CORCORAN’S EXPIATION.

Northland Age, Volume VIII, Issue 10, 27 October 1911, Page 7

CORCORAN’S EXPIATION.

BY RICHARD BARKER-SHELTON. An explosion of hot air was a new experience to Ladderman Corcoran. While he was groping his way up the stairs of Rowe and Company's warehouse, a steel maul in one hand and in the other ' a spluttering lantern, winch seemed a dim spark in the blinding smoke; a sudden deafening roar sounded through the cavernous halls, accompanied by a crash of timber and the i! lkle of broken glass. And then his first thought was to get to the treet as quickly as possible. Inde 1 so great was his anxiety to ler. a the buildinlg that In his mad fight down the stairs, he crashed into Lieutenant M’Gill of 33, who was ascending just behind him.

Corcoran weighed a hundred and ninety pounds. The pair crashed into five of 33's horsemen, who were dragging up a line o£ hose in the lieutenant’s wake, and all seven went down the flight in a heap. When they had untangled themselves, and the lieutenant was angrily inquiring what had happened, some of ladder 68’s men, who had seen the whole affair, came down, and grabbed the flabby hose which 33’s men were picking up. And as they tugged and grunted, they scornfully explained the matter. All might have been forgiven had the( explosioni been near enough to blow him off his feet ; hut it had been on the seventh floor, while Corcoran was ascending to the third. It had been, moreover, of no real consequence—merely a couple of doors blown off the elevator shaft and a few windows broken. From that moment the persecution of Ladderman Corcoran began. He did not realise that he was not the first man to flinch from a hot air explosion; he did not know that countless green men before him, who had been guilty of a similar mistake had become in time exemplary members of the department. In the jokes at his expense and in the coarse laughter they invariably provoked, Corcoran saw only the richlymerited scorn of unpardonable cowardice. If Corcoran came upstairs in the afternoon while the men were loafing or playing cards, the witticisms at his expense were particularly biting.

“ Take care there, Larry !” M'Carthy would call to Bogan. "Keep away from the stairs, lad. He’ll be coastin’ down on ye, same’s he did on M’Gill.”

Or Bogan would call out to old Finneran with unnecessary emphasis.

“ Cut out them sneezes, Tim ! Ye will be stampedin’ Corcoran !” And Corcoran would turn red to the roots of his hair, and bite his lips as he turned angrily on his heel. Foremost of his tormentors was his own cousin, Dan Kennedy, an older man. Dan had a quick wit, and a biting tongue, and the fact that one of his own kin should prove unequal to an emergency lent a more scathing scorn to his words. There was nothing too harsh for him to say to Corcoran since the warehouse fire, Day by day Corcoran grew silent, moody and morose. He ceased to flush at the taunts of the men, and when he looked at them his eyes took on a strange! sullen glitter of hatred.

The tapper over the desk in 6S's house sounded the alarm from 83. Now, 83 is a box that generally means business, and when it Is sounded every man in the department lliows that trouble is imminent ; for 53 is in the heart of the lumber-yard district, and a lumberyard fiTe is generally a blazing furnace before the first piece of apparatus on the scene has time to unlimber.

Bogan, whose trick at the desk it was, shouted to the men upstairs,

" Eighty-three, boys !” as he mechanically recorded the number on the sheet.

Corcoran, sitting by the window, listened to the grumbling from the men that a dangerous box always brought forth. He heard Lieutenant Reilly and Bogan in the room below, arguing good-naturedly as to the probability of a second alarm. Kennedy came to the window, with a blank in one hand and a pen in the other.

“ Eighty-three’s in,” he said, leering at Corcoran. “We thought perhaps ye’d be wishin’ to resign.”

Corcoran felt the hot blood rush to his face, but he bit his lip and looked steadily out of the window. Kennedy turned depreciatingly to the others in the room.

"He says he’d be glad to, boys, but he needs the money, and maybe there won.t be another alarm. He's goin’ to risk It.” This piece of buffoonery was greeted with a chuckle. At that moment the second alarm came in.

There was a sound of bustling below as the horses were hitched up to await the possibility of a third alarm.

“ It’s us lor 83 all right !” growled Finneran ; and hardly were the words out of his mouth when the third alarm came in, and the men rushed to the room below. And as 68 wheeled out Into the streets in the grey February twilight, there clung to the side step a silent sullen young man named Corcoran.

The fire, even at first glance, showed Itself to be a very serious one. The yard seemed one great mass of flame, which rose many feet in the air and lightid up the wintry sky with an angry wicked red. As 68 drew up and unlimbered, the hoarse hum of many pumping engines, the strident shouts of com-.

mand, and the roar of Dames made a’ babel of confusion.

The firemen tugging long lines of hose through the streets, or silhouetted sharply against the flames, were coated with ice from the spray which’ froze in the cold air as soon as it fell.

The lumber district lay along th( side of a little bay that made in from the harbour, and as the burn' ing lumber piles on the piers toppled over, scores of blazing rafts floated out on the tide and lighted up tL« water.

The piles of spruce lumber on the wharf of the next yard were beginning to smoke, and here and there tiny tongues of fire ran along the hoards. The crew of 68 were set to work toppling these piles Into the water, while a dozen lines of hose drenched men and lumber alike. Shivering in the icy spray, and choked by the blinging smoke, the men worked steadily, sending tiers ol spruce hoards clattering into the hay. Every moment the smoke grew more dense, and flickering sheets oi flame, driven by the wind, came near enough to scorch their faces.

Far out on the end of the wharf Corcoran, Bogan ar.d Kennedy were deftly toppling " over huge piles of boards, enduring grimly the flames which scorched them and the icy water which chilled them to the marrow. The darting tongues of flame became more frequent ; the smoke made them splutter and cough. Even with the spray from the h >se-lines drenching it, the lumber beneath, their hands was beginning to smoulder. Just as a pillar of fire shot up from one end of the pile, Lieutenant Reilly came running out on the wharf. “ Get out of here, hoys I" he shouted. “ Fireboat’s coming up on the other side.”

Bogan and Corcoran who were close logether, hurried after the retreating;, lieutenant; and even as they left, the fire-boat swung up beside the pier.t and with her powerful streams sent the pile of boards crashing down on the wharf.

Ka'f way down the yard Corcoran stopped. " Where’s Dan 7” he called to Bo-

gan. It became evident to both men that Kennedy who had been on the further side of the lumber pile, had not heard the lieutenant’s warning,, and if he had not, it was almost certain that he was caught in the debris of the lumber piles which ths streams from the fire-boat were scattering over the wharf. And the lumber, despite the efforts of the fireboat End a dozen streams from ehe street, was beginning to blaze. For a moment the two men stood stunned by the thought of a comrade caught in that awful death-trap,' Then Corcoran turned and sped up) the wharf. Bogan followed. (

“ Gome back here, you fool !” he' shouted. ” You can't do anything for him now." i Corcoran ran up the wharf into'; the maelstrom of smolfe and flame.

Bogan hastened through the yard to summon aid.

" Tryin’ to square himself,” he mumbled ( brokenly. “ Confound’ those tongues of ours !” Corcoran fought his way through; the blazing lumber, choked and gasping. His eyeballs seemed to start) from his sockets, and his head felt as though it were bursting. The arm with which he sheltered his face' soon became numb and lifeless. Ncac the end of the wharf a flying board felled him, knocked off his helmet' cut a gash in his forehead. Blindly on hands and knees, he groped hiq way forward, the blood streaming into his eyes and the heat ail but overpowering (him. His hands struck something metallic ; it was Kenoedy’s hetmet. And there, under a pile of boards already ablaze he saw Dan’s head. In a frenzy he tore the pile apart, and seizing his cousin by the arm dragged him out.

" Dan I" he shouted. ” Get up ! Get up I” But Kennedy lay prone and still, and Corcoran, stooping, grasped him under the arms. Half carrying, half dragging the unconscious man, he (triggered hack through the flames. Twice he sank down but each time he managed to get him on his feet and struggle on, until at last the flames were behind him and he had reached the yard. It was there that Lieutenant Reilly fend Bogan found them, Corcoran feebly tugging at Kennedy's armi and mumbling incoherent words. At the hospital a week later, aftei amount of vigorous persuasion oi Kennedy’s part, they put him on i stretcher and carried him to Corcoran’s -cot. Corcoran covered wit! bandages and plaster smiled weakly -s Kennedy put out a Unen-swathet hand to him.

" John,” said Kennedy, ” there 1 ! something I’ve got to say to you.”

Corcoran’s face reddened a hit. H< moved uneasily on the cot.

" Oh, that’s all right, Dan," hi protested. Kennedy grinned. "Ye may not be the handsomest man on the department Just at present, Johnny Corcoran,” he said, “ hut so help me, you’re the whitest.”— “ The Budget."

GOT OFF LIGHTLY. A would-be playwright brought te a well-known actor-manager a play for him to read. The actor found It execrable, and, when the author demanded a verdict, felt it a kindness to point out the mistakes he had made. But the tyro waxed wroth. “Do you know that play cost me • year’s hard labour 7” he exclaimed. "My dear roan, you are fortunate,” returned the imperturbed actor ; “a more just judge would have made it ten yean.” 1171