London - Edward Rutherfurd [417]
“Jump,” he cried; but only to salve his conscience. Had she done so it would probably have killed her; anyway, the window was too small. “Martha!” Smoke was billowing out from under the eaves. Was she crying out? They just stood, looking at each other, for fully a minute until, with a roar, he saw the roof turn into a torch. Timbers started to fall; flames were pouring out of her window. And then he saw she was no longer there.
The fire was coming so close that he could not stand the heat. He backed away, wondering if by some miracle she might come running out.
The mayor was relieved of his responsibility for fire control on Monday morning. The wind was strong; but the fire was so large now that it seemed to create winds of its own. Not only was it being blown right along the riverbank westward towards Blackfriars, but it was marching north, almost as fast, up the slope of the eastern hill. Early in the morning, soon after Julius had supervised the third cartload of possessions to leave the house and told his family to make themselves ready for a return to Bocton, he heard the good news that the king’s brother James, the Duke of York, had arrived in the city with a body of troops. James was a solid fellow, a naval man. Perhaps he could restore order.
Sure enough, as soon as he went out, he saw the duke’s handsome figure directing his men at the bottom of Watling Street. They were about to blow up half a dozen houses with gunpowder. He went to pay his respects.
“If we enlarge this street,” James explained to him, “perhaps we can make a firebreak.” They retreated a short way and took cover. There was a huge boom. “And now, Sir Julius,” the duke asked smilingly, “are you helping us?”
A few moments later, to his great surprise, Julius found himself with a leather helmet on his head and a fire-axe in his hand, working alongside the duke and a dozen others similarly clad, pulling down walls and timbers to make the firebreak. It was hard work and he might have been glad to stop when, glancing at another man who had just started to work beside him, he realized that there was something familiar about the big, swarthy fellow; and a moment later, with a little rush of joy and excitement, he saw that it was the king.
“Should Your Majesty be doing this?” he asked.
“Preserving my kingdom, Sir Julius!” The monarch grinned. “You know how I try to hang on to it.”
The firebreak did not work, even so. The fire’s impetus was so strong that, an hour later, it leaped the gap.
It was on Tuesday morning that the most awesome event took place. O Be Joyful watched it from the bottom of Ludgate Hill.
His own house had gone on Monday afternoon. As arranged, he had taken his little family up to Shoreditch and then remained there. News had come all the time. In the evening he heard that the Royal Exchange was in flames; at dawn he knew that St Mary-le-Bow was no more. A little later he had decided to go and see for himself. Walking down to the city gates, however, he found his way blocked. The troops would not let anyone enter. “It’s a furnace,” they told him. The open ground at Moorfields had been turned into a huge encampment for dispossessed people. He had made his way round the old walls, past Smithfield where another little camp had formed by the gates of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, and so had come to Ludgate. There was a crowd of people there. He saw good Doctor Meredith who had stayed behind in the plague amongst them. All had their eyes turned up the hill, awestruck.
For St Paul’s was burning down. The huge, grey barn whose long