Captain Malcolm Nevins, master of the Collins and West Shipping Lines containership Earl of Wattlesfield, sat in an elevated swivel chair with his feet propped on the bridge counter and contemplated the radar screen. Just ten minutes earlier, the burning ship was in visual contact, but then the storm closed in with phenomenal swiftness and the accompanying deluge had curtained off all view. With an air of practiced indifference, he eased a platinum cigarette case from his pants pocket, lifted out a Dunhill and placed it between his lips. Incongruously, he lit the expensive cigarette with an old scratched and dented Zippo lighter that he had carried since serving in the Royal Navy during the war of the Falklands.

Nevins's ruddy features, usually humorous and pleated, were set in concentration; his limpid gray eyes squinting and uneasy. He wondered what kind of hell he was about to find. The radio reports from the American survey vessel were morbid with descriptions of over two thousand people trying to escape the blazing cruise ship. In all his thirty years at sea, he could not recall a disaster of such magnitude.

"There," shouted his first officer, Arthur Thorndyke, pointing ahead off the starboard bow through the bridge windshield.

The falling sheets of rain parted for a minute, as though they were drapes, revealing the blazing cruise ship enshrouded by smoke and steam. "Engines on SLOW," Nevins ordered.

"Aye, sir."

"Are the boat crews standing by?" asked Nevins, as the huge liner materialized out of the downpour.

"Boat crews standing by and ready to lower away," answered Thorndyke. "I must say, I don't envy them floating on a sea with twelve-foot swells."

"We'll lay to as close as we can to save them time and distance between ships." He picked up a pair of binoculars and peered at the water around the cruise ship. "I don't see anyone swimming, and there is no sign of lifeboats."

Thorndyke nodded at the torched remains of the ship's lifeboats. "Nobody left the ship in those."

Nevins stiffened, his mind picturing a blazing hulk carrying thousands of dead. "The loss of life must be horrendous," he said darkly.

"I don't see the American survey vessel."

Nevins read the situation instantly. "Come around the ship. The Americans must be on her sheltered side."

The Earl of Wattlesfield lumbered steadily through the chaotic waters, as if disregarding all dire threats from the sea and daring the elements to throw their best at her. At 68,000 tons, she was more than a city block long and her decks were piled several stories high with boxed units filled with freight. For ten years she had sailed every ocean in the world through every kind of sea without losing one container or one life. She was considered a lucky ship, especially by her owners, who had profited millions of pounds from her reliable service.

After this day she would become as famous as the Carpathia, the ship that had rescued the Titanic survivors.