Hell's Gate (35 page)

The deckhand and the first mate rushed to the hose a moment after Mike and Ginny got there. A deckhand pulled the hose toward the fire, unwittingly kinking it in a dozen places. Mike watched as they turned the valve and the hose writhed and filled. But at every kink, the hose became bloated, the water pressure so strong it created an instant series of choke points, while the nozzle at the other end dribbled uselessly.

Mike and the others tried to straighten the hose, but the dried-out linen burst in a half dozen places, spraying water everywhere. A second later, the hose burst from the coupling to the valve. The fire had now started to burst out the lamp room door and flames could be seen flashing in the acrid smoke.

“Get to the boats!” the first mate shouted, all attempts at fire fighting abandoned. Mike stood, drenched by the burst hoses, the men around him running. Mike was no mariner, but he'd seen the condition of the lifeboats. Countless coats of paint had all but glued them in place. He stood with Ginny, trying to decide what to do when the screaming commenced.

Up on the hurricane deck, just below the pilothouse, far above the fire, a boy came running up the stairs from the decks below, and yelled up to the captain, “Hey, mister! The ship's on fire!” The stairway nearest the lamp room acted like a chimney, drawing the smoke and fire up from below, but there was not yet any sign of smoke on the upper decks.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time the captain had heard words like those. Excursion cruises were often full of mischievous boys willing to try anything on a dare. Not once had such a warning proven real and he was sure that this time was no exception. “Get the hell out of here and mind your own business,” he growled.

Jack regained consciousness with a searing pain in his legs. His pants were on fire and he rolled and swatted at them amid the burning straw, grunting and cursing in panic. Frantic, he struggled to his feet despite his broken leg. The temperature at the ceiling was by then well more than 1,500 degrees and his hair burst into flame, followed an instant later by his clothes. He staggered toward the door, fire in his eyes. They shriveled in their sockets and his lungs cooked with his last breaths, seared from the inside out. He screamed and staggered—a human torch—no longer seeing where he was going. He ran into a wall, knocking himself unconscious—a small blessing as his flesh bubbled under the flames.

Ice cream was being served on the main deck, one level above the lamp room. Children from all over the boat were converging on the refreshment stand when a sudden eruption of flame caught a group of mothers and children, who had been watching the huge Fletcher engine thunder and thump. Clothes ablaze, they ran out of the engine room and into the area where the ice cream was being served, fire following them in hungry gulps, swallowing those who had fallen and panicking the rest.

Mike and Ginny had taken the stairs to the promenade deck two levels above the fire. They tried not to feed the panic of the growing catastrophe below, the sounds of the commotion and the shouting drowned out by the rushing wind and the intervening decks. They held each other silently, side by side, as they passed Wards Island. “They'll ground the ship, maybe after we pass Hell's Gate,” Mike said, pointing to the channel they were passing through, where the East River and the Long Island Sound met. “We'll be safe. We'll get off. Don't worry.”

“But, Mike, the fire spread so fast!”

A black billow of smoke caught Mike's attention, an ugly cloud rising from the forward stair. “They're burning the chowder again,” someone joked in the crowd, prompting a round of nervous laughter.

“Ginny, come with me, hurry,” he said, moving forward on the promenade deck as far toward the bow as they could get. The dread in his eyes was as horrifying to Ginny as any amount of smoke.

A piercing shriek, carrying up from somewhere below, cut through the crowd's denial, a hot knife of terror, severing all attempts at calm. The crowd erupted, mothers scrambling, shouting the names of their children and relatives. There was no order, no direction from the crew, nothing to stem the tide of panic that suddenly gripped the passengers. Infants screamed, old people and young were knocked to the deck, everyone was running in different directions.

The smoke had started to obscure the deck and people seemed to materialize from the swirling haze only to disappear again. It was clear though that the forward momentum of the ship was pushing the smoke toward the stern.

“The children!” Ginny shouted to Mike above the clamor of hundreds of running feet, shouts, and screams.

Mike stood, uncertain what to do. The idea of joining the panicked mob sent a chill through him. And leaving Ginny with the Bottler still somewhere on the ship was a terrible risk. All around people who had been laughing, chatting, and playing in the sunshine moments before were now fighting over life vests, pulling them from overhead racks, snatching them from outstretched hands, tying them on children. “Gin, they could be anywhere.”

“But, Mike.”

“Ginny, I don't want to lose you again!” Mike shouted. “I won't. Understand? No matter what happens, we go together. We'll need to get down to the main deck, where we can jump off easier. Come on!”

Ginny nodded, wide-eyed, but resolute.

They fought their way down the stairs to the main deck while everyone was scrambling to go up, Mike elbowing his way through the knots of frantic passengers. The heat on the stairs was building, the smoke so thick and choking they had to feel their way, holding their breath. At the bottom they saw the flames, leaping from the stairs at the opposite side of the ship, mushrooming to the ceiling and spreading in waves, an inverted ocean of fire. A woman, her hair and dress engulfed in flame, ran past them with a screaming infant in her arms and disappeared over the side. They tripped over prostrate forms on the deck, people trampled in the panic, some moaning and incoherent, some silent. They hesitated, wanting to help, but a glance at the raging beast at their backs pushed them forward. Mike felt the
Slocum
shudder, the engine advancing into a full gallop, vibrating the deck beneath their feet.

“C'mon, the captain's gonna beach her!”

They ran forward, but were stopped by a huge knot of people trying to pull life vests from a storage area in the ceiling. Held up by strong wire mesh and painted countless times, the wires would not budge. Mike let go of Ginny's hand and jumped up, catching hold of the wire. He hung, kicking and jerking, until his fingers bled and his arms felt like they'd pull from their sockets. Finally the wire ripped away, dumping a heap of life vests on the floor. The mob fell on them with a ferocity unlike anything he had ever seen. Women gouged and tore at each other, men punched and kicked and literally threw women and children aside. Mike saw a woman tear a life vest off a child to put it on her own. A man, flailing wildly, grabbed an armful before disappearing into the smoke. But one thing was immediately clear—the vests were mostly useless, the fabric moldy and rotten. Often the vests tore open or the belts and buckles pulled away. Clouds of cork dust spilled from them, powdering the deck. Mike grabbed one anyway and managed to get it on Ginny as they moved forward to the bow, where the wind whipped the smoke away.

“Ginny, we might have to swim!” he shouted over the tumult. “Can you swim? Ginny?”

She was almost unable to respond. The horrors they'd witnessed in the space of just a few minutes left her numb, speechless. She knew that if Mike had not been there, she'd have gone mad like the rest and even now in the relative shelter of the bow, she felt like screaming. “A little,” she said at last before covering her eyes. Looking back over Mike's shoulder she could see the flames like a wall now from one side of the boat to the other. She watched as a woman, frantic and screaming for her children, dashed into the flames and disappeared, while others, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups, began to jump over the side to the cold death offered by the river.

A keening wail rose from the
Slocum
, the pain and despair of 1,300 souls. It went out over the water to either shore. They could see tugs, launches, rowboats, and pleasure craft racing toward them, but the
Slocum
did not slow. The increased speed fanned the flames, pushing them back toward the stern. The cries from the back of the vessel cut through the veil of fire.

“Esther and the kids!” Ginny shouted.

Ginny almost started to run off, but Mike stopped her. “Gin, you have to stay here! Please, you have to! I'll never find you otherwise.” He looked at the wall of smoke and fire, knowing that there was no possibility of getting through it. There were well more than a hundred people around them, all in frantic motion, searching for loved ones and children, fighting over useless life vests, some jumping overboard or hanging from the railings over the side of the ship. Esther and her children could have been within feet of them and not be seen. Nevertheless they searched through the crowd, meeting within a minute at the bow with no results. “Ginny, stay here! Promise me you'll stay. It's the safest place. When the captain grounds the boat it'll probably be bow in, so the water'll be shallow. Just hang on. I'll be back.”

But Mike couldn't leave. The terror in Ginny's eyes had him holding her tight and he couldn't let go. She was shaking, her whole body trembling. He encircled her in the muscled cocoon of his arms, but he knew in his heart there was little he could do to keep her safe. He felt the best he could do was to share her fate, and hope. “I can't leave you, Gin. I'm sorry, but I just can't.”

She pulled back a little. “Mike,” she said in as calm a voice as she could muster, “I'll be all right. I'll stay right here. I know you'll come back for me, so I won't move. Okay? But those kids and Esther, they have nobody here, Mike, nobody to save them, not like I have you. So you go, but make sure you come back. No matter what. And here I'll be.”

Mike didn't believe her, but he felt he had to try. What good would it do if he saved her only to lose her to regret and recrimination, to subject their bonds to a slow, acidic erosion of guilt? He'd rather die than risk that. He broke their embrace and kissed her, saying, “Promise me you'll be here. Promise me!”

“I do. I promise.”

Mike turned, unable to look at her longer. Climbing on the railing, he reached up and pulled himself up one of the many posts that supported the promenade deck above. With a heave and a kick of his feet, he disappeared.

The scene on the promenade deck was every bit as nightmarish as below, the passengers berserk with fear, the crew nowhere in sight. Life vests lay shredded on the deck, powdered cork blowing with the heat waves. He watched as mothers threw their children overboard, vests strapped tight. Hardly any of them came back to the surface.

Swimming, especially for women, was a rare skill. The waters of the East River were no sanctuary, life vests or no. But the river offered a less excruciating way to die, and the hope, however faint, was that someone might pluck them out of the water. Whole groups clung to the rails, the wind whipping their hair and clothes, waiting until the heat forced them to let go. Mike couldn't see the back of the boat, but knew it had to be bad, the wind blowing the flames back. He looked down the ship's side and saw dozens clinging to the side, more thrashing the water, and bodies just floating in their wake.

Mike scrambled about the deck as fast as he could, trying his best to find Esther or her children, but they were not among that mob. It seemed as though he might be able to make his way to the stern on the starboard side, where just then the smoke seemed less dense. He started in that direction, trying to blot out the scenes around him, the small knot of women and children praying on their knees, the child with her hair singed to the scalp, the people trampled underfoot, the young girl he saw standing paralyzed as a yellow eruption of flame overtook her.

But in the minute or so that had passed, the fire had broken through the deck and ate its way toward him at an alarming speed. The heat was almost unbearable. Covering his face, he was forced back, smelling his hair singe. A fresh chorus of screams erupted from the crowd. A whole section of the deck gave way and for an instant Mike could see down the gaping maw of the beast, a shimmering, writhing thing with yellow fangs and a thousand red tongues. He fell back, beating his jacket and head where he smoldered, his face felt like it was on fire, his eyebrows burned off completely.

He stumbled back toward the bow, doubting if he'd even get back to Ginny. The
Slocum
was still running at full throttle, the shoreline on either side streaking by. It was as if the captain had lost his mind, dooming them all instead of beaching the boat. Mike made his way toward the rail near the bow, looking for a way to climb back down to Ginny. But the rails were packed four and five deep and he could not bring himself to punch his way through the terrified wall of women and children as he'd seen another man do. Searching for any way down, he turned back, going to the other side and closer to the fire where the mob was thinning, the heat blistering, passengers going over the rail almost continuously. Looking back, Mike was brought up short. Little Emily was standing with her brother Josh in hand, their clothes singed, hair wild and burnt.

Mike ran to them. “Kids, where's your mom?” They couldn't answer, they just shook their heads and stared back at the advancing flames, mesmerized, in shock. “Come on,” he said and lifted them both, shoving his way toward the rail.

*   *   *

The mob around Ginny was beyond all control and reason, pressing against the railing, climbing over one another to throw themselves or their children into the river. Ginny couldn't breathe. A mass of humanity pressed her against the rail. She grew faint, the crushing weight reducing her to painful gasps as the rail bit into her ribs. Losing consciousness, her knees began to buckle, but she could not fall, held up by the screaming mass. Then with the groan of splintering wood and tearing metal, the railing gave way and she tumbled into space. She had a brief impression of the impact, thinking she'd fallen on land, the water hitting her head with surprising force. There was a moment of muffled, liquid suspension and a half lungful of water before she bobbed up, shocked and choking. She didn't see the
Slocum'
s paddlewheel bear down on her, didn't feel the flaming monster strike her and drag her under.