McCaffery was last seen by Murray heading another way. “He went up,” she said. “He told his men, ‘Get control of this, take these people out of here.' He meant the panic, the confusion. Then he looked around, like he was taking it all in. He said something like ‘The job's up there.' One of the others, another firefighter, said, ‘If you're going, Captain, I'm going with you.' Some of them went.” Murray's eyes filled with tears. “He was smiling when he pulled open that staircase door. I'll never forget it. All the way down, I wondered what made him smile like that. I remember thinking, Well, when this is over, I'll look him up and ask him.”

Deputy Chief Gino Aiello was at the north tower command station when the evacuation order was issued. “Some of the companies didn't respond,” Aiello said in an interview. “A lot of the radios were out, so we don't know if they got the order. But Ladder 62 heard us. Captain McCaffery responded. He was on 44. He said he had injured up there, and he was bringing them out. He had three men with him. ‘We'll be down as soon as we can, Chief. There's a lot of injured.' That's what he said. I don't know how he was planning to bring a lot of injured down 44 flights with three men, but if anyone could talk the injured into getting up and walking-the injured, maybe even the dead-it was Jimmy McCaffery.”

Ladder 62 lost four men that day. Funerals and memorial services for the other three firefighters have already been held. “This is how Jimmy would have wanted it,” Owen McCardle said. “He would have expected the other men to be taken care of first. He was their captain. First in, last out.”

BOYS' OWN BOOK

Chapter 2

Abraham Lincoln and the Pig