Poker Jim, Gentleman, and Other Tales and Sketches

by G. Frank Lydston

Looking back upon that awful scene of desolation I can find but one crumb of comfort—only one consolation. At the time I felt that many in that pile of human forms must surely be alive and could be saved, if only they could be extricated. Oh, the horror of the idea! It overwhelmed me then. But now as my mind reverts to that scene of death, I am sure that very few could have been alive, surer still that none were conscious. I recall that not a sound came from those lost ones. Not a cry for help, not a moan of distress, not even a sigh to indicate that life was still there. Oh, the awful stillness of it all! The stillness of the dead lying on the dripping slabs of a morgue. The stillness of the subjects lying upon the tables of the dissecting room. Even the man whose trunk and head were free gave forth no sound. He was caught only up to his hips. Had he been alive, surely he would have made some sign. He was not crushed, save perhaps as to his lower limbs, and that could not have been mortal. The weight of bodies does not crush limbs as does machinery. No, he certainly must have been dead.

And why did all these people fall upon the landing? Of what did they die?

Plunging in the dark, pell mell through that one narrow door, the poor creatures stumbled down several steps that led from the door to the landing. Cunningly devised trap this—wise architect that designed it. Those who went down, rose not again. They lay crushed by the weight of the tangled up scores of other hapless ones who followed after. A small part of the crowd, those who were not caught in the tangle, flowed, as it were, over the top. A few, just a very few, thus escaped.

As the helpless creatures lay there in that fearful jam, at the only available exit in the front of the house, the smoke, and flame, and noxious gases were drawn irresistibly to that same door. They too, sought an exit at the front, and found only that death trap. The draught must have been fierce, the flames like a breath from hell. While the still breathing, palpitating mass of crushed and bruised humanity lay there imprisoned, the smoke and gases were sucked through the door into the foyer, diffusing themselves through the writhing human hecatomb, and giving those not yet dead a painless coup de grace. How soon it must have been over! How useless the emotions that shook my very soul as I gazed upon the slaughtered ones. And how solacing the conclusions with which calm retrospection has replaced the horrible immediate impressions of the scene itself.

Merciful indeed, the smoke and those noxious gases, especially for those luckless ones who lay on the top of the pile of victims. These were scorched and burned—not badly, but enough to show that with the death-dealing smoke and gases the flames came also. A fearful gust or two—perhaps only one, and the work was done.

And the scene at the open door of death was but a fragment of the frightful holocaust. Death’s barbecue lay behind that heap of bodies. Towering up behind that other front door which would not open, were scores of blackened bodies, some burned and distorted out of all semblance to their living form. Still others sat upright where Death had surprised them. They died in their seats without resistance, overcome doubtless, by the deadly gases.

There, standing erect, like soldiers, packed like sardines, on a stair case behind a locked iron gate, was row on row of dead, who had lost their lives trying to escape from the gallery to join the panic-stricken ones in the lower balcony. Hopeless effort—what matter where they died? As well meet death face to face, there upon that inner stair behind that merciless trap gate, as in that pile upon the landing—perhaps better, who knows?

Over yonder is an “exit,” one of many similar delusions. This one leads into a blind hallway. Here again, stand the dead bodies of unfortunate beings who died fighting for life against invincible odds.

Scattered about in the aisles between the balcony rail and the death trap “exits”—oh, the mockery of the word!—lay bodies burned to a cinder. Among them lay the body of a noble youth, the son of one of my friends, whose life was so full of promise, so replete with possible future usefulness, so suggestive of future greatness even, that I do not wonder the father was crushed to the earth. I loved the lad, and if, deep down, my friend’s grief were tinged with resentment against the ordering of things, I could understand and sympathize.

What foolishness have I attempted here? Describe that scene within the Iroquois? Never was quill wrought, that could do the subject justice! Do you, those curious ones, who idly stood in crowds about the building, watching the poor victims who sprang from the windows in the upper galleries or attempted to pass on a frail ladder to the building across the alley, only to be hurled to the ground and mangled to death or permanent disability, think you could picture it? If so, your storm centers of emotion have no more potential energy than a babbling brook—no more dynamic capacity than the breeze that ripples a mill pond. Do you, my friend, who stood with gaping mouth, watching the charred, blackened forms brought forth from the maw of hell by the firemen, think you could depict the fearful sight? If so, I can only say: “You did not see.”