Fire (30 page)

‘No,' replied Pitman, lowering the flask, the last of the beer now drunk. ‘I have seen enough these last days to know the way of it.' He reached out a hand, and Coke pulled him up. On his feet, the big man bent and rubbed at his leg. It had begun to plague him mightily, for he had been pushing it too hard. ‘And do not think of getting too close to it. When my own parish church of St Mary's caught, the lead near took my scalp in its melting.' He touched the oozing burn on the top of his head, then peered to the corner where the churchyard joined
the end of Cheapside and what had been Paternoster Row. Bizarrely, one house still stood there, curtains in its windows, no less.

‘Who are these?' Coke said, pointing. Men were marching around the corner, soldiers in the main. Following behind them was King Charles II.

‘Come, Captain,' said Pitman, setting out. ‘It's time you kept your promise to your king.'

‘I'd rather sleep,' said Coke, following him and pulling Dickon up, who was transfixed by the burning cathedral. ‘Still, if there's any man who has the power to fight this fire, it is probably he.'

They were halfway to the king when the explosions came: the first above and behind them, the second an instant later. There'd been explosions all day, with men using barrels of gunpowder to hasten the destruction of houses by blowing them up. This was not like that. This was a gunshot and first it had the pair ducking, then running, to the crowd ahead and the men mounted within it.

Simeon gave the commands, as he had when he'd been sergeant to the regiment.

‘Cock,' he said, though he did not roar it as he had on battlefields. ‘Aim.'

The window frame exploded inwards. They cried out, all except Hopkinson, now unable to, lead ball having taken away his face. He was flung back, his own gun firing as he fell, his bullet going high as if he aimed at the roof of flaming St Paul's. Simeon and Tremlett
were too shocked to shoot, and immediately blinded by gunsmoke. Daniel, holding the back door open for a speedy retreat, screamed, ‘Hurry!' Both men dropped their muskets and ran out past him.

‘Where?' yelled Tremlett.

Simeon did not answer, only ran. He had seen what they'd done to Colonel Rathbone and other martyrs at Tyburn tree. He would outpace that if he could. Yet even as they reached Amen Corner, and felt the heat on their faces from Newgate prison still aflame, he turned and saw that they were pursued. A large man came in a strange, quick lurch, another tall man beside him.

‘Pitman and Coke – the devils!' he hissed. ‘Faster.'

‘They make for the bridge!'

The paths along the Fleet Ditch were always a jumble – of ropes for the tied-up wherries and skiffs; of barrels, broken crates, spars; and of lean-to shelters for those who could not even afford tuppence for a floor in the liberties nearby. Yet it was clearer now than at any time Pitman had passed along it, for, like all the detritus-strewn streets of the city, it had been purged by fire. Soot rose in clouds as they ran, their faces turned away from the Fleet prison as they passed it, still raging in flame.

By the time they cleared its end, Coke was about thirty paces in front, Dickon slightly ahead of him, both able to leap the charred timbers and smoking coils Pitman's leg forced him to step over. They were gaining on the three ahead, who were slowing because of the great press at the bridge – a crowd of humanity, wailing and shoving in their attempts to cross, driven by terror and by the great heat, coming from all around but especially from the cathedral fully aflame now on the hill above them.

As the three fugitives drew near, there came a huge explosion. Pitman, at the end of the prison yard, looked up in time to see fireballs bursting from St Paul's. One came hurtling down to pass just above his head and smash into a wherry tied up in the ditch, turning it instantly to flaming kindling. He saw what had caused it, as the boat sank spluttering into the filthy waters, but could scarcely believe it – it was a chunk of building stone, he could even see a mason's mark on its edge. God's house had been transformed into missiles.

Screams from the crowd now scattering before him showed that it had become something else too – a river of lead. ‘Jesus save us,' screamed one woman, lifting her skirts above the flood as it were a puddle she wished to cross, screaming more as the molten metal encased her feet. A man snatched her up, shouting in agony in his turn. People broke every way, fleeing the heated stone falling from the sky, the shifting, scalding ground. Flight opened a passage to the bridge where there had been none before, and those they pursued took it, shoving aside any who paused to look back.

Both Coke and Dickon had been slowed by the mob's scattering. Pitman caught up with them and, forcing themselves to enter the glistening metallic pool, they ran with soles burning, leather dissolving, toes crisping, to the bridge, then across it.

Their enemies were still in sight for many of the houses that would have hidden them were smoking ruins now. Certain buildings nearby still stood because of their stone walls – St Bride's church and the huge Bridewell, once a palace, now a prison. Both contained the flames that consumed them from the inside, hot as a smith's furnace. No man could stand near one for long – unless he had to.

Its intensity made them draw up for a moment, their hands
raised in feeble effort against the glare and the heat. ‘Where do they make for?' shouted Coke, above the roar that had filled London for days.

Pitman peered, coughing through the swirling smoke, and saw those they pursued again. ‘There!'

Coke and Dickon looked. There was one row of buildings still standing. Somehow the shelter given by the twin fortresses of church and prison, some vagary of wind and flame, had preserved them – though it could not be for much longer. As they looked on roofs were catching fire, one by one. Even so, the three ahead vanished between the smoking houses.

‘Shall we leave them to God, Captain?'

Coke looked up at the bigger man, then down at Dickon. He did not see how any could survive the maelstrom closing in; while the heat that held him, from the soles of his scalded feet to the crown of his crisped head, made him want nothing more than to flee. But a memory came, a recent one – his first sight of Sarah, waiting to die in a burning crypt, having given up her baby – their baby! The men ahead had put her there. It was not something he could leave to anyone else. Not even to God.

He drew one pistol. ‘Nay, I will see this through. You go back, if you will. One of us should. Bettina…'

‘…would never let me hear the end of it if I abandoned you here.' Pitman looked to the pistol. ‘Haven't a spare one of those, have ye?'

Coke passed one across, pulled the second from beneath his cloak and drew his sword. Dickon looked at the pair of them, then reached into his boot cuff and pulled out a dagger. ‘C'mon then, Cap'n,' he cried, ‘into the f-fire again.'

Side by side the three of them entered the lane.

The roar diminished only a jot, the heat too, but in contrast to what they'd come from it was like stepping from midsummer heat into a monastery's cool cloister. They each took the first unscorched breath for an age, felt the relief…

Then, in a moment, it was gone with the flash of a gun pan, an explosion of powder which sent a ball so close between the two men that both lurched sideways. Coke kept moving, taking Dickon with him into the shelter of a doorway, Pitman going the opposite way into another. The lane was narrow, the houses' eaves near joined above into a running arch. ‘I think we've found the rat's nest,' Pitman shouted. ‘Do we let the fire smoke 'em out?'

‘And us too?' The respite afforded by the cobbled lane had been brief indeed. Coke could feel the hot wind rising, as the flames neared. ‘I've fought in streets before. One should draw their shot –'

He'd no sooner said it than it was acted upon. ‘Hi! Hi! Hi!' Dickon shouted, giving the fire-fighters' cry, launching himself from the doorway, rolling onto the cobbles like a tumbler, leaping to his feet, all within the two heartbeats it took Coke to scream his name.

In the time before the three shots came.

The boy straightened up. He did not move for a moment that seemed endless, staring to where the smoke rose from windows, the two men up already and moving towards him.

‘Dickon!' Coke yelled again, his voice cracking.

The boy looked up at him as he closed in. ‘Missed me, Cap'n,' he grinned, ‘just like them Hogens.'

A moment of relief, then all three were running again. Enemies needed time to reload or pick up another gun, time that Coke and
Pitman ate in great strides to the door of the house. No other shot came, as they flung themselves each side of the entrance. A swift glance showed Coke a narrow entrance hall hung with gunsmoke, and a stair leading up to where a door now slammed.

‘The officer leads?' offered Pitman, with a wave of his muzzle.

Coke took a deep breath, then ducked into the hall, pistol pointing up the stair. ‘ 'Tis clear,' he called, and the others followed in. ‘There,' said Coke, pointing his gun at the door. Muffled sounds came from behind it.

Pitman cocked an ear. What remained of his eyebrows rose. ‘Are they…praying?'

One of them was. And loading his pistol even as he testified.

‘ “And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and the power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.” '

‘Brother Simeon!'

‘ “And the fifth angel –” No. No! “The
seventh
angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying: It is done.” '

‘Brother!' Tremlett grabbed his arm. ‘The back window. We must flee.'

‘No!' Simeon jerked free. ‘We do not leave here. We have no need.' With his boot, he poked Daniel who crouched on the floor. ‘Cease your weeping, boy. Join me. Both of you. Raise up your voices in gladness.' His eyes shone, in fervour, in reflected fire. ‘This is the time foretold. This is the apocalypse. Fire has scorched the world and King Jesus comes.' He threw his arms wide. ‘It is done.'

‘It is –' Daniel tried to rise, but fell back. ‘I can't! I can't.'

‘The roof's afire,' Tremlett called. They looked up, to the smoke streaming in. The builder moved to the back window and tried to open it. When it would not give, he kicked it out. ‘Come, brothers. There's a way through here.'

‘The way is here!' Simeon screamed. ‘Have you no faith?'

‘Stay if you want, you mad bastard,' cried the builder, putting one leg across the sill. ‘But I want to live.'

‘And you shall, brother – forever,' said Simeon and shot him.

Tremlett plunged from the window. ‘No! No! No!' wept Daniel, curling up on the floor.

A voice came from beyond the door. ‘The house is afire,' the man called. ‘We can get you out, if you come now.'

Simeon crouched, putting his arms around the weeping youth. ‘Shh! Shh! Daniel, hush. Hush!' He rocked him. Smoke was fast filling the room and both coughed hard. ‘The kingdom of heaven is upon us. Enter into the New Jerusalem.'

‘No!' screamed Daniel again, surging up. He was big, bigger than the man who held him, and he broke free, staggering to the door. ‘I am coming,' he yelled through it. ‘Do not shoot me!'

‘Oh, ye of little faith,' said Simeon sadly, lifting, aiming and pulling the trigger. But the pan flashed, nothing more. Jerking the door open, Daniel stepped out and tumbled down the stairs.

Simeon was up in a moment. Coughing hard, he stepped forward, kicked the door shut and staggered back to the table. Five boxes were in a row upon it. He slipped the lid off the top one.

His oldest friend was within, the one who'd never abandon him. ‘Eh! Eh! Eh!' he croaked, lifting the battens, pulling Punchinello out by his strings. He held him standing, swaying upon the table.
‘Where'sa thata –' he began. And then the roof fell in on top of him.