‘Once Lieutenant Delac – My Lord Carrignavar, that is, got your order, Sir Matthew,’ said Lanherne as we strode down Bush Lane toward Allhallows, ‘he ordered us to make for the City with all possible exhibition. So we commandeered a dockyard lighter, and rowed it up to Tower wharf.’
‘The Fire’s not reached the Tower?’
‘No, and God willing, it won’t – the wind’s so strong from the east, the fire’s only inching that way. And men from Deptford and Woolwich yard were going there to help defend it, along with sailors off the other ships in dock. But all around Tower Street and Mary Hill is ablaze, down to the bridge. I saw many a town burn during the late wars, Sir Matthew, but this is the most hellish sight I’ve ever witnessed.’
We came to a lane just north of Thames Street. Like all the so-called thoroughfares in those parts, it was barely wide enough for a single cart to get down it. Narrow, timber-built, weather-boarded, pitch-coated houses rose on either side, each storey projecting further and further out over into the street; I knew many houses in London where the residents could open their uppermost windows, reach across, and shake the hands of their neighbours across the way. Breeches, shirts and smocks hung from ropes slung between the higher floors, blowing vigorously in the wind. They would have dried well overnight, right enough; dried just in time to be consumed by the flames.
The fire was already destroying a pair of houses at the far end of the lane, and what appeared to be a one-armed fellow, along with a half-dozen boys and old men, were struggling with fire-hooks attached to the next building.
‘Ho, there!’ I called. ‘Who commands here?’
The one armed fellow turned toward me.
‘Hutchins,’ he said, ‘constable of this ward. Who asks?’
‘Quinton,’ I replied, ‘captain of His Majesty’s ship the Royal Sceptre.’
The fellow’s eyes nearly sprang from his head.
‘Sir Matthew Quinton? Son to the Earl of Ravensden, that fell at Naseby?’
I was not accustomed to being addressed in such a way; most men identified me in terms of my brother or my grandfather. Many did not even know that my father had held the title, albeit for only one hundred and eighteen days. But the man’s age, and his lost arm, told a story.
‘You were on that field?’
‘I was, Sir Matthew. Corporal in Colonel Radcliffe Gerrard’s regiment, Sir Henry Bard’s tertia.’
He stiffened proudly, as though coming to attention.
‘Well then, Corporal Hutchins, it will be an honour to serve alongside you – although this is a very different kind of battle, I fear.’
The old man nodded. Lanherne stepped forward and shook his hand firmly, one veteran of the old Cavalier army to another.
‘Everyone’s gone, Sir Matthew,’ said Hutchins. ‘Fled west, or north. All except these few, here. If we could only get three or four houses down, and get a score of water-squirts up here – but there’s not enough of us, and we’re not strong enough –’
I gestured to Lanherne and Carvell, who ordered the Sceptres forward to take hold of the fire-hooks.
And so we began.
The fire-hooks were perhaps thirty feet long, and difficult to handle. Above all, they were difficult to fasten to the rings that should have been provided on the front of every house for exactly this purpose; years of neglect meant that some had rusted solid, others had disappeared altogether. Although, in my youth, I had seen houses pulled down during fires in Bedford, it was the first time I had ever pulled on a fire-hook myself. At first, it seemed incredible that a mere dozen or so men, pulling upon a long pole, could bring down a house of four or five storeys that had stood for scores of years, if not centuries. But with Carvell in front of me, George Polzeath behind, I heaved on the hook, felt the wall come away from the rest of the building, and stepped back swiftly as the entire house collapsed in a cloud of dust. When it cleared, all that remained of what had been a family’s home was a pile of rubble and timber.
Dry timber, in which fire from the blazing buildings directly to the east was already taking hold. And I could see that flames were already kindling in the yard of the next house to the west.
‘Next one, men!’ I cried, somewhat unnecessarily.
We pushed the fire-hooks up, but one grappling ring came away from its fastening, leaving only one that we could attach to. We pulled, but this house was stouter than the one before. Timbers cracked, some plaster and pitch-board fell into the street, but with only one hook it was heavy going.
‘On three! One, two, three!’
A corner of the uppermost storey fell, landing on one of Hutchins’ men, who had been standing too close. The fellow writhed on the ground and screamed, and the constable leaned down to inspect him.
‘Broken ribs, I’d say, Sir Matthew. Came across enough of them in my days in the King’s army. Tom, Silas, get him up to the bonesetter by Saint Mary Bothaw.’
A baby’s cry, from the uppermost floor of the house.
I had been about to order the Sceptres to heave once again on the fire-hook; had it not been for the short delay occasioned by the old man’s injury, we would already have pulled on it, and brought down the entire building.
‘I’ll go, Sir Matthew,’ said Carvell.
‘No,’ I said.
I do not know why I said it. Perhaps thoughts of babies, and all of my attendant feelings about Cornelia and Aphra, occupied some dark, hidden recess of my mind, and drove what I did now.
With Lanherne, Carvell and some of the other Sceptres shouting imprecations after me, I ran through the door.
Like so many buildings in that part of London, the ground floor was a workshop. A thatcher’s, by the looks of it. Piles of bound thatch stood against the walls, with others strewn across the floor – presumably knocked over by the hastily departing thatcher and his family.
All but one of his family. The baby cried again, I ran to the stairs, and nearly fell as the bannister gave way. The house timbers were creaking ominously, and plaster was falling from the ceilings. Up – an unmade bed, chairs overturned – up again, the floors getting larger at every level. The uppermost storey, the beams cracking like a man-of-war’s yards in a storm – and there was the child, red in the face and wrapped in rough cloth, lying in a wooden crib. God alone knew why the mother had abandoned it. Too many mouths to feed, perhaps, and a dark realisation that an infant lost in such a great fire would not cause too many questions to be asked?
I stepped forward to lift the baby, but as I did so, the wall in front of me fell away. I nearly overbalanced and fell into the street, which would have meant certain death. But years spent on the swaying decks of ships had given me excellent balance, and I managed to steady myself. Flames spat across the sky in front of me. I could just see the rooftops of the houses on London Bridge, thankfully safe from the flames. But there was the tower of Allhallows, ablaze.
I could hear shouts from my men in the street, and knew they were saying the house could not hold long. I snatched up the baby, which protested by unleashing a surprisingly mighty jet of spew over my arms, turned, and ran for the stairs, which still just clung to the walls. Down. A step gave way, my left foot went through, and I very nearly threw the baby to its death. I extricated myself, made it to the ground and out into the smoke-filled air. As I did so, the thatcher’s house collapsed behind me.
Hutchins took the baby. He did not know the thatcher or his family; they had but lately arrived in the country, perhaps Walloons. I thought of Goodwife Newman, and all her lost grandchildren. If the thatcher and his wife did not want their baby back, then why should the goodwife not have a new grandchild to make up for the ones lost to the plague? I knew what her father, the old Roundhead quartermaster, would say to receiving such charity from Constable Hutchins, late of the King’s army; but if the act, and the child, reconciled two old soldiers from opposing sides, and helped end the quarrels that had killed my father, then perhaps one tiny piece of good would come out of this dreadful fire.
We abandoned the attempt to save the lane. The fire was too strong, not only in the lane itself but also to the south and east of us, so we moved down to the river, to see what might be done there. But as Mister Pepys had said, it was a dreadful sight, made even more infernal by the terrible night-in-day created by the thick pall of smoke. Lighters, skiffs and all sorts of other craft were jostling for position alongside wharves, or even in the mud of the river bank, and then struggling across to the safety of the Southwark shore. Fistfights broke out as men squabbled with each other for a berth, and then for headway once they had laden. As we watched, one badly overloaded skiff overturned, tipping tables, bookcases, chests and their owner into the fetid waters of the Thames.
‘Needs seamen to impose order, Sir Matthew,’ said Lanherne.
‘Yet if we attempted it, they’d tear us apart,’ I said.
‘What’s that thing, yonder?’ cried one of the men behind me.
I turned. It was Graydon, a Lancastrian who served as a caulker’s mate. He was pointing east, toward a strange object on the foreshore, hard under London Bridge. At first sight, and thanks to the strangeness of the light, it looked like a beached whale, but that was impossible above the bridge. I gestured for the men to follow me, and we made our way along the bank, threading our way through those trying to heave their goods onto watercraft and the lines of men taking leather buckets to and from the water.
As we got nearer, it was clear that whatever lay on the mud was some sort of mechanical contraption. I had seen several great funerals, such as that for the King’s late brother, the Duke of Gloucester, and the thing before us reminded me of the sorts of hearses used upon such occasions.
Or, in this case, an overturned hearse.
Its principal features were a great brass hydrant, mounted atop what appeared to be a large, square coffin. The whole sat on a wooden sleigh such as I had seen in Sweden. A pipe of brass protruded from the cylinder.
Men were all around it, pulling on ropes, trying to right it. But the great beast remained obstinately stuck in the mud.
‘Who commands here?’ I shouted.
‘Parrett. Constable of Bridge Ward. Who asks?’
‘Sir Matthew Quinton, of the King’s Navy. Here present, some of my crew. What’s this, and what’s happened to it?’
Parrett shook his head. The man was very nearly in tears.
‘This is the Clerkenwell fire engine,’ he said. ‘Brought all the way across the City, thirty men pulling it. God knows, Sir Matthew, we could have put out the entire blaze with this, if we could have got it to the seat of the fire in time. But the streets were so crowded – so many people, so many carts, all coming the opposite way to us – and then we could get no water supply without bringing it right down to the waterline.’
He turned away.
Lanherne and I looked at each other. No words were necessary: it was obvious what we were thinking. The famous Clerkenwell fire engine, the best and most powerful in London, could have done the work of hundreds of men, pumping a constant jet of water from the huge water reservoir mounted on the sled. It would certainly have been a better prospect than the hand-held water squirts, which could deliver barely a gallon each. But with the water supply in that part of the City cut by the loss to the fire of the great waterwheels under London Bridge, the only place where the engine’s crew could obtain enough water for it was the river. A river so low after several months of drought that the engine would have to be manhandled far down the bank. And on that steeply sloping bank, the great device had overturned.
One thing was certain: the much-vaunted machine would play no part in combatting the Great Fire. I set the Sceptres to help those pulling on the ropes, but every man there knew it was a forlorn hope. Hauling over a First Rate for careening was an easier task than righting the Clerkenwell fire engine. Moreover, the tide was coming in, and after barely half an hour, we had to abandon the machine to the inexorable Thames.
‘Sir Matthew!’
I was now with a small number of my men by College Hill and Cloak Lane, helping the Cutlers to remove whatever they could from their brand new but doomed livery hall. I had despatched Lanherne northward with another party, to see if anything could be done to save the church of Saint Antholin, and Carvell to the east, to help the parties fighting the blaze in Thames Street. But in my heart of hearts, I doubted that even if Rupert and Albemarle were to sail the entire fleet up to Deptford Reach at that very moment, and landed every one of the twenty thousand or so men aboard it, it would suffice to extinguish the fire.
‘Sir Matthew!’
A dishevelled youth of thirteen or so was pushing his way through the crowd, shouting my name all the time. It was Youngest Barcock, my brother’s new pageboy at Ravensden House, the latest scion of a prolific dynasty that provided generations of retainers for the Quintons in both Bedfordshire and London. But why had he sought me out, unless…
‘What’s afoot, lad?’ I said.
‘Lady Quinton, Sir Matthew, and the French captain!’ He was gasping for breath, having evidently been running hard.
‘What of them? In God’s name, what’s the matter?’
‘God help us, Sir Matthew, the mob’s set fair to hang them!’