Black Fire by Robert Graysmith

column of smoke. Nervously, Othello remembered the mysterious fire that had recently burned all of San Francisco. The city, quickly rebuilt, was plump and ready again for burning.
    In March a gang of rugged firemen had dragged a bell weighing several hundred pounds into the belfry on Brenham Place—as if the simple act of hanging it would solve the problem of fires. The bell, castby the Hooper Foundry of Troy, New York, was the first erected in California and had rung first for the burning of the steamers Santa Clara and Hartford at the end of Long Wharf. Now Othello could hear the new bell toll again—sharp, staccato taps like the pounding of his hammer. The order of the taps designated the district where the fire was and summoned the volunteers. Jumping into harness, dozens of men had raced to their firehouses to haul the heavy water rigs to the fire. At his door Othello saw a boy with upheld torch running as if to set the city ablaze again. Another set of running feet and another barefoot boy with canvas pants rolled to the knee, dashed out of the fog. Smoke from the first torch still floated in the air. The light revealed his double-breasted red flannel shirt with two vertical rows of brass buttons, a white leather belt, and ragged corduroy trousers. Chin uplifted, breath whistling, legs pumping in a blur, he hooted and called and lifted his torch to illuminate as much road as possible. The fate of an entire city was in their hands. There was always a crowd of ragged boys eager to run before the engines and hold aloft the torches that lit the way. Sawyer’s eyes darted over the mud road, searching so intently he overlooked Othello, who towered as big as his smithy, whose arms were as massive as his anvil and who was backlit by his blazing furnace. Another blacksmith in town, John A. Steele, really was a giant. Sawyer would have overlooked him, too, so intent was he on missing anything in the roadbed that might hinder the progress of the volunteers. He heard the rumble of their mighty water engine keeping pace behind him. As the runners sprinted they shouted warnings back to the firefighters. Sawyer’s moving torch revealed an iron stove blocking the intersecting road ahead. It had not been there that morning. “Stove leeward!”
    “Crate in the road!” he called next. His warning was still ringing when a group of calloused street toughs, breathing heavily, trudged into view dragging a primitive two-thousand-pound engine with a hose reel fitted into a wrought-iron ring up the incline. Pumping brakes on each side of the four-wheel jumper, folded up on the way to a fire, gave the impression of a hay wagon with high-posted sides. As red-shirted “Bully Boys” swerved to avoid the half-submerged stove, there came the squeal of hand brakes and audible curses of sweating men gasping for breath. The large back wheels turned twice in the mud, found traction, and the odd relay race was on again.
    Sawyer hoped to attach himself as a volunteer to a company still being formed: Big Six, made up totally of Baltimoreans who had hungthe new bell. He might make a start there as a pumper or runner. If no bunks or torches were available with the Monumentals, he could sprint for one of the other developing units, such as Knickerbocker Five. Each would need a contingent of young boys and teens to light the way and each was violently competitive to be first. The lead boy, usually quickest, chose the fastest route. The strange rushing, lurching parade of men, heavy silver machine, curious neighbors in night dress, barking dogs, crowds of yelling boys and blazing torches, progressed. The massive wheels of the heavy manual pumper cut ribbons in the mud. The motto “Onward!” rang out. Sawyer’s heart beat rapidly. “Onward!” Behind, the volunteers chanted, a counterpoint to the thudding of boots, slapping of feet, and rasping breath. Chief Broderick lifted the silver trumpet at his belt. Its clear bellow alerted the people ahead.