Authors: Dilly Court
She did not have to wait long and as the second fire engine rattled past the house she was seized by the sudden need to follow it and see her brothers at work. She picked up her skirts and ran down the path, letting herself out of the gate and racing along Lower Shadwell Street. The pall of smoke and fog was making it increasingly difficult to breathe, and she covered her mouth with her hand. When she reached Bell Wharf the swirling, stinking miasma above the river was as red as a blood orange. She could just make out the burning hull of a large vessel on the foreshore where it lay stranded like a beached whale. At the top of Bell Wharf Stairs she came across a small crowd of onlookers, mostly women from the flour mill a little further upriver. Their clothes, hair and eyebrows were coated thickly in white dust, giving them a ghostly appearance, but their anxious chatter was drowned by the
shouts of the watermen, dockers and seamen who had formed a human chain to take water from the river and hurl it into the centre of the inferno.
Lily realised that their efforts were being directed by her eldest brother, Matt, whose stentorian tones drowned even the loudest of the other male voices. Without stopping to think of her own safety, she made her way down the slimy stone steps to the foreshore. Holding up her skirts she stepped over the stinking detritus, weed-encrusted stones and muddy pools where shards of burning timber floated, hissing and spitting out sparks.
‘What the hell are you doing here, Lil?’
She turned with a guilty start and found herself staring into the soot-blackened face of her brother Luke.
‘I just wanted to make sure you were all right,’ she said defiantly.
‘Go home, Lily. This is no place for you.’
She hesitated, gazing helplessly at the blazing timbers of the schooner. ‘I can hear Matt but can’t see Mark.’
‘He’s working the pump and hose. Now get out of here, there’s a good girl. We’ve got enough to do without worrying about you.’ He smiled and his teeth gleamed white in his dirty face.
‘Look out there.’ Matt’s voice carried over the water.
With an ear-splitting crash the main mast of the vessel snapped off and fell into the river, sending up a plume of spray as it hit the seething waters of the Thames. A cloud of steam engulfed the ship and firemen alike, and there was a moment of chaos as men
stumbled about blindly in their attempts to dodge baulks of burning timber.
Lily did not know why she had come; something had drawn her to this particular conflagration which was beyond her understanding, but she knew that Luke was right. There was nothing she could do and she would only be in the way of the men who were struggling to prevent the fire from spreading to ships tied up at neighbouring wharves and the warehouses filled with valuable goods. She was about to leave when she saw a smoke-blackened figure struggling towards her. His pea jacket was smouldering and his whole body was racked by a fit of coughing. He was limping badly and seemingly unable to control his gait he barged into her, almost knocking her off her feet.
‘I – I’m sorry,’ he gasped, as his knees buckled and he sank to the ground, very nearly taking her with him.
‘No harm done,’ Lily said, making a vain attempt to raise him to his feet. ‘Please try to get up and let me help you to the steps. It’s too dangerous to stay here.’
He gazed up into her face, but another fit of coughing robbed him of speech. Flaming spars had begun to fall about them like a shower of meteors, but Lily couldn’t bring herself to abandon him. She looped his arm around her shoulders. ‘You’d best make an effort or you’ll end up roasted like a hog on a spit.’
Somehow she managed to get him to his feet and slowly and painfully they made their way to the steps, but he stumbled and fell to the ground. ‘Alas, my ankle – I think it is broken.’
He closed his eyes, lapsing into unconsciousness,
and Lily stared down at him in dismay. He was not a big man, perhaps a little over medium height and slightly built, but she would not be able to get him up the steep flight of steps unaided. ‘I’ll get help. Wait there.’ Even as the words left her mouth she realised it was a silly thing to say. In his present condition, the injured man was going nowhere. She raced up the steps, almost bumping into a burly fellow who was on his way down. She peered at him through the choking pall of smoke and fog. ‘Is that you, Bill Hawkins?’
‘Lily?’ He leaned forward, squinting at her through the sulphurous haze. ‘What the hell are you doing here? Get on home, girl.’
She had known Bill all her life. He had worked on the docks since he was little more than a boy in the time when Grandpa had been dockmaster. Now he was a big, broad-shouldered foreman in the London Docks, but he still took tea with Grandpa every Friday evening after work, keeping him informed of the goings-on in his old stamping ground. Lily clutched his arm. ‘There’s an injured man down there, Bill. I think he’s broken his ankle and he’s soaked to the skin. I can’t manage him on my own.’
He glanced at the burning wreck. ‘All right,’ he said slowly. ‘Looks like there’s nothing much I can do to help the boys. Where is this chap?’
‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down.’ Standing on tiptoe, Lily kissed his bewhiskered cheek before retracing her steps to where the man lay on the muddy foreshore. She tried to rouse him but Bill laid his hand on her shoulder.
‘Leave him be, Lily. It’ll be less painful for him if we do it this way.’ He bent down and hefted the injured man over his shoulder. ‘C’mon, fellah, we’ll soon have you put to rights.’
It took them some time to make their way back to the dockmaster’s house and visibility was so poor that Lily had to keep stopping to make sure that Bill was following her. It was almost completely dark now and Lily had to fumble to find the doorknob. She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Bill.’
His booted feet crunched stones on the path behind her. ‘I’m here, girl. Best get this bloke inside as quick as you like.’
She put her shoulder to the door and almost fell into the hallway.
‘Who’s that?’ a querulous voice demanded, and the flickering glow of a single candle sent shadows dancing on the walls and ceiling. Grandpa Larkin emerged from the small parlour that had in past times been his late wife’s sewing room. It was his domain now, with a single iron bedstead tucked away in the corner of the room and a wingback chair by the fire, which was kept going night and day, summer or winter. He peered myopically at Bill. ‘Is that you, Bill Hawkins?’
‘It is I, Mr Larkin, sir. Miss Lily found this poor fellow on the foreshore with a busted ankle and burns.’
Grandpa Larkin nodded and his eyes glittered with excitement. ‘I saw the ship on fire through my spyglass. Looked to me like a schooner, heavily laden. Went aground in the fog, did she?’
Lily laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘Go and sit down,
Grandpa. Let Bill take the poor man upstairs and then he can come and tell you all about it.’
He drew away from her, scowling. ‘I ain’t a baby. You don’t have to treat me like I was made of spun glass and going to break any minute.’
Bill gave a polite cough. ‘Begging your pardon, guvner, but this fellow is no light weight. May I be so bold as to suggest that I follow Miss Lily up the stairs and make him comfortable?’
‘You’re a good fellow, Bill. I trained you and I’m proud of you.’ Grandpa shot a resentful look at Lily. ‘And he treats me like a man with all his faculties. I’m not ready for my wooden box just yet.’
‘Of course not, Grandpa.’ Lily knew better than to take offence at his caustic comments. She flashed him a smile and hurried over to a table at the foot of the stairs where the night candles were kept in readiness to light the family to bed.
Grandpa wagged his finger at her. ‘Just remember that we can’t afford to pay the doctor. You’ll have to get Agnes to fix him up, that is if the old besom can manage the stairs at her time of life.’ He retreated into the parlour, slamming the door. The draught it caused almost extinguished the lucifer that Lily had struck on a piece of exposed brickwork where the plaster had crumbled away to leave a jagged crater. She lit the candle, and shielding the flame with her cupped hand she led the way up the wide staircase to the first floor landing, and then up again to the attics beneath the mansard roof. It was here they had had their nursery when they were children, but now the rooms were
unused, it being too costly to light fires to heat them. Tiles had been blown off in winter gales and the roof leaked, causing damp patches to spread across the ceiling making patterns that Lily had always likened to illustrations of continents in the school atlas. She opened the door to the smallest of the three rooms and wrinkled her nose at the pervasive smell of damp and dry rot. ‘Lie him down on the bed, Bill. I’ll go and fetch sheets and blankets.’
Bill crossed the bare boards in two strides and gently set his burden down on the bare mattress. ‘You do that, Miss Lily. I’ll take his boots off while he’s out cold, but he’s going to need a doctor and that’s a fact.’
Lily screwed up her face as Bill started to ease the boot off the afflicted limb. ‘You’d best get his wet clothes off too. I’ll see if I can find him a clean nightshirt.’
‘This fellow ain’t no ordinary seaman. These boots cost more than I could earn in a six-month. He’s a gentleman unless I’m very much mistaken and a foreigner too. He must have come off that French schooner that’s causing all the trouble.’
‘Feel in his pockets. Maybe he’s got enough money to pay for the doctor.’
Bill raised the man just enough to take off his singed jacket. He went through the pockets and produced a handful of coins. ‘That’s all he’s got, and it’s foreign money, but I reckon it might pay for a visit from the sawbones.’
Lily frowned; one problem at a time was quite enough. ‘I’ll see to his bedding.’
She hurried downstairs to the linen cupboard on the
ground floor, where she sorted out cotton sheets that had been turned top to bottom many times before being cut and sewn together again, sides to middle. She and her sisters had spent many evenings on such homely tasks, sewing long seams in the flickering light of a work candle until their eyes were red-rimmed and their fingers pricked and bleeding. She found an old pillow with the feathers seeping from a tear that was yet to be mended, but there were no spare blankets. The poor man would freeze to death in the attic room, but then she remembered the monks’ seat in the entrance hall where out of sentiment they had stored the horse blanket that used to keep old Trotter warm on bitter winter nights. He had been more than a faithful old horse who pulled the dog cart that took Ma and the girls to church on Sundays. He had been a much-loved family pet and they had all cried when he had passed away at the magnificent age of thirty. At least, the girls had cried, and although her brothers had shrugged their shoulders and walked away, Lily had seen them blink away a tear or two. She sniffed and swallowed hard at the memory. She went to fetch the woollen blanket that was now lacy with moth holes, but it would have to suffice. Holding the coarse material to her cheek the lingering smell of horseflesh, leather and hay brought back memories of childhood days when life had seemed so safe and secure.
An agonised cry from the top floor brought her abruptly back to the present and she negotiated the stairs as fast as she could beneath the burden of sheets, the horse blanket and an old nightshirt that had once belonged to Luke but had been outgrown. She hesitated
outside the attic room, bracing herself for what she would find when she entered. She was particularly squeamish when it came to blood and burns. ‘Don’t be a coward, Lily,’ she whispered. ‘Stop being a baby and go inside. The poor fellow needs you.’
Bill rose to his feet as she entered the room. ‘I’ll see to him, Miss Lily. It ain’t the sort of thing you ought to rest your young eyes on, but you should send for the doctor to take a look at the poor bloke. He’s suffered some burns to his hands and shoulders and his ankle is definitely busted.’ He held his hands out to take the bedding.
She tried not to look but her eyes were drawn to the inert figure with nothing to cover him other than his torn and singed shirt. Lily had seen her brothers’ bare flesh on bath nights when they were much younger, but the only adult male bodies she had seen were the carved statues in museums and their manhood was always delicately concealed by fig leaves or artistic swathes of cloth. She felt the blood rush to her cheeks and she looked away quickly. ‘I’ll go at once, if you’ll just stay with him until I return.’
Bill nodded and grinned, exposing his one good tooth. ‘You get along. I’ll keep an eye on the poor bugger until you get back.’ It was his turn to flush brick red now and he shuffled his feet. ‘Begging your pardon, Miss Lily.’
Lily hurried from the room, but once outside the dingy attic her feeling of relief was tinged with guilt for being such a ninny. Her brothers would tease her mercilessly if they found out that she had run away
from the sight of blood and burnt flesh, an occupational hazard for a fireman. When she reached the hall she stopped to put on her shawl, and was wrapping it around her shoulders when the front door rattled and burst open to admit Nell. Drops of moisture glistened on the rim of her bonnet, sparkling like diamonds on the dark hair that had escaped from the confines of a snood and now curled around her forehead like the springs from a watch. She untied the ribbons of her bonnet, eyeing Lily curiously.
‘What a sight you look. Your hair is a mass of tangles and you’re covered in smuts. Don’t tell me you went out in this pea-souper.’
‘I can’t stop,’ Lily said breathlessly. ‘It’s a long story, but I’ve got to fetch the doctor.’ She made for the door, but Nell was too quick for her and she moved swiftly to bar her way.
‘Who needs the doctor?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Is it Grandpa?’
Lily shook her head. ‘No, it’s a man who was hurt when the ship caught fire. Bill’s with him now. I’ve got to go.’
Nell caught her by the wrist. ‘Stop there, young lady. Who said we could afford the doctor for a complete stranger, and why is Bill here? It’s not Friday.’
Lily could see by the determined set of her sister’s jaw that an explanation was imperative if she was to be allowed out to fetch the doctor. She launched into a vivid description of the scene on the foreshore, illustrating the story with dramatic gestures. ‘So you see I must fetch Dr Macpherson or the poor man will die.’