Careers of Danger and Daring

by Cleveland Moffett

GALLAGHER'S RESCUE OF A SWEDE FROM THE BURNING BARGE.

Here it was that Gallagher won his place on the roll of honor in this wise. For some time they had heard shouts that were lost in the din of conflagration; but presently they made them out as a warning from somebody somewhere that a man was on a burning barge just passing them. It seemed incredible that a man could be there, alive and silent; but, with the spirit of his trade, Gallagher determined to see if it were true: he would board the barge anyhow; and as the New-Yorker swung close alongside, he sprang down to her deck, where things were a good deal warmer than is necessary for a man's health. And as he leaped, John Kerrigan, at the steering-wheel of Big Daddy, turned its mighty stream against the barge, keeping it just over Gallagher's head, so that the spray drenched down upon him while the stream itself smote a path ahead through the fire.

Down this path went Gallagher, searching for a man, avoiding pitfalls of smoke and treacherous timbers, confident that Kerrigan would hold the flames back, yet see to it that the terrible battering-ram of water did not strike him—for to be struck with the full force of Big Daddy's stream is like being pounded by a trip-hammer.

Gallagher reached the cabin door, found it locked, put his back against it and smashed it in. Then he went on, groping, choking, feeling his way, searching for his man. And at last on one of the bunks he found him, stretched out in a stupor of sleep or drowsed by the stifle of gases. The man was a Swede named Thomas Bund, and he came out of that cabin on Gallagher's back, came off that burning barge on Gallagher's back, and if he does not bless the name of Gallagher all his days, then there is no gratitude in Sweden.

Here we see the kind of service the fire-boats render. On this night they saved the situation and a million dollars besides; they worked against a blazing steamship, against blazing piers, against blazing runaways; worked for eleven hours, until the last smolder of fire had been drowned under thirty thousand tons of water. And not a year passes but they do something of like sort. Now it is a steamship, say the ill-starred Leona, that comes up the bay with a cargo of cotton burning between decks. The New-Yorker makes short work of her. Again it is a blazing lumber district along the river, like the great McClave yards, where the fire-boats fought for eight days and nights before they gained the victory. But they did gain it. Or it may be a fire back from the river, like the Tarrant horror, where the land engines, sore pressed, welcome far-carried streams from the fire-boats as help that may turn the balance.

"Why, this fire-boat's only ten years old, sir," said Captain Braisted, "and she's saved more than she cost every year we've had her." Then he added, as his eyes dwelt proudly on the trim craft purring at her dock-side: "And she cost a tidy sum, too."

Let us come now to that placid summer afternoon, to that terrible Saturday, June 30, 1900, when tug-boats in the North River looked upon a fire the like of which the river had never known and may not know again. They looked from a distance, we may be sure, these tug-boats; for when a great liner swings down-stream, a roaring, red-hot furnace, it is time for wooden-deck craft to scurry out of the way. And here were three liners in such case, the Bremen, the Saale, and the Main, all burning furiously and beyond human help, one would say, for their iron hulls were vast fire-traps, with port-holes too small for rescue, and the decks swept with flame. It was hard to know that back of those steep sides were men in anguish, held like prisoners in a fortress of glowing steel that sizzled as it drifted—three fortresses of glowing steel.

Then up steamed the New-Yorker and the Van Wyck, with men behind fire-shields against the blistering scorch and glare, with monitors and rail-pipes spurting out all that the pumps could send. The New-Yorker took the Bremen, the Van Wyck took the Saale; and there they lay for hours, close on the edge of the fire, like a pair of salamanders, engines throbbing, pumps pounding, pilots at the wheel watching every movement of the liners, following foot by foot, drawing in closer when they gained on the fire, holding away a shade when the fire gained on them, fighting every minute.

"It's queer," said Captain Braisted, "but when you play a broadside of heavy streams on a vessel's side, say at fifty feet, there's a strong recoil that keeps driving the fire-boat back. It's as if you were pushing off all the time with poles instead of water. And you have to keep closing in with the engines."