The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [640]
Towards the end of the afternoon half a dozen huge cranes which had been towering over the fire in a semi-circle on its south-western fringe began to waver; then, one by one, they slowly buckled, toppling into the fire and sending up great fountains of sparks and burning debris which started fresh fires all around as they fell to earth again; these new fires threatened once more to cut off the men wielding the branches. The Major had become very concerned about the safety of his men and decided on a roll-call: even this was not easy to effect in the dense smoke and ever more intense heat. Finally it was completed. There was one man missing. Nobody had seen Mr Wu since he had been relieved at one of the branches some time earlier: an hour, half an hour? it was impossible to say. But just as they were deciding with dismay that Mr Wu must have been cut off by a subsidiary fire stemming from one of the fallen cranes and consumed, he suddenly reappeared again, as cheerful as ever, together with a lorry loaded with Fraser and Neave’s mineral waters which he had somehow commandeered, hired or hijacked … and not a moment too soon for everyone at the fire was suffering badly from dehydration. The Chinese driver of the lorry, which had evidently been on a delivery round, then volunteered to join the firemen and was promptly enrolled. Next time, the Major reflected, it would be as well to bring food and drink; it had not occurred to him that they might have to spend such a long time away from the Mayfair.
At dusk the fire grew steadily more magnificent. As the sky darkened they became aware that the air was full of drifting sparks which fell around them in a steady golden drizzle which now and again grew more heavy, so that they wondered uneasily whether their clothes might catch fire. Nevertheless, the beauty of this golden rainstorm was such that Matthew was filled with great exhilaration, no longer feeling the sting of sparks on his unprotected face and forearms but gazing about in wonder like a child.
For some time now the fire had ceased to make progress towards the tenements and it was easier in the darkness to spot new advances it tried to make before they had time to become established. But although the fire itself stopped advancing, and even fell back a little, its core in which thousands of tons of logs were being consumed, grew hotter and hotter so that even at a considerable distance it could no longer be faced and the men with the branch could only work for a few minutes at a time. In the gloom it could be seen that the drainpipes on the tenement buildings had begun to glow red-hot, standing out like blood vessels on the dark masses of the buildings. And now the wooden fence spontaneously burst into flame though the fire was nowhere near it: it blazed furiously for a minute or two, then melted away and a rich wine darkness returned.
Some time after midnight Adamson arrived, bringing two more units from another fire at the docks. He made a quick inspection, detailed the new men to hose down the tenement roofs and walls and then, after a word of encouragement to the exhausted men, returned to his own fire at the docks. Not long afterwards it was found that there were two men missing from one of the other AFS units: a frantic search for them began. One was found unconscious not far from the pumps, overcome by the heat and smoke: he was splashed with water from the river and given some lemonade from Mr Wu’s lorry. Towards dawn the other man was found dead on the no man’s land between the fire and the tenements where he had evidently collapsed. His scanty clothing had been burned off his back and his helmet was glowing a dull red. For some hours it was impossible to retrieve his body and when at last this was done and someone made to grasp his arm to lift him on to a stretcher, the arm came away from the shoulder like the wing of an overcooked chicken.
The fire reached its zenith at about five o’clock in the