He was engulfed in a dark, billowing cloud of black smoke. Visibility was almost nil. He could barely see to make his way down the passageway, deeper into the room. The air mask was cloying, uncomfortable, but it fed him lifesaving clean air and no man would last more than a minute in this thick fog.

He pushed forward, trying to find the source of the fire and the crew who should be fighting it. The smoke grew even thicker. Dmolysti dropped to his knees and felt his way forward along the walkway. After a seeming eternity in the blinding darkness, he bumped into the crewmen who were battling the blaze. Dmolysti could hardly make out the shape of one man through the smoke, but there was no way to see who it was.

He shouted to be heard through the mask, “Where is the fire?”

“In the switchboard!” the crewman shouted back. “It is turned off now, but the wiring insulation must still be burning.”

“You will have to get the cover off so you can spray the chemicals inside,” Dmolysti ordered.

“We can’t,” the sailor protested. “It’s still burning.”

Even through the smoke and haze, Dmolysti could see that the young sailor was quaking with fear. He reached out and grabbed the sailor’s fire extinguisher from him, then pushed past him and confronted the switchboard.

The normally dull gray panel glowed cherry red from the heat inside it. Smoke poured out of the vent fins. No wonder the michman couldn’t or wouldn’t open the panel. He would have burned his hands and been blasted by the flames when the panel fell free. But there wasn’t any choice. The fire had to be extinguished before it spread. If it reached the highly flammable hull insulation, the whole engine room would be engulfed. Then they would lose the sub.

Dmolysti ripped off his uniform shirt. Wrapping it around his hand, he reached out and tried to spin the nuts on the switchboard cover free. The heat was intolerable. Sweat poured from his body and then sizzled as it dripped to the deck. He kept working, jerking back his hand when the heat got too intense to bear. The nuts finally spun free. As the panel fell away from the switchboard, a blast of flames shot out, seeking air, threatening to devour anything in its way.

Dmolysti had fought submarine fires before. He ducked to the side as the panel fell away, escaping the hungry, licking blaze. He stared into the center of hell. The inside was engulfed, a roaring inferno. Molten metal dripped down from the incandescently glowing bus bars. It was so bright, Dmolysti had to shield his eyes and the heat singed his eyebrows and beard.