The burning bowls did not, directly, torch off the puddle of gasoline on the floor. Rather, the flames from the bowls set the gasoline leaking from the icepick’s hole and running down the tank’s bottom on fire. This burning drip set the gasoline on the deck to burning. The sudden pressure of that had the effect of pushing the hatchway shut. This did not, it should be noted, cut off the supply of oxygen to the fire since the engine was still working to draw in air. What it did do, however, was increase the heat on the tank, quickly and sooner than anyone might have expected. It was not too much longer before the pressure building up inside the tank began forcing gasoline out the hole in a stream. This, too, increased the heat on the tank, hence of the fuel, and hence of the vapor from the fuel.
Even this might not have ruined the timing too badly, but for the worn out, rusty, crappy nature of the tank, itself. Another tank might have held on longer against the rising pressure from the heating fuel, but not this one. With about a third of the tank filled with fumes under high pressure, and the rest filled with fuel just held from boiling by that pressure, something had to give.
It did.
Destroyer Kerch
“That’s her,” said the cook, via the Italian-speaking interpreter.
“Send the boat and boarding party over now,” Razin ordered. The captain had been scanning the ship, bow to stern and then stern to bow again, as the searchlight played across its length. With the launching of the boarding party, the searchlight crew put its focus on just sternward of amidships, at a spot the boarders would be able to climb up the hull. It was, in fact, the same spot where Turgenev, Mokrenko, and company had debarked.
Unlike the Cossacks escaping the Loredana, the Kerch’s boat crew were thoroughly practiced and much, much faster. They reached the barquentine quickly, followed by two men clambering up the sides to tie the Kerch’s boat off. Bearing slung rifles, the boarding party was soon all on deck. Moments later the rifles were in ready hands and the party was beginning to spread out.
The leader of the group was Comrade Pereversev, a clean-cut sort who was also a communist by conviction, and not merely one of convenience or envy. Pereversev sent two men to the bow, likewise two to the stern, and then, with the remainder, descended the ladder down into the darkened passenger and crew deck.
Looking to the bow, Pereversev saw nothing. Looking sternward, there was a faint glow leaking through a few imperfections and gaps in what he suspected was the engine room hatch.
“We’ll start there,” Pereversev ordered, adding, “One man, either side and just behind me. Now, who’s got the lantern? Light it.”
Someone struck a match, the sudden flash showing an open space, with no obvious threats. Within a few seconds, the glow of an oil lamp illuminated the deck.
“Come on.”
Carefully, the boarding party followed their leader toward the stern, heads and eyes scanning left to right, then right to left.
“It’s creepy, you know…”
“Shut up and watch,” said Pereversev. Silently, he agreed, It certainly is creepy. One hears stories… lost ships and crews… doomed men… The Flying Dutchman… and stop it, right now.
It wasn’t long before the boarding party was at the entrance to the engine room.
What gave was one end of the tank. It simply blew off, the super-heated gasoline suddenly flashing to vapor. The vapor immediately caught fire but so quickly that it was better defined as an explosion. That blew the hatch off the engine room, propelling it forward and carrying Comrade Pereversev forward with it.
Not so far away, Number One looked up from his feasting followers at the oncoming wave of flame. The rat had one unprintable thought before the blast took them all.
The passenger and crew deck instantly filled up with a mixture of air and gasoline vapor. This expanded forward into every cabin, nook, and cranny, as well as down below into the open cargo hold, and likewise into the galley. The fuel-air mix was beginning to escape up the open hatchways to the deck, but the wave of explosion spread outward before this pressure release could be of much use.
The explosive power was nothing like the theoretical that Shukhov had claimed. Rather than being the equivalent of up to forty tons of high explosive, the actual yield was much less, perhaps eight or nine. But eight or nine tons of high explosive, contained within the ship’s hull, was enough to shatter that hull.
Moreover, as more air was added to the mix, previously unspent fuel joined the conflagration. It spread uniformly, in a large brightly lit demi-sphere. Indeed, the sphere was so large that most of Kerch was caught inside it.
The thirty-eight men manning and supervising the guns and mines were the first to go. First, the explosion concussed them, even as it caused inhalation burns in most. Most were then tossed right overboard into the cold water, where it was a race between drowning and being strangled by their own blistering throats.
Up on the bridge, the thick glass shattered, shredding the exec and blinding Captain Razin.
The fuel-air mix really should not have been enough to sink the Kerch. Kill the exposed crew, yes, certainly, but sink the ship? No.
What happened were several things, more or less simultaneously. In the first place, a piece of wreckage from the Loredana struck one or more of the Hertz horns of the mines in the racks to the stern. This released sulfuric acid, which ran down to the battery. After a slight delay, that battery, which had had no acid previously, was charged up enough to send an electrical charge to the detonator. Explosion followed, which then crushed a great many more Hertz Horns, setting off all the rest of the mines, some ten tons worth of high explosive, in all.
That wasn’t all the damage done, though. There were 102mm shells in ready racks at each of the four guns. The fuses still retained their safeties, but the propellant was vulnerable to both blast and heat. Somewhere, one or more of the shells had their brass casings torn off, and their propellant set aflame. Get enough propellant going, and the distinction between it and explosive becomes rather a fine one.
And then there were the very large warheads in the torpedo racks…
Ship’s Boat, Barquentine Loredana
“Holy shit!” said Babin, still looking through the binoculars. “That was the Kerch going up with the Loredana.”
This caused Turgenev to turn about, briefly, just in time to catch the sphere of flame and the towering inferno, punctuated by some very sharp blasts. The oarsmen, too, stopped rowing to watch the show.
Shukhov, still perched atop some bags, was about to congratulate himself when he remembered, “Cover your heads everyone. Or, on second thought, maybe not. Anything with enough mass to reach us here isn’t going to be stopped by crossed arms.”
Something did come then, screeching across the sky. It didn’t come close, though; if it had the ship’s boat would never have survived high speed contact with the rear tenth or so of the deck over the former engine room. Still, it made a splash loud enough to hear.
“Okay,” said Mokrenko, “show’s over. Back to your oars.”
The sun was a thin hint on the horizon to the east when the party reached the shore. Mokrenko was first out, leaping over the side and splashing through the water until he ran out of line between the boat and the shore spike. Aided by the oarsmen, he hauled on the rope until the boat was firmly against the sand. Then, raising the spike high overhead, he used both arms to drive it into the shore.