“Fire!” Dave yelped, and snapped out of his trance. “Something’s going up close to the flare compartment!”
Even as Dave spoke the words he was in full action. With a single sweep of his hand he grabbed one of the many placed special fire extinguishers down off the galley wall, and bounded forward. He was but a few steps from the yellow smoke curling up from under the locker door when suddenly a sharp explosion blew the door off its metal hinges. Instantly the whole interior of that part of the bomber was filled with flashing light and acrid yellow smoke that choked and clogged up his throat.
Instinctively Dave dropped flat on the compartment catwalk with the extinguisher thrust out in front of him. Yellow smoke now swirled all about him. It was in his mouth, his nose, and in his eyes. It smarted and stung like the pain of a whip lash. He couldn’t see. He could only feel. And he felt as though he had suddenly been plunged through the wide open door of a roaring blast furnace. He also felt somebody behind grab his feet and start to drag him backward, but he kicked savagely and got his feet free.
“Don’t!” he heard his own voice, which came to him as a faint whisper. “I’m okay. Got to put that out. If it reaches the flare compartment we’ll go up like the Fourth of July!”
As he gasped and panted out the words, he worked the fire extinguisher furiously. For a couple of seconds it seemed that he must be pumping the fire-smothering liquid right out a bomber port. The hissing rose to a roar, and puddles of white and blue flame seemed to come sweeping along the catwalk toward Dave. The heat on his face and hands was terrific. The skin all over his body seemed to shrivel up and curl. But he clenched his teeth and pumped harder.
Maybe it was a few seconds, or maybe it was a few years, before the pools of blue-white flame started to fall back and simmer down to a weird glow. That he was gaining on it filled Dave with new strength. He wiggled up onto his knees, sprayed the fire-smothering liquid for all he was worth, and went creeping forward little by little. The blue-white flames on the catwalk died out completely, and Dave raised the nose of the extinguisher and sprayed the walls on both sides of the compartment. It was not until he got to his feet that he realized that Freddy was at his side pumping away with an extinguisher of his own, and that the Flight Engineer was right behind them spraying his fire killer over their shoulders.
And then finally all signs of live flames were gone. There was nothing but thin choking smoke, and a whole section of the interior of the bomber black and charred by flame. The char marks reached to a point no more than four inches from the flare lockers, and there they stopped abruptly. Dave stopped pumping, lowered his extinguisher and reached for one of the compartment ports to shove it open and let some of the acrid smoke escape. He missed the port, however. Things spun furiously for a moment. When they stopped spinning he was slumped down on his knees, and Freddy and the Flight Engineer were bending over him anxiously.
“You all right, Dave?” Freddy asked. “You’d have cracked your head a fine one, if I hadn’t caught you in time.”
“Knew you’d be right there, pal, so I didn’t worry,” Dave said with a grin and got to his feet. “Boy! That was something while it lasted, huh? Darnedest fire I ever saw.”
“Thank God, and you, Dawson, it didn’t reach the flare compartment!” the Flight Engineer said fervently. “That would have meant curtains for this baby—and us.”