Fighting the Flames by Robert Michael Ballantyne (read novels website txt) 📖

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 _debris_ 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