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Lari to keep in step, while Loren and Moran stu the belted trousers of Pitt and Giordino

"How far?" Loren gasped

"We have to climb four decks before we break out on the open promenade area," Pitt panted in reply

At the second landing they ran into a Solid wall of people The staircase beca to escape the smoke it became impossible to take another step The crew acted with coolness, atteave way to the inevitable contagion of panic, and they were tra bodies

"To the left!" Giordino shouted in Pitts ear "The passageway leads to another staircase toward the stern"

Relying on a deep trust in his little friend, Pitt veered down the passageway, pulling Lari on the sht

To their vast relief the shtened tidal wave of people thinned When at last they reached the aft staircase they found it practically e the herd instinct, Giordino had led them to temporary safety

They ee After a fewlungs with clean air, they looked in awe over the doomed ship

The Leonin Andreyev was listing twenty degrees to port Thousands of gallons of oil had spilled out into the sea and ignited The water around the jagged opening caused by the blast was atorch The tre the black, teak decks were nearly burned through and the glass in the portholes popped like gunshots

The flames spread with incredible speed as the ocean breeze fanned thee Already the coe burned to death at his radio Fire and swirling s ducts The Leonin Andreyev, like all ned and constructed to be fireproof, but no precise planning or visionary foresight could have predicted the devastating results of a fuel tank explosion that showered the ship like a flamethrower

An i cloud of oily s in the upper air currents, stretching over the ship like a pall The base of the cloud was a Solid torrent of flae and yellow

While below, in the deeper reaches of the hull, the flames were an acetylene blue-white, fed into h the shattered plates, creating the effect of a blast furnace

Though ht their way up the stairways, over a hundred lay dead below, some trapped and burned in their cabins, others overtaken by s their atte driven b

y the flames toward the stern and away from the lifeboats

All efforts by the crew to ers were finally left to fend for themselves and no one knehich way to turn All port lifeboats were ablaze, and only three were lowered on the starboard side before the fire drove the crew back As it was, one boat was beginning to burn by the time it hit the sea