Today. Somewhere off the coast of Devon. The voice over the PA was unusually urgent: control team to station one, control team to station one. Clattering. Running. Someone take over food watch! John Benn yelled at those of us at the galley table and flew after the rest of the control team. Unease hung over the dining room. We just had a drill two hours ago and this was certainly not a drill. A minute later the alarm sounded. Everyone to their muster stations, everyone to their muster stations. The captain was terse. Just about the only words I registered were fire and precaution. Lunch was abandoned. We got our life jackets and coats, assembled, everyone trying to at least look calm.

Fire! A fire had broken out in the toilet paper store. I could peer outside the front of the dining room to the bow of the ship and make out grey tendrils of smoke snaking upwards. Control team members scrambled to don their fire-fighting gear as the muster stations sat and watched. Stay on deck six, they said. For the next four hours we were confined to deck six. Many stayed in the dining room where we received intermittent updates. Fire doors clicked shut. The ventilation was turned off to prevent the smoke from getting in. It got rather warm. Time passed in listless anxiety. At last the ventilation was back up. The fire had been extinguished, the smoke dissipated, nobody hurt. A win for one and all save the toilet paper. Every last roll had been reduced to ashes. Never before have we seen our training and drills and assemblies pay off so well. Thank God for weekly inconveniences.