The fire tasted flesh. There was no holding it now.
Enlisting the aid of a sharp northeast wind, it sent a shower of sparks across Pudding Lane and into the coach- yard of the Star Inn, setting alight the heaps of hay and straw piled against the wooden galleries. Word was immediately sent to the Lord Mayor. Sir Thomas Bludworth, roused from his slumbers at his home in Maiden Lane, rode irritably to the scene to survey the fire. It caused him no undue tremors. What he saw was nothing more than a typical local blaze which would soon spend itself and leave only limited damage behind. It did not justify any official action from him.
'Pish!' he said with contempt. 'A woman might piss it out.'
And he returned swiftly to his bed with a clear conscience.
But the contents of every chamber pot in England could not have doused the fire now. It mocked the Sabbath with the flames of Hell and turned a day of rest into a continuous ordeal. Wafted by the rising wind, the fire was carried irresistibly across the cobbles of Pudding Lane and down towards the timber sheds and stalls of Fish Street Hill. The littered alleys which led from Thames Street to the river were soon ablaze and the stacks of wood and coal on the wharves made a suicide pact with the bales of goods in the warehouses and with the barrels of tallow oil and spirits in the cellars, flinging themselves on to the flames and turning a troublesome fire into a raging inferno. Houses, tenements, shops, inns, stables and even churches were alight. When the indifferent Lord Mayor was hauled once more from his complacent bed, dozens of buildings had already been destroyed and the fire was spreading relentlessly.
Billingsgate Ward was in a state of utter chaos. The narrow streets and alleys made it a most difficult part of the city in which to fight a fire. Householders were in a complete quandary, not knowing whether to flee with whatever they could carry or try to beat back the flames. The noise was indescribable. The few fire engines which were rushed to the scene proved hopelessly inadequate and the leather buckets of water which were thrown on the blaze produced no more than hisses of derision. Heat and smoke drove the firefighters back with brutal unconcern. They had lost the battle at its very outset. Roaring in triumph, the fire revelled in its invincibility. No part of the city was safe now.
When the alarm was raised, Jonathan Bale was three- quarters of a mile away in Baynard's Castle Ward but he heard it clearly. Bells were rung, drums were beaten and pandemonium was carried freely on the wind. He jumped out of his bed and rushed to the window, flinging back the shutters to look up at a sky which was brightly illumined by the false dawn of a fire. This was the crisis which had brought him so rudely awake earlier on. He groped for his clothes.
'What is it?' murmured his wife, still half asleep.
'A fire,' he said.
'Where?'
'On the other side of the city. I must help to fight it.'
'But it is not in your parish.'
'I am needed, Sarah.'
'Let someone else take care of it.'
'I have to go.'
'Now?'
'At once.'
'Why?'
It was a rhetorical question. Jonathan Bale's sense of duty knew no boundaries. Wherever and whenever an emergency arose, he would lend his assistance without a second thought. Other constables stayed strictly within the bounds of their own parish and few ventured outside their respective wards but Jonathan was different. Imbued with ideals of civic responsibility, he treated the whole of London as his territory. If the city was under threat in any way, he would race to its defence.
When he was dressed, he gave his wife a hurried kiss before letting himself out of the house. Long strides took him around the first corner into Thames Street and he headed eastward. The bending thoroughfare with its tall buildings on both sides obscured the fire from him at first but its glare guided his footsteps. Distant panic gradually increased in volume. Still in night attire, a few people were stumbling out of their houses to ask what was going on. They showed curiosity rather than apprehension, secure in the knowledge that the fire was much too far away to affect them or their property. The further he went, the more people he encountered and Jonathan was soon having to pick his way through a small crowd.
The sky was now lit as if by a noonday sun. He was over halfway there when he heard the full-throated roar of the fire. Eager to reach the scene, Jonathan broke into a trot and dodged the anxious citizens who now poured out of their homes in disarray as they sensed an impending catastrophe. Thames Street was turning into a cauldron of fear and confusion. Men shouted, women screamed, children cried and animals expressed their own alarm. The noise was deafening and an acrid smell grew fouler with each second. Jonathan ran on through the commotion. He was soon having to buffet a path with his broad shoulders. Fire was an ever-present menace in London and, in his time, he had seen many but none of them compared in scale and ferocity with the blaze which now confronted him.
When he rounded a bend, he saw a sheet of yellow flame advancing slowly towards him, eating its way along Thames Street with a voracious appetite and swallowing everything down to the riverfront. Smoke billowed in the swirling wind. A series of violent explosions went off as the fire found new stocks of combustible material in yards, cellars and warehouses. Jonathan came to an abrupt halt and stared in horror at the grotesque firework display. Expecting a degree of danger, he was instead looking into the jaws of death. This crisis was potentially more threatening than the Great Plague and far more immediate.
The fire was still some distance away but its warm fingers were already bestowing lascivious caresses on his face. Jonathan gritted his teeth and moved on. Thames Street was in turmoil. The panic-stricken families who tumbled out of their houses were met by the first fleeing victims of the fire. Carts, coaches and packhorses bore the most precious possessions of those whose homes were already doomed. People unable to afford transport of any kind simply carried what they could in their arms. Jonathan saw a man bent double under the weight of a heavy sack and an old lady staggering along with a spinning wheel. Two small children dragged their meagre belongings over the cobbles in a tattered bedsheet. Three men lugged a stout oak table.
When he got closer to the blaze, Jonathan saw the most stark evidence yet of its power. Even the rats were leaving, darting out of their hiding places in wild profusion and joining the general exodus. Three of them scampered uncaringly over the constable's shoes. Cats and dogs bade clamorous farewells as they scuttled away but not all animals were fortunate enough to escape. Crazed horses kicked and neighed in burning stables. A donkey brayed for mercy in the heart of the fire. A goat was trapped in a blazing garden and searched feverishly for an exit. Geese honked in a locked shed. Chickens clucked their noisy requiems. Pigeons too slow to leave their perches found their wings singed as soon as they took to the air and they plummeted to instant death. Creatures who lived in thatch, crevice or timber were extinguished with callous delight. No living thing was spared.
Jonathan paused to assess where he could be most useful. The fire engines were defunct and it was left to chains of men, passing buckets of water along, to continue the fight. Heat was now so fierce that they were pushed further and further back. When water was hurled, it did not even reach the flames in some cases. Braving the pain, Jonathan took his turn at the head of a chain, snatching a leather bucket from the man behind him and flinging its contents at the blazing doorway of a house. His bucket was exchanged for a full one and he emptied that at the same target. It was all to no avail. Whipped up by the wind, the fire was spreading with increased fury. It was clear that buckets of water would never contain the blaze, still less quell it. There was an additional problem. The dry summer had left water levels very low and there was an unsteady flow from the conduits. Buckets took longer than usual to fill and Jonathan was soon having to wait minutes for a fresh supply of water to be passed along to him. The fire raged on inexorably.