Fighting the Flames | Page 8

put to Hopkins, as
above described, were rapidly uttered. Before they were answered the
two men were ready, and at Dale's order, "Get her out!" they both
vanished.
One ran round the corner to the engine-house and "knocked up" the
driver in passing. The other ran from door to door of the firemen's
abodes, which were close at hand, and with a loud double-ring
summoned the sleepers. Before he got back to help the first with the
engine, one and another and another door opened, and a man darted out,
buttoning braces or coat as he ran. Each went into the station, seized his
helmet, belt, and axe, from his own peg, and in another moment all
were armed cap-a-pie. At the same instant that the engine appeared at
the door a pair of horses were trotted up. Two men held them; two
others fastened the traces; the driver sprang to his seat; the others
leaped to their respective places. Each knew what to do, and did it at
once. There was no hurry, no loss of time, no excitement; some of the
men, even while acting with the utmost vigour and promptitude, were
yawning away their drowsiness; and in less than ten minutes from the
moment the bell first rang the whip cracked and the fire-engine dashed
away from the station amid the cheers of the crowd.
It may be as well to remark here in passing, that the London Fire
Brigade had, at the time of which we write, reached a high state of
efficiency, although it could not stand comparison with the perfection
of system and unity of plan which mark the organisation and conduct of
the Brigade of the present day.

Mr Braidwood, the able Superintendent, had for many years been
training his men on a system, the original of which he had begun and
proved in Edinburgh. Modifying his system to suit the peculiarities of
the larger field to which he had been translated, he had brought the
"Fire Engine Establishment," (which belonged at that time to several
insurance companies) to a state of efficiency which rendered it a model
and a training-school for the rest of the world; and although he had not
the advantage of the telegraph or the powerful aid of the land steam
fire-engine of the present day, he had men of the same metal as those
which compose the force now.
The "Metropolitan Fire Brigade," as it then existed under the control of
the Metropolitan Board of Works, had been carried by its chief, Captain
Eyre Massey Shaw, to a condition of efficiency little if at all short of
perfection, its only fault being (if we may humbly venture a remark)
that it was too small both in numbers of engines and men.
Now, good reader, if you have never seen a London fire-engine go to a
fire, you have no conception of what it is; and even if you have seen it,
but have not gone with it, still you have no idea of what it is.
To those accustomed to it, no doubt, it may be tame enough--we cannot
tell; but to those who mount an engine for the first time and drive
through the crowded thoroughfares of London at a wild tearing gallop,
it is probably the most exciting drive conceivable. It beats
steeple-chasing. It feels like driving to destruction--so wild and so
reckless is it. And yet it is not reckless in the strict sense of that word;
for there is a stern need-be in the case. Every moment (not to mention
minutes or hours) is of the utmost importance in the progress of a fire.
Fire smoulders and creeps at first, it may be, but when it has got the
mastery, and bursts into flames, it flashes to its work and completes it
quickly. At such times, one moment of time lost may involve thousands
of pounds--ay, and many human lives! This is well known to those
whose profession it is to fight the flames. Hence the union of apparent
mad desperation, with cool, quiet self-possession in their proceedings.
When firemen can work in silence they do so. No unnecessary word is
uttered, no voice is needlessly raised. Like the movements of some

beautiful steam-engine, which, with oiled pistons, cranks, and levers,
does its unobtrusive work in its own little chamber in comparative
stillness, yet with a power that would tear and rend to pieces buildings
and machinery, so the firemen sometimes bend to their work quietly,
though with mind and muscles strung to the utmost point of tension. At
other times, like the roaring locomotive crashing through a tunnel or
past a station, their course is a tumultuous rush, amid a storm of
shouting and gesticulation.
So was it on the present occasion. Had the fire