Fighting the Flames

by R. M. Ballantyne

  CHAPTER TWELVE.

  A LITTLE DOMESTIC CHIT-CHAT.

  One night, not long after the events narrated in the last chapter, FrankWillders was standing with the fireman-in-charge in the King StreetStation. He had just removed his helmet, and the perspiration on hisbrow showed that he had been but recently engaged in some active duty;as indeed was the case, for he had just returned from a "walk" to a firein Whitechapel.

  "It was only a small affair," said Frank, hanging up his helmet and axe,and sitting down to fill his pipe; "a low beer-shop in Brook Street; thetaproom burnt out, and the rest of the house damaged by smoke. It waspretty well over before I got there, and I left half an hour after.Where are the rest o' the lads?"

  "They're out wi' both engines," said Baxmore, who was busy making amemorandum on a slate.

  "With both engines!" said Frank.

  "Ay, both," replied Baxmore, with a laugh, as he sat down in front ofthe fire. "Let me see; it's now nine o'clock, so they've bin off anhour; one to Walton Street, Brompton; the other to Porchester Terrace,Bayswater. The call was the queerest I've seen for many a day. We wasall sittin' here smokin' our pipes, as usual, when two fellers came tothe door, full split, from opposite pints o' the compass, an' run slapinto each other. They looked like gentlemen; but they was in such astate it wasn't easy to make out what sort o' fish they was. One hadhis coat torn and his hat gone; the other had his tile pretty wellknocked down on his eyes--I s'pose by the people he run into on theway--an' both were half-mad with excitement. They both stuttered, too--that was the fun o' the thing, and they seemed to think each was takin'off the other, and got into a most awful rage. My own opinion is, thatone stuttered by nature, an' the other stuttered from fright. Anyhow,they both stuttered together, and a precious mess they made of it.

  "`F-F-F-Fire!' roared one.

  "`F-F-F-Fire!' yelled the other.

  "`Where away?' asked Mr Dale, looking quietly at the two men, who weregasping for breath.

  "`B-B-B-Brompton,' `B-B-B-Bayswater!' they shouted together; and then,turnin' fiercely on each other, the one said `N-N-N-No!' and the othersaid `N-N-N-No!' `Now, _which_ is it?' said Dale, `an' _be_ quick--do.'

  "`B-B-B-Brompton!'

  "`B-B-B-Bayswater!' in a breath; then says one, `I--I s-s-say_Brompton_!' an' the other, he says, `I--I s-s-say _Bayswater_!'

  "At this they grew furious, and Dale tried to calm them and settle thequestion by asking the name of the street.

  "`W-W-Walton S-Street!' cried one.

  "`P-P-P-Porchester T-T-Terrace!' shouted the other.

  "`N-N-No!' `Y-Y-Yes!' `N-No!' an' with that, one up fist an' hit theother a crack between the eyes. T'other returned on the nob, and thenthey closed.

  "Before this Mr Dale had ordered out one o' the engines, an' when heheard the two streets named it occurred to him that there might be _two_fires, so he ordered out the other engine; and before we got thestutterers separated both engines were off full swing, one to Brompton,the other to Bayswater; but whether there are two fires or no is yet tobe seen."

  Just as Baxmore concluded, the rattle of a returning engine was heard.Next moment it dashed up to the door, and the firemen, leaping off,streamed into the station, where; amid much comment and some laughter atthe scene they had so recently witnessed, they hung up their helmets andcrowded round the fire.

  "So it _was_ in Brompton, after all," said Jack Williams, stirring thecoals; "but it was a small affair in a baker's shop, and we soon got itout."

  "Is the other engine back?" inquired Moxey.

  "Here she comes to answer for herself," said Mason, as the second enginedashed up to the station, and the men were joined by their comrades.

  "We've got it out," said Dale, sitting down before the desk to enter theparticulars in his diary; "it was a private house, and well alight whenwe got there, but the Paddington engine was playing on it, and we soongot it under."

  "Faix, it's well them stutterers didn't kape us longer, else the wholehouse would have bin burnt out intirely," observed Joe Corney, bindingup a slight wound in his thumb, which he had received from a splinter.

  Most of the men were more or less begrimed with charcoal and smoke, andotherwise bore marks of their recent sharp though short skirmish, butnone of them deemed it necessary to remove these evidences of devotionto duty until they had refreshed themselves with a pipe.

  "Were there people in the house?" inquired Frank.

  "Ay, but Pickford was there with the escape, an' got 'em all out beforewe came up," said one.

  "Pickford said he couldn't help laughing after he got 'em out, at theremembrance o' their faces. When he first went in they was all soundasleep in the top floor, for the smoke was only beginnin' to show there,an' the surprise they got when he jump in among 'em an' shouted waswonderful to behold."

  "Not so wonderful," observed Bill Moxey, "as the surprise I seed a wholeman-o'-war's crew get by consequence o' the shout o' one of her ownmen."

  "When was that? Let's hear about it, Bill," said Corney, stuffing downthe tobacco in his pipe, and firing a battery of cloudlets into the air.

  "We was in the Red Sea at the time," said Moxey, clearing his throat,"layin' at anchor, and a precious hot time we had of it. There wasnever a cloud a'most in the sky, and the sun was nigh hot enough to frythe decks off the ship. Cook said he'd half a mind to try to roast ajunk o' beef at it, but I never heard that he managed that. We slep' ondeck o' nights, 'cause you might as well have tried to sleep in abaker's oven as sleep below. The thing that troubled us most at thattime was a tiger we had on board. It did kick up such a shindysometimes! We thought it would break its cage an make a quid o' some ofus. I forget who sent it to us--p'raps it was the Pasha of Egypt;anyhow we weren't sorry when the order was given to put the tigerashore.

  "Well, the same day that we got rid o' the tiger we was sent aboard aMalay ship to flog one o' the men. He'n bin up to some mischief, an'his comrades were afraid, I s'pose, to flog him; and as the offence hehad committed was against us somehow (I never rightly understood itmyself), some of us went aboard the Malay ship, tied him up, an' gavehim two dozen.

  "That night the whole ship's company slep' on deck as usual--officers aswell--all but the cap'n, who had gone ashore. It was a _tremendous_ hotnight, an' a good deal darker than usual. There was one man in the shipnamed Wilson; but we called him Bob Roarer, because of a habit he had ofspeakin' an' sometimes roarin' in his sleep. Bob lay between me an' thepurser that night, an' we slep' on all right till it was getting prettylate, though there was two or three snorers that got their noses closeto the deck an' kep' up a pretty fair imitation of a brass band.Suddenly Bob began to dream, or took a nightmare or somethin', for hehit straight out with both fists, givin' the purser a tap on the nobwith his left, an' diggin' his right into my bread-basket with such goodwill that he nearly knocked all the wind out o' me, at the same time heuttered a most appallin' yell.

  "The confusion that followed is past description.

  "Some of us thought it was the tiger had broke loose,--forgettin' thatit had been sent ashore. Bob sneaked off the moment he found what he'ddone, and the purser, thinkin' it was pirates, grabbed the first hecould lay hold of by the throat, and that was me, so to it we went toothan' nail, for I had no notion who was pitchin' into me, it was so dark.Two of the men in their fright sprang up the main shrouds. Two others,who were asleep in the main-top, were awoke by the row, looked down onthe starboard side, an' saw the two comin' up. Thinking it was thefriends of the Malay who had been flogged coming to be revenged, theyran down the port shrouds like mad, and one o' them rushed along theport-deck, stickin' his feet into the bread-baskets of all the sleepersthat hadn't been woke by the yell, rousin' them up an' causin' them toroar like bo'suns. The row woke the cook, who was a nigger; he,thinkin' it was a sudden jollification, seized one o' the coppers an'began to beat it with an iron spoon. This set up the quartermaster, whorushed along the starboard deck, trampin' upon the breasts and faces ofa
ll and sundry. The gunner thought it was the tiger, and took to thetop of the awning; while the doctor and bo's'n's-mate they jumped overthe side, and hung on by ropes up to their waists in water!

  "At the worst o' the confusion the cap'n came aboard. We didn't seehim, but he ordered silence, an' after a while we discovered that therewas no reason whatever for the shindy. It wasn't till a long timeafterwards that we found out the real cause of the false alarm; but theonly man that got no fright that night, and kep' quite cool, was the manwho set it all agoin'--Bob Roarer."

  "_What_ a feller you are, Bill, to talk blarney," said Corney, risingand knocking the ashes out of his pipe; "sure, aither yer father or yermother must have bin an Irishman."

  "Blarney or no blarney, them's the facts," said Moxey, yawning, "an' I'moff to bed."

  "Ditto," said Frank, stretching himself.

  The two tressels, which were always removed from the room during theday, had been brought in, and were by this time occupied by Mason andWilliams, whose duty it was to keep watch that night. Baxmore, thesub-engineer of the station, sat down at the desk to read over theevents of the day, and the others rose to leave.

  "By the way, Baxmore," said Dale, "what was that false alarm at 2 p.m.when I was down at Watling Street?"

  "Only a chemist in Kensington, who, it seems, is mad after makin'experiments, and all but blew the roof off his house with one of 'em."

  "Ah! only smoke, I suppose," said Dale.

  "That was all," said Baxmore, "but there was sitch a lot of it that somefellows thought it was a fire, an' came tearin' down here wi' the news,so we had a ride for nothing."

  "If I'm not mistaken you'll have a ride for something ere long,"observed Dale, turning his head aside, while he listened attentively."Hold on, lads, a minute!"

  There was a sound of wheels in the distance, as if some vehicle wereapproaching at a furious pace. On it came, louder and louder, until itturned the corner of the street, and the horses' feet rattled on thestones as they were pulled up sharp at the station. Instantly the bellwas rung violently, and a severe kicking was bestowed on the door.

  It is needless to say that the summons was answered promptly. Some ofthe men quietly resumed the helmets they had just hung up, well knowingthat work lay before them.

  A cabman darted through the door the instant it was opened, shouting--

  "Fire!"

  "Where?" asked Dale.

  "Forth Street, Holborn, sir!" cried the cabman. Again, for the thirdtime that night, the order was given to "get her out." While this wasbeing done, Baxmore took a leathern purse from the cupboard, and gavethe cabman a shilling for being first to "give the call."

  As the men were already accoutred, the engine left the station on thisoccasion in less than five minutes. The distance was short, so the pacewas full speed, and in an incredibly short space of time they drew up infront of a large, handsome shop, from the first-floor windows of whichthick smoke and a few forked flames were issuing.