Fire

by C. C. Humphreys

  He was addressing these words to a man standing by his horse’s bridle, a small, neat fellow who looked to be in his early thirties. He had a sharp way to him, as if he noted things others didn’t – much as I do, Pitman thought. He certainly was losing his patience. ‘He would have you fight the fire, sir,’ the man replied, pointedly, ‘and he offers you more soldiers to aid in the task.’

  ‘Ah, no! No, Mr Pepys.’ Bludworth raised his voice. ‘You know that the city is most mindful of its prerogatives. And the King’s Guards within the Mile? It speaks to them of tyranny.’

  ‘Tyranny, sir?’ Pepys’ voice was as sharp but far calmer. ‘The only tyrant this day is the fire.’

  ‘Indeed, indeed!’ The mayor wiped his face again. ‘And I thank the king. But the numbers he has sent so far will suffice. Why, as soon as this deuced wind drops –’ He broke off. ‘We will have it under control, have no fear, sir. Reassure His Majesty that I will tend to it in person just as soon,’ he swayed in his saddle, ‘as soon as I have had a little rest.’ His voice rose in complaint. ‘They woke me at three in the morning, damn it.’

  With that, Bludworth flicked his reins and rode off, the other two horsemen following.

  ‘Bloody fool,’ said Pepys, not softly.

  ‘He is indeed, sir,’ said Pitman.

  The fellow turned, without much of a start. ‘Ha! I know you. It’s, uh, Mr Pitman, is it not? I’ve seen you in the company of the Duke of York.’

  ‘I’ve had the honour to do him some service, yes.’

  ‘Some?’ The serious face was transformed by a boyish smile. ‘Didn’t you save his life? From those damned Fifth Monarchists, eh?’

  Pitman shrugged. ‘Will you be returning to the Palace, sir?’

  ‘I will. The royal brothers asked for immediate report.’

  ‘My suggestion is to bypass Bully Bludworth. More soldiers are essential and bugger the city’s prerogatives. And I say that as an old Parliament man myself.’

  ‘I will take the message once I have checked on my home.’ Pepys extended his hand. ‘They said you were a singular fellow, Mr Pitman. And they were right.’

  Pitman engulfed the other’s small hand in his huge one. ‘That’s Pitman to you, sir. Pitman to all, as His Royal Highness will vouch to you.’

  ‘Where do you make for now, uh, Pitman?’

  ‘Thames Street. I have some experience of this kind of fight, sir. If we can tear down many houses afore it, as the mayor should be doing, we may deprive the beast of what it would devour, and curb its appetite. Good luck to you.’

  With a shake, he turned and walked down St Laurence Pountney Lane, his constables following. Soon he halted before the church, craning his neck to peer up. In addition to the hill, St Laurence Pountney had one of the tallest steeples in London, and so was visible from all around. Perhaps that was why so many constables had gathered there. He recognised James Morrow, headborough of his old parish of St Leonard’s, and was crossing to speak with him when sudden movement drew his eye.

  Pigeons were fleeing their roosts on the waterfront. One he noticed was flying most strangely, taking little lurches through the air, flapping hard. Then suddenly it simply ceased flying and plummeted down. If he had not stepped back, it would have crashed onto his head.

  Puzzled, he bent down to look – and saw what had killed the bird, beyond the fall. Both its wings and its tail feathers were singed. ‘Poor thing,’ he muttered, ‘did you not think to leave your nest before it burned?’

  A cry came. ‘The steeple! St Laurence is fired.’

  He looked up. One of the tallest towers in London was ablaze. Which was odd, as the fire itself was still three hundred yards away.

  He looked again at the pigeon, its feathers still smouldering. Then that same voice who’d screamed out – not ‘on fire’, Pitman realised now, but ‘fired’ – shouted again. ‘It’s the Dutch! The French! They’re trying to burn our city down.’

  They were wrong. The evidence was at his feet. He tried to bend to pick up the bird but was jostled aside in the rush. When he saw it again, the pigeon had been trampled and men were running in every direction. Several were calling, ‘The Dutch! The Dutch are come! To arms! To arms!’

  Pitman pushed his way to his old headborough. ‘Ah, Pitman,’ the man cried, ‘an old soldier like you, unarmed? Go fetch your musket.’

  ‘Mr Morrow, I need no musket to fight a fire.’

  ‘But you do to kill Dutchmen. Or Frenchmen. Or Papists, begod. They say this fire is an unholy alliance of all three. Does this church’s firing not prove that there are incendiaries ahead of their forces?’

  He looked up, so Pitman did too. The church tower was now strongly ablaze, flames streaming from it and forming a second red-yellow steeple. Both men stepped back hastily, as something liquid fell, splashing onto the ground where they’d been standing. Pitman saw an oily, shiny reflection of fire on the cobbles. Christ preserve us, he thought, the lead’s melting.

  He took Morrow’s arm. ‘Hear me. The fire began in a bakery. And it’s spreading by flying embers. Or pigeons. I found one burning –’

  ‘Pigeons? The dastards have trained pigeons to burn for them?’ Morrow cried.

  ‘You misunderstand –’

  But the man would listen no more. ‘The devilish Dutch are upon us!’ he bellowed. ‘They seek revenge for our burning of Brandaris a fortnight past. Back to the parish. Each man to his musket!’ He broke Pitman’s grip and led his troop away. Indeed, all the constables gathered there were running off, apart from his own, less terrified perhaps of the flames than of their leader’s temper.

  Householders near the now-fiercely burning church – melting lead must have carried flames down into the body of the building for they were now issuing from the windows – were out upon the street, gazing up in terror. But for every man or woman who seized a bucket and fire-pole, five more ran for their own homes, flung their doors wide, and began to throw valuables out onto the street.

  For a moment, as lead continued to drip near him and people ran, shouting all about, Pitman was uncertain where to go. To his own parish where his family was, nursing the newcomer? It was tempting. ‘Steady, Pitman,’ he said to himself. His home was beyond the reach of any fire – as long as it was stopped. He’d helped fight one in ’55 in Threadneedle Street. People had cried then that it could destroy the whole city, but they’d put it out at the cost of thirty houses. Men had rallied then and would be rallying today, and he knew where, for the man who’d stumbled from the lane had told him.

  ‘Follow me, lads,’ he said, striding off. ‘We’ll stop this bastard at Thames Street.’

  As they set off, another huge gust of wind rattled the eaves around him, dislodging tiles that smashed onto the cobbles. Even with his great size he felt as if a ghostly hand was in his back, pushing him along. I’d not be on a deck for the Crown Jewels this day, he thought. Alas, poor William. Rather you than me.

  —

  Greenwich. 3rd September, 3 a.m.

  They left their horses, exhausted from the all-night ride, in the post-house and to the grumbling care of a stable boy roused for the purpose.

  ‘This glow,’ said Captain Coke, as the lad took the bridles and prepared to lead the hired nags away, ‘we’ve seen it for the last ten miles. What means it?’

  The boy stopped, yawned widely. ‘Where’ve you been?’ he paused, looked at the horses. ‘Oh, Carabine’s mounts. Sittingbourne, eh?’ He ran a hand down the chestnut’s foamy flank. ‘Did you not rest along the way? These uns ‘ull not be fit for ‘ire for many a day, you drove ’em so ’ard.’

  Coke took a breath and kept his temper. He was near as tired as his mount, he’d vouch for that. At his side, Dickon had already lain down upon some alluring hay. And they’d come a lot further than Sittingbourne. They’d only changed horses there. ‘The glow, boy. What is it?’

  The stable hand yawned again, as he led the horses into a barn. ‘It’s a fire in London,’ he called over his shou
lder. ‘All the docks are ablaze, or so they say.’

  Coke looked down at Dickon in the hay and had to resist the near overpowering urge to join his ward. They’d had maybe two hours’ sleep on the entire ride from Dover, though he’d held Dickon in his saddle while the lad dozed. Twice he’d woken with his mount’s nose in a hedge, chewing. But he could not stop now. Not when they were so close.

  He left his ward lightly snoring and went into the coaching inn. No one was about, but the hearth glow and one lit lantern showed him the main room. He called. When no one answered, he went behind the trestle bar and tapped a jug of ale. There was bread and a chunk of cheese upon a platter and though each looked a little mouse-gnawed, he shoved both into his cloak’s pocket. They’d eaten and drunk as little as they’d slept. He thought of leaving coin, but near all of the purse that Admiral Holmes had given him had gone on the post-horses. He might need his last two crowns.

  He took his bounty back to the yard, knelt down and roused Dickon, who woke with uncharacteristic complaint. But ale and food soothed him a little and he rose when his captain bade him. ‘Let’s to the top of the hill, Dickon,’ Coke said, ‘and see this river fire for ourselves.’

  Chewing bread and cheese, they climbed Greenwich Hill. As they neared its summit, Coke became aware of a sound, beyond the whistling easterly that had blown them fast to Dover from the fleet, pushed in their backs during the ride from the port, and now soughed in the branches of the vast oaks they passed beneath. It was like a large body of people were shouting in the distance; or some battle was being fought. Battle indeed, he thought, for within the distant roar he now could hear the occasional punctuation of an explosion.

  Yet no battle he had seen – and he’d fought in many – could have overwhelmed his sight as the one that faced them when they crested the hill.

  ‘God preserve us,’ he whispered as Dickon cried out and sank upon the turf.

  Under a moon near full and as red as blood, London burned, in a great curved bow of flame, its one tip placed near the Tower in the east, t’other – well, he could not tell – half a mile away at least, far past the dark line of the bridge. But the bow’s centre was pushed up to – again, he could not be certain; at least as far as Eastcheap. He knew several who lived there – Isaac for one.

  Recalling people he knew distracted him from the shock of the spectacle, back to the reason he was there – there, on Greenwich Hill, and not where he needed to be – there, amidst the flames. He shuddered, then pulled Dickon to his feet. ‘Let’s see if we can find a kindly boatman to take us upstream,’ he said.

  However, there was not a boatman to be had, for charity or hire, on Greenwich docks. ‘They’re all attending the fire,’ said a one-armed man they asked. ‘Fortunes to be made, ’tis said, for all who dwell near the river are trying to get their goods aboard.’ He stretched out his one hand, rubbed finger and thumb together. ‘I’d be there mesself if’n the King’s army hadn’t taken me arm.’ He cackled. ‘Fortunes!’

  ‘Come, lad,’ said Coke, setting out, ‘it’s Shanks’s pony for us.’

  From Deptford, which they soon reached, through Bermondsey and all the way to Southwark, the south bank of the Thames had become one sprawl of industry – dockyards, tanneries, distilleries, breweries, glue and paint factories, all jumbled together with the tenements for those who worked in them, and the many alehouses and ordinaries which fed the workers. The road took them parallel to, but a little way from, this crowded riverbank. The closer they got to Southwark, the louder the noise of fire grew – the cracking of timbers, the whoosh of some structure collapsing, with people’s cries, like distant birds, caught up in it. The light grew as well, a dawn an hour before it was due. Above the roofs, the vast cloud of smoke was lit by the fires that caused it, reflecting back, making the excited faces they passed as clear as at midday.

  When he could see the steeple of St Mary Overies – it glowed, too, in reflected flame as if lit by a theatre’s candelabra – Coke turned up the side streets. ‘The bridge,’ he said to Dickon. ‘No coin needed for that.’

  But the bridge was closed. Through the grille of the portcullis, which Coke had never seen lowered, a soldier was talking to a small and anxious mob that wanted to get through. ‘It rages at t’other end still,’ the guard explained. ‘If you choose to be burned alive, ’pon your heads be it, I’d let you go. But my captain says no.’

  Coke and Dickon moved away from the cajoling crowd. To the west of the bridge, the riverbank was less crowded with buildings – because this was still a liberty, as it had been since Queen Bess’s time. The theatres may have moved to the town and indoors, but the bullring, the bear baiting and the cock pits, together with taverns and brothels innumerable, still thrived. Indeed, as Coke led Dickon through the gates of Paris Gardens, it appeared that pleasure was what people still sought here. It was as crowded as a Saturday night: liquor was being sold, chickens roasted, chairs and tables set out, with men and a few women grouped around them. All faced north, gaping at the spectacle.

  Coke, most concerned about achieving their passage onwards, kept pushing through the mob. He stopped at the head of the boat stairs, though, Dickon beside him, both men staring in shock.

  It was partly the heat. It had been a warm night anyway, the latest in a long line of them. But standing there was like being before an especially well-fed hearth. As the wave of warmth hit him, sweat started running down his head, inside his shirt. He felt also the places where he’d burned aboard the fireship. Greta van der Woude’s pig-grease ointment may have healed the worst of it, but areas were yet tender and his cheek, ear and side of his head stung. He took a step back; but he could not mind it for long, so dreadful was the spectacle before him.

  The great bow he’d seen from Greenwich was a wall here, stretching either side of him at least half a mile wide. Directly ahead, smoke rose from fires that raged everywhere. He could see by its light that already so much had been burned out, vast buildings that he’d known but perhaps could not name were charred ruins now. Churches were gone, save for a stone tower here and there, all glowing as white as beacons on a dark night.

  ‘Cap’n,’ said Dickon, tugging his arm. When Coke managed to look down, his ward pointed. ‘Boats.’

  ‘Good lad,’ said Coke, approaching the stair again. It was well that one of them remembered their purpose.

  There were boats. In sooth, he’d never seen so many on what was often the most crowded stretch of the Thames. Large wherries, small skiffs, rowboats of every size and type. All were occupied; indeed, all were crowded, shooting every way over ripples in whose crests the fire danced in reflected yellow. Many had to be refugees from the catastrophe, and boats were continually docking and disgorging passengers clutching a pathetic little – bundles of clothes, some boxes, a painting in a frame, candlesticks. Other boats were landing people who had nothing, save perhaps a tankard or bottle. These passengers did not have the distraught mien of those burned out, but, contrariwise, were talking excitedly about what they had been observing. As if the fire was some exotic wonder like an elephant paraded through the streets.

  As enthused a crowd waited to take the place of those who disembarked. Coke, flushing with anger at people who would make a spectacle of others’ suffering, pushed hard through the mob, not sparing his elbows nor heeding the complaints. ‘Crown for the two of ya,’ said the boatman, one foot on the dock, one in his wherry.

  It was four times the normal fare, half the paltry amount he had, and Coke felt he would need that. ‘I’ve family over there,’ he said. ‘I must reach them –’

  The boatman cut him off. ‘I’m not docking, friend,’ he said. ‘Maybe later when the prices are even higher. For now –’ He looked above Coke and called, ‘ ’Alf-crown an ’ead. Have your money ready.’

  ‘Please.’ Coke stepped a little closer. There was something about the man, a deeper bronze to his face, the cording of his forearms, one of which had a name tattooed in smudged ink. ‘For a mat
e from before the mast?’

  It made the man look again at him, appraising him now. His gaze moved over the pair of them. They were dressed once more in the motley they’d got from pursers’ slops – worn shirts and breeches, patched short coats, boots that gaped. Coke had decided that the fancy laced and velvet garb the officer had lent him to dine with Holmes was not practical on the trip he intended.

  He was pleased about that choice now when he saw the man’s eyes light up. ‘You served?’

  ‘Even now.’ Coke let his native Somerset accent deepen. ‘Fresh released from giving the Hogens a thrashing, uz. Trying to get home.’ He smiled. ‘My wife’s expecting me.’

  ‘Yeah, but you’re goin’ to visit your sweetheart first, right?’ The wherryman laughed. ‘Go on, then. Keep your coin. Someone did the same for me when I got back from Tangiers.’ He glanced back across the water, upstream. ‘I’ll drop you at Queen Hithe. Not burning for now – but not for long, I’d wager.’

  Coke and Dickon got in, settling in the stern. Once the fares had been collected and the goggling passengers seated, the wherry shoved off. The boatman was clearly experienced, threading a nimble route through the throng. Coke did not look at the fire drawing ever closer now. He could hear it. He had also begun to smell it, where the following wind had not really allowed him to before. Mostly he could feel it upon his tender patches of skin.

  Close to the dock at Queen Hithe, the boat gave a sudden lurch. ‘Way there!’ cried the ferryman. ‘I’m goin’ in the dock.’

  ‘As are we, fellow,’ came the shouted reply, ‘and a monarch must precede.’

  That voice. It startled Coke from the reverie where flame and his own concerns had taken him. He looked up in time to see a barge, with ten oars on each side, drive in front of them. In its prow, standing and peering ahead, hand on brow against the glare and the dawn, was Charles, King of England. Slightly behind him, gazing forward too, was James, Duke of York.