Only a
fireman knows how one blast of flame can shrivel
up a man, and the pain over the bared surfaces
was,--well, there is no pain worse than that
of fire scorching in upon the quick flesh seared
by fire.
Here, I think, was a crisis to make a very
brave man quail. Bill Brown knew perfectly well
why every one was running; there was going to
be another explosion in a couple of minutes,
maybe sooner, out of this hell in front of him.
And the order had come for every man to save
himself, and every man had done it except the
lads inside. And the question was, Should he run
or should he stay and die? It was tolerably certain
that he would die if he stayed. On the other
hand, the boys of old 29 were in there. Devanny
and McArthur, and Gillon and Merron, his
friends, his chums. He'd seen them drag the
hose in through that door,--there it was now,
a long, throbbing snake of it,--and they hadn't
come out. Perhaps they were dead. Yes, but
perhaps they weren't. If they were alive, they
needed water now more than they ever needed
anything before. And they couldn't get water
if he quit his engine.
Bill Brown pondered this a long time, perhaps
four seconds; then he fell to stoking in coal, and
he screwed her up another notch, and he eased
her running parts with the oiler. Explosion or
not, pain or not, alone or not, he was going to
stay and make that engine hum.
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