Pride's Folly

by Fiona Harrowe

  A fire engine pulled by a team of sweating horses, bells jangling, came to a screeching stop at the curb. Men jumped off, jamming pumps into place, directing arcs of water onto the building next to the Palmer House. But their efforts were in vain. Cinders and blazing brands falling on the roof sent it up in a burst of flame.

  A fireman called, “Folks! You’d best make tracks!”

  A new surge of fugitives came thundering down upon us, pushing barrows and hauling trunks, knapsacks, mattresses, chairs, and lamps, one man incongruously clutching a violin, another a white chamber pot. Men, women, and children, a mass of terrified humanity fanning out into the street, packed it from sidewalk to sidewalk, vying with drays, hackneys, landaus, carriages, all rushing pell-mell away from the holocaust at their backs. Above the din, the shouting, shrieking mob, the explosive popping and crackle of gusting flames, the courthouse bell could be heard ringing. Someone said it too was on fire and the tolling bell was like a doomed voice resonating ominously in the bedlam around us.

  I took hold of the lampost, to keep from being swept away. I couldn’t leave without Judah. Oh, God, where was he? Why had he gone back? All the cash in the world wasn’t worth it. Hurry! Hurry! my mind cried.

  Water hissed from the pumps, a meager trickle fighting a fiery tide. Suddenly the building next to the hotel exploded in a mass of flames, broken glass raining down with the red-hot embers. The Palmer House began to burn, tongues of fire shooting from the windows.

  “Judah!”

  I was halfway through the door when someone pulled me out. “Are you mad, lady?”

  “My husband ...”

  The crowd hemmed me in, jostling and pushing, assaulting me with sharp elbows and heavy feet. The heat was intense. My face felt as if it had been scorched and blistered. Beneath the soles of my slippers the plank sidewalk burned. Fear of being cremated alive rose in a smothering wave, snuffing out will, thought, reason, making me one with the panic-stricken throng. Propelled into the street, shouldered by pedestrians, I allowed myself to be carried along. Up ahead, a man in a broadcloth frock coat, pulling a small child with one hand and a trunk with the other, tried to stop a dray.

  “If you’ll take us I’ll give you a hundred dollars!” he shouted.

  “Two hundred!” the drayman yelled back.

  “I haven’t got it, you swindler! Take the little girl for a hundred.”

  “Two hundred!”

  “Take the little—”

  “Get out of my way!” The drayman rose in his seat and sent his whip cracking against the man. He staggered back, carrying with him the little girl, who, white-faced and frightened, still clung to his hand.

  The incident took away the worst of my panic. I now noticed that not everyone was bent on escape. From lighted taverns and saloons men were hauling kegs of whiskey through the doors while others staggered out with arms full of bottles, one drunkard with a bedraggled, glassy-eyed woman, her breasts bare, clinging to his neck. We passed a store whose plate-glass windows had been shattered, the interior crawling with men and women scrambling for articles of clothing—a gown, a shirt, a pair of suspenders, opera gloves, a bolt of silk—laughing and cackling like maniacs. On we went, those of us who could not understand—or were blind to—brutish greed. The sparks fell like fiery rain, the acrid smell of fire rasping throat and lungs.

  Suddenly a massive earth-pulsing explosion shook the ground. Panic erupted anew and those in front turned and began to push their way back, hysterical voices shouting, “The Gas Works! The Gas Works!” A flying ember caught a woman’s hair and, shrieking, she whirled about like a top, only to disappear a moment later beneath the crush of the crowd. Terrified of being trampled, I fought my way out of the mainstream, elbowing through people who shouted and cursed, until I found refuge in the doorway of a shop. The display windows had been boarded up against looters, and its shallow, overhung step seemed relatively quiet, if an island pulsating with a cacophony of shrill voices could be called “relatively quiet.” I thought I’d be safe until the cattlelike stampede subsided, but a man wearing a woman’s straw hat and strands of pearls against his bare, hairy chest darted out of the crowd and snatched the reticule that held my jewels. Before I could open my mouth to shout, he was gone again, lost in the sea of faces.

  I didn’t mourn, I couldn’t; it didn’t seem to matter now.

  I stopped a young woman lugging a heavy sewing machine in her arms. “Which way to the lake?”

  “I’m bound for it. Come along.”

  I fell in beside her. The crowd had turned itself around again, and now the going was easier but by no means unimpeded.

  “Why are you carrying that sewing machine?” I shouted to my companion above the noise. She seemed so frail.

  “It’s my livelihood, ma’am.”

  Another explosion followed by several more in quick succession ricocheted like claps of thunder in our ears—dynamite charges, I later learned, deliberately set off to destroy buildings in the path of the fire, a last-ditch effort to stop it. But of course it didn’t. The wind still blew up the canyoned streets, which, chimney like, gave impetus to the raging flames. The courthouse bell had fallen silent.

  We came out on Michigan Avenue, there to be joined by a river of humanity as far as the eye could see, a multitude of faces lit up by the lurid red light, moving swiftly, like an outpouring from the gates of hell. The waterworks had gone “with a clap of Satan’s hands,” as one woman described it.

  “What will the fire department do for water?” a worried girl asked.

  “The fire department!” someone said and laughed hysterically.

  I caught a glimpse of the lake then, like a cracked black mirror reflecting the conflagration in its waters. A frightened, weeping little boy clutched at my skirts. I tried to comfort him, but he pulled away, sobbing for his mother. Thank God, I thought with a wrench at my heart, Page isn’t here but safe at school. And Ian? He and his new wife were supposed to have left for their honeymoon at Niagara Falls. And Judah . . . Judah rushing back into that hotel—it didn’t bear thinking of.

  On a strip of trampled grass between the lake shore and the street, refugees had camped with their belongings—piles of clothing, household utensils, tubs, clocks, rolled carpets, and bed frames. Their owners sat in fierce possession, their exhausted faces and singed clothes testifying to flight, their red-rimmed eyes to the indomitable will to protect at all cost their pitiful effects. Seeing them reminded me again of Judah. Oh, why, why had he gone back inside the hotel? I remembered how the flames had shot from the windows and in my mind’s eye pictured the roof collapsing, the walls crumbling in a fountain of fire, all that stone, marble, pomp, and wealth melted down. Had Judah been trapped beneath it? Perhaps he had found another door. Yes, I wanted to believe that. There were several exits to the Palmer House, and surely Judah had reached one safely. Somewhere in this benighted city he was alive. Looking for me.

  A gray-whiskered man in a parson’s hat and rumpled frock coat stood alongside the moving crowd, shaking an angry fist, haranguing us as we passed. “Sodom and Gomorrah! The Lord’s vengeance is upon you! God has visited his fiery wrath on this wicked, sin-filled city, on its brothels and gambling halls, its . .

  A woman in a torn, sleazy gown spat at him. “Shut up, old man!”

  “Whore!” he screamed. “Sister of Babylon!”

  Curses were hurled at the ranting fire-and-brimstone preacher, but he went on with his bombast.

  We came to a cross street where another stream of fugitives was forcing its way into the crowd. Drays and carriages swelled the congestion, and for a while we could not move, packed in by the thousands, swaying forward then backward in a terrifying impasse. The girl next to me; still hugging her sewing machine, gasped, her face turning deathly pale.

  “Let me hold that for you,” I offered. “If you faint now you’ll be stomped to death.”

  But we were wedged in so tightly we could not make the transfer.

  A w
ell-dressed man jumped up on the roof of a stalled carriage and fired a revolver into the air. “Stand still! Everyone! Stand perfectly still!” The gun went off again and again. The pushing stopped as people froze, and he began to direct traffic in a loud, authoritative voice. He was a strongly built man of medium height, with broad shoulders that seemed to bulge inside his fawn-colored coat. On one arm I noticed he wore a black band of mourning. I couldn’t see his face, but those shoulders, the profile under the brim of a felt hat looked vaguely familiar. When he turned I experienced a moment of disbelief.

  It was Ward Gamble! In civilian clothes.

  But then I remembered he had told me his home was in Chicago, so his sudden appearance here on Michigan Avenue was not all that miraculous. Like the rest of the city’s population, he had probably been trying to escape the fire, but the unruliness of the mob must have been too much. Military habit, the need to restore order out of chaos, had forced him to take control. I was glad it had. I may have once avoided him, but now, seeing a familiar face in this vast, mindless ocean of strangers, I immediately felt reassured.

  Slowly the crowd began to move in a saner fashion. When we came abreast of the carriage I shouted up, “Colonel!”

  He turned and looked down into my face, his eyes lighting up with surprise.

  “Mrs. Harrison!”

  “We are—were—visiting—staying at the Palmer House!” People were shoving, and I had to hang on to the edge of the carriage to keep from being swept away.

  “My husband ... I don’t know where he is!”

  “You can worry about him later, but I’d advise you to get out of this crowd right now. Go down to the water’s edge; that will be the safest. I’d take you with me—” He stopped suddenly as a man in a dirty undershirt grabbed hold of the horse’s bridle.

  “Take your hands off!” Gamble’s voice cut like a knife through the tumult. “I said . . .” He raised his gun and the man melted into the throng.

  Gamble turned back to me. “I can’t take you, because I’m duty bound to help the police. The looting . . . Here,” he said, reaching under his coat and pulling another revolver from his belt. “Take this. You will need it. And ...” From his pocket he quickly withdrew a calling card. “My address, if you require assistance afterward.”

  I pushed the revolver and the card under the buttoned front of my gown, where the necklace and bracelet still nestled safely.

  Gamble turned, shouting into the crowd. “No shoving! No pushing! Here, wait until that dray passes!”

  The girl with the sewing machine had stopped with me. “Let’s see if we can get out of this mess,” I said to her.

  We maneuvered ourselves through the crush, finally managing to emerge on the grass strip. I took the sewing machine from her arms.

  “Thank you,” she breathed. “My name’s Lily Morgan. I’m a seamstress, if you hadn’t guessed.”

  “Deirdre Harrison. Please call me Deirdre.”

  We threaded our way through the hundreds of people sitting about with their bundles, until we reached the beach, which was already dotted with clusters of refugees. We found a spot and while Lily sat beside her precious machine, I went to the water’s edge. Kneeling, I dipped my hands into the cooling water and splashed it on my face.

  Looking back over my shoulder, I could see the skyline beyond Michigan Avenue, a mass of flames across the whole length of the firmament. West, north, south—we were ringed by fire. If it came any closer, there would be no escape except into the lake.

  I threw myself down next to Lily. “Do you think they’ll put it out?” she asked tremulously.

  “I doubt the fire department can do much with the waterworks gone. But it will burn itself out; it has to. And if the wind dies down, it will be all for the better. Don’t look so glum.” I gave her a wry smile. “We’re still alive, aren’t we?”

  We fell asleep, leaning back to back against each other.

  The smell of burning cloth woke me. I looked down and saw that an ember had fallen into my lap. When I leaned over to rub it out, Lily jolted up.

  “What is it? Oh, my God!”

  The buildings all along Michigan Avenue were in flames, throwing out a blasting, scorching heat. Through the falling cinders, people were abandoning their belongings, pushing past us, hurrying into the water.

  Lily removed her shoes and tied them by the strings around her neck. Then she reached down for her sewing machine. “Leave it,” I implored. She shook her head.

  Kicking off my slippers I hitched my gown up and fastened the skirts around my knees, something I could never imagine doing in public except under circumstances of life or death, for this was the day before bathing costumes showed the leg.

  The water was surprisingly cold. We waded out to our calves and joined a group of women. Two of them were wringing their hands and sobbing.

  “What shall we do! Oh, Lord, help us, what shall we do?”

  The sight of them took me back to the war, my mother sitting whey-faced, helpless, crying, wringing her hands in just such a manner. I hated those two women for bringing back that memory. It was one thing to be frightened, but to go to pieces ... I couldn’t bear it.

  “Hush up!” I shouted. “Hush up, now! You’re only making things worse!”

  They stopped their howling, then stared at me for a few moments as if I were a circus freak before commencing again.

  “Let’s move,” I said to Lily.

  We went a little deeper.

  “I can’t swim,” said Lily, the sewing maching resting in her arms.

  “Neither can I. But we won’t have to. We’ll just stay put where we are.”

  But we couldn't stay put. The heat drove us back until we were waist-deep.

  Suddenly a gruff voice queried, “What you got there, miss?”

  Lily’s arms tightened around the sewing machine.

  He stank of whiskey, an unkempt, dirty-faced man with a tic under one bloodshot eye. Behind him a derelict with a crushed derby and a cockeyed grin leered at us.

  “Go away!” I ordered. “Leave us, and don’t touch that sewing machine!”

  The man with the tic gave me an obscene smile. “Who’d want an ol' sewin’ machine, eh, Bertie?”

  Bertie’s mouth hung slack in mock-astonishment. “Yeh, who’d want an ol' sewin’ machine?”

  “Rather have a pretty girl. We got us each one,” Bertie said, moving up against me, his hands going down into the water, hiking my petticoats above the knee. “Ever done it this way?” He leered at me, then reached out and tweaked my breast.

  “Get out of here!” I brought my hand up, but he dodged my blow, ducking under it and clutching at my waist.

  Lily cried, “Help!” She had dropped the sewing machine and the other ruffian was pawing her, tearing at the bodice of her dress.

  No one came to our rescue. Though most of those around us were women, there was a sprinkling of men. An older male did say, “Why don’t you leave the ladies alone?” but he made no move to help us.

  Lily screamed. My attacker got bolder. He was at my petticoats again, his hand running up my leg. I lifted my knee and jabbed him in the groin. His hold relaxed and before he could grab me again, I drew out the revolver and put it to his head.

  “Do you want your brains blown out?”

  He let go. “Now, you wouldn’t do that,” he whined, saliva drooling from his lips.

  “Wouldn’t I?”

  He must have heard the click of the hammer, for he stepped back, that sly grin still on his face.

  “Watch out!” Lily screamed.

  I twisted around just as the other man lunged for me. The gun went off. I could have killed him—easily. The war had taught me how to use a gun, but I didn’t want his corpse fouling the water around us. The night was hellish enough. The revolver was a Colt, a repeater. I cocked the hammer once more. “If you don’t make tracks. I’ll kill you for certain.”

  The men waded away, splashing and sending sprays of water after t
hem in a show of bravado.

  When dawn finally came, a smoke-charred, orange sun rising out of the lake at our backs, it found us breast-deep in water. We had been joined by thousands, standing cheek by jowl in the cold water, our limbs freezing while our faces burned with reflected heat of the fire. The dead were among us too, for many had drowned. Children whose mothers or fathers had been unable to hold them aloft were the first to go. Women fainted and slipped quietly under the water. The girl, Lily, disappeared shortly after dawn without a sound. I did not notice her absence at once. Perhaps I could have saved her if I hadn’t dozed off. It was one of the most troubling things that happened to me that horror-filled night. When I found her wedged between myself and her sunken sewing machine, tears stung my eyes and streamed down my grimy face. But there was nothing I could do.

  It began to drizzle in the afternoon. A light rain, a mockery, for the fire raged on. Hungry, tired, thirsty, and numb with despair, there were times when the temptation to give up, to sink wordlessly beneath the water, to have it over with, lured me to the edge of endurance. If only I could lay my head down and sleep, close my eyes and give way to drugged weariness. I tried praying, as so many around me were doing, but I had never been pious and it seemed hypocritical to ask for God’s help when I had all but ignored Him before.

  Only the thought of Page kept me standing there, upright, determined to see this nightmare through. If I went. Page would be left without anyone who really cared. I had to hang on. I had to.

  Chapter 8

  The direction of the wind, the open prairies, and the widely spaced dwellings had spared the western division of the city. It was from there that help came when the wall of fire between us finally died, on Tuesday evening. Sopping wet and singed, looking more like scarecrows than humans, a group of us were transported to the First Congregational Church, on West Washington Street, one of the various relief centers hastily organized to aid the homeless. In the basement the kindly women of the parish doled out hot food and a change of clothing. Cots had been set up in every available cranny, under the furnace and water piping and between the pews upstairs. It was a subdued crowd on the whole. A few women sobbed, a child or two got boisterous, but the ordeal had beaten most of us into stunned silence.