Armored Cruiser Saved From Fire By Captain's Ghost

     According to reports by Emmetsburg Volunteer Fire Chief Woodrow Groghan and witnesses among the cast and audience, the trouble began when Tom Dunson, Palo Alto Operetta Workshop tenor, got carried away with the pyrotechnics he was using in his act.

     The flash-bomb, according to Chief Groghan, had a longer fuse than normal. It rolled down the steel ladder and ended up just outside of the aft magazine, whose door was unfortunately left open by one of the caretaker staff. Saluting, or, "brown" powder, as it is known, is used to fire blank charges from the ship's main guns.

     Two bags had been left unstowed very close to the open hatch, possibly by University of Emmetsburg summer volunteers. When the flash device detonated, it ignited these bags of saluting powder.

     It should be noted at this point that spontaneous combustion in the forward coal bunkers of the battleship USS Maine, ignited the saluting powder on that warship, which led to her explosion and sinking in Havana harbor on 15 February, 1898. Initially, the US Naval Board of Inquiry blamed the explosion on an underwater mine planted by Spanish extremists---which in turn ignited the Spanish-American War.

     "The next thing we knew, " said Gus Johansen, curator of the NPS administered ship, "smoke began rolling out of all the open hatchways and portholes, and then flames began shooting from the aft ventilators."

     At first, audience members thought it was just part of the show. Then part of the set and backdrop caught fire.

     "I reluctantly admit that Dunson did his best to calm the crowd," said Chief Groghan. "'Don't Panic!', he shouted. 'Women, children, and talent first!"

     The caretaker staff, most of whom are University of Emmetsburg volunteers, began swinging out the lifeboats as the cruiser was in the middle of the lake. Ian MacNeil, clad in the uniform of a late 1890's US Naval officer, stood at the davits, revolver in hand, rigidly enforcing the women and children first rule as flames belched from the ventilators and the set began going up in smoke.

     It was than that Curator Johansen noticed a disconcerting event. Although Johansen had put in a distress call to the US Coast Guard Auxiliary and Volunteer Fire Department, assuring all that help would soon be at hand, the entire below-decks U of E engineering staff erupted from the nether decks of the veteran warship, screaming in panic and rushing the life-boats. This completely overwhelmed Mr. MacNeil, who emptied his revolver (fortunately loaded with blanks), and then implored Tom Dunson for aid. Dunson responded by leading the orchestra in Nearer My God To Thee, which only served to increase the panic.

     Just when it seemed the priceless relic of the Spanish-American War looked to be lost, Fate intervened.

     "It was the strangest---damned thing I've ever seen," said Egon Witzblat, deputy in charge of the U of E volunteer black-gang that operates the mechanical-electrical systems on the cruiser. "With all the smoke billowing through the companionways, the engineering crew began to panic. They swept my assistants and I out of the way in their mad flight toward the above deck ladder."

     What happened next verges on the realm of The Twilight Zone.

     "A bearded man wearing an 1890's US Naval officer's uniform stepped through the hatch leading to the overhead ladder, right in the path of the fleeing engineering students. In their blind panic, the students probably assumed that he was one of the NPS caretakers, and tried to push by him."

     According to Witzblat, however, this proved to be no easy task. As the first grad-student rushed the uniformed man, the solitary figure withdrew from behind his back a very large Trieste salami and began beating and flailing at the fleeing mob, forcing them back with tremendous physical blows of the salami and curses and oaths such as "Back to yer stations, you black-hearted Jack-Tars! I'll keel-haul every man-jack of you rotten excuses for US Tars! You're bastardly pale shadows of scummy lubbers masquerading as United States sailors! Belay there, I say, or I'll have the lot of you up afore a drumhead captain's mast and have the Marines use your dirty hides for bayonet practice!"

     Or words to that effect.

     Todd Williams, a post-grad engineering student, is a little more certain.

     "We we were just maintaining nominal boiler pressure to keep the ship under power. The problem is, with this old ship is that she was never converted to oil in the First World War. She stayed coal-fired. It's a dirty job, recoaling her. But I have to say, as soon as the fire broke out and that smoke started billowing in, we all thought we were up the lazy river without you know what.

     'I guess my first reaction, like the rest of the black-gang, was to get the hell out of Dodge, if you know what I mean. I think I was the first out of the hatch when all the damn sudden, there was Commander O'Neil! And don't tell me it wasn't him, that bastard's put me on report with Mr. Johanson enough. I said to myself, 'To hell he's just a manifestation from the spirit world', and started to push past him, when next thing I know, 'Wha' Bamm!' I got knocked up-side the head by a big salami. Knocked me right back into the breech of the port side forward three inch gun. He stood over me and said, "Son, is that any way for one of Uncle Sam's Jolly Jack Tars to behave in a small crisis? Now then, lad, back to your station! And let's get this ship ready to fight the Dons.'

     "Well, I don't know about the others, but being cold-cocked by a Trieste salami swung by a ghost made me ready to get back and fight fire and Spaniards both."

     It was not long before order of a sorts was restored. The Volunteer Fire boat came heading out from the Lakefront Mall, followed closely by the U-3036, under the command of Korvettan-Kapitain Jurgen "Eisenaugen" Wassergott, staffed by patrons of McNammara's Band, coming to the rescue of the threatened shipping.

     Soon, order was restored aboard the Borealis. All the audience and theatrical crew were evacuated safely, and the fire was quickly brought under control, although the damage may run into the tens of thousands of dollars.

     As to the apparition, the reader may recall that the Borealis is reputedly haunted by the ghost of its first Captain, Commander Rodney Nelson O'Neil, who died as the result of a tragic accident involving Trieste salami while serving with Admiral Dewey on the Hong Kong Station in 1901.

     Officially, Curator Johansen will not comment on the incident. Unofficially, however, he wiped a tear from his eye at McNammara's Band, and said.

     "Cap'n O'Neil would never let anything happen to his ship. I'll bet he'll have that idiot Dunson flogged!"