The Thames Valley Catastrophe | Page 9

to any body. I did not desire to be stopped or
harassed as an escaped lunatic.
From Harrow I made my way tortuously along the rising ground, by the
light of nature, through Wembley Park, to Willesden. At Willesden, for
the first time, I found to a certainty that London was threatened. Great
crowds of people in the profoundest excitement stood watching a dense
cloud of smoke and steam that spread rapidly over the direction of

Shepherd's Bush and Hammersmith. They were speculating as to its
meaning, but laughed incredulously when I told them what it portended.
A few minutes later, the smoke spread ominously towards Kensington
and Paddington. That settled my fate. It was clearly impossible to
descend into London; and indeed, the heat now began to be
unendurable. It drove us all back, almost physically. I thought I must
abandon all hope. I should never even know what had become of Ethel
and the children.
My first impulse was to lie down and await the fire-flood. Yet the sense
of the greatness of the catastrophe seemed somehow to blunt one's own
private grief. I was beside myself with fear for my darlings; but I
realized that I was but one among hundreds of thousands of fathers in
the same position. What was happening at that moment in the great city
of five million souls we did not know, we shall never know; but we
may conjecture that the end was mercifully too swift to entail much
needless suffering. All at once, a gleam of hope struck me. It was my
father's birthday. Was it not just possible that Ethel might have taken
the children up to Hampstead to wish their grandpa many happy returns
of the day? With a wild determination not to give up all for lost, I
turned my front wheel in the direction of Hampstead Hill, still skirting
the high ground as far as possible. My heart was on fire within me. A
restless anxiety urged me to ride my hardest. As all along the route, I
was still just a minute or two in front of the catastrophe. People were
beginning to be aware that something was taking place; more than once
as I passed they asked me eagerly where the fire was. It was impossible
for me to believe by this time that they knew nothing of an event in
whose midst I seemed to have been living for months; how could I
realize that all the things which had happened since I started from
Cookham Bridge so long ago were really compressed into the space of
a single morning?--nay, more, of an hour and a half only?
As I approached Windmill Hill, a terrible sinking seized me. I seemed
to totter on the brink of a precipice. Could Ethel be safe? Should I ever
again see little Bertie and the baby? I pedalled on as if automatically;
for all life had gone out of me. I felt my hip-joint moving dry in its
socket. I held my breath; my heart stood still. It was a ghastly moment.

At my father's door I drew up, and opened the garden gate. I hardly
dared to go in. Though each second was precious, I paused and
hesitated.
At last I turned the handle. I heard somebody within. My heart came up
in my mouth. It was little Bertie's voice: "Do it again, Granpa; do it
again; it amooses Bertie!"
I rushed into the room. "Bertie, Bertie!" I cried. "Is Mammy here?"
He flung himself upon me. "Mammy, Mammy, Daddy has comed
home." I burst into tears. "And Baby?" I asked, trembling.
"Baby and Ethel are here, George," my father answered, staring at me.
"Why, my boy, what's the matter?"
I flung myself into a chair and broke down. In that moment of relief, I
felt that London was lost, but I had saved my wife and children.
I did not wait for explanations. A crawling four-wheeler was loitering
by. I hailed it and hurried them in. My father wished to discuss the
matter, but I cut him short. I gave the driver three pounds--all the gold I
had with me. "Drive on!" I shouted, "drive on! Towards
Hatfield--anywhere!"
He drove as he was bid. We spent that night, while Hampstead flared
like a beacon, at an isolated farm-house on the high ground in
Hertfordshire. For, of course, though the flood did not reach so high, it
set fire to everything inflammable in its neighbourhood.
Next day, all the world knew the magnitude of the disaster. It can only
be summed up in five emphatic words: There was no more London.
I have one other observation alone to make. I noticed at the time how,
in my personal relief, I forgot for the moment that London was
perishing.