“No, sir, no. He didn’t do anything, sir, he wasn’t even in the engine room when it happened, sir.”

“Then what about him, sailor?”

“He, errr, he jumped in to the room after it happened, sir.” said Julian, still unable to believe the man had done it. “He activated the door seals then jumped in as the door closed, sir. That was a couple of minutes ago, sir. I’m afraid the door seals haven’t deactivated yet, and the intercom is silent.”

The captain stared at him, trying to understand why someone would jump into an engine room on fire as the doors sealed. It was insane. Were any of them still alive? Was his hull intact?

He needed to get into that room.

He needed to get in there now.

Where was the fucking chief engineer?

* * *

“Is he awake, Doctor?” asked the engineering officer at the door to the ship’s infirmary.

After Bill Shadley had arrived on-scene, he had checked from the outside that the sprinkler system had activated, then manually released the door seals, ready to seal them again if the fire was somehow still burning.

The dry suck of air as the room had equalized had been only momentary. Inside they had found three unconscious sailors clasping fire extinguishers, both they and the entire room covered with retardant foam from the sprinkler system above.

The lieutenant was not among them, and it was only when they looked down the blackened side of the port engine that they had found his also unconscious body lying next to the open sprinkler control panel.

The unconscious sailors had awoken quickly with smelling salts, each of them immediately asking after the young officer. The captain and engineer had listened in astonishment as they had heard about the explosion, the ensuing grease fire and the sprinkler’s failure to activate, and the lieutenant’s response. And then they had both stared in mute respect at the still slack Lieutenant Hunt as he was carried from the room, the sailors recounting again the way he had leapt into the fire to activate the fire retardant system manually.

* * *

Now, two hours later, the chief engineer was back visiting the boy in the ship’s infirmary. The captain and he had stopped by earlier but John had remained unconscious. It was a calculated choice, compounding the sympathy and respect he had planned to glean from the entire façade.

“Yes, sir, astonishingly he seems to be fine.” said the doctor. “I don’t know how many young officers actually wear that god-awful retardant engine room uniform, but it appears to have worked far better than I would have thought possible. Hardly a scratch on him. He’s a lucky boy.”

“Luck be damned,” said the engineer sternly, stepping past the doctor, “the other survivors are lucky, this boy’s a bloody hero.”