Life in the Red Brigade: London Fire Brigade

From this condition of repose he was awakened by a sensation as if of suffocation by smoke. This was such an extremely natural, not to say habitual, state of things with Joe, that he was at least a couple of seconds in realising the fact that there was unusual cause for haste and vigorous action. Like a giant refreshed Joe leaped to his work. Every fibre of his huge frame was replete with energy, and his heart beat strong, but it beat steadily; not a vestige of a flutter was there, for his head was clear and cool. He knew exactly what to do. He knew exactly what was being done. Surprise did, indeed, fill him when he reflected that it was his own house which had caught fire, but that did not for a moment confuse him as to the certainty that the engine must be already out, and his comrades rushing to his assistance.

He strode to the door and opened it. A volume of dense black smoke, followed by sheets of flame drove him back. At the same moment loud shouts were heard outside, and a shriek came from the inner room. Joe dashed towards it. In passing, he pulled Fred off the baking-board, and at the same moment seized the curious old helmet, and almost instinctively clapped it on his own head. There was a back door to the house. Joe grasped his wife, and the Rosebud, and the bedclothes in one mighty embrace, and bore the whole bundle towards this back door. Before he reached it it was dashed open by Bob Clazie, who sprang in with the “branch.” Bob, having been roused to a fire so near at hand, had not taken time to go through the usual process of putting on his uniform. He, like Joe, was in dishabille.

“Here, take care of ’em. Let go the branch; I’ll look after it. Foul play here. Let the police look out.”

Joe said this sharply as he thrust the bundle containing his wife into Bob’s arms, and, picking up the Rosebud, who had slipped out, clapped her on Bob’s back. Bob made for the back staircase, while Joe picked up the branch, and turning his head in the direction of the open door, shouted in the voice of a stentor, “Down with ’er!” Meanwhile, Fred, who had a vague impression that the fire in the cupboard had got to a powerful head at last, picked up the hose and looked on with a sleepy smile.

Obedient to the order, the water rushed on, filled and straightened the hose, threw Fred on his back on the floor, and caused the nozzle to quiver as Joe directed it to the fire.

Just then a man dashed into the room.

“Lend a hand here,” cried Joe glancing round.

He saw in a moment by the man’s look that he meant mischief. Instantly he turned the nozzle full in his face. Jeff, for it was he, fell as if he had been shot, and was partly washed, partly rolled down the back staircase, at the foot of which a policeman was prepared to receive him, but Jeff sprang up, knocked down the policeman, and fled. Seeing this, Mr Sparks took alarm, and was about to follow when the Bloater suddenly sprang at his throat and Little Jim caught him by the legs. He quickly disengaged himself, however, and ran off at full speed, closely followed by his young tormentors and two policemen, besides a miscellaneous crowd of hooting and yelling lads and boys.

It was an exciting chase that ensued. The two policemen were young and strong, and for some time kept pretty near the fugitive, but gradually they fell behind, and, by doubling through several narrow streets, Sparks threw them off the scent. As for the crowd, the greater part of those who composed it gave in after a short run. But the Bloater and Little Jim were not thus to be got rid of. They were fleet of foot and easily kept Mr Sparks in view, though he made desperate efforts to catch them, as well as to get away from them. The two boys were so persevering that they followed him all the way to Thames Street, and, just when the unhappy man thought he had at length eluded them, they set up the cry of “Stop thief!” and gave chase again with a new force of policemen and roughs at their heels.

Turning abruptly into a dark passage, Sparks rushed upstairs, burst open a door and fell exhausted on the floor of the cheerless room occupied by poor Martha Reading. Almost at the same moment the two boys, who were at least a hundred yards in advance of the other pursuers, sprang into the room.

“Ha! run you down at last, have we?” gasped the Bloater.

Poor startled Martha, leaping at once to the conclusion that he was pursued, fell on her knees, and, in a voice of agonising entreaty, begged the boys to have mercy on him!

“Eh! hallo! what?” exclaimed the Bloater, taken by surprise. Then, under a sudden impulse, he dashed out of the room followed by Little Jim, and rushed into the street just as the first of the crowd came up.

“This way! Straight on! hooray!” he shouted, leading off the crowd in the direction of the river. The crowd followed. The Bloater led them into a maze of intricate back streets; shot far ahead of them, and then, doubling, like a hare, into a retired corner, stood chuckling there while the shouting crowd swept by.

For a few minutes, Little Jim was utterly bereft of speech, owing to a compound of amazement, delight, excitement and exhaustion. After a little time he said—

“Well, this is a lark! But, I say, Bloater, d’ye think it was right to let ’im off like that?”

“Who’s let ’im off, stoopid?” retorted the Bloater.

“Don’t I know ’is name—at least part of it; an’ the ’abitation of ’is wife, or sweet-’eart, or sister, or suthin’ o’ that sort?”

“Oh, ah, werry true,” replied Little Jim, with a terminating “sk!”

“Well, that bein’ ’ow it is, we han’t let ’im off just yet, d’ye see? So, now we’ll go an’ turn in.”

With that observation the Bloater and Little Jim went away to search for and appropriate some convenient place of repose for the night.

Chapter Seven

Seated by the fire-side of Joe Dashwood’s new abode—for the old one, although not quite “burnt out,” was uninhabitable—Bob Clazie chatted and smoked his pipe contentedly. At the conclusion of a remark, he looked up in Mrs Dashwood’s puzzled face, and said, “That’s ’ow it is, d’ye see?”

“No, I don’t see,” replied Mary, with a smile.

“No? well, now, that is koorious. W’y, it’s as plain as the nose on my face. See here. As the law now stands, there is no public authority to inwestigate the cause o’ fires in London; well, wot’s the consikence, w’y, that there are regular gangs of scoundrels who make it their business to arrange fires for their own adwantage.”

“Now, that’s just what I don’t understand,” said Mary, knitting her pretty brows; “what advantage can it be to any one to set fire to a house, except to pick-pockets who may get a chance of doing business in the crowd?”

“Well, that of itself is enough to endooce some blackguards to raise a fire, and likewise to get the shillin’ for bringin’ the first noose to the station; which, by the way, was the chief okipation of that willain Phil Sparks, I’m pretty sure. But here’s ’ow it is. The swindlers I speak of, go an’ take ’ouses—the further from fire-stations the better. Then they furnishes the ’ouses, arter which they insures ’em. In the course of a short time they removes most of the furniture in a quiet way, and then set the ’ouses alight, themselves escapin’, p’r’aps, in nothin’ but their night clothes. So, you see, they gits the insurance, which more than pays for all the furniture they had bought, besides which they ’ave a good deal of the furniture itself to sell or do wot they please with. That’s one way in which fires are raised,—ain’t it Joe?”

Joe, who sat smoking in silence on the other side of the fire, nodded, and, turning his head round, advised Fred Crashington and little May to make “less row.”

“But we can’t put it out widout a row!” remonstrated the Rosebud.

“What! have you found a fire in this cupboard, as well as in the one o’ the old house?” asked Joe, with a laugh.

“Iss, iss; an’ it’s a far wuss fire than the last one!”

“That’s your sort!” cried Fred; “now then, May, don’t stand jawin’ there, but down with number two. Look alive!”

“Ha! chips o’ the old blocks, I see,” said Bob Clazie, with a grin. “Well, as I was sayin’, there’s another class o’ men, not so bad as the first, but bad enough, who are indooced to go in for this crime of fire-raisin’—arson they calls it, but why so is beyond me to diskiver. A needy tradesman, for instance, when at his wits’-end for money, can’t help thinkin’ that a lucky spark would put him all right.”

“But how could the burning of his goods put him all right?” demanded Mary.

“W’y, ’e don’t want goods, you know, ’e wants to sell ’is goods an’ so git money; but nobody will buy, so ’e can’t sell, nor git money, yet money must be ’ad, for creditors won’t wait. Wot then? All the goods are insured against fire. Well, make a bonfire of ’em, redoose ’em all to hashes, an’ of coorse the insurance companies is bound to pay up, so ’e gits rid of the goods, gits a lot o’ ready money in ’and, pays off ’is creditors, and p’r’aps starts fresh in a noo business! Now, a public officer to inwestigate such matters would mend things to some extent, though ’e mightn’t exactly cure ’em. Some time ago the Yankees, I’m told, appointed a officer they called a fire-marshal in some of their cities, and it’s said that the consikence was a sudden an’ extraor’nary increase in the conwictions for arson, followed by a remarkable decrease in the number o’ fires! They’ve got some-thin’ o’ the same sort in France, an’ over all the chief towns o’ Europe, I b’lieve, but we don’t need no such precautions in London. We’re rich, you know, an’ can afford to let scamps burn right an’ left. It ain’t worth our while to try to redooce the number of our fires. We’ve already got an average of about five fires every twenty-four hours in London. Why should we try to make ’em less, w’en they furnishes ’ealthy work to such fine fellows as Joe and me and the police—not to mention the fun afforded to crossin’-sweepers and other little boys, whose chief enjoyment in life would be gone if there was no fires.”

“If I had the making of the laws,” exclaimed Mary, flushing with indignation as she thought of her own recent risks and losses in consequence of fire-raising, “I’d have every man that set light to his house hanged!”

“Ah; an’ if ’e could also be draw’d and quartered,” added Bob, “and ’ave the bits stuck on the weathercocks of Saint Paul’s, or atop of Temple Bar, it would serve ’im right.”

“We must have you into Parliament some day, Molly,” said Joe, with a smile. “Women are tryin’ hard, I believe, to get the right to vote for members; w’y not go the whole hog and vote themselves in?”

“They’d make splendid firemen too,” said Clazie, “at least if they were only half as vigorous as your little May. By the way, Joe,” continued Bob, “has Sparks been took yet?”

“Not yet. It is rumoured that the crossin’-sweeper who chased him down so smartly, suddenly favoured his escape at last, from some unaccountable cause or other. I suppose that Sparks bribed him.”

“You’re sure it was Sparks, are you?” inquired Bob.

“Quite sure. It is true I only saw his confederate, but one of the men who had often seen Sparks in company with Crashington, his brother-in-law, knew him at once and saw him run off, with the boys after him. He’s a bad lot, but I hope he’ll escape for poor Mrs Crashington’s sake.”

“And I hope he won’t escape, for poor Martha Reading’s sake!” said Mary with much decision of tone.

“That’s his sweet-’eart—a friend of Molly’s!” said Joe to Bob in explanation.

At this point in the conversation, Master Fred Crashington, in his frantic efforts to reach an elevated part of the cupboard, fell backwards, drawing a shelf and all its contents on the top of himself and May. Neither of them was hurt, though both were much frightened.

“I think that must have put the fire out at last,” said Joe, with a laugh, as he took the panting rosebud on his knee and smoothed her soft little head. “We’ll sit quiet now and have a chat.”

A knock at the outer door here called Mrs Dashwood from the room.

“Fire!” exclaimed May, holding up her finger and listening with eager expectation.

“No, little woman,” said Joe, “they would ring loud if it was fire.”

Meanwhile Mrs Dashwood opened the door and found herself confronted by a boy, with his hands in his pockets and his cap thrown in a reckless way half on the side and half on the back of his head.