SARTWELL, as he had written to his daughter and telegraphed to Barney
Hope, found himself very busy, now the men had come back. Although he
dismissed none who had taken part in the strike, he rearranged, with a
dogged ruthlessness, the whole service of the works. Few men got their
old jobs back again, or their old wages. There were promotions and
retrogradations, although no one was discharged. At first it seemed to
the men that this was a mere brutal display of power, presided over by
wanton caprice, but as time went on they began to see the glimmering
of a method in the weaving of the web. Those who were degraded to the
meanest and most poorly paid work the firm had to offer were the men
who had been most hot-headed in bringing on the strike, and the most
persistent in opposing its conclusion. The soberer heads among the men,
who had been thrust into the background during the agitation, were in
every instance given promotion and higher pay; and as these changes took
place one after another--for Sartwell was not the man to disorganize the
works by any sweepingly radical changes--the general conclusion was
that the manager merely desired to show the men that those whom they
had valued lightly were the workmen whom he prized. Yet it could not be
denied, even by those who lost in the game of reorganization, that the
more conservative men thus advanced were among the most capable workmen
in the factory. They were the men who had most to lose by a strike, and
had naturally been most reluctant to enter into a contest the end of
which no one could foresee. By-and-by it began to be suspected that the
manager must have in his possession a complete and accurate record of
every action and speech during the strike, so entirely did his
shifting about of the pawns, which he played with such cool and silent
relentlessness, coincide with the doings of each piece during the
trouble they thought was past and hoped had been forgotten. In some
instances it seemed as if Sartwell had deliberately marked the contrast
by bringing the degraded and the elevated into purposeful juxtaposition,
so that his design in showing that he held the future of each man in
his hand could not be misunderstood by even the most stupid of his
employees. It was a grim object lesson, apparently intended to convey
Sartwell’s determination to stick by the men who, even remotely, had
sympathized with him in the late struggle; for not a word was spoken,
and when a man protested humbly against debasement, the manager made no
reply, and the workman knew he had either to submit or to apply for his
wages at the office.
In no instance was the evidence of Sartwell’s silent wrath more manifest
than in the cases of Braunt and Scimmins. The two men had been equal in
position when the strike began, although Scimmins received rather more
money than Braunt. Now Braunt was made superintendent of the upper
floor, where most of the employees were women and boys, while Scimmins
was given the work which one of the boys who did not return at the end
of the strike had done. Scimmins had the double humiliation of being
under the none too gentle orders of the big Yorkshireman whom he had
flouted during the strike, and also of having to accept little more than
boy’s wages. He cursed Sartwell loud and often; but the manager was a
man who paid little heed to the curses of others, and Scimmins was not
in a position to refuse the small pay he received.
Sartwell had at last arranged the interior economy of the factory to his
liking, and was just promising himself a few days free from worry down
at Eastbourne, when a most unlooked-for disaster overturned all his
plans. Shortly before the dinner hour he was coming down the stairs from
the upper floor, when a shriek, which seemed to be the combined voices
of those he had left a moment before, paralyzed him where he stood. The
first thought that flashed through his mind was that Braunt had gone
suddenly mad, and, perhaps, killed some one; for the manager had
noticed, since Braunt’s promotion, that he sometimes spoke wildly, while
now and again there was a dangerous maniacal gleam in his eye which
betokened latent insanity. Before he could turn around, two dishevelled,
screaming women passed him.
“What’s wrong?” he shouted after them.
“Fire!” they shrieked back at him as they fled.
As Sartwell bounded up the stairs he met no more coming down. He heard
outside in the yard a man’s deep voice hoarsely shouting, “Fire! Fire!”
The manager’s heart sank as he thought of the numbers on the upper
floor, the narrow stairway, and the single exit. The other floors were
reasonably safe, with broad stairways and wide doors; but the upper
floor, which formerly had but few occupants, had long been a source
of anxiety to him, fearing, as he did, just such a catastrophe as now
seemed imminent. The remedying of this had often been agreed upon by
both the owners and himself, and was among the good intentions which
were at various times postponed to a more convenient season,--and now
the cry of “Fire!” was ringing in his ears, and the narrow stair was the
only means of escape!
He found the open doorway blocked by a mass of howling human beings,
each wild to escape, and each making escape impossible. They were wedged
and immovable, many too tightly compressed to struggle, while others
farther back thrashed wildly about with their arms, trying to fight
their way to safety. The dangerous aromatic smell of burning pine filled
the air, and smoke poured up through, the lift shaft, and rolled in
ever-increasing density along the ceiling. There was no flame as yet;
but if the jam could not be broken, it would not need the fire itself to
smother the life out of those in the hopeless contest.
“Stand back there!” cried Sartwell. “There is no danger if you but keep
cool. All of you go back to your places. I’ll go in with you and be the
last to leave, so there’s nothing to fear.”
A red tongue of flame flashed for the winking of an eye amidst the black
smoke, disappearing almost as soon as it came, but sending a momentary
glow like sheet lightning over the rapidly darkening room. It was a
brief but ominous reply to Sartwell’s words, and he saw he might as
well have spoken to the tempest. He tried to extricate one of the girls,
whose wildly-staring eyes and pallid lips showed she was being crushed
to death, but she was wedged as firmly in the mass as if cemented there.
Sartwell, with a groan of despair, saw he was powerless in the face of
this irresistible panic. He was attacking the wedge at the point, and so
was at a tremendous disadvantage.
An angry roar, louder than his shout had been, called his attention to
the fact that Braunt was making an assault on the wedge from the rear.
The big man, using his immense strength mercilessly, was cleaving
his way through the mass, grasping the women with both hands by
the shoulders, and flinging them, with a reckless carelessness of
consequences, behind him, fighting his way inch by inch towards the
door.
“Stand back, ye villain!” Braunt roared to Scimmins, who, crazed by
fear, was trampling down all ahead of him in his frantic efforts to
escape.
“It’s every one for himself!” screamed Scimmins. “I have as much right
to my life as you have to yours.”
“Stand back, ye ruffian, or Ah’ll strangle ye when Ah get ma hands on
ye! Stand ye there, Mr. Sartwell, an’ catch them when Ah throw them
t’ ye. The women first. Fling them down past the turn o’ the stair an’
they’ll be safe. Stand ye there; Ah’ll be at the door this minute. We’ll
have them all out in a jiffy.”
While he shouted Braunt tore his way through the crowd, and at last
reached the knot in the jam where further progress was impossible. Here
he stood, and by the simple power of his arms lifted girl after girl
straight up, and hurled them over the heads of those in front into
Sartwell’s arms, who pushed them on down the stairs.
“For God’s sake, Scimmins,” cried Sartwell, who from his position could
see the fear-demented man pressing the crowd on Braunt and hampering
him, “be a man, and stand back! Don’t fight! There’s time for all to get
out.”
“Ah’ll crack your skull for ye!” shouted Braunt hoarsely, over his
shoulder. “Remember ye’ve to pass me before ye get to the stair, an’
little good your fightin’ ’ill do ye.”
At last the knot dissolved, as a long jam on a river suddenly gives way
when the key-log is removed. Braunt stood now with his back against
the door-post, while Sartwell took his place at the turn of the stairs,
strenuously flinging torn and ragged items of humanity into safety.
Several of those who had been at the point of the wedge lay at his feet,
senseless or dead--there was no time to discover which. Now and then a
girl he hurled down the stair tottered, fell, and lay where she fell.
“Why doesn’t some one come to carry those women out?” groaned the
manager, who had asked one after another whom he had saved to send help
to him.
At last two of his men appeared.
“It’s a bad fire, Mr. Sartwell,” said one.
“Yes, yes, I know. Take down two each, if you can, and send up more men.
Tell the clerks to see that the iron doors between the buildings are
closed. Are the firemen here?”
“Five engines, sir.”
“Good! Get down as quickly as you can, and send up more help.”
“Ye devil! Do ye think to sneak past me?” cried Braunt, seizing
Scimmins, who had at last fought his way through.
“Don’t waste time with that man, Braunt. My God, don’t you see the
flames! The roof will be in on us in a minute! Fling him down here!”
“He stays behind me till the last soul’s out,” snarled Braunt, between
his teeth.
Sartwell said no more. It was no time to argue or expostulate, and
Braunt, although pinning Scimmins to the wall behind him, continued to
extricate the women as fast as the manager could pass them along.
The knot was continually forming at the door, and was as continually
unloosed by the stalwart, indefatigable arms of Braunt.
“You are smothering me,” whined Scimmins.
“I hope so,” said Braunt.
The situation was now hardly to be borne. The smoke ascending the
stairway met the smoke pouring through the door, yet, in spite of the
smoke, the room was bright, for a steady column of flame roared up
through the shaft, making it like a blast-furnace.
“Are they all out?” gasped Sartwell, coughing, for the smoke was choking
him.
“Ah think so, sir; but Ah’ll have a look. Some maybe on the floor,”--and
Braunt, as he spoke, hurled Scimmins into the room ahead of him, pushing
the door shut, so that Sartwell would not hear the man if he cried out.
The manager, strangling in the smoke, appeared to have forgotten that
Scimmins was there.
“Down on your hands and knees, ye hound, and see if any o’ the women ye
felled are there!”
Scimmins was already on his knees.
“There’s no one here. Open the door!--open the door!” he cried.
Braunt opened the door an inch or two.
“All out, sir!” he shouted.
“Thank God for that!” said Sartwell. “Come down at once. There’s not a
moment to lose.”
“I’ll be down as soon as you are, sir. Run!”
The manager stumbled down the crackling stair, not doubting but Braunt
followed.
“Now, ye crawling serpent, I’m going to keep ye here till ye’re singed.
I saw your villainy, ye coward!” The terror-stricken man mistook the
purport of Braunt’s words, and thus lost all chance of life.
“I swear to God, I didn’t mean it!” he cried. “The match dropped before
I knowed it. God’s truth, it did, Braunt!”
“What! Ye fired th’ works! Ye! With the women here ye tried to starve!
Ye dropped the match! Ye crawling, murderous fiend!”
Braunt crouched like a wild beast about to spring, his crooked fingers,
like claws, twitching nervously. Breathing in short quick gasps, for the
smoke had him by the throat, his fierce eyes glittering in the flames
with the fearsome light of insanity, he pounced upon his writhing victim
and held his struggling figure with arms upstretched above his head.
Treading over the quaking floor, he shouted:
“Down, ye craven devil, into the hell ye have made!”
The long, quivering shriek of the doomed man was swallowed and quenched
in the torrent of fire.
Braunt stood in the centre of the trembling, sagging floor, with his
empty hands still above his head, his face upturned, and swaying dimly
in the stifling smoke. A fireman’s axe crashed in a window; a spurt of
water burst through the opening, and hissed against the ceiling.
“Jessie! Jessie! Listen! the _Dead March!_ My girl! The--real--march!”
With a rending crash the floor sank into the furnace.