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.