The Sign of the Red Cross: A Tale of Old London

by Evelyn Everett-Green

The flames, having once leaped Thames Street, were devouring the houses on the southern side of the street with an astonishing rapidity; and the river was crowded with wherries, to which the affrighted people brought such goods as they could hastily lay hands upon in the terror and confusion. St. Magnus was now burning furiously, and great flakes of fire were falling pitilessly upon the houses at the northern end of the bridge. Even as the Harmers came hurrying up, a shout of fear told them that one of these had ignited, and the next minute there was no mistaking it. The houses on both sides of the northern end of the bridge were in flames; and the people who had somehow trusted that the bridge would, on account of its more isolated position, escape, were rushing terrified out of their doors, or were flinging their goods out of the windows with a recklessness that caused many of them to be broken to fragments as they reached the ground, whilst others were seized and carried off by the thieves and vagabonds who came swarming out of the dens of the low-lying parts of the city, eager to turn the public calamity into an occasion of private gain, and lost no opportunity of appropriating in the general confusion anything upon which they could lay their hands.

"Pray Heaven the means we have taken may be blessed to the city!" cried James Harmer, as he hurried along.

He found his men hard at work pumping water and drenching the ruins with it; for, as they said, the great heat dried up the moisture with inconceivable rapidity, and if once these ruins fired, nothing short of a miracle could save the remainder of the houses. Other stout fellows were upon the roofs with their buckets, emptying them as fast as they were filled upon the roofs and walls, so that when burning fragments and showers of sparks or even a leaping billow of flame smote upon them, it hissed like a live thing repulsed, and died away in smoke and blackness.

It was the same when the flames reached the gap which had been made in the buildings by the Master Builder. The angry fire leapt again and again upon the drenched ruins, but each time fell back hissing and throwing off clouds of steam.

For above two long hours that seemed like days the hand-to-hand fight continued, resolute and determined men casting water ceaselessly upon the ruins and the roofs and walls of the adjoining houses, the fire on the other side of the gap blazing furiously, and seeking to overstep it whenever a puff of wind gave it the right impetus. Had the wind shifted a point to the south, possibly nothing could have saved the bridge; but the general direction was northeast, and it was only an occasional eddy that brought a rush of flames to the southward. But there was great peril from the intense heat generated by the huge body of burning buildings close at hand, and from the flying splinters and clouds of sparks.

Fearlessly and courageously as the workers toiled on, there were moments when their hearts almost failed them, when it seemed as though nothing could stop the oncoming tyrant, which appeared more like a living monster than a mere inanimate agency. But as the daylight waned, it began to be evident that victory would be with the devoted workers. Although the ever-increasing light in the sky told them that in other directions the fire was spreading with tireless fury, in the neighbourhood of the bridge and the places where it had broken out it had almost wreaked its fury.

It had burned houses, and shops, and churches to the very ground. The lambent flames still played about the heaps of burning ruins, but the fury of the conflagration had abated through lack of material upon which to feed itself. Victory remained finally with those who had worked so well to keep the foe in check, and keep in safety the southern portion of the city. The Master Builder's scheme had been attended with marked success. The demolished buildings had arrested the progress of the flames, although not without severe labour on the part of those concerned.

When the Harmer family met together to eat and drink after the toils of the day, so wearied out that even the knowledge that the terrible fire was still devouring all before it in other quarters could not keep them from their beds that night, the master of the house said to his friend the Master Builder:

"Truly, if other means fail, we had better set about blowing up whole streets of houses in the path of the flames. We will to the Lord Mayor at daybreak, and tell him how the bridge has been saved. The people may lament at the destruction of their houses, but sure that is better than that all the city should be ravaged by fire!"

Busy indeed were the women of both those abodes upon that memorable night. From basement to attic their houses were crowded with neighbours who had been burned out, and who must either pass the night in the open air or else seek shelter from friends more fortunate than themselves.