One night, not long after the events narrated in the last chapter, Frank
Willders was standing with the fireman-in-charge in the King Street
Station. He had just removed his helmet, and the perspiration on his
brow 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 fire
in 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; the
taproom burnt out, and the rest of the house damaged by smoke. It was
pretty 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 a
memorandum on a slate.
"With both engines!" said Frank.
"Ay, both," replied Baxmore, with a laugh, as he sat down in front of
the fire. "Let me see; it's now nine o'clock, so they've bin off an
hour; one to Walton Street, Brompton; the other to Porchester Terrace,
Bayswater. The call was the queerest I've seen for many a day. We was
all sittin' here smokin' our pipes, as usual, when two fellers came to
the door, full split, from opposite pints o' the compass, an' run slap
into each other. They looked like gentlemen; but they was in such a
state it wasn't easy to make out what sort o' fish they was. One had
his coat torn and his hat gone; the other had his tile pretty well
knocked down on his eyes--I s'pose by the people he run into on the
way--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, that
one 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 were
gasping 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 other
said `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 the
question 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 the
other a crack between the eyes. T'other returned on the nob, and then
they closed.
"Before this Mr Dale had ordered out one o' the engines, an' when he
heard 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 the
stutterers separated both engines were off full swing, one to Brompton,
the other to Bayswater; but whether there are two fires or no is yet to
be 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 at
the scene they had so recently witnessed, they hung up their helmets and
crowded round the fire.
"So it _was_ in Brompton, after all," said Jack Williams, stirring the
coals; "but it was a small affair in a baker's shop, and we soon got it
out."
"Is the other engine back?" inquired Moxey.
"Here she comes to answer for herself," said Mason, as the second engine
dashed 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 the
particulars in his diary; "it was a private house, and well alight when
we got there, but the Paddington engine was playing on it, and we soon
got it under."
"Faix, it's well them stutterers didn't kape us longer, else the whole
house would have bin burnt out intirely," observed Joe Corney, binding
up 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, and
otherwise bore marks of their recent sharp though short skirmish, but
none of them deemed it necessary to remove these evidences of devotion
to 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 before
we came up," said one.
"Pickford said he couldn't help laughing after he got 'em out, at the
remembrance o' their faces. When he first went in they was all sound
asleep 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 was
wonderful to behold."
"Not so wonderful," observed Bill Moxey, "as the surprise I seed a whole
man-o'-war's crew get by consequence o' the shout o' one of her own
men."
"When was that? Let's hear about it, Bill," said Corney, stuffing down
the 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 was
never a cloud a'most in the sky, and the sun was nigh hot enough to fry
the decks off the ship. Cook said he'd half a mind to try to roast a
junk o' beef at it, but I never heard that he managed that. We slep' on
deck o' nights, 'cause you might as well have tried to sleep in a
baker's oven as sleep below. The thing that troubled us most at that
time was a tiger we had on board. It did kick up such a shindy
sometimes! We thought it would break its cage an make a quid o' some of
us. 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 tiger
ashore.
"Well, the same day that we got rid o' the tiger we was sent aboard a
Malay 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 he
had committed was against us somehow (I never rightly understood it
myself), some of us went aboard the Malay ship, tied him up, an' gave
him two dozen.
"That night the whole ship's company slep' on deck as usual--officers as
well--all but the cap'n, who had gone ashore. It was a _tremendous_ hot
night, an' a good deal darker than usual. There was one man in the ship
named Wilson; but we called him Bob Roarer, because of a habit he had of
speakin' an' sometimes roarin' in his sleep. Bob lay between me an' the
purser that night, an' we slep' on all right till it was getting pretty
late, though there was two or three snorers that got their noses close
to 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 he
hit straight out with both fists, givin' the purser a tap on the nob
with his left, an' diggin' his right into my bread-basket with such good
will that he nearly knocked all the wind out o' me, at the same time he
uttered a most appallin' yell.
"The confusion that followed is past description.
"Some of us thought it was the tiger had broke loose,--forgettin' that
it had been sent ashore. Bob sneaked off the moment he found what he'd
done, and the purser, thinkin' it was pirates, grabbed the first he
could lay hold of by the throat, and that was me, so to it we went tooth
an' 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 on
the starboard side, an' saw the two comin' up. Thinking it was the
friends of the Malay who had been flogged coming to be revenged, they
ran down the port shrouds like mad, and one o' them rushed along the
port-deck, stickin' his feet into the bread-baskets of all the sleepers
that hadn't been woke by the yell, rousin' them up an' causin' them to
roar 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, who
rushed along the starboard deck, trampin' upon the breasts and faces of
all and sundry. The gunner thought it was the tiger, and took to the
top of the awning; while the doctor and bo's'n's-mate they jumped over
the 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 see
him, but he ordered silence, an' after a while we discovered that there
was no reason whatever for the shindy. It wasn't till a long time
afterwards that we found out the real cause of the false alarm; but the
only man that got no fright that night, and kep' quite cool, was the man
who set it all agoin'--Bob Roarer."
"_What_ a feller you are, Bill, to talk blarney," said Corney, rising
and knocking the ashes out of his pipe; "sure, aither yer father or yer
mother must have bin an Irishman."
"Blarney or no blarney, them's the facts," said Moxey, yawning, "an' I'm
off to bed."
"Ditto," said Frank, stretching himself.
The two tressels, which were always removed from the room during the
day, had been brought in, and were by this time occupied by Mason and
Williams, whose duty it was to keep watch that night. Baxmore, the
sub-engineer of the station, sat down at the desk to read over the
events 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 some
fellows 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 were
approaching at a furious pace. On it came, louder and louder, until it
turned the corner of the street, and the horses' feet rattled on the
stones as they were pulled up sharp at the station. Instantly the bell
was rung violently, and a severe kicking was bestowed on the door.
It is needless to say that the summons was answered promptly. Some of
the men quietly resumed the helmets they had just hung up, well knowing
that work lay before them.