But when he had slept on it, he was not quite so sanguine, for though
he recognized that he had overcome the active opposition of his crew,
of his lieutenant, and now of the acting-chief, he understood that such
victories could be but temporary. He was standing against the interests
of these men; and by whatever emotions of fear and respect he had held
them back, the emotion would pass and the interest remain. He conceded
to himself that Moore was negligible, that the men were almost so.
(If he exercised even ordinary care, he could protect himself from
whatever small malice there might be among them.) But if Moran and the
Commissioner spared him, it would be with the hope of winning from his
gratitude what they had not been able to force from his fear--namely,
a disposition to aid the progress of the benevolent association of the
“Jiggers” by favoring their members in his crew. And he was determined
to do no such thing.
He turned to the newspaper account of the night’s fire--with the
fireman’s usual excuse to himself that he wished to see how the
reporter had “botched it”--and he read with sarcastic relish a detailed
account of how Moran had used a “water-screen” to save the gas tanks,
and had so headed off a “conflagration” that at one time threatened
to wipe out half the East Side. He did not remember that by shouting
“Chief’s orders!” he had himself given Moran the credit of that move.
He accepted the report as another of those newspaper inaccuracies
which are a tradition among firemen. He flung the paper aside and went
out to start the men at work restoring the _Hudson’s_ blistered paint.
It is the rule of the department, of course, that no fireman shall talk
“for publication;” and the unfortunate “newspaper tout” who reports a
fire has to depend to an impossible extent upon his own eye. It is only
after he has made personal friends of men or officers that he gets any
“inside story” of what has happened, and then only on condition that he
is careful to conceal the name of his informant. And it is not merely
the “authorities” who enforce this rule; the men themselves uphold
it; and the fireman who allows himself to be interviewed suffers the
same sort of treatment from his fellows that a schoolboy gets from
his class when he “tattles” to his teacher. The men carry in their
inside pockets, secretly, newspaper clippings in which they have been
mentioned honorably, but they only show these--ostensibly at least--to
complain that their names have been misspelled. Such is the modesty of
nature!
Now the “newspaper tout” whom Farley had mentioned on the way back
from the fruit wharf fire, had a shrewd suspicion of what was going
on, under the surface of affairs, among the crew of the _Hudson_. His
attempts to “pump” the men, after the burning of the _Sachsen_, had
failed for the obvious reason that the secret to be concealed was a
dangerous one. But, after the fire in the lumber yard, he caught a
friendly fireman off duty, full of an enthusiastic admiration for
Keighley’s work on the gas tanks, and he succeeded in finding out
enough to show him that he was on the trail of a “good story” if he
could only hunt it down.
After some preliminary scouting and scenting about, he came boldly
to Keighley himself. “Captain,” he said--for the captain knew him by
sight--“where did you learn that trick of making a water screen with
three streams of a tower?”
The captain settled down in his swivel chair and replied, “I’m runnin’
a fire-boat. What’re yuh talkin’ about water towers?”
The reporter nodded. “I know. I was at that lumber yard blaze. I saw
you do that trick with the water screen.”
Keighley said, “Say, young fellah, why don’t yuh read the papers?”
“Oh, I know all about that,” the newspaper man replied. “That’s the way
the papers had it. But I saw what happened.”
Keighley rose. “Yuh did, eh? Then what the hell’re yuh botherin’ _me_
about it fer? I got enough to do t’ atten’ to my own bus’ness without
pokin’ any nose into newspaper muddles. _You_ atten’ to yer toutin’ an’
I’ll atten’ to my fires.”
“All right, captain,” the reporter called after him as he went out.
“I’ll get that story yet.”
(And he got it, too. _This_ is it!)