Fighting the Flames

Chapter Eight

A Hidden Fire

In the afternoon of the following day Willie set off to the City in quest of Mr Thomas Tippet. Having to pass the King Street fire station, he resolved to look in on his brother.

The folding-doors of the engine-house were wide open, and the engine itself, clean and business-like, with its brass-work polished bright, stood ready for instant action. Two of the firemen were conversing at the open door, while several others could be seen lounging about inside. In one of the former Willie recognised the strong man who had collared him on a well-remembered occasion.

“Please, sir,” said Willie, going up to him, “is Frank Willders inside?”

“Why, youngster,” said Dale, laying his hand on Willie’s head, “ain’t you the boy that pulled our bell for a lark the other night?”

“Yes, sir, I am; but you let me off, you know, so I hope you won’t bear me ill-will now.”

“That depends on how you behave in future,” said Dale with a laugh; “but what d’you want with Frank Willders?”

“I want to see him. He’s my brother.”

“Oh, indeed! You’ll find him inside.”

Willie entered the place with feelings of interest, for his respect for firemen had increased greatly since he had witnessed their recent doings at the Beverly Square fire.

He found his brother writing at the little desk that stood in the window, while five or six of his comrades were chatting by the fire, and a group in a corner were playing draughts, and spinning yarns of their old experiences. All assisted in loading the air with tobacco-smoke.

The round cloth caps worn by the men gave them a much more sailor-like and much less fireman-like appearance than the helmets, which, with their respective hatchets, hung on the walls, rendering the apartment somewhat like a cavalry guard-room. This change in the head-piece, and the removal of the hatchet, was the only alteration in their costume in what may be styled “times of peace.” In other respects they were at all times accoutred, and in readiness to commence instant battle with the flames.

“Hallo, Blazes! how are ye?” said Willie, touching his brother on the shoulder.

“That you, Willie?” said Frank, without looking up from his work. “Where away now?”

“Come to tell ye there’s a fire,” said Willie, with a serious look.

“Eh? what d’ye mean?” asked Frank, looking at his brother, as if he half believed he was in earnest.

“I mean what I say—a fire here,” said Willie, solemnly striking his breast with his clenched fist, “here in Heart Street, Buzzum Square, ragin’ like fury, and all the ingins o’ the fire brigade, includin’ the float, couldn’t put it out, no, nor even so much as squeanch it!”

“Then it’s of no use our turning out, I suppose?” said Frank with a smile, as he wiped his pen; “what set it alight, lad?”

“A wax doll with flaxen hair and blue eyes,” answered Willie; “them’s the things as has all along done for me. When I was a boy I falled in love with a noo wax doll every other day. Not that I ever owned one myself; I only took a squint at ’em in toy-shop winders, and they always had flaxen hair and blue peepers. Now that I’ve become a man, I’ve bin an’ falled in love with a livin’ wax doll, an’ she’s got flaxen hair an’ blue eyes; moreover, she draws.”

“Draws—boy! what does she draw—corks?” inquires Frank.

“No!” replied Willie, with a look of supreme contempt; “nothin’ so low; she draws faces an’ pictures like—like—a schoolmaster, and,” added Willie, with a sigh, “she’s bin an’ drawed all the spirit out o’ this here buzzum.”

“She must have left a good lot o’ combustible matter behind, however, if there’s such a fire raging in it. Who may this pretty fire-raiser be?”

“Her name is Emma Ward, and she b’longs to a Miss Tippet, to whom she’s related somehow, but I don’t know where she got her, nor who’s her parents. This same Miss Tippet is some sort of a relation o’ Mr Auberly, who sent me to her with a note, and she has sent me with another note to her brother near London Bridge, who, I s’pose, will send me with another note to somebody else, so I’m on my way down to see him. I thought I’d look in to ask after you in passin’, and cheer you on to dooty.”

A violent fit of somewhat noisy coughing from one of the men at the fireplace attracted Willie’s attention at this point in the conversation.

“Wot a noisy feller you are, Corney,” remarked one of the men.

“Faix,” retorted Corney, “it’s noisy you’d be too av ye had the cowld in yer chist that I have. Sure, if ye had bin out five times in wan night as I wos on Widsenday last, wid the branch to howld in a smoke as ’ud choke Baxmore hisself (an’ it’s well known he can stand a’most anything), not to spake o’ the hose bu’stin’ right betune me two feet.”

“Come, come, Paddy,” said Dale, interrupting; “don’t try to choke us, now; you know very well that one of the fires was only a cut-away affair; two were chimneys, and one was a false alarm.”

“True for ye!” cried Corney, who had a tendency to become irascible in argument, or while defending himself; “true for ye, Mister Dale, but they was alarms for all that, false or thrue, was they not now? Anyhow they alarmed me out o’ me bed five times in a night as cowld as the polar ragions, and the last time was a raale case o’ two flats burnt out, an’ four hours’ work in iced wather.”

There was a general laugh at this point, followed by several coughs and sneezes, for the men were all more or less afflicted with colds, owing to the severity of the weather and the frequency of the fires that had occurred at that time.

“There’s some of us can sing chorus to Corney,” observed one of the group. “I never saw such weather; and it seems to me that the worse the weather the more the fires, as if they got ’em up a purpose to kill us.”

“Bill Moxey!” cried another, “you’re always givin’ out some truism with a face like Solomon.”

“Well, Jack Williams,” retorted Moxey, “it’s more than I can say of you, for you never say anything worth listenin’ to, and you couldn’t look like Solomon if you was to try ever so much.—You’re too stoopid for that.”

“I say, lads,” cried Frank Willders, “what d’ye say to send along to the doctor for another bottle o’ cough mixture, same as the first?”

This proposal was received with a general laugh.

“He’ll not send us more o’ that tipple, you may depend,” said Williams.

“No, not av we wos dyin’,” said Corney, with a grin.

“What was it?” asked Williams.

“Didn’t you hear about it?” inquired Moxey. “Oh, to be sure not; you were in hospital after you got run over by the Baker Street engine. Tell him about it, Corney. It was you that asked the doctor, wasn’t it, for another bottle?”

Corney was about to speak, when a young fireman entered the room with his helmet hanging on his arm.

“Is it go on?” he inquired, looking round.

“No, it’s go back, young Rags,” replied Baxmore, as he refilled his pipe; “it was only a chimney, so you’re not wanted.”

“Can any o’ you fellers lend me a bit o’ baccy?” asked Rags. “I’ve forgot to fetch mine.”

“Here you are,” said Dale, offering him a piece of twist.

“Han’t ye got a bit o’ hard baccy for the tooth?” said Rags.

“Will that do?” asked Frank Willders, cutting off a piece from a plug of cavendish.

“Thank’ee. Good afternoon.”

Young Rags put the quid in his cheek, and went away humming a tune.

In explanation of the above incident, it is necessary to tell the reader that when a fire occurred in any part of London at the time of which we write, the fire-station nearest to it at once sent out its engines and men, and telegraphed to the then head or centre station at Watling Street. London was divided into four districts, each district containing several fire stations, and being presided over by a foreman. From Watling Street the news was telegraphed to the foremen’s stations, whence it was transmitted to the stations of their respective districts, so that in a few minutes after the breaking out of a fire the fact was known to the firemen all over London.

As we have said, the stations nearest to the scene of conflagration turned out engines and men; but the other stations furnished a man each. Thus machinery was set in motion which moved, as it were, the whole metropolis; and while the engines were going to the fire at full speed, single men were setting out from every point of the compass to walk to it, with their sailors’ caps on their heads and their helmets on their arms.

And this took place in the case of every alarm of fire, because fire is an element that will not brook delay, and it does not do to wait to ascertain whether it is worth while to turn out such a force of men for it or not.

In order, however, to prevent this unnecessary assembling of men when the fire was found to be trifling, or when, as was sometimes the case, it was a false alarm, the fireman in charge of the engine that arrived first, at once sent a man back to the station with a “stop,” that is, with an order to telegraph to the central station that the fire turns out to be only a chimney or a false alarm, and that all hands who have started from the distant stations may be “stopped.” The “stop” was at once telegraphed to the foremen, from whom it was passed (just as the “call” had been) to the outlying stations, and this second telegram might arrive within quarter of an hour of the first.

Of course the man from each station had set out before that time, and the “stop” was too late for him, but it was his duty to call at the various fire stations he happened to pass on the way, where he soon found out whether he was to “go on” or to “go back.”

If no telegram had been received, he went on to the fire; sometimes walking four or five miles to it, “at not less than four miles an hour.” On coming up to the scene of conflagration, he put on his helmet, thrust his cap into the breast of his coat, and reported himself to the chief of the fire brigade (who was usually on the spot), or to the foreman in command, and found, probably, that he had arrived just in time to be of great service in the way of relieving the men who first attacked the flames.

If, on the other hand, he found that the “stop” had been telegraphed, he turned back before having gone much more than a mile from his own station, and so went quietly home to bed. In the days of which we write the effective and beautiful system of telegraphy which now exists had not been applied to the fire stations of London, and the system of “stops” and “calls,” although in operation, was carried out much less promptly and effectively by means of messengers.

Some time before the entrance of Willie Willders into the King Street station the engine had been turned out to a fire close at hand, which proved to be only a chimney on fire, and which was put out by means of a hand-pump and a bucket of water, while Moxey was sent back with the “stop” to the station. The affair was over and almost forgotten, and the men had resumed their pipes, as we have seen, when young Rags entered and was told to go back.

Apologising for this necessary digression, we return to Joe Corney.

“The fact was,” said he, “that we had had a fearful time of it that winter—blowin’ great guns an’ snow nearly every night, an’ what wi’ heat at the fires an’ cowld i’ the streets, an’ hot wather pourin’ on us at wan minnit an’ freezin’ on us the nixt, a’most every man Jack of us was coughin’ an’ sneezin’, and watherin’ so bad at our eyes an’ noses, that I do belave if we’d held ’em over the suction-pipes we might ha’ filled the ingins without throublin’ the mains at all. So the doctor he said, says he, ‘Lads, I’ll send ye a bottle o’ stuff as’ll put ye right.’ An’ sure enough down comes the bottle that night when we was smokin’ our pipes just afther roll-call. It turned out to be the best midcine ever was. ‘Musha!’ says I, ‘here’s the top o’ the marnin’ to ye, boys!’ Baxmore he smacks his lips when he tastes it, opens his eyes, tosses off the glass, and holds it out for another. ‘Howld on; fair play!’ cried Jack Williams, so we all had a glass round. It was just like lemonade or ginger-beer, it was. So we sat down an’ smoked our pipes over it, an’ spun yarns an’ sung songs; in fact we made a jollification of it, an’ when we got up to turn in there warn’t a dhrop left i’ the bottle.

“‘You’d better go to the doctor for another bottle,’ says Moxey, as he wint out.

“‘I will,’ says I; ‘I’ll go i’ the marnin’.’

“Sure enough away I goes i’ the marnin’ to Doctor Offley. ‘Doctor,’ says I, howldin’ out the bottle, ‘we all think our colds are much the better o’ this here midcine, an’ I comed, av ye plaze, for another o’ the same.’

“Musha! but ye should ha’ seen the rage he goes off into. ‘Finished it all?’ says he. ‘Ivery dhrop, doctor,’ says I, ‘at wan sittin’.’ At that he stamped an’ swore at me, an’ ordered me away as if I’d bin a poor relation; an’ says he, ‘I’ll sind ye a bottle to-night as’ll cure ye!’ Sure so he did. The second bottle would have poison’d a rat. It lasted us all six months, an’ I do belave ye’ll find the most of it in the cupboard at this minnit av ye look.”

“Come, Willie,” said Frank, while the men were laughing at the remembrance of this incident. “I’m going down your way and will give you a convoy. We can take a look in at the gymnastics as we pass, if you choose.”

“All right, Blazes, come along.” So saying they left the station, and set off at a brisk pace in the direction of the City.

Chapter Nine

Auctions and Gymnastics

As the brothers drew near to the busy region of the City which lies to the north of London Bridge; Frank turned aside into one of the narrow streets that diverge from the main thoroughfare.

“Where are ye goin’?” inquired Willie.

“There was a fire here last night,” said Frank; “I want to have a look at the damage.”

“A fire!” exclaimed Willie. “Why, Blazes, it strikes me there’s bin more fires than usual last night in London.”

“Only two, lad.”

“Only two! How many would you have?” asked Willie with a laugh.

“Don’t you know,” said Frank, “that we have about four fires every night? Sometimes more, sometimes fewer. Of course, we don’t all of us turn out to them; but some of the brigade turn out to that number, on an average, every night of the year.”

“Are ye jokin’, Frank?”

“Indeed I am not. I wish with all my heart I could say that I was joking. It’s a fact, boy. You know I have not been long in the force, yet I’ve gone to as many as six fires in one night, and we often go to two or three. The one we are going to see the remains of just now was too far from us for our engine to turn out; but we got the call to send a man on, and I was sent. When I arrived and reported myself to Mr Braidwood, the two top floors were burnt out, and the fire was nearly got under. There were three engines, and the men were up on the window-sills of the second-floor with the branches, playin’ on the last of the flames, while the men of the salvage-corps were getting the furniture out of the first floor. Conductor Brown was there with his escape, and had saved a whole family from the top floor, just before I arrived. He had been changed from his old station at the West End that very day. He’s a wonderful fellow, that conductor! Many a life he has saved; but, indeed, the same may be said of most of the men in the force, especially the old hands. Here we are, lad. This is the house.”

Frank stopped, as he spoke, in front of a ruined tenement, or rather, in front of the gap which was now strewn with the charred and blackened débris of what had once been a house. The street in which it stood was a narrow, mean one, inhabited by a poor, and, to judge from appearance, a dissipated class. The remains of the house were guarded by policemen, while a gang of men were engaged in digging among the ruins, which still smoked a little here and there.

“What are they diggin’ for?” asked Willie.

“I fear they are looking for dead bodies. The house was let out to lodgers, and swarmed with people. At first it was thought that all were saved; but just before I was ordered home after the fire was got under, some one said that an old man and his grandchild were missing. I suppose they’re looking for them now.”

On inquiring of a policeman, however, Frank learned that the remains of the old man and his grandchild had already been found, and that they were searching for the bodies of others who were missing. A little beyond the spot where the fire had occurred, a crowd was gathered round a man who stood on a chair haranguing them, with apparently considerable effect, for ever and anon his observations were received with cries of “Hear, hear,” and laughter. Going along the middle of the narrow street, in order to avoid the smell of the old-clothes’-shops and pawnbrokers, as well as the risk of contact with their wares, Frank and Willie elbowed their way through the crowd to within a few yards of the speaker.

“What is he?” inquired Frank of a rather dissipated elderly woman.

“He’s a clown or a hacrobat, or somethink of that sort, in one of the theatres or music-’alls. He’s bin burnt out o’ his ’ome last night, an’s a-sellin’ off all he’s been able to save, by hauction.”

“Come; now, ladies an’ gents,” cried the clown, taking up a rather seedy-looking great-coat, which he held aloft with one hand, and pointed to it with the other, “Who’s agoin’ to bid for this ’ere garment—a hextra superfine, double-drilled, kershimere great-coat, fresh from the looms o’ Tuskany—at least it was fresh from ’em ten years ago (that was when my grandfather was made Lord Mayor of London), an’ its bin renewing its youth (the coat, not the Lord Mayor) ever since. It’s more glossy, I do assure you, ladies and gents, than w’en it fust comed from the looms, by reason of the pile havin’ worn off; and you’ll obsarve that the glossiness is most beautiful and brightest about the elbows an’ the seams o’ the back. Who bids for this ’ere venerable garment? Six bob? Come now, don’t all bid at once. Who said six bob?”

No reply being made to this, except a laugh, the clown (who, by the way, wore a similarly glossy great-coat, with a hat to match) protested that his ears must have deceived him, or his imagination had been whispering hopeful things—which was not unlikely, for his imagination was a very powerful one—when he noticed Frank’s tall figure among the crowd.

“Come now, fireman, this is the wery harticle you wants. You comed out to buy it, I know, an’ ’ere it is, by a strange coincidence, ready-made to hand. What d’ye bid? Six bob? Or say five. I know you’ve got a wife an’ a large family o’ young firemen to keep, so I’ll let it go cheap. P’raps it’s too small for you; but that’s easy put right. You’ve only got to slit it up behind to the neck, which is a’ infallible cure for a tight fit, an’ you can let down the cuffs, which is double, an’ if it’s short you can cut off the collar, an’ sew it on to the skirts. It’s water-proof, too, and fire-proof, patent asbestos. W’en it’s dirty you’ve got nothin’ to do but walk into the fire, an’ it’ll come out noo. W’en it’s thoroughly wet on the houtside, turn it hinside hout, an’ there you are, to all appearance as dry as bone. What! you won’t have it at no price? Well, now, I’ll tempt you. I’ll make it two bob.”

“Say one,” cried a baker, who had been listening to this, with a broad grin on his floury countenance.

“Ladies and gents,” cried the clown, drawing himself up with dignity; “there’s an individual in this crowd—I beg parden, this assemblage—as asks me to say ‘one.’ I do say ‘one,’ an’ I say it with melancholy feelin’s as to the liberality of my species. One bob! A feller-man as has bin burnt hout of ’is ’ome an’ needs ready money to keep ’im from starvation, offers his best great-coat—a hextra superfine, double-drilled (or milled, I forget w’ich) kershimere, from the looms o’ Tuskany—for one bob!”

“One-an’-six,” muttered an old-clothes-man, with a black cotton sack on his shoulder.

“One-an’-six,” echoed the clown with animation; “one-an’-six bid; one-an’-six. Who said one-an’-seven? Was it the gent with the red nose?—No, one-an’-six; goin’ at the ridiculously low figure of one-an’-six—gone! as the old ’ooman said w’en her cat died o’ apple-plexy. Here you are; hand over the money. I can’t knock it down to you, ’cause I haven’t a hauctioneer’s ’ammer. Besides, it’s agin’ my principles. I’ve never knocked nothin’ down, not even a skittle, since I joined the Peace Society.