Henry caught sight of a young woman wearing the uniform of a WAAC nurse sliding down upside down under the feet of the mob, her face bloodied, eyes rolled upward into her head. Either she had fainted or been knocked unconscious. Or she was dead. Grown men, frothing at the mouth and shrieking curses, struck at each other with intent to kill. It was blind panic riding on the animal instinct to survive.
Far from regarding the scene calmly, Henry was visited by an instinctive desire to run through that crowd and find Uncle Andy, who always knew the answer when the chips were down. But the quivering girl beside him detained him, and her presence also made him fight to control an incipient trembling of his chin. It was as though he could smell events and the events there in the lounge had a stench of disaster, of death, of tragic newspaper headlines. You couldn't really smell such things, but Henry had no name for the strange sense that gave him a vivid impression of the total human element surrounding him.
The air hostess maintained a clear head. She ran to two high-ranking officers, one an Army Colonel and the other a Major of the Air Force.
"Do something!" she exclaimed.
Which was sufficient to arouse them from their momentary paralysis. With a look at each other, a few hurried words and quick nods of agreement, the two officers sprang into action.
"All men on B deck!" yelled the Colonel, suddenly brandishing a Service automatic. "Converge on the staircase and pull the passengers out—women first where possible!"
Henry stared curiously at the gun. He knew it did not contain ammunition. Although this ship was a MATS charter, ammunition was not allowed for sidearms on such flights.
The Major and two Army non-coms were already at the staircase, working fast.
"Come down single file, those of you on the staircase!" yelled the Major. "All others remain on A deck! No fighting, you! Move!" He was also waving a gun in the air.