Harvey Jerrold O'Higgins

“ But the brewery was beyond the reach of the stationary nozzles, being across the road from the foot of the pier at which the Hudson had tied up. And Captain Keighley, peering through the smoke, could see a squad of volunteer firemen vainly trying to reach the roof of the brewery with streams that fell short of the third story. He was ordering a line [Pg 167] of hose stretched up the pier to aid them, when a fat man, red-shirted, in the white helmet of a chief, came puffing corpulently down the wharf towards the boat, waving a speaking trumpet. ”

“ Keighley explained rapidly, “an’ two trucks o’ nine trained leopards, an’ some big gorillas an’ half a circus goin’ back to Hagen—what’s-his-name, in Hamburg. We’ll have to flood her down without openin’ up. Smoke chokes them brutes off like kittens.”
They stood beside the open hatch, in the fading light, and looked down into the dark cargo room. They could see faintly the ends of the box cages in which the animals were penned; and they could hear, not faintly, the uproar of a panic-stricken menagerie frenzied by the smell of fire. ”

“ We don’t want any more Sachsen games played on us here.”
They went. But they did not go far. [Pg 249] “Shine” had no more than jumped down among the cages when a shrill squealing rose in the hatch. A yell from “Shine” topped it with a startling note of fright; and up the ladder, over the men on the rungs, there came a swarm of monkeys, biting and fighting like rats as the men tried to beat them off, and clinging to arms and legs, shrieking and chattering, when the men, retreating, began to clamber up. They poured out, gibbering, on the deck and put the crew to flight. ”

“ He heard Doherty knocking the pin out of a cage door, and he backed into the ladder.
“Sick ’em,” Doherty yelled; and “Shine” knew, by the direction from which the voice came, that Doherty was safe on top of a cage.
Then, down the passageway between the cages—in the dim halo that lay outside the ring of light from the lantern—“Shine” saw a pair of flaming eyeballs approaching him. He clutched the empty nozzle. A black leopard crept up and crouched at the edge of the light, its tail beating on the deck. Behind it he saw another. A third sneaked in beside them. ”

“ There was little said about the fire on the Sachsen even within the groups. Firemen have no more taste for discussing their day’s work with one another than any other laborers have; and in this case, there was an uneasy feeling that the man who said least, now, would have least to answer for if there were to be an official investigation of the disaster. As for Keighley, he did not ask himself—or anybody else—what was going on in the minds of either faction. ”

“ The old captain had been a fireman since the days when the Sunday fights between the volunteer hose companies in Philadelphia had been the “only mode of public worship on the Sabbath” there. When those fights had culminated in riot, bloodshed, and the burning of churches, he had come to New York, and run with the “goose-necks” and defied the “leather-heads” until the paid brigade was formed and he took service with it. He had been living among men and politicians ever since ”

“ The men crouched behind the bulwarks, their eyes smarting, their throats parched, silent except for a feeble complaint from “Shine” that they would be “spittin’ black buttons fer a month.” Moran clung to his standpipe. Lieutenant Moore struggled against the kick of a pipe which he had turned on the burning pier at the stern of the boat. Keighley’s voice came to them all, thin and far, “To yer [Pg 139] left, Moore. Higher up there, chief. Stick to it, boys!”
There is, in such men, an ideal of self-subordination as strong as the instinct of liberty itself. ”

“ Captain Keighley, when he looked up to see Doherty above him, was standing on the cement roof of the Hudson’s wheelhouse, beside a monitor nozzle that could drive a hole through a brick wall with a stream as stiff as a steel bar; and the fact that he stood in this place of command by virtue of his own cunning, in spite of intrigue in the fire-department and treachery in his own crew, did not show in the look that he lifted to his [Pg 8] enemy overhead. At most he showed only a cool reliance on the streams of the Hudson to cope with any mischief that might be in hand ”

“ II MEANWHILE, Lieutenant Moore had found Captain Keighley and the “Jiggers,” with their two lines, working busily in the choke of cotton smoke in the deep hold, playing one pipe on the heart of the fire and with the other sprinkling the bales around it. And Captain Keighley, with his helmet awry on his head and a smile of contempt slanting his mouth, feeling the Hudson’s eight pumps behind him, was playing a game with that fire, happily. The screeches of the stewardess and the flight of the ship’s crew had not alarmed him. He was used to the sight of blind [Pg 20] fright ”

“ And Keighley observed that some of the men laughed, that the others at least smiled, and that Lieutenant Moore was the only one who remained out of reach of the invitation to good humor. The captain returned forward again, frowning thoughtfully.
The pier shed, as they swung in towards it, was fuming at every door with puffs of a heavy smoke from the burning grasses in which the fruit was packed; and Keighley saw that the fire was going to be—in department slang—a “worker.” ”

“ Keighley passed a worried hand over his forehead. “Chief,” he said, “I’ve had a good deal o’ trouble in the las’ two months, an’ I’ve been doin’ a lot o’ thinkin’. An I want to tell yuh this: Here’s this fire department as clean as anyone’d want it, an’ here’s ev’ry other department in this town, between you [Pg 272] an’ me, gettin’ rotten with graft. Why don’t politics get a hold on us.” He leaned forward poking out his forefinger. “’Cause politics can’t put out a fire, an’ a fire, when it starts, has got to be put out, er the whole damn town goes up. Yuh can’t fool with a fire.” ”

“ The German first officer and his men took charge of Doherty and agreed to turn him over to the police as soon as their boat tied up to the pier; and to them was left the work, too, of returning the wild animals to their cages. The firemen were free to pick up their lines and return to the Hudson, chaffing “Shine.”
“That’s all right,” he swaggered. “I’m a li’n-tamer, all right, all right.”
“Yuh’re not much on polar bears,” they told him.
He retorted delicately, “Yuh can’t train a brute that’s got no sense. Polar bears are like youse guys. They’re holler in the cocoa.” ”

“ To a crew of men who knew that they were beyond the reach of the departmental authorities, the whole affair was a warm-weather lark. Under a stern spray that kept them cool, they manned their lines in blue shirts and old trousers, all of them bareheaded and some of them in their bare feet. Keighley, [Pg 166] on the wheelhouse deck, and Lieutenant Moore, in the fantail, wore helmets and rubber boots; but Noonan was the only one who put on a waterproof coat, and he was directing a monitor nozzle, under Keighley’s instructions, with all the deadly earnestness of an old man at play. ”

“ XIX THE Coney Island that they landed on is gone now. It was a shouting gypsy fair of side shows, beer gardens, dance halls, chowder tents, shooting galleries and unsavory “joints.” It was not a sweet resort, but “Shine” walked through it, like an old graduate through the corridors of his college, fondly reminiscent. He laughed at the “ballyhoo man” drawing the crowd to a booth with his sword-swallowing and his fire-eating. He listened appreciatively to the art of a “spieler” praising a “performance inside;” ”

“ It was the voice of temptation sweetly tuned to “Shine’s” own inclination. He could, in fact, get back to the fire-boat more quickly by rail than by water; and even if he did not—if he “stopped over” long enough to call on “Goldy” and the “gang”—the Leo would carry back word of his accident in the forepeak, and he could invent more excuses to explain his further delay.
He said, “Let’s get the boots.” And [Pg 203] when the Leo tied up at her pier on the Coney Island beach, he was helped ashore by Doherty and a deck-hand who had lent him a hat, a coat and a pair of shoes for two dollars. ”

“ Keighley said, “tend to yer nozzle. Don’t let it play in one place. It’ll knock holes in that wharf, if yuh do.”
Noonan took the directing-wheel again, and began to swing the nozzle from side to side mechanically, watching over his shoulder for Dolger’s return. Keighley went down the ladder to take charge of his crew, and left Noonan alone on the wheelhouse top. And when Dolger’s men appeared running through the smoke with their chief’s white helmet leading them like an ikon, it was Noonan who saw them first. He raised a warlike shout of “Hi, boys, hi! Hooks an’ axes! hooks an’ axes!” ”

“ He did not remember that by shouting “Chief’s orders!” he had himself given Moran the credit of that move. He accepted [Pg 147] 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. ”

“ The chief’s dignity would not let him [Pg 267] discuss such matters with a man in the ranks. He said, “Shut off your nozzles there, now. You’re putting too much water on that deck”—and walked away without further remark.
“Shine” said, under his voice, to Cripps: “That’ll hold him fer a while.”
Cripps replied, with a convincing oath, “It’s true, too.”
A hole had been cut in the hatch below, and a denser smoke rose from it. There was nothing to do now but wait for the six-inch line to drown out the smolder; and Cripps and “Shine” waited, standing with their pipe. ”

“ No one spoke again until Cripps asked weakly, “Can yuh get us out, sir?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. If yuh live long enough, an’ I do, I’ll get y’ all out.... I’ll get out ev’ry man o’ yuh that’s breathin’, any way.... We got to wait here till that fire burns down; that’s all.”
The young stoker had begun to sob. Lieutenant Moore opened his parched lips to speak, but his tongue, swollen and dry, like a piece of flannel in his mouth, was too thick to turn a word. The sound of flames rose suddenly to a muffled grumble.
[Pg 39] Captain Keighley said, “Here’s some cotton waste I hunted up. ”

“ When the men got back to the Hudson with the first lengths of hose, he stormed down on them angrily.
“What’re you doing? Get a move on, will you? What the hell are you fooling round with that hose for, Keighley? [Pg 116] Stretch in over there, where I told you! Why the devil—”
Keighley, who had his own sense of dignity, set his thin lips in a tight line and looked back at the factory. “Where’s yer truck comp’ny?” he growled. “D’ yuh expect eight men to stretch in enough o’ this boat’s hose to feed two water towers?”
Moran’s voice rose to a hoarse curse: “G— — you! don’t you talk back to me! ”

“ Farley, with the tears still running down his cheeks, swung his heels blissfully, chewed, and regarded the lights of the city. “It’s hot work,” he said. “It’s hot work, all right. But how’d yuh like to be pushin’ a pen in one o’ them little furnaces, fer instance?” He nodded at the late lights in the upper windows of a distant office building. “One o’ them newspaper touts was tryin’ to pump me th’other day about that fire in the cotton. ‘Say,’ he says, ‘what takes you men into the fire department?’ ‘Oh, the pay,’ I says. ‘The pay.’ ‘Hell!’ he says, ‘the money’s no [Pg 95] good to a dead man. ”

“ The engineer had work to do, fitting a sort of drain to carry off the water that condensed in the low-pressure cylinder. Keighley was kept interested by the rumors of bad blood between the Fire Commissioner and “the Boss”—or the Boss’s creature, the Little Mayor. But the men had nothing but the shining of brasses and the washing of hose to occupy their few working moments, and nothing but the exhausted [Pg 186] interest of newspapers and dominoes to pass their long idle hours. ”

“ It was not that Keighley felt the impulse of any unguarded generosity. He knew his fire-department too well for that! For there is this peculiarity in firemen: being free of any business worries or other anxieties concerning their incomes, they spend their days in efforts to “get even,” to avenge slights [Pg 98] and repay friendships. ”

“ I THE Sachsen was a freighter of the Baltic-American line, plying between New York and Hamburg; she was tied to her pier in the North River, receiving cargo, that afternoon, when fire was discovered among the bales of cotton that were being loaded into her forward hold; and according to the foreman of her forward-hold gang of freight-handlers, the fire started in a longshoreman’s clay pipe, smoked, against orders, while the man was at his work below decks receiving the bales. According to the officials of the Baltic-American [Pg 6] line, the fire was “a pure case of spontaneous combustion;” ”

“ That policy was in the end so successful that the “Jiggers” lost even their distinctive name; and the term “Jigger-jumper” is applied now, in department slang, to all “blue-shirts” who run at the call of that peremptory little bell to risk their lives and do their duty.
Ask them! Ask any of Keighley’s men. Ask “Shine.” “We’re all Jigger-jumpers,” he will tell you. “An’ it keeps us on the jump. On the jump! ”

“ The final relief came from the shore companies that closed in on the ruin, fighting their way through the smolder of the yard, and beating down the dying struggles of the flames with a score of pipes. To Keighley’s orders, the boat drew off and turned broadside to the burning lumber pier and fairly swept it from its piles. ”

“ Having given his orders for the day, he withdrew, upstairs, to a balcony off his bunkroom, where he sat all morning in the shade, watching the tugs and ferries, steamboats, floats and scows that bustled and wallowed and staggered past, squealing in a shrill impatience when they whistled, and puffing short of breath when they reversed. ”