The Great Fire
Page 3
The boys clung to that hope.
But the Girauds were getting ready to leave. Many of the neighbours had already gone, and more were loading up their carts outside. Mistress Giraud had been busy packing belongings while her husband desperately searched Lothbury, Threadneedle Street and Cheapside for the boys.
Thérèse and the little girls told Sam and André how terrifying it had been when the looters burst into their home.
“They stole gold and silver, and tools, and they attacked Papa and smashed up the workshop,” said Thérèse.
“Bijou hissed at the bad men!” said Anne.
“Yes, she did!” exclaimed Marie. “And the neighbours helped us chase them out, and then the soldiers came!”
“Papa hates having to leave,” said Thérèse. “He can’t believe the fire will come this far. He says the Duke of York and his guards will have things under control soon.”
Sam thought of that great relentless beast of a fire, only streets away. But he didn’t want to leave either. He wanted to wait for Budge. Supposing Thérèse was right, and his beloved dog was hiding somewhere, frightened to come home?
We can’t go without Budge, he thought.
But by late afternoon many of the houses in Foster Lane were already empty, and all the northern gates had long queues of carts and people trailing back.
Sam and André stared out of the landing window.
The city was in flames. Even the clouds were red.
“Budge,” whispered Sam, “where are you?”
8
Into the Fields
It was time to go. Everything that could be carried was packed. Bijou was in a wicker basket, yowling. She would be travelling on one of the two hand-carts that stood outside, already piled high with household goods.
“Please, we must look for Budge once more before we go!” begged André.
“Why can’t we go and find him?” sobbed Marie.
“There’s no time.” Their mother was busy directing Amy and Thérèse, who were carrying a large basket full of linen between them.
Sam could not beg – he was merely a servant – but Paul Giraud knew that of all of them he was the most desperate to find his dog.
“Sam,” he said gently, “I think if Budge was alive he would have found his way home by now.”
His kind voice made Sam’s tears overflow. Sam remembered his last sight of Budge, at the top of that alley, looking back and waiting for them before the smoke engulfed him.
The thought of never seeing him again was unbearable.
“Come.” Paul Giraud laid a hand on his shoulder. “We must go now.”
Outside, the air was thick with ash. Master and Mistress Giraud took a cart each, Amy lifted a large pack, and everyone else carried what they could, even little Anne.
They had reached Aldersgate when news came that the fire had moved deep into the city.
“The merchants will be fleeing with their gold!” said Master Pryce, their neighbour.
“And we’ll lose our homes!” cried Mistress Giraud. “Oh! There’s so much we left behind…” She looked sadly at the tottering piles on the carts.
“But we have our lives,” said her husband.
They passed through Aldersgate and headed north towards the fields of Islington. People began to flow into every inch of space until the fields were full of carts and makeshift shelters. Some families were simply sitting on the ground surrounded by the few possessions they had been able to carry. There were animals everywhere – chickens in crates, pigs, tethered goats, cows, cats miaowing in baskets and dogs running free.
“But not Budge,” murmured Sam.
André shook his head.
“He’ll never find us here.”
Smoke and ash covered the camp site. Smouldering fragments settled on their hair and clothes and had to be quickly brushed off.
“Will we stay here tonight?” Marie asked.
“We will, my love,” said her mother. “Till God puts out the fire, since it seems the people can’t.”
* * *
In the morning Master and Mistress Giraud improved their makeshift tent while the girls walked to the nearby farm to see if they could buy milk. Sam and André went around the hedgerows collecting blackberries. They worked together, Sam with a bag over his good arm, André doing most of the picking. As they walked back, eating berries, they stopped to stare at the sky above the city walls – one mass of flame from end to end.
“Look at that!”
It was exciting, and when they turned away and saw the fields full of people, and heard the bursts of song and laughter and weeping, Sam knew what an adventure this was and how they’d always remember it, all their lives.
And then he realised something else: that he and André were friends now – or, at least, no longer enemies.
9
Out of the Ashes
All day on Tuesday the people in the fields watched London burn. The sun was blotted out and a constant rain of debris fell on the campsite.
“It feels like the end of the world,” said Thérèse.
But when they awoke next morning Master Giraud whispered, “The wind has dropped,” and everyone was filled with hope because it was the wind that had been spreading the flames. A dense black cloud of smoke rose high in the air and hung over the city.
“Will we go home now?” asked Anne.
“No, no, ma petite! There are still fires to be put out,” explained her mother.
They stayed another two nights in the field, but on Friday people began to return to the city, the Girauds among them.
Soon after they passed through Aldersgate, Sam was startled to feel heat coming up through the soles of his shoes.
“My shoes are burning!” he exclaimed.
They came to Goldsmiths’ Hall, which was now a burned-out shell, the roof gone, only the walls still standing. And as they walked down Foster Lane, shuffling through hot ash, they saw the ruins of many homes. The street was full of rubble, and smoke was pouring skywards.
“Which house is ours?” cried Mistress Giraud.
It was difficult even to see where Foster Lane ended and Cheapside began, but at last they found the remains of their home and set down their burdens in the ash. Not a scrap of the furniture they had left behind remained whole. Mistress Giraud wept over the loss of almost everything they had owned.
“We will rebuild our home,” her husband promised. “Our business, too. And I’ll have two young assistants up and coming, I think?” He glanced at Sam and André, who both nodded in agreement.
Master Pryce, who had been gazing at the ashes of his home, next door, said, “We’ll work together, the whole street. We’ll help each other.”
André turned to Sam. “Let’s explore!”
“Be careful!” his mother shouted as the boys ran off.
* * *
Cheapside had been burned to the ground.
“Look! You can see the river now!”
London, with its tall buildings and its countless church steeples, was gone. Watling Street, Bow Lane, Friday Street where Sam used to live with Master Kemp – all the way down to the river there was nothing but a smoking wasteland.
“Look at St Paul’s!”
The great church was a ruin. Its roof had come crashing down, breaking open the tombs in the crypt, scattering bones and skulls. Stray dogs nosed around them.
Sam hopped about, excited.
“These stones are as hot as an oven!”
They clambered around the ruins until a firefighter chased them away.
Another dog emerged from the crypt as they were leaving. It was lame, with a chewed lead dangling from its collar, and its fur was patchy, singed by fire. Poor thing, thought Sam. It must have been trapped somewhere.
And then the dog saw him, and with sudden eagerness it hurried towards them. Sam stared.
“It can’t be – it is! André – it’s Budge! It’s Budge!”
They both dropped to their knees in the
ash as the dog reached them. He moved from one to the other of them, panting and licking and making small happy sounds as they stroked and fussed over him.
And his tail kept wagging as if it would never stop.
Plague: A Cross on the Door
Ann Turnbull
In the long, hot summer of 1665, the plague comes to London. Sam is a servant boy with no family of his own. When his master dies, Sam is left alone, a prisoner in an empty building with a cross on the door to mark it as a plague house.
The first of Sam’s adventures. Can he escape? And even if he does, will he be able to survive on London’s ravaged streets?
£4.99 ISBN 9781408186879
The Great Fire of London Unclassified: Secrets Revealed!
Nick Hunter
The Great Fire of London Unclassified takes readers on a journey back in time to uncover the true story behind London’s most destructive fire ever.
From the outbreak of the fire at a bakery on Pudding Lane, to fire fighting techniques and the meddling Lord Mayor, readers are taken behind the scenes to see what really happened. Real-life artefacts and documentation reproduced in full colour enable readers to build a true and real account of the Great Fire and how it shaped Britain today.
£10.99 ISBN 9781408193037
Plague Unclassified: Secrets of the Great Plague Revealed!
Nick Hunter
Focusing on the last British outbreak of plague, the Great Plague of London in 1665, Plague Unclassified takes readers on a journey back in time to uncover the story behind the disease.
From what life was like in London during the 1665 outbreak, to where plague came from, how it was spread, and whether it still exists today, real-life artefacts and documentation enable readers to build a true and real account of the bubonic plague and how it shaped Britain today.
£10.99 ISBN 9781408192177
This electronic edition published in September 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing
Copyright © 2013 A & C Black
Text copyright © 2013 Ann Turnbull
Illustrations copyright © 2013 Akbar Ali
First published 2013 by A & C Black
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eISBN: 978-1-4081-8823-1
A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.
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