Ten minutes later the whole street was blotted out in smoke. The
streams roared from the nozzles, and were lost in it. The pipemen, with
heads down and eyes shut, braced themselves against the back-pressure
and fought for breath. The officers, staggering into them, shouldered
them forward, smothering. The whole line throttled in darkness, without
orders, without head, swayed and struggled and stood helpless.
Then, like a stroke of lightning, the flame split the smoke before
them. The air seemed to explode in a blaze of burning gases; the heat
whipped into their faces with a stinging lash; and the whole row of
lumber piles that faced them lighted up together like a long line of
beacons.
Against such a fire the streams were useless. They could beat back the
flame they struck; but as soon as they were moved from the steaming
lumber which they had saved, the heat licked it dry again, and the
flames leaped back to it. Behind the fringe which the pipes could
cover, the whole yard blazed untouched. The windows in the rear of the
factory cracked and broke; the smoke began to pour out through the
wrecked roof; the fire rose from floor to floor as fast as it could
climb; and it climbed unchecked, despite the three streams from the
nearest water tower that fought it.
Moran licked the tail of his mustache and watched nervously. The
largest of the gas tanks towered behind him, in the full current of
heat which rained a steady shower of sparks against it; and when he
glanced back at it his head jerked around with a twitch. He ordered
one of the deck pipes of the water tower turned on the tank to wet it
down; and his voice was hoarse and anxious. Then, when the blaze in
the factory reached the varnish room and flared out with double fury,
he rushed around, concentrating all his streams on the one whirl of
flame. The sides of the tank steamed dry at once. He called out for
another line to be stretched in from the _Hudson_, and his voice came
shaken from a tense throat. He was losing his head. The boat line did
not come. In desperation he started down the street, and was met by
Keighley hastening up at the head of a squad of the boat’s crew.
“For ---- sake, Keighley, hurry up!” he gasped; and his tone was a
confession of weakness that was willing to forgive anything--for the
moment--for the sake of aid.
The line was stretched and coupled as fast as drill. The water spouted
to the tank and drenched it. Moran took off his helmet and wiped his
forehead, trembling in spite of his efforts to control himself.
Keighley came striding back. “That coal pier’s goin’ up if we don’t
keep her wet,” he said. “It’ll be worse than the fact’ry fer the tank
there.”
Moran tried to curse. “The--the whole damn place’s going up,” he
complained feebly.
“The blaze on that lumber pier astern of us’ll scorch us out if we
don’t keep it down,” Keighley continued. “We want a stream on the wall
alongside the boat. Were pretty near pumpin’ our limit as it is.”
Moran shook his head in a dogged helplessness.
“What’re yuh goin’ to do?” Keighley insisted. “We got to do
somethin’--an’ be quick about it. Look-a-here!” He hurried down to the
boat, with Moran at his heels.
The _Hudson_ was lying at the head of the slip, in the angle of two
fires that swept her deck with a burning blast of heat and smoke.
Lieutenant Moore had turned one of the aft standpipes on the blazing
factory and was fighting back the flames in the nearest windows; but
the stream was too weak to be more than a small defiance. He had
started the deck spray on the stern, and the men there were working in
a shower; but it was a tepid shower, and the metal and cement of the
deck were already steaming under it.
The coal wharf at the bow was exposed to all the sparks that blew over
its great wooden hoist and bunkers. And if the fire took that wharf,
the whole defence would be outflanked; the blaze would blow from pier
to pier down the water front; the gas tanks would be caught from the
rear.
“Hi, there!” Keighley shouted. “Turn yer forrud pipes on there an’ keep
that pier wet. Two--four--eight--eleven--Hell! We got to save som’ers.
That won’t do.” He turned to Moran. “What’re yuh goin’ to do about it?
There’s too many streams as it is. They ain’t strong enough.”
But the acting-chief was at the end of his resources. It was his first
big fire, and it was too much for him. He had the bulldog courage
that can take up a position and hold it, fighting, to the last gasp
of ruin; but he had not the quality of mind to stand on the height of
responsibility unbewildered, and direct confusion and overrule defeat.
His face was as blank as his mind; and Keighley saw it.
“Take charge o’ that boat a minute,” the captain said.
Moran took a step towards the _Hudson_; and when he stopped and turned
again, Keighley was off up the street.
The old man had a plan--a plan that was drawn from his experience of
early volunteer days, when streams were too weak to tear up a fire by
the roots, and fire-fighters were always on the defensive, checking an
enemy that could not be successfully attacked.
He ordered the pipe of the nearest water tower to be raised to the
perpendicular, so that the stream from it rose straight in the air and
fell back on itself like a geyser. Then he trained the two deck pipes
of the same tower to cut into the stream with two deflecting ones; and
the three streams, meeting in mid-air, fought together in a spout of
spray that spread in all directions, formed a “water curtain” which no
spark could pass, and was blown by the wind in a wide shower over the
threatened tanks.
“Shut off that other line! Chief’s orders!” he shouted to the men who
were still flailing the tank sides with a solid stream.
“Will that shower be enough, cap’n?” one of the water tower men asked
him.
“Sure,” he said. “Yuh can’t set fire to metal, can yuh? Supposin’ the
heat does swell up yer gas a bit, ain’t those telescope tanks? Yuh
couldn’t explode one o’ them if yuh opened it an’ dropped a match in.
It’d go out. It’s got to have air, ain’t it? She’s safe as long ’s she
don’t warp a leak.”
He ran along through the scorch to the second tower, and watched it
pouring a waste of water on a fire that was already held by the hose
from the engines. “We’re goin’ to cut this tower off,” he called.
“Chief’s orders! Yuh can’t put that blaze out; yuh got to let it burn
out. The other crews can hol’ it. Get back up the street there, where
there’s buildin’s. Stick to it, boys. We got to have this water to keep
her from gettin’ down the piers behind yuh.”
He doubled back to the water front. “Two--three--five,” he muttered.
“That’ll do it.”
The acting-chief ran into him in the smoke. Keighley clutched him by
the elbow. “What’re yuh doin’ here?” the captain cried. “Why ain’t y’
aboard that boat?” And Moran turned and followed him like a lieutenant.