Fire! Fire! by Stuart Hill Read Free Book Online

said the dog’s name that I realized I’d never told the old lady what he was called, and yet she’d called him ‘Pip’ when she told me he’d be safe from the fire. How could she have known?
    I turned and peered through the banks of black smoke to see if I could see Mother Bellows, but she was gone.

CHAPTER 7
    I ran on down to Fleet Street, trying to make up for lost time. How I thought I could possibly find one little black and white dog in all of that chaos of heat and flames and horrible noise I don’t know, but something drove me on. I did see dogs of all shapes and sizes, but none of them were Pip. Some were with their owners tied to carts, or hurrying along on leads, but others were alone and running in terror through the fire. I wished I could have helped them, but there was nothing I could have done.
    As I made my way east along the main road, I suddenly saw the huge shape of Saint Paul’s Cathedral rising up out of the flames. Its solid stone walls shimmered in the heat haze as though they were made of nothing but water.
    I remembered that when I’d been there earlier with Master Pepys the houses to the north and east of the massive church were still safe from the flames, and this seemed as good a reason as any to go that way. Surely Pip would run away from the flames and go towards a place of safety.
    I continued along Fleet Street, dodging the carts and crowds of people hurrying down to the Thames, where they obviously hoped to get a boat to take them away to safety. I kept sight of the cathedral on my right and eventually risked turning off the main way and plunging into the narrower streets that led north. Here the fire was fierce, and twice I was driven back by heat and smoke before I found a street that was completely untouched by the flames. In disbelief I walked along between houses that looked as normal as the dirty and narrow streets of London could look. There was even a cat sitting on one of the steps, calmly watching the billowing clouds of smoke as they rolled over the sky.
    At last the streets began to open out and I arrived at the wide area that surrounded the cathedral. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Everything was now in uproar. When I’d been there earlier with Master Pepys, the building had been covered in scaffolding as workmen carried out repairs to the roof. But now, my God, the whole thing was on fire – it roared and raged in horribly bright and brilliant colours of red and orange set against the smoky black of the sky.
    The entire roof was alight – nothing but searing light and terrible scorching heat. I stood with my mouth hanging open and watched as molten lead poured from the roof in a constant stream, like a boiling waterfall. It was so hot it flowed over the ground like silver water and set light to anything that would burn as soon as it touched.
    I backed away to a piece of rising ground so the boiling lead couldn’t reach me, but then a loud CRACK exploded into the air, and pieces of stone shot around me. CRACK! Another sharp explosion, like a musket being fired, and again, jagged pieces of stone flew around the open area in front of the cathedral. CRACK! This time I saw what was happening; the stones of the cathedral’s walls were exploding in the huge heat, peppering the area around with deadly pieces of flying stone, like bullets from a gun.
    As I watched, a group of people hurried by pushing a handcart, and just as they were about to dive down into one of the streets that led to the river, another sharp explosion sounded and the man pushing the cart fell with a scream. The rest of the group gathered around and, almost without hesitating, they lifted him onto the cart and hurried on, getting as far away from the cathedral as they could.
    This was obviously the best thing to do. Staring through the heat haze and billowing smoke, I could see that Ludgate Hill and part of Cheapside were ablaze, the very areas that I hoped Pip