Illuminated by the ocean of lights from the ship, they saw billowing clouds of thick smoke and tongues of flame gushing through melted and smashed ports and windows on the decks below. The sight was dazzling as well as terrifying. Only then did panic begin to mushroom. It became total when the first of the passengers to reach the boat deck found themselves facing a wall of fire.
Dr. Egan had led his daughter into the nearest elevator and taken it to the observation deck on the upper section of the superstructure where they could get an overall view of the ship. His worst fears were confirmed when he saw the conflagration rolling from amidships seven decks below. From his vantage point, he could also see the blaze eating along both decks where the lifeboats were mounted in their davits. On the stern, the crew was feverishly throwing canisters containing life rafts into the sea, where they were ejected and automatically inflated. The scene struck Egan as something from a Monty Python sketch. The crew did not seem to consider that the ship was still moving at cruise speed, and the empty rafts were soon left floating far in the wake of the ship.
Ashen-faced and stunned at what he'd seen, he spoke sharply to Kelly. "Go down to the open cafe on B Deck and wait there."
Dressed only in a halter and shorts, Kelly asked, "Aren't you coming?"
"I must retrieve my papers from my stateroom. You go ahead. I'll be along in a few minutes."
The elevators were jammed, overloaded with people from the decks below. There was no way they could descend from the observation deck, so Kelly and her father had to fight their way down the stairwells among hordes of frightened passengers. The mob poured into every passage and companionway, every elevator, like termites in a mound under attack by an aardvark. People who lived responsible and disciplined lives had suddenly become pitiful rabble overcome with the fear of death. Some stumbled blindly, without knowing where they were going. Many walked in a daze, bewildered by the pandemonium. Men cursed, women screamed. The drama was rapidly turning into a scene from Dante's Inferno.
The crew, the officers, stewards and stateroom stewardesses, all did their best to control the general chaos. But it was a lost cause. Without the haven of the lifeboats, there was no place for anyone to go but over the side into the water. The crew and officers moved about the frightened throng, checking that their life vests were worn properly and assuring them that rescue ships were on the way.
It was a forlorn hope. Still in paralysis, Sheffield had yet to send out a Mayday call. The chief radio operator had run from the radio room three times and asked him if he should send a Mayday and contact all ships in the area, but Sheffield had failed to act.
In a few minutes, it would be too late. The flames were less than fifty feet from the radio room.
Kelly Egan struggled through the madness to the open cafe on B Deck at the stern of the Emerald Dolphin, and found it already crowded with passengers milling around. They looked lost and dazed. Here, there were no ship's officers to maintain calm. People were coughing from the smoke that was swirling around the ship, blown by the wind that fanned over the stern while the ship still forged ahead at twenty-four knots.
Miraculously, most of the passengers had escaped death in their staterooms, having calmly left before the flames had closed off the corridors, stairways and elevators. At first they'd refused to take the disaster seriously, but anxiety had soon run high after they found the lifeboats unapproachable. The officers and crew had showed exceptional courage by herding everyone to the stern decks where they could congregate temporarily free of the flames.
Entire families were there: fathers, mothers and children, many still in their pajamas. A few of the children were whining in terror, while others enjoyed it as a big game until they saw the fear in their parents' eyes. Women with disheveled hair in bathrobes stood amid others who had refused to be rushed and had put on makeup, dressed stylishly and carried handbags. Men were in a variety of casual dress. Several wore sport coats over Bermuda shorts. Only one young couple came prepared to jump. They were wearing their swimsuits. But the one thing they all had in common was a fear of
death.
Kelly pushed her way through the throng until she reached the railing, then hung on to it in a death grip. It was still dark as she stared down at the whirling foam churned by the ship's propellers. In the predawn darkness under the ship's floodlights, the wake was visible for two hundred yards. Beyond, the black sea blended into the black horizon still quilted with stars. She wondered why the ship did not stop.
A woman was moaning hysterically, "We'll be burned alive. I don't want to die in a fire." Before anyone could stop her, she climbed over the rail and jumped into the sea. Stunned faces watched as she sank. All they caught was a fleeting glimpse of her head when it bobbed to the surface before she became lost in the darkness.
Kelly began to fear for her father. She was contemplating going back to their staterooms to look for him when he reappeared, carrying a brown leather case. "Oh, Dad," she cried. "I was afraid I'd lost you."
"It's bedlam, absolute bedlam," he gasped, short of breath, his face flushed. "It's like a herd of cattle stampeding around in circles."
"What can we do?" she asked anxiously. "Where can we go?"
"In the water," answered Egan. "It's our only hope to stay alive as long as we can." He looked solemnly into his daughter's eyes. They sparkled like blue sapphires when the light hit them just right. He would never help marveling at how much she looked like her mother, Lana, at the same age. Their height and weight and body shapes were identical: both tall, finely contoured, with the near-perfect proportions of models. Kelly's long, straight, maple-sugar brown hair framing a strong face with high cheekbones, sculptured lips and perfect nose were a mirror image, too. The only difference between mother and daughter was the suppleness of their arms and legs. Kelly was the more athletic, while her mother had been soft and graceful. Both
Kelly and her father had been devastated when Lana had died after a long battle with breast cancer. Now, as he stood there on the burning ship, his heart felt an indescribable heaviness at realizing that Kelly's own life was in dire jeopardy of being cut short.
She smiled at him gamely. "At least we're in the tropics and the water will be warm enough for a swim."
He squeezed her shoulders, and then looked down into the sea that was rushing past the great hull nearly fifty feet below. "There's no reason to jump until the ship stops," he said. "We'll wait until the absolute last minute before we go over. There are bound to be ships coming to rescue us."
On the bridge, First Officer Sheffield gripped the bridge rail and stared at the red glow reflecting on the waves like a kaleidoscope. The whole midships were ablaze, with flames pouring out like fiery rivers through the ports and windows that had burst open from the intense heat. He could hear the groan of protest from the mighty cruise ship as she succumbed. It seemed inconceivable that before another hour would pass, the Emerald Dolphin, the pride of the Blue Seas Cruise Lines, would be a burned-out hulk, drifting dead and aimless on a turquoise sea. His mind had long ago shut down to any thoughts concerning the lives of the 2,500 passengers and crew.
He gazed unseeing over the darkened sea. If there were lights from other ships, he was blind to them. He was still standing there when McFerrin burst onto the bridge. The second officer's face was blackened, his uniform scorched, his eyebrows and much of his hair singed away. He grabbed Sheffield by the shoulder and roughly swung him around.
"The ship is maintaining cruising speed directly into the wind. The fire's being fed like a giant bellows. Why haven't you given orders for her to stop?"
"That's the captain's prerogative."
"Where is Captain Waitkus?"
"I don't know," Sheffield said vaguely. "He went away and never came back."
"Then he must have died in the fire." McFerrin saw that it was useless trying to communicate with his superior. He grabbed the phone and called down to the chief engineer. "Chief, this is McFerrin. Captain Waitkus is dead. The fire is beyond our control. Shut down the engines and get your men topside. You can't exit amidships, so you'll have to make your way to either the bow or the stern. Do you understand?"
"The fire is really that bad?" asked Chief Engineer Raymond Garcia dumbly.