Seawolf Mask of Command (33 page)

Forgetting all of his training and the incessant fire drills the crew had gone through since leaving Bremerton, he turned and looked for anything he might use to immediately put it out. In a frenzied panic, he grabbed a juice container filled with the flavored drink the crew drank. Darby knocked the lid off with one smooth motion then threw the contents onto the fire.

The water struck the grease, and—for a brief instant—the water seemed to smother the flames. But the water also splattered the flaming grease from the fryer onto the stainless steel bulkhead. Immediately, thick black smoke billowed upward. Darby spun around, freezing in near shock as the fire grew larger by the second. The urge to turn and run came over him, and he stepped back from the rising flames.

His training and all of the drills forgotten, he discarded procedures and simply shouted—or thought he did—“Fire!”

Kristen started awake from her dream, the same dream she’d been having over and over again for nearly three weeks, and rubbed her tired eyes. She looked up, opening her eyes and noticed a strange light coming through the small circular window in the hatch leading directly to the galley. She was still half asleep, but the orange glow was strangely familiar, reminding her of sitting around a campfire with her father and listening to him tell ….

Kristen bolted from her chair and sprang over the table, instantly awake and alert as adrenaline surged through her veins. She burst through the swinging galley door as her senses, now fully alert, recognized the danger. She could smell smoke as she went through the door and could feel the heat off to her left. She turned and saw nearly half the galley in flames. She raised her left arm to protect her face from the searing heat already reaching her. At the same time, she reached for a ship’s phone on the bulkhead.

“Chief of the watch,”
she heard a bored voice on the other end.

“Fire! Fire in the galley! This is no drill!” she nearly shouted into the receiver before dropping the phone and turning toward the flame. A CO2 extinguisher was less than ten feet away, but the flames were too large for a single CO2 bottle. The fire was already licking the overhead pipes and electrical conduit. Plus, it would take several minutes before a firefighting team might arrive, and by then the entire Wolf’s Den would be completely involved.

The alarm claxon sounded nearby, adding a deafening whine to the chaos as Kristen realized what she had to do. She saw, cowering in a far corner, a terrified seaman who was fumbling with an Emergency Air Breather hood and mask.

The heat singed her left arm, and she was forced back against the bulkhead. Every instinct within her was screaming for her to run. But she resisted the urge. Her heart was thundering in her chest as she willed her fear aside. Then, retreating no further, she took a final deep breath and leapt forward into the flames.

COB was moving through crew berthing on his way forward to the Goat Locker, when he heard the alarm claxon. He hadn’t been briefed on another drill, but wouldn’t put it past Brodie to run an unscheduled practice at any time. Brodie had always been big on drilling the crew for the obvious reasons but also to keep the men busy and help time go by faster.

“Fire! Fire! Fire!”
he heard the chief of the watch’s frantic voice over the 1MC. COB knew in an instant this was no drill. There was panic in the voice blaring over the 1MC.
“Fire in the galley! This is no drill! Away the firefighting detail! All hands man quarters! Set condition Zebra throughout the ship!”

COB was nearly tackled by a covey of sailors leaping from the bunks around him. He bulled his way forward, heading in the direction of the Wolf’s Den. Nothing frightened submariners more than a fire, especially a fire when they were eleven hundred feet below the surface and thousands of miles from the nearest fire station. In their tiny little world, a fire could use up all the available oxygen in just a few minutes, not to mention potentially damage the submarine to the point she couldn’t surface.

COB saw a group of three seamen grabbing Oxygen Breathing Apparatuses. Called OBA’s, these were hoods connected by a hose to a canister containing potassium superoxide which converted spent CO2 back into oxygen. The OBAs would allow them to breath even in the smoke caused by a fire. COB grabbed an OBA, then raced forward toward the galley.

As he entered the passageway, he saw the smoke emanating from the Wolf’s Den, verifying that this was no drill. He’d just reached the passageway when he nearly stumbled and fell as the
Seawolf’s
deck pitched violently upward.

They were now racing for the surface. COB knew this was standard procedure in a fire. Brodie had ordered the
Seawolf
to the surface where they could ventilate if need be and, if necessary, battle the blaze there.

COB came upon the rapid-response fire team consisting of three men. Two were already handling a hose and advancing into the Wolf’s Den, and a third man was holding a searchlight shaped device called a NIFTI and directing the other two. The NIFTI was a handheld infrared thermal imaging device that allowed the user to spot hot spots in the smoke as well as casualties.

COB reached the team of nervous sailors, recognizing the fact that these three had probably never fought a real fire. “Move! Move! Move!” he ordered, driving them forward into the smoke-filled mess deck. “Who do I have on the NIFTI?” he barked to be heard through the OBA hood.

“Gameroz, COB!” came the muffled reply.

COB knew Gameroz to be quick with his fists, but a solid sailor and was glad it was him and not one of the new men handling the NIFTI. “What do you got, kid?” he asked.

The team had entered the aft end of the Wolf’s Den. The two men with the hose were crouched down and stayed in close physical contact with Gameroz so as not to be separated in the thick smoke. The hose was held at the ready, and, at Gameroz’s direction, they would unleash a flood of Aqueous Film-Forming Foam, or AFFF. The foam was standard on all US Navy vessels. It would not only extinguish any hydrocarbon fire such as a grease fire, it would also—at the same time—coat all surfaces with an aqueous film preventing oxygen reaching the hot surfaces and potentially starting the fire up again.

“The fire’s out, COB!” Gameroz reported. “But the galley is still red hot!”

“Hose it down anyway!” COB ordered as he advanced with the team. As they moved, they came across someone lying on the floor. Smoke had filled the space, but COB also recognized what looked like a white cloud of thick dust spreading from the galley. Someone had managed to pull the Halon fire suppression system in the galley, explaining why the fire was out.

COB took a handheld radio from Gameroz, as the capable petty officer directed the hose team who gave the entire galley a liberal dousing with AFFF. “DC Central, this is COB. I’m with the rapid response team, and we’ve reached the galley. The fire is out, but we have at least one casualty, over.”

COB reached down and recognized Seaman Darby choking and gasping for air. Part of standard shipboard firefighting procedures was to seal every compartment, establishing what was known as Condition Zebra throughout the ship. Additionally, to prevent the air-conditioning system from feeding the flames with fresh oxygen, the ventilation system was also shut down. This would, in effect, seal off every space, and hopefully, any fire would be smothered for lack of oxygen. This was the case in the Wolf’s Den, and now with the Halon cloud spreading and basically absorbing all the oxygen in the air, Darby was in real danger of suffocating to death for a lack of oxygen.

“Roger, COB.”
He recognized the XO’s steady voice. Graves was the submarine’s damage control officer.
“The Relief team is formed and moving to support you. I’m dispatching a medical team to your location, over.”

The Relief Team was a second team of sailors, dressed in fire-retardant suits and with more experience and training in battling fires. They would arrive in a few seconds, but the medical team might take a bit longer. COB grabbed an Emergency Breathing Apparatus from a locker in the Wolf’s Den and pulled it over Darby’s head.

He was still conscious and immediately began pointing toward the galley. “She’s in there,” Darby gasped as he pointed toward the smoke-filled galley.

COB turned toward the galley. He could no longer see any of it because of the cloud of smoke and Halon which had reduced visibility to near zero. Realizing they might have another casualty—and just who it might be—COB felt the adrenaline surge he’d experienced when the first alarm had sounded double. He suppressed the urge to panic, and rejoined Gameroz and his team. “Advance!” he ordered. The team stayed tightly packed, with Gameroz holding the NIFTI in front of him. With the NIFTI, the Petty Officer could see right through the thick clouds.

“We got a man in there,” COB shouted to be heard through his mask. “Hose that fucking place down!”

Immediately, the firefighting team unleashed another barrage of foam, and soon the galley was covered in it. They reached the galley a few seconds later, but through the thick smoke and cloud of Halon dust, COB could barely see the blue coveralls of the men he was holding onto.

“Man down! Man down!” Gameroz shouted, his voice muffled as it came through the OBA.

“Advance, dammit!” COB ordered.

He felt his heart pounding wildly in his chest as they moved forward. Despite his desire to race into the cloud of Halon and smoke, he knew he had to stay calm and think clearly. Only the NIFTI could show if there were still flames in the galley, and the last thing they needed at the moment was another casualty, which would surely happen if he lost his cool.

“COB!” Gameroz called to him.

COB moved forward, feeling his way along the galley wall, which was blistering hot to the touch. He then reached Gameroz and the casualty. COB found Kristen in a corner on the floor. She was rolled up in a ball, her bare arms covering her head.

“Lieutenant!” he shouted as he reached for her, but there was no response.

“All right, let’s get her the hell out of here!” COB ordered and helped Gameroz pick her up. COB could barely make her slender form out in the smoke, but he knew it was her. He carried her out of the galley as the Relief Team arrived.

“Corpsman!” he shouted into the smoke that engulfed the Wolf’s Den. He then reached for his radio. “DC Central, we have a medical emergency in the galley,” he reported. “We have a casualty in need of immediate medivac, over.”

“Roger, COB,”
came the curt reply.
“The Medical Response team is on its way.”

“Negative, XO, she needs to go right now. I can carry her, but we need to get her out of here immediately, over,” COB reported urgently. “The fire is out, and both firefighting parties are on station. Request permission to evacuate the casualties now, over.”

COB knew that until the XO was certain the fire was out, he wouldn’t allow Condition Zebra to be broken by unsealing hatches to allow freedom of movement all the way to sickbay. For all they knew, there were still secondary fires smoldering somewhere in the galley just waiting for a breath of oxygen to reignite. Thus, there was a long pause while the XO checked with the firefighting party. COB waited, anxiously feeling Kristen’s throat for a pulse.

“COB you’re cleared to break Zebra to evacuate your casualties once the reflash watch is posted, over.”
It would be the reflash team’s job to make certain the fire didn’t start back up once fresh oxygen came back into the space.

COB picked up Kristen, catching a brief glimpse of her face and one arm. She’d been burned, but she was also covered in AFFF, and he couldn’t tell the extent of her injuries. “Gameroz, lead me out of here!” he ordered, grimacing at the thought it might already be too late. The possibility she might be dead, or at the very least badly hurt caused a lump to form in his throat. She was a good officer, young and inexperienced, but she was exactly the kind of officer he liked. She listened to good advice, and was able to recognize bullshit when she saw it. Not to mention, she was one of the hardest workers he’d seen in a long time.

“She’s not breathing,” COB announced a minute later as he burst into sickbay and laid Kristen on the table. Now out of the smoke, he got a good look at her. Under the copious amounts of AFFF, they could see the burns on the exposed skin of her left arm and what looked like more burns on her face.

Reed immediately checked her airway and then spoke to an assistant. “We need to bag her,” Reed snapped. A second later Reed tore the plastic packaging off a BVM Resuscitator and placed it over her nose and mouth, then directed and assistant to take over while he resumed his assessment. The BVM would allow them to force oxygen into her lungs similar to a machine ventilator in an operating room.

“How close was she to the Halon canisters when they discharged?” Reed asked as he checked her pulse and glanced toward the Automated External Defibrillator (AED) on the bulkhead.

“Right under the fuckin’ thing,” COB explained. “The galley was fully involved. It looks like she went in and triggered the Halon suppression system,” COB answered in a clear voice after having removed his OBA.

Darby was brought in, but other than coughing some, he looked stable and Reed directed him to take a seat.

“How about the burns, Doc?” COB asked, watching as Reed and his men began clearing away the foam so they could properly assess her.

“Looks like she’s got some first and second degree on her arms and hands,” he replied as he grabbed a pair of bandage scissors. “The same on her neck and face, but I don’t see any third degree yet.”

“How bad is she?” COB asked.

“A little bit faster,” Reed ordered his assistant who was handling the Resuscitator before answering COB. “I don’t know yet,” Reed admitted. He was about to cut her coveralls off, when she started coughing under the resuscitator.

“Oh, thank God,” COB whispered in relief. “Doc?” he asked, wanting to know what he thought.

“It’s hard to say, COB,” Reed replied. “A lung full of Halon is some nasty shit,” he explained.