<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></SPAN></span></p>
<h2>II</h2>
<h3>WHAT BILL BROWN DID IN THE GREAT TARRANT FIRE</h3>
<div class='cap'>THE great test for Fire-engine 29 and her crew, the
test of life or death that firemen wait years for
(to see what stuff is in them), came of a mild autumn
afternoon, not soon to be forgotten by men who lunch
down City Hall way, by men who swarm in the stone
hives of Chambers Street and Greenwich Street and
Washington Street. This was the day when innocent,
wholesome chlorate of potash (excellent for
colds) showed what it can do when you take it by the
ton with a pinch of fire. This was the day of the
great explosions, when it rained red-hot stones and
blazing timbers, when whole blocks of lower Manhattan
shivered with the concussion. This was Tarrant's
day, October 29, 1900.</div>
<p>It all started smoothly enough, with brass gongs
tapping out deliberate 62's, at which the big horses
in most engine-houses stamped their displeasure, for
62 meant nothing to them—at least not on the first call.
But it was great business for Harry and Nigger and
Baby, the two blacks and the gray that pull old 29, and
there they were at the first tap, breasting the rubber-bound
stall chains as if to hurry up laggard electricity,
which presently shot its sparks and loosed their fastenings.</p>
<p>Now, down drop the stall chains, and the horses,
pounding over the tiles, crowd up three abreast ahead<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></SPAN></span>
of the engine. Down drop the crew, silently, swiftly,
sliding from ceiling to floor like so many blue-shirted
ghosts. And click, click, its traces up and collars off
the frames, and snap, snap, until the last hook holds.</p>
<p>"H'm," says Baby, as the thick wheels start, "six
seconds; might have been worse."</p>
<p>"We'll strike the curb in eight and a half!" snorts
Nigger, as the doors swing wide and they bang into
Chambers Street.</p>
<p>Out into Chambers Street they go, with Johnnie
Marks driving and Bill Brown jamming blazing waste
into her fire-box, where wood and oil do the rest.
On the back steps rides Captain Devanny, steadying
himself by the coal-box, scowling under his helmet,
and jerking fast on the alarm-cord as they swing into
Greenwich Street. There is the fire just ahead, corner
of Warren Street, nasty black smoke choking
back the crowd. And here comes the hose-wagon,
clanging and rumbling at their heels.</p>
<p>"It's first water for us, Bill," said Devanny.</p>
<p>"There's drugs and stuff in there," said Bill.</p>
<p>Then they fell to work—as firemen do.</p>
<p>"When the first explosion came," said Captain Devanny,
telling the story weeks afterward, "I was inside
the building, up one flight, at the bottom of a
well of fire. McArthur and Buckley were with me,
playing a stiff stream to protect the back windows.
There's where people in the building had to run to,
men and girls; we could see 'em crowding on the balconies
over Bishop's Alley, and we wanted to give 'em
a chance on the fire-escapes. You see, a red-hot ladder
isn't much use to anybody.</p>
<div class="figleft"><SPAN name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></SPAN> <ANTIMG src="images/illus53.jpg" width-obs="385" height-obs="500" alt="A HOT PLACE." title="" /> <span class="caption">A HOT PLACE.</span></div>
<p>"Well, they got down, every soul of 'em, but by
that time big chunks of fire were dropping all around
us, and our helmets were crumpling and our clothes<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></SPAN></span>
were burning. Besides that, we kept hearing little explosions
overhead, louder than the fire crackle, louder
than pistol shots, and when you hear those in a drug-house
you don't feel any too good. I went to the
front, and saw fire breaking out everywhere on the
fourth and fifth floors. Then I knew it was all up,
and ran back to order the boys out. On the stairs I
met Gillon, and was just yelling, 'Save yourselves!'
when the crash came. It was like cannon, sir, and
sounded <i>bzzzzzzzz</i> in my ears for a long time, as I
lay in the wreck, with tongues of blue flames licking
down over me. I'd been blown clean off the second-floor
landing and dropped in the hallway, twenty feet
back from the door. McArthur and Gillon were down
the elevator shaft, where they'd jumped. Nobody
dared lift a head, for a cyclone of fire was all over us."</p>
<p>It is not my purpose to detail the sufferings and
final rescue of these flame-bound men. They had
some vivid glimpses of death and some cruel burns, but
firemen count these nothing, nor is McArthur's act in
turning back through fire to save a fallen comrade
(Merron) more than ordinary fireman's pluck, nor is
Devanny's experience when caught in the second explosion
and blown through a shop on Washington
Street more than an ordinary hazard of the business.
Indeed, this Tarrant fire should have but little of my
attention were there not something in it beyond noise
and house-smashing. There was this thing in it, overlooked
by newspaper reports, yet vastly important,
the behavior of Bill Brown, to whom, as a representative,
one may say, of engine crew 29, came the great
test I spoke of, the rare test which nothing but the
highest courage can satisfy. All firemen have courage,
but it cannot be known until the test how many
have this particular kind—Bill Brown's kind.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>And the odd part of it is that what he did seems a
little thing, and it took only a minute to do, and it
saved no life and made no difference whatever in the
outcome of the fire, yet to the few who know—or
care—it stands in the memories of the department as
a fine and unusual bit of heroism.</p>
<p>What happened was this: Engine 29, pumping and
pounding her prettiest, stood at the northwest corner
of Greenwich and Warren streets, so close to the blazing
drug-house that Driver Marks thought it wasn't
safe there for the three horses, and led them away.
That was fortunate, but it left Brown alone, right
against the cheek of the fire, watching his boiler, stoking
in coal, keeping his steam-gage at 75. As the fire
gained chunks of red-hot sandstone began to smash
down on the engine. Brown ran his pressure up to
80, and watched the door anxiously where the boys
had gone in.</p>
<p>Then the explosion came, and a blue flame, wide as
a house, curled its tongues half-way across the street,
enwrapping engine and man, setting fire to the elevated
railway station overhead, or such wreck of it
as the shock had left. Bill Brown stood by his engine,
with a wall of fire before him and a sheet of fire above
him. He heard quick footsteps on the pavements, and
voices, that grew fainter and fainter, crying: "Run for
your lives!" He heard the hose-wagon horses somewhere
back in the smoke go plunging away, mad with
fright and their burns. He was alone with the fire,
and the skin was hanging in shreds on his hands, face,
and neck. Only a fireman knows how one blast of
flame can shrivel up a man, and the pain over the
bared surfaces was—well, there <i>is</i> no pain worse than
that of fire scorching in upon the quick flesh seared
by fire.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>Here, I think, was a crisis to make a very brave man
quail. Bill Brown knew perfectly well why every one
was running; there was going to be another explosion
in a couple of minutes, maybe sooner, out of this hell
in front of him. And the order had come for every
man to save himself, and every man had done it, except
the lads inside. And the question was, Should he
run or should he stay and die? It was tolerably certain
that he would die if he stayed. On the other
hand, the boys of old 29 were in there. Devanny and
McArthur, and Gillon and Merron, his friends, his
chums: he'd seen them drag the hose in through that
door—there it was now, a long, throbbing snake of it—and
they hadn't come out. Perhaps they were
dead. Yes, but perhaps they weren't. If they were
alive, they needed water now more than they ever
needed anything before. And they couldn't get water
if he quit his engine.</p>
<p>Bill Brown pondered this a long time, perhaps four
seconds; then he fell to stoking in coal, and he
screwed her up another notch, and he eased her running
parts with the oiler. Explosion or not, pain or
not, alone or not, he was going to stay and make that
engine hum. He had done the greatest thing a man
can do—had offered his life for his friends.</p>
<p>It is pleasant to know that this sacrifice was averted.
A quarter of a minute or so before the second and terrible
explosion, Devanny and his men came staggering
from the building. Then it was that Merron fell, and
McArthur checked his flight to save him. Then it
was, but not until then, that Bill Brown left Engine
29 to her fate (she was crushed by the falling walls),
and ran for his life with his comrades. He had
waited for them, he had stood the great test.</p>
<p>It were easy to multiply stories of the firemen,<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></SPAN></span>
stories of the captains, stories of the chiefs—there is
no end to them. However many may be told or written,
they are but fragments of fragments. New York
has one hundred and thirty-six engine companies,
forty hook-and-ladder companies, besides the volunteers
on Staten Island, and there is not one of these
but has its proud record of courage and self-sacrifice.
Other lives show bravery for gain, bravery for show,
bravery for sport; these show bravery for the public
good and for no other reason—unselfish bravery.
Think what the firemen do! They give up regular
sleep, they give up home life, they bear every exposure,
they face death in many forms as a matter of
daily routine, they never refuse an order, lead where it
may (such a case is practically unknown), and they do
all this for modest pay and scant glory. Three or four
dollars a day will cover their earnings, and as for the
glory, what is it? For some a medal, a tattered paper
with roll-of-honor mention, a picture in the newspapers;
for most of them nothing. Yet they are cheerful,
happy men. Why? I have wondered about this.</p>
<p>Shall we think of firemen as braver than other men,
as finer or more devoted? No and yes. I should say
that most of them, to start with, had no such superiority,
but came into the department (usually by opportunity
or drift) out of unpromising conditions,
came in quite as selfish and timorous, quite as human
as the ordinary citizens. And the life did the rest.
The life changed them, made them braver and better.
Why? Because it is a brave, unselfish life, and no
man can resist it. Put a convict in the fire department
and he will become an honest man—or leave. It's
like changing scamps into heroes on the battle-field,
only these battles of hose and ax are all righteous battles
to save life, to avert loss and suffering. In the<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></SPAN></span>
whole business of fighting fires there is no place for a
mean or a base motive, and can be none. Therefore,
meanness and baseness go out of fashion just as whining
goes out of fashion on a football team. It's the
fashion among firemen to do fine things.</p>
<p>Let me give a further instance to show what this fire
department fashion does for men at the very top—for
battalion chiefs and deputy chiefs and the chief himself.
It swings them into line like men in the ranks.
With the chance to work less, they find themselves
working harder. With orders to take from no one,
they assume voluntarily a severer duty than any man
would put upon them. And this even if power has
come through the way of politics, through influence
or scheming. Let the most spoils-soaked veteran become
chief of a city fire department and I believe we
should see him, in spite of himself, forgetting his
pocket-stuffing principles, and seeking the heroic goal,
though it kill him. Which it probably would. As a
matter of fact, New York has never had a chief who
did not work harder than his men, and spare himself
less than he spared his men.</p>
<p>Take our present chief, Edward F. Croker, the
youngest man who ever held this place. Let me run
over his twenty-four hours, from eight in the evening,
when he goes on night duty at the Great Jones Street
engine-house. From now until daylight he will cover
personally some two hundred stations on the first alarm—that
is, everything from Twenty-third Street to the
Battery, the region of greatest danger. And on the
second or third alarm he will cover the whole of Manhattan
Island. That means answering every night
from two to a dozen calls scattered over a great area.
It means a pair of horses (Dan and John, usually)
and driver clean worn out when morning comes. And<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></SPAN></span>
it means to the chief, besides physical fatigue, an exhausting
responsibility in quickly judging each fire
and outlining the way of fighting it.</p>
<p>Almost a day's work this, one would say, but it is
only a beginning. However broken his rest, the chief
is up at seven in the morning—and note that what sleep
he gets, three, four, five hours, is at an engine-house,
not at his home—and by nine he is at headquarters, in
Sixty-seventh Street, ready for a hard morning transacting
business for the department, doing as much
work as a merchant in his counting-room. This until
one o'clock.</p>
<p>Then no luncheon (all fire chiefs are two-meal men),
but off for a four-hours' spin behind Kitty and Belle,
his daylight team, driving from station to station for
the work of inspection, holding the reins himself for
arm exercise, seeing with his own eyes how the work
is going, holding every man to his duty. Studying
the city, too, as he goes about, noting its growth and
changes from the view-point of a fire expert, detecting
weak points, bad streets, defective structures, fixing in
mind the danger spots, here oil, there lumber, yonder
paint or chemicals, and planning always for the defense.</p>
<p>After this inspection tour comes the only time in the
day when the chief is not on duty, an hour and a half
or two hours, when he gets a glimpse of his family and
eats his dinner. Even then the fire buggy waits outside,
and many a time this brief home stay is cut short
and off goes the chief, dropping knife and fork, to
answer a third alarm. There is some perversity about
fires, so his wife and children think, that makes more
of them start between six and eight in the evening
(this is really a fact) than at any other period of
the day.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></SPAN></span></p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus54.jpg" width-obs="475" height-obs="363" alt="A FALLING WALL." title="" /> <span class="caption">A FALLING WALL.</span></div>
<p><span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>So here we have a chief who actually holds himself
ready for hardest service twenty-two hours in every
twenty-four, who seldom knows a night's unbroken
rest, who never takes a day off—not even Sundays or
holidays, but uses these for longer inspection tours,
driving forty or fifty miles of a Christmas day over
Long Island or out into Queens County, or up through
the Westchester region.</p>
<p>And he is never ill, and he never complains!</p>
<p>To watch the chief at a big fire is a thing worth
doing, though not easy to do, for he moves about constantly,
up-stairs and down-stairs, from roof to roof,
from engine to engine, in danger like his men, not
sending his orders merely, but following after to observe
their execution. "I expect each of my captains,"
he told me one day, "to know the location and general
condition of every alleyway, every stairway, every
hydrant, every fire-escape in his section. When I get to
a fire the captain must tell me what I want to know,
and do it quick. Will we find water in there behind
the smoke? Is there a back door at the end of that
passage? How about the balconies? Where does
this lane between the houses come out? And a dozen
other things. If you want to fight fires well you must
know the ground as if you lived on it."</p>
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