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Logic was telling hiuaranteed that the ship would reroup of two coe reports froht doors, and ordered an SOS sent out with the ship's position

Officers rushed back to the bridge with da the starboard coet it out The boiler roo into two more compartments

The problem was at A Deck, supposed to serve as a steel lid over the transverse bulkheads that divided the ship into coer stairways into the other compartments

The officer called out the new reading "Twentytwo degrees"

Captain Calamai didn't have to look at the

inclinometer to know the list had, passed the point where it could be corrected The evidence was in the slant of the chartlittered floor right at his feet

The ship was dying

He was nurief The Andrea Doria was not just any ship The twentyninenificent and luxurious passenger vessel afloat Barely four years old, it was launched to show the world that the Italian raceful black hull and white superstructure, the rakish red, white, and green funnel, the liner looked more like the work of a sculptor than a marine architect

Moreover, this was his ship He had commanded the Doria on her trial runs and in a hundred Atlantic crossings He knew her decks better than the roo from one end to the other, like a spectator in ain the work of thirtyone of Italy's finest artists and artisans, glorying in the Renaissance beauty of the ilt, crystal, rare woods, fine tapestries, and mosaics Surrounded by the elo and other Italian e before the massive bronze statue of Andrea Doria, second only to Colureatness The old Genoese admiral stood ready as always to draw his sword at the first sign of a Barbary pirate

All this was about to be lost

The passengers were the captain's first responsibility He was about to give the order to abandon ship when an officer reported on the lifeboat situation The lifeboats on the port side were unlaunchable That left eight boats on the starboard side They were hanging far out over the water Even if they could be lunched, there was rooive the order to abandon ship Panicstricken passengers would rush to the port side, and there'd be chaos

He prayed that passing ships had heard their SOS and could find the

There was nothing he could do but wait

Angelo Donatelli had just delivered a trayful oftheir last night aboard the Doria when he glanced toward one of the draped s that tookup three walls of the elegant Belvedere Lounge Soht his eye

The lounge was on thefront _ of the boat deck, with its open prohts firstclass passengers noriven up trying to see anything through the soft gray wall that enclosed the lounge It was only duhts and rails of a big white ship