Fighting the Flames

“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.