“Hitch up my wagon for me, Bruce,” said the chief one morning a few days after the young boy had been installed at the quarters, and accordingly he harnessed one of the horses to the wagon which the chief kept for his own use.
“Now jump in beside me,” he continued, and a few minutes later they were driving slowly up the broad avenue, while the chief gave his young protege some information regarding the department.
Chief Trask explains the fire box to Bruce.—Page 17.
17“Remember this, my boy,” he said earnestly, “that promptness and readiness are the watchwords of the service. Every second of time is of importance, and you should never let another man get ahead of you when you are getting ready to go to a fire, nor allow another company to get a stream on the fire first, if you can possibly prevent it. The paid department was established in 1865. I don’t know how long it took an engine or truck to get out into the street then, but I do know that we have been lowering the record ever since, so that now the average time from the first stroke of the alarm until the engine, manned and ready for action, passes over the threshold is not more than ten seconds, and it has been done, of course only for exhibition purposes, in two seconds. Not a year goes by but sees some new invention or improvement to facilitate the work of the department, and my own opinion is that the rivalry between the different companies is the strongest incentive to efficient work there is. Now I’ll stop here and explain this fire box to you, so that you will be able to understand how these alarms come in.” With these words, the chief drew up in front of a lamp-post which was painted a bright red and had red glass in its lamp. To this was attached the fire box from which any citizen could send an alarm of fire.
“Now,” said the chief as he opened the box, “when a fire breaks out, anyone who discovers it runs to this box, or rather to the one nearest the scene of the conflagration, for you know these boxes are scattered all over the city, and turns this handle according to the printed directions. By pulling the hook down inside, the number of the box is telegraphed to the headquarters of the fire department, and the operator there sends another dispatch notifying the different engine houses in the immediate vicinity 18of the fire. This alarm comes in to us in the shape of sharp strokes, indicating the number of the alarm box. This is what we call a first alarm, and you will notice that there is a gong here in the box which rings when the handle is turned. That gong attracts the attention of the policeman on duty nearby, and he comes running up to find out where the fire is, or to arrest any person who may be ringing it maliciously.
“Once in a while the alarm is rung by some Irish servant girl who wants to send a letter back to the old country and mistakes this for a mail box. And once in a while it is rung by somebody who is deceived by a smoky chimney or a bonfire in a vacant lot. The other alarms intended to call out a greater force, can only be sent by an official, who has a key to the inside box. For example, suppose our company were to be called out to-night to a fire, and I were to find on arrival that it was in my own district, I would take command, even if another battalion chief were to be present also. In the same way he would take command, if the fire were in his district. But, suppose I find that the fire is a big one and in danger of spreading. I go to the box and sound the second alarm, which brings up an additional force. Then, suppose 19that I find the fire making such headway that we are unable to control it. Then I go to the box again and sound the third alarm, and that brings up every available engine and hook and ladder company within a reasonable distance. When that third alarm sounds in an engine house, every fireman knows that there’s a big and dangerous fire to be fought, and every man goes out with a keener sense of his own responsibility than he would on an ordinary call.”
“How often does the third alarm sound?” asked Bruce, who had been listening with intense interest to the chief’s words.
“It’s not very often that we have a fire big enough to warrant it,” replied the official. “The last one we had was at an apartment house up town, about four months ago—”
He paused abruptly, remembering that it was at this fire that Frank Decker, the boy’s father, had perished. And although Bruce said nothing, he knew what he meant.
Entering the wagon again, they drove a few blocks further and stopped in front of an engine house situated on a side street. A fireman, standing on the pavement in front of the door, saluted as the chief entered.
“Is Captain Murphy about?” asked the chief.
20“Yes,” replied the other, and then a tall, stoutly built man, with a military look and manner that corresponded well with his uniform, made his appearance from the rear room and bade his visitors welcome.
“This is Frank Decker’s boy,” said the chief, as he presented Bruce to the officer, “and we’re going to try and make a fireman of him. I’ve brought him around here to show him what a fire engine is like.”
“Frank Decker’s boy!” exclaimed the captain, as he shook Bruce cordially by the hand.
“Well, all I can say is, you’ve got good material to work with. I knew Frank this twelve years or more, and a better fireman never rode on a tender.”
“You see,” said the chief, as he led the boy through the engine house, “this is a double company. That is to say, there’s an engine and tender here to go out at the first alarm, and another to move up and take their places, so as to be ready in case an alarm comes in while the first company is off at the fire. Of course this engine that stands right here in front by the door is the one to go first, and its tender, or hose wagon as it used to be called in old times, goes with it. Then they move the second engine and tender right up to the front; 21the second relay of horses drop down and take their places in the other stalls, and within two minutes after the alarm was first sounded, there is a complete equipment ready to go out to any other fires that may occur in the vicinity.
“Now I want you to notice the way this engine is kept ready for action at a second’s notice. You see from the gauge that there is twenty pounds pressure of steam in her boiler now, although there is no fire lit, and she has been standing here all day. That is because the steam is kept up from a fire in the basement, and the connection is made by these pipes that come up through the floor. The minute the engine starts, the connection with the pipes underneath is shut off automatically, and then as soon as the wheels cross the threshold of the building, the fire is lit, and as the swift motion of the street acts as a sort of draught, there is a big blaze going in less than two minutes. There’s a little contrivance I want you to see, and although it may seem like a trivial one to you, it is really a very useful time-saving device.”
As he said this, he took from a rack above the ash-pan a pine stick about six inches long, around one end of which was wrapped a quantity of rags soaked in kerosene, from the midst 22of which protruded the heads of half a dozen matches.
“Now I’ll explain to you,” continued Chief Trask, “the value of this little torch. If we depended on matches, or took our chances of running to get a light from the gas-jet or anything like that, we would certainly lose time, and might have to stop on the way to the fire and beg a light. We can’t afford to take any such chances as that. The engineer just grabs this torch and scratches it. The first bit of flame lights up the oil-soaked rags, and then he throws the whole thing into the fire box which is filled with pine shavings also soaked in oil, and there’s the fire started. Then while he’s traveling through the streets, he throws in whatever wood and coal are necessary and so he gets all the blaze that’s needed before he has gone half a dozen blocks. Then you see that wrench hanging there beside the torch. Just before the engine gets to the hydrant they want to stop at, the engineer grabs that wrench, jumps off and runs ahead so as to have the hydrant open by the time the engine comes along. They attach the hydrant connection and then the tender comes up and passes them, leaving one end of the hose, and drives on until they have let out as many lengths as they want to use.”
23All this is done without any waste of time, for as I said to you before, there are no spare seconds in the New York fire service. Now come up stairs with me and I’ll show you the sleeping quarters, which are somewhat similar to those around at our own place, except that they have three brass sliding poles instead of one, as we have. When the men are in bed, they have what they call a turnout on the floor beside them. “Here is the turnout.” He pointed, as he spoke, to a pair of trousers attached to a pair of rubber boots and so placed that they could be drawn on instantly.
“There’s a gong here, too, you see, as well as down stairs, and when the alarm rings, the fireman jumps out of bed and, you might say, right into his turnout, pulls the trousers up and runs for the sliding pole, and there’s a race every time to see who will get down first. The driver and engineer always sleep next to the poles so that they can get down ahead of the others. Down stairs there are two men on duty all the time at night. When the alarm sounds and the horses run to their places, these men must be at their heads to snap their collars and hitch the reins to their bits. The driver jumps into his seat, and the instant he sees that the harness is on all right, and that he has the number of 24the box from which the alarm has come, he starts away as fast as he can go. He doesn’t wait to find out whether the engineer is there, or whether the other men have slid down the pole and are in their places—that’s their business, not his. He has just one idea, and that is to get out into the street as soon as he can, and get to the fire before any other engine. The captain of the company rides on the ash-pan behind the engineer. His lieutenant rides with the driver of the tender, and the other men ride on the tender.”
Just at this moment the gong rang sharply, and the horses, released from their stalls by the same electric current, sprang to their places in front of engine and hose carriage, and then a moment later trotted quietly back again.
“That’s twelve o’clock that’s just sounded,” exclaimed Chief Trask, “and the horses always jump into their places every time the gong sounds. It wouldn’t do to leave it to their judgment whether they should turn out or not, and besides, frequent alarms keep them from getting rusty. If they only turned out when there was a regular alarm, they would stay here sometimes two to three days at a time and that wouldn’t be good for men or horses either. It’s only by constant practice that we can be 25kept always on the alert. You know that at sea they often ring a false fire alarm, just for the sake of keeping the ship’s fire brigade in practice. Now Captain Murphy will show you the tender, or hose wagon as they used to call it.”
Accordingly the captain showed Bruce the two great coils of hose, and the different nozzles fitted for different emergencies, and he told him how the hook and ladder truck served at a fire very much in the same capacity as the sapper and miner corps in the army.
“The hook and ladder company carries the picks and axes, scaling ladders, net and all that sort of thing, while all we do is to turn a stream of water on and put the fire out. There’s a good deal of competition between the different companies and there’s nothing we hate more than to get to a fire and find that another company has got its stream on first. A few years ago, when the Duke of Sutherland was here, the fire commissioners determined to show him what the New York department could do in the way of getting to a fire in quick time. You see, the Duke used to belong to the London brigade, and has been what we call a ‘fire crank’ all his life. They came down to this engine house one night, and when they went away we knew that the chances were that we’d be called 26out before long. As they went up the street I heard the commissioner say to the Duke ‘We’ll go over to Twelfth street and Fifth avenue and ring the alarm there.’ So I determined to have my men all ready so that at the very first stroke of the gong we could get out without waiting to get the number of the station. I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to be beaten by any other company that night, so I had everything ready with the driver in his seat, and before the gong had struck twice, we were off. And we made such time getting over there, that we came up to where the party was standing and found the Duke with his hands still on the alarm box. You never saw a man more astonished in your life than he was.”
On their way back the chief again impressed upon the boy’s mind the enormous value of time. “It is necessary,” he said, “first of all, to have everything in apple-pie order and ready to start at a moment’s notice. Then when the alarm comes we must be ready and able to go without a second’s delay. Each man has his own place to fill and if a man neglects to snap a horse’s collar or the engineer fails to get to his place on the ash-pan in time, the chief of the battalion knows whom to blame.”