “I don’t know, but I’ll soon find out! Now, you just stay put while I go back and help fight the fire.” Without another word, Sandy turned and raced back down the passageway. A wild scene greeted Sandy’s eyes. Thick, greasy clouds of smoke—from the roasts and the other cuts of meat that had caught fire—rolled from the galley. Through the smoke, he could see the red and yellow of the flames. Sometimes a sheet of fire would lance out through the smoke, and there would be a hissing and a crackling that would warn the smoke-grimed and panting fire fighters that another big can of lard had exploded and caught fire and was now making their task even harder. All along the passageway lay thick lines of hose. They were crisscrossed and intertwined, and, sometimes, when they leaped under the pressure of the water coursing through them, they gave the passageway the look of a snake pit. Crewmen wearing fire helmets dashed up and down, helter-skelter, some of them with fire extinguishers in their hands, others carrying fire axes. A bucket brigade had been formed among the spare crewmen, and Sandy saw the buckets passing from hand to hand with the precision of an assembly line in a factory. The empty buckets would be passed up the ladder to be refilled by a man who fastened them to a rope and then lowered them into the lake. From what Sandy could see, most of the fire seemed to be centered in the middle of the galley, next to the stove. Luckily, Cookie had wisely insisted that his old grease-soaked wooden cabinets be replaced by nonflammable metal ones, otherwise the fire would have been uncontrollable. As it was, it was bad enough. Flames shot higher and higher from the meat-chopping table. Here, the thick slab of wood had become thoroughly soaked by the overturned grease. Beneath the terrible roaring sound it gave off as it burned, Sandy could hear the hissing and snapping of the grease. Above all the sound and fury of the fire itself, and the excited babble of the men as they rushed here and there to prevent the flames from spreading to the mess hall, Sandy could hear the booming of Captain West’s voice. “You, there!” he shouted at Jerry James. “You with the fire extinguisher—over here! Now, then, through the smoke here onto that table!” With his head picturesquely swathed in an undershirt which he kept removing to soak with water, Captain West was a romantic figure as he rushed up and down the passageway directing the fire fighting. “Water!” he would thunder. “More water!” Or else: “You ax men, get busy in the mess hall! Chop up those tables and benches and get the wood abovedecks!” Seeing him, hearing him, Sandy wished that Captain West was as loyal as he was commanding. But there was little time for Sandy to waste in admiration of the skipper. All of these things that he witnessed passed through his mind in one swift, crowding instant—and then he too leaped into action. The moment that Sandy rushed up there had been a loud explosion in the galley, and one of the ax men was thrown back against the bulkhead by the force of it. He slumped to the deck, unconscious, and his ax slipped from his hand. Quick as a flash, Sandy seized the ax and joined the men at work in the mess hall, while two others quickly jumped to obey the skipper’s orders to remove the stricken man to a safe place. With a thrilling surge of confidence in the strength of his lean-muscled body, Sandy Steele began to swing his ax. His first stroke went whistling through the air and the ax blade bit deep into the thick wood of a bench. With a wrench requiring all of his power, Sandy yanked it free. Once again, he drove the blade downward. Swish! Crack! The bench split in two. Quickly, shortening his grip on the ax handle like a batter dragging a hit, Sandy stroked twice, backward and forward, and the bench had become a neatly stacked pile of kindling. With a glance of admiration, one of the crewmen scuttled forward, seized the bundle of sticks in his arms and carried them topside. Meanwhile, as the men with the axes steadily demolished the mess-hall furniture, getting it safely out of harm’s way, the fire in the galley seemed to rage higher and higher. The heat in the passageway was now intense. The naked torsos of the fire fighters gleamed in the reflected light of the flames, and rivulets of sweat marked their course down flesh blackened by the greasy smoke. As the roar of the flames grew louder and louder, the expression of concern on Captain West’s face grew deeper. He was thinking of the coal bunkers directly beneath the galley. If the fire should ever get to them, that would be the end! Anxiously, Captain West peered through the smoke. It stung his eyes and made them water. He had to wind a wet cloth around his mouth to keep from choking. But he saw what he wanted to see. That chopping table was still blazing away like an enormous torch. In fact, it was a torch—for the grease had prepared it for burning as completely as any stick dipped in pitch. But Captain West had seen that the fiery table had been partially burned through at the point where it was fastened to the wall. If he could chop it the rest of the way, the table would fall down. Then it could be pulled out into the passageway with hooks and the hoses could play upon it with full force. In that way, Captain West reasoned, he could attack the fire at its very heart. Immediately, the skipper called for one of the ax-bearing crewmen to attempt the job. There was no time to lose. Another five or ten minutes, and the coal would go up! The crewman slipped quickly into a heavy raincoat to shield his body from the flames. He saturated a cloth with water, wound it around his lower face, and plunged into the smoke. In an instant, he came reeling back—choking and sputtering. “It’s too much, sir,” he gasped. “No man can go into that stuff and live.” Before Captain West could reply, Sandy Steele had raced down the passageway from the mess hall. “Let me have that raincoat,” he said to the astounded man. “I think I know a way to get that table out.” Still choking, the man took off his coat. Captain West opened his mouth to protest, but then, seeing that Sandy was dead serious, he closed it again and let the determined youth take over. “Jerry!” Sandy called to his chum. “Quick! You get one on, too. Then, you protect me with the fire extinguisher while I swing the ax.” Jerry James nodded. Like his friend, he garbed himself in one of the heavy black slickers, covered his nose and mouth with a soaked cloth, and preceded him into the smoke. Jerry held his extinguisher like a soldier wielding a light machine gun, spraying the flames with a constant stream of thick, white chemicals. Behind him moved Sandy Steele, grasping his ax. The combination that worked so well on the playing fields of their home state of California was now going into action far, far from home, and in a far more serious cause. But it was working just as well! Choking, sputtering, staggering, all but blinded, Sandy Steele charged to the reddish blur he could see a few feet ahead of him in the smoke. Waves of heat rolled against his body and he felt himself going weak. But he lowered his head and struck on. Once, a tongue of flame seemed about to gather in volume and leap toward him from the roaring chopping-block. Just in time, a jet of thick white liquid streamed out toward it and smothered it before it could get started. Good old Jerry, Sandy thought. At last, he had made it to within a few feet of the burning table! It was as close as he dared go. Without hesitation, Sandy Steele raised his ax and brought it down, hard. Crash! The table seemed to sway. Sandy raised his arms again, wondering if he would have the strength for another blow. He was thoroughly sick, now—nauseated by that sickening, grease-laden smoke. The effort of his first mighty stroke had all but sapped his strength. Yet, he could not falter now! He had to do it! One more stroke would slice through the remaining wood. Calling upon all his reserves, Sandy Steele rocked backward on his heels, rose on his toes and brought the ax down upon the wood. It was a blow that rang out even above the roar of the flames! Even the weary men gathered in the passageway could hear it. And it severed the table from the thick bolt that had held it to the bulkhead. Sandy Steele jumped back just in time. With a loud crash and a flashing of sparks and a shooting of flames, the table fell toward him. The momentum of Sandy’s jump sent him staggering backward, off balance. That was how he emerged from the cloud of smoke that separated the excited, yelling crewmen from the fire inside the galley. Behind Sandy, running low and gasping, but still clutching his fire extinguisher, came Jerry James. If someone had not caught Sandy, he would have gone sprawling. As it was, he was having difficulty keeping his legs under him. They seemed to have gone all rubbery from his ordeal. But he clenched his teeth and stayed erect, watching as the crewmen began to drag the blazing table from the galley into the direct play of massed hoses and extinguishers. It sizzled and smoked and sent off clouds of steam as though it were a small volcano, but the fire was at last put out. Then, one by one, all of the other burning articles within the galley were separated from the main body of the fire and doused. The hoses sent streams of lake water splashing against the now-smoldering and smoking bulkheads. The bucket brigade was disbanded, for it was no longer needed. And then, as Sandy Steele felt the youthful vigor of his body swiftly returning, his eyes fell on an object that he dearly wished to preserve for the eyes of Captain West. It was the rum bottle. It lay beside the stove, almost at the exact point where it had fallen from the hand of Mr. Briggs. Here was not only the cause of the fire. Here was proof of who really had started it! Sandy slipped from the support of the friendly arms that had grasped him. He bent to pick up an asbestos glove dropped by one of the crewmen. He slipped it on his right hand and walked quickly forward to retrieve the bottle. As he leaned over, he felt himself jostled aside. He nearly fell down again. A tall man stepped in front of him and swung the flat of an ax down on the bottle. He did it deliberately. He shattered the bottle into a hundred pieces. “Why did you do that?” Sandy cried, unable to hide his anger. The man in front of him turned with a wicked smile, and said, “You could have burned yourself on that, Little Lord Show-off—and you’re in enough hot water already.” It was Mr. Briggs. |
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