Life in the Red Brigade | Page 5

such courage and endurance is severe
enough; it is what every soldier is liable to in time of war, and the
lifeboat-man in times of storm; but to be liable to such calls several
times every day and night all round the year is hard indeed, and proves
that the Red Brigade, although almost perfect in its organisation and
heroic in its elements, is far too small. Paris has about seven hundred
fires a year; New York somewhere about three hundred; yet these cities
have a far larger body of firemen than London, which with little short
of two thousand fires a year, does her work of extinction with only
three hundred and seventy-eight men!
She succeeds because every man in the little army is a hero, not one
whit behind the Spartans of old. The London fireman, Ford, who, in
1871, at one great fire rescued six lives from the flames, and perished
in accomplishing the noble deed, is a sample of the rest. All the men of
the Brigade are picked men--picked from among the strapping and
youthful tars of the navy, because such men are accustomed to strict
discipline; to being "turned out" at all hours and in all weathers, and to
climb with cool heads in trying circumstances, besides being, as a class,
pre-eminently noted for daring anything and sticking at nothing. Such
men are sure to do their work well, however hard; to do it without
complaining, and to die, if need be, in the doing of it. But ought they to
be asked to sacrifice so much? Surely Londoners would do well to
make that complaint, which the men will never make, and insist on the
force being increased, not only for the sake of the men, but also for the
sake of themselves; for, although there are three hundred and
seventy-eight heroes who hold the fiery foe so well in check, there are
limits to heroic powers of action, and it stands to reason that double the
number would do it better.
But we are wandering from our point. The engine has been tearing all
this time at racing speed along the Bayswater Road. It turns sharp

round a corner near Notting Hill Gate--so sharp that the feat is
performed on the two off wheels, and draws from Bob Clazie the quiet
remark, "Pretty nigh on our beam-ends that time, Joe." A light is now
seen glaring in the sky over the house-tops; another moment, and the
engine dashes into Ladbroke Square, where a splendid mansion is in a
blaze, with the flames spouting from the windows of the second floor.
The engine pulls up with a crash; the reeking horses are removed and
led aside. "Look alive, lads!" is the only word uttered, and the helmeted
heroes, knowing their work well, go into action with that cool
promptitude which is more than half the battle in attacking the most
desperate odds or the fiercest foe.
CHAPTER TWO.
The house on fire was, as we have said, an elegant mansion--one of
those imposing edifices, with fresh paint outside, and splendid furniture
within, which impress the beholder with the idea of a family in
luxurious circumstances.
No one could tell how the fire originated. In the daily "report" of fires,
made next day by the chief of the Red Brigade, wherein nine fires were
set down as having occurred within the twenty-four hours, the cause of
this fire in Ladbroke Square was reported "unknown." Of the other
eight, the supposed causes were, in one case, "escape of gas," in
another, "paraffin-lamp upset," in another "intoxication," in another,
"spark from fire," in another, "candle," in another, "children playing
with matches," and so on; but in this mansion none of these causes
were deemed probable. The master of the house turned off the gas
regularly every night before going to bed, therefore it could not have
been caused by escape of gas. Paraffin-lamps were not used in the
house. Candles were; but they were always carefully handled and
guarded. As to intoxication, the most suspicious of mortals could not
have dreamed of such a cause in so highly respectable a family. The
fires were invariably put out at night, and guards put on in every room,
therefore, no spark could have been so audacious as to have leaped into
being and on to the floor. There were, indeed, "matches" in the house,

but there were no children, except one old lady, who, having reached
her second childhood, might perhaps have been regarded as a child. It
is true there was a certain Betty, a housemaid, whose fingers were
reported by the cook to be "all thumbs," and who had an awkward and
incurable tendency to spill, and break, and drop, and fall over things, on
whom suspicion fastened