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Were his employees in the warehouse safe? Had the safety measures they’d instituted this year worked? Was his wool intact?
As the questions raced through his mind, he kept his breath steady so that Hamish didn’t spook. “There’s a lad,” he praised.
Minutes later, James fought to hold his seat upon the horse, who veered in fright when suddenly they both caught sight of a ghastly orange glow in the distance against the black night.
By God! The fire was visible from here!
Heart pounding, he steadied the reins, guiding Hamish back on course. He fought to calm his breath for the horse’s sake, and acid churned in his stomach the entire ride through Constitution Hill. He paid no heed to his surroundings as he rode past Buckingham Palace and then down the Mall.
When they reached the embankment of the Thames, Hamish’s ears moved all around and James’s skin crawled.
Standing eerily silent was a crowd of hundreds of people, standing and watching the bright glow down the river.
When James reached the warehouses, his hands were steady rather than shaking sickeningly as they had been. Energy pulsed through his veins, but it was an organizing drive.
He had prepared himself for the worst, and he found it.
James slowed Hamish as he approached the periphery of a large sightseeing crowd and dismounted. He barely recognized the soot-covered face of one of his employees. He handed the reins to the man’s blackened, waiting hands, and angled a shoulder forward to push his way through the crowd.
“It’s Robertson!” came the cries over the fire and bustle.
The crowd parted for him. He exited on the other side of the throng, still some distance from the fire.
Fire hadn’t reached the warehouse closest to him, where frenzied men loaded barrels of tar—flammable tar—into wagons. Several barrels toppled from an overloaded wagon; shrieks and exclamations rippled through the crowd. The penetrating heat in the area had already warmed the tar enough to render it liquid, and it burst from the barrels and spread on the ground.
Blocking out the panic that ensued, James continued toward the activity closest to the heart of the inferno.
Once he reached the core area of warehouses on fire—including his own—every single person was busy. The conflagration illuminated the area in a peculiar glow brighter than daylight.
Brigades from the London Fire Engine Establishment, funded by the insurance companies, were already on site. Dozens of firemen worked recognizable in their black serge tunics, leather helmets, and knee boots.
James wished he had something tied around his neck; the firemen wore silk scarves to protect against sparks and debris.
Several fire engines fitted with manual operating pumps had been pulled to the scene by horses. Unfortunately, they produced an impotent trickle of water that didn’t reach past the lowest floors of the large warehouses, already engulfed by roaring fire.
James had to override instinct and force himself forward toward the radiating heat, billowing smoke, and not least of all, the revolting odor. Wool, jute, tallow, hemp, sugar, spices, and other wares all burned.
He recognized some of his employees mixed in with the firemen, including the willowy shape of Garrett Thomson, his warehouse manager. He was covered in soot, his usual shock of red hair blackened.
James pulled him aside, embracing him. “Are all of ours safe?”
“One missing, one mortal injury.” Thomson had understood that James inquired about the workers and not his inventory.
“Who?”
“Tom Taylor, the night watchman, from choking on smoke. Trapped, didn’t pull him out in time. And we’re missing a counting clerk, Francis Long.”
“Missing how?”
“Trapped by accident. They didn’t know he was working late. Closed the iron fire doors to try to stop the fire from spreading. Later, a watchman reported that Long hadn’t signed out.”
James didn’t know Tom Taylor. He bowed his head for a moment. He did know Francis Long.
“How did the fire ignite?”
Thomson took in a breath but sputtered, then hacked. Patting the man on the back as he gasped, James looked up at his warehouse.
A fire escape ladder leaned against one side, the heavy apparatus having been wheeled from a nearby station by an attendant and volunteers.
