“Shut off that pipe,” he said to “Shine,” “an’ light up on this other line.”
He led them—splashing and laughing and tugging on their hose—into the drip of hot water from the lines of the shore companies above them. The stream from one of the Hudson’s standpipes, dashing against the burning timbers outside, blew stinging sheets of spray through the slits of the cribbing on them. The warm smoke puffed back at them in stifling clouds. “Turk-ish b-bath,” “Shine” gasped. “Ouch! Gee! That about parboiled me lef’ lug! Gi’ me air! Gi’ me air!”
“I’ll brain any man that tries to open this door before I give the word”
See page 40
“Come on!” Keighley ordered.
“Turk” Sturton followed the voice of authority. “Shine” followed the voice of the man. Cripps obeyed where obedience had been proved the wiser policy. Farley went to do the work for which he was paid. Their obedience drew them together like a yoke; they helped one another, rubbed shoulders facing a common enemy, and touched hands in an almost friendly sympathy, sharing one task and one danger.
They stopped when the hose would come no farther, and Sturton sent back the signal for water. “Some Guinny had a roost in there,” Farley said, peering through his fingers at the flames.
“Shine” replied, “’Tust to be the gang’s club-house. There she goes!” He shouted, above the noise of the stream, “She ain’t insured, at that!”
Keighley rested his elbows on a beam, rubbed his smarting eyes, and grunted half-disgustedly. To him “Shine’s” playfulness was the ingratiating gamboling of a dog that had tried to bite him. He felt no inclination to pat the treacherous cur; but neither did he purpose to kick him. To Farley “Shine” seemed to show a spirit of good-fellowship that let bygones be bygones and reduced their relations to the merely human intercourse of man and man. To Sturton, absorbed in his duties, it was the encouragement of a kindred spirit who took the joy of battle more noisily than he.