Belle - Lesley Pearse [57]
Annie’s room was on the ground floor just behind the staircase and she appeared almost the moment Mog had started to ring the bell. She shrieked in horror to see the hall on fire, but Mog knew there was no time for hysterics or explanations.
‘Take this!,’ she said, shoving the bell into Annie’s hands. ‘Ring and scream till the girls get down here. But don’t you go up, you might get trapped. I’m going down to get some buckets of water to try and slow the fire down. Tell the girls to go out into Jake’s Court and make them scream so the fire engine comes.’
As Mog disappeared down to the basement, Lily came running down the stairs. Sally shouted from the first-floor landing that she was going to make the others hurry. By the time Mog had staggered back up with two buckets of water, the fire was only three feet from the staircase and very hot, Annie snatched the buckets and threw the contents on to the fire, ordering Mog to refill them.
The fire retreated a couple of feet, but it was clear it was only a temporary reprieve. Lily and Ruby came running down the stairs with Amy, coughing from the smoke.
‘Outside,’ Annie yelled, pushing them towards the basement. ‘You too, Lily,’ she yelled to the girl who was just standing there gawping. ‘And raise the alarm!’
Sally still hadn’t reappeared with Dolly and Annie shouted for them to come at the top of her voice.
The fire was roaring now. It filled the hallway, licking up the walls. Mog came back with another two buckets of water, and she was just throwing it at the fire as Sally and Dolly appeared at the top of the stairs. They were clinging to each other and crying, afraid to come down because they thought they’d got to go through the fire.
Annie bravely ran up to them, took their hands and pulled them down. The fire suddenly licked forward to the bottom of the staircase, effectively blocking it off.
‘Over the side and jump,’ Annie ordered, bundling first Sally and then Dolly over the banister. Mog stood beneath to encourage and catch them, and Annie leapt nimbly after them.
The two young girls were coughing violently from the smoke, bent over double, and Mog had to take their arms and practically drag them down the stairs to the basement.
Mog was so caught up with getting the girls out into the yard, grabbing blankets, coats and anything else that would keep them warm out on the street, that she didn’t notice immediately that Annie wasn’t with them.
Horror-struck, Mog ran back up the stairs. She guessed Annie had darted back to her room to collect the cash box they kept the takings in. But as she got to the door she could hear gas mantles exploding in the heat on the other side of it, and she realized the fire must now be in the parlour and sweeping down the passage to Annie’s room, trapping her in there.
Mog’s heart was racing with fear for her friend, but she ran back downstairs, snatched up a blanket to cover her nightdress and ran outside, screaming at the top of her lungs for Annie to open her window and jump to safety.
The kitchen was only a semi-basement at the back of the house. From the back door six stone steps led down from Jake’s Court into a small yard. This meant that the windows of Annie’s room were not very high up, in fact the wall around the yard was just three feet lower than her window. But sadly the wall wasn’t close enough to the window to gain access that way. A ladder was needed.
The noise and commotion had brought quite a crowd out, but unlike Mog and the girls they had put coats, hats and boots on over their nightclothes. Mog glanced round at the girls and saw they were huddled together sharing blankets, just watching her.
‘Someone get a ladder!’ she yelled at the crowd, astounded that they were making no effort to help. ‘Annie’s still in there, we’ve got to try and get her out!’
But not one of them moved. There were big, able-bodied men among them, yet they stood there like so many sheep staring up at the house and pointing out that flames were already licking out of the parlour window which was right next to Annie