Part 15

Let us come now to that placid summer afternoon, to that terrible Saturday, June 30, 1900, when tug-boats in the North River looked upon a fire the like of which the river had never known and may not know again. They looked from a distance, we may be sure, these tug-boats; for when a great liner swings down-stream, a roaring, red-hot furnace, it is time for wooden-deck craft to scurry out of the way. And here were three liners in such case, the _Bremen_, the _Saale_, and the _Main_, all burning furiously and beyond human help, one would say, for their iron hulls were vast fire-traps, with port-holes too small for rescue, and the decks swept with flame. It was hard to know that back of those steep sides were men in anguish, held like prisoners in a fortress of glowing steel that sizzled as it drifted--three fortresses of glowing steel.

Then up steamed the _New-Yorker_ and the _Van Wyck_, with men behind fire-shields against the blistering scorch and glare, with monitors and rail-pipes spurting out all that the pumps could send. The _New-Yorker_ took the _Bremen_, the _Van Wyck_ took the _Saale_; and there they lay for hours, close on the edge of the fire, like a pair of salamanders, engines throbbing, pumps pounding, pilots at the wheel watching every movement of the liners, following foot by foot, drawing in closer when they gained on the fire, holding away a shade when the fire gained on them, fighting every minute.

"It's queer," said Captain Braisted, "but when you play a broadside of heavy streams on a vessel's side, say at fifty feet, there's a strong recoil that keeps driving the fire-boat back. It's as if you were pushing off all the time with poles instead of water. And you have to keep closing in with the engines."

"How near did you get to the _Bremen_?" I asked.

"Oh, we finally got right up against her, say after forty-five minutes. You can cool off a lot of red-hot iron in forty-five minutes when you've got forty-five tons of water a minute to do it with."

It was just as they came alongside that one of the crew made out a human shape in the coal-chute some ten feet up the _Bremen's_ side. And presently they saw others there, blackened faces, fierce and fearful eyes. And above the fire crackle and the crash of water they heard men's cries.

Straightway a ladder was brought, and three of the crew, Breen, Kerrigan, and Hartmann, lifted it on their shoulders until the top rung came up level with the coal-chute. But this, instead of bringing relief to the fire-bound company, brought madness; for now they fought and struggled so, each one wishing to go first, that none were able to go at all. "They were like wild beasts," said one of the crew.

In this crisis Gallagher sprang up the ladder to the top, where he could look in through the hole, the one hole in all the vessel's sides that was large enough for a man's body to pass. And reaching in here, he grabbed what was nearest, arm, leg, or shock of hair, and hauled it out and lowered it down the ladder to Captain Braisted, who stood below him and passed the bundle on. Then Gallagher grabbed again and again, pulling forth by sheer strength one man at a time, taking them as they came, Germans or Italians, officers or coal-handlers, anything that was alive. Down came the tumbling mass, yelling, praying, fighting, a miserable human stream; and when it was all over and the count was taken, they had saved thirty-two lives.

Now one of the rescued men spoke up in broken English, and said that there were others still on the _Bremen_, down in the engine-room. And Gallagher volunteered to go aboard for the rescue if one of the men who knew the vessel would come along to guide him. But no man offered this service. It was too hazardous a thing, they said; where the fire was not raging there was smoke and darkness, and the engine-room was far down in the vessel. They had groped about themselves for half an hour in despair, searching for the way out, and now that they had found it, they were not fools enough to go in again.

"But you say there are others in there alive!" insisted Gallagher.

The rescued ones shook their heads blankly at this; in their minds the law of self-preservation rode over all other things at this moment. Poor men, they were half dazed by their sufferings and the shock!

"All right," cried Gallagher; "I'll go in and find 'em without any guide. Hold the ladder, boys."

And up he went!

"I'm with you, Ned," called Captain Braisted; and without more words these two climbed in through the coal-chute and started down the black, hot, stifling ways for the engine-room. And somehow they got there safely, and found eight men still alive, all Germans, engineers and their assistants. But when the firemen called to them to hurry out for their lives, they refused to move. Their duty was with their engines, said they; they had to run the engines; they were much obliged to the American gentlemen, but they could not leave their post.

Gallagher and Braisted could scarcely believe their ears.

"But you will die!" they urged.

The Germans thought it very likely; still they could not leave.

"But it won't do any good; the vessel is past hope; you will be burned to death."

The Germans understood perfectly: they would be burned to death at their engines; and as they were all of this mind and not to be shaken, the firemen could only say "good-by" and set forth sadly on the return journey. And this time they nearly lost themselves, but at last their good star prevailed, and they came without harm to their comrades, who listened in wonder to the news they brought. It seemed such utter folly, the decision of that unhappy engine-room crew, yet there was something almost splendid in their stubborn devotion to duty. Quietly they had looked death in the face, a horrible, lingering death, and had not flinched; and days later, when the steamer had burned herself out and lay grounded in the mud, cold and black, the wreckers found these faithful though mistaken men still at their posts, still by their engines, where they had waited in spite of everything--where they had perished.

All this time the _Van Wyck_ had been working on the _Saale_, but in a harder fight, for the flames raged here as fiercely as on the _Bremen_, while the smaller fire-boat could throw against them only twenty-five tons of water a minute, which was not enough.

So, now, when all had been done that could be for the _Bremen_, orders came that the _New-Yorker_, too, turn her streams against the _Saale_, and a little later the two fire-boats were in massed attack upon the unhappy liner, which swung down the bay like a blazing island, and presently grounded by the bow on the Communipaw mud-flats, and rested there for the last agony.

The story of those tragic hours is not for telling now. There were more heroic rescues. There were brave attempts at rescue that availed nothing. The fire lads stood on the hurricane deck, with flames roaring about them and water up to their knees surging past like a mill-race; it was the return torrent from their own nozzles. Foot by foot the stern settled and the water crept nearer, nearer to the open port-holes. In a large stateroom aft fourteen men and one woman gave a noble picture of resignation in the face of an awful death. Hemmed in there between fire and water, they prayed quietly, and thanked the fire lads for cups of water passed in through the port-hole, and waved "good-by" as the stern gave a final lurch and went down.

Nor does this end the record of that day, for there was still the _Main_ to fight for, and at eleven o'clock that night the _New-Yorker_ steamed up the river and caught the third liner as the flood-tide bore her stern first toward the flats of Weehawken. She had been blazing for eight hours, and was red-hot now from the water-line up. It seemed incredible that there could be a living thing aboard her, yet they went to work in the old way, and within an hour had dragged out through the coal-hole a blackened and frightened company, more than a score of boiler-cleaners and coal-handlers who had somehow lived through those fearful hours by burrowing down in the deepest bunkers far below the water-level.

After this the fire-boats did other things.

THE AERIAL ACROBAT

I

SHOWING THAT IT TAKES MORE THAN MUSCLE AND SKILL TO WORK ON THE HIGH BARS

A FEW years ago I had the pleasure of traveling for ten days with a great circus, and in this way came to know some very interesting people--elephant-keepers, lion-tamers, trapeze performers, bareback riders, not to mention the bearded lady, the dog-faced boy, and other side-show celebrities who used to eat with us in the cook-tent--there was one gentleman, appareled in blue velvet, who ate with his feet, for the reason that he had no arms, and would reach across for salt or butter with an easy knee-and-ankle movement that was a perpetual surprise.

What strange things one sees traveling with a circus! Every night there is a mile of trains to be loaded, every morning a tented city to be built. Such hard work for everybody! Two performances a day, besides the street procession. And what a busy time in the tents! Leapers getting ready, double-somersault men getting ready, clowns stuffing out false stomachs and chalking their faces, kings of the air buckling on their spangles. Ouf! How glad we all were when five o'clock came, and the concert was over, and the "big top," with its spreading amphitheater and its four great center-poles, stood silent and empty!

It was at this five-o'clock hour one day that I first saw little Nelson, the ten-year-old trapeze performer, and that picture remains among the pleasantest of my circus memories. I can recall more exciting things, like the fight between two jealous wrestlers, or the mystery of the lost Chinese giant, or the story of a wrecked train, when the wild animals escaped and the fat lady was rescued with difficulty from a burning car. And I can recall sad things, the case of that poor trapeze girl, two weeks a widow, who nevertheless went through her act twice a day and tripped away kissing her hands to the crowd while her heart was breaking. And saddest of all was the case of beautiful "Zazel," once the much-advertised "human cannonball," then suddenly a helpless cripple after a fall from the dome of the tent. Her husband, one of the circus men, told me how she lived for more than a year in a plaster case swung down from the ceiling, and of her sweetness and patience through it all. And she finally recovered, I am glad to say, so that she could walk--a pale, weak image of this once splendid circus queen.

But let me come to Nelson. This sturdy little fellow was one of the circus children, "born on the sawdust," brought up to regard lion cages as the proper background for a nursery, and thinking of father and mother in connection with the flying bars and bareback feats. It was Nelson's ambition to follow in his father's steps and become a great artist on the trapeze. Indeed, at this time he felt himself already an artist, and at the hour of rest would walk forth into the middle ring all alone and with greatest dignity go through his practice. He would not be treated as a child, and scorned any suggestion that he go out and play. Play? He had work to do. Look here! Do you know any _man_ who can throw a prettier row of flip-flaps than this? And wait! Here's a forward somersault! Is it well done or not? Did he come over with a good lift? Like his father, you think? Ah! I can still see his chest swell with pride.

Nelson was not a regular member of the show; he was a child, and merely came along with his parents, the circus being his only home; but occasionally, after much teasing or as a reward for good behavior, his father would lead the boy forth before a real audience. And how they would applaud as the trim little figure in black-and-yellow tights rose slowly to the tent-top, feet together, body arched back, teeth set on the thong of the pulley-line that his father held anxiously!

And how the women would catch their breath when Nelson, hanging by his knees in the long swing, would suddenly pretend to slip, seem to fall, then catch the bar cleverly by his heels and sweep far out over the spread of faces, arms folded, head back, and a look that said plainly: "Don't you people _see_ what an artist I am?"

This boy possessed the two great requisites in a trapeze performer, absolute fearlessness and a longing to perform in the air--which longing made him willing to take endless pains in learning. It would seem that acrobats differ from divers, steeple-climbers, lion-tamers, and the rest in this, that from their early years they have been strongly drawn to the career before them, to leaping, turning in the air, and difficult tricks on the trapeze and horizontal bars. The acrobat must be born an acrobat, not so much because his feats might not be learned by an ordinary man, but because the particular kind of courage needed to make an acrobat is not found in the ordinary man. In other words, to be an aerial leaper or an artist on the flying bars is quite as much a matter of heart as of agility and muscle. There are men who know how to do these things, but _can't_.

In illustration of this let me present three of my circus friends, Weitzel and Zorella and Danny Ryan, trapeze professionals whose daring and skill are justly celebrated. Zorella's real name, I may say, is Nagel, and so far from being a dashing foreigner, he is a quiet-spoken young man from Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he learned his first somersaults tumbling about on sawdust piles. And at sixteen he was the only boy in the region who could do the giant swing. Whereupon along came a circus with an acrobat who needed a "brother," and Nagel got the job. Two days later he began performing in the ring, and since then--that was ten years ago--he hasn't missed a circus day.

The act that has given these three their fame includes a swing, a leap, and a catch, which seems simple enough until one learns the length and drop of that swing, and how the leapers turn in the air, and what momentum their bodies have as they shoot toward the man hanging for the catch from the last bar. It is Weitzel who catches the other two. He was "understander" in a "brother" act before he learned the trapeze; and the man who earns his living by holding two or three men on his head and shoulders while they do tricks of balancing is pretty sure to build up a strong body. And Weitzel needs all his strength when Danny springs from the pedestal over there at the tent-top fifty-two feet away, and, swinging through a half-circle thirty-six feet across, comes the last sixteen feet flying free, and turning twice as he comes. For all his brawny arms, Weitzel would be torn away by the clutch of that hurling mass, were not the strain eased by the stretch of fourteen thongs of rubber, seven on a side, that support his bar cords. And sometimes, as the leapers catch, the bar sags full four feet, and then, as they "snap off" down to the net, springs nine feet up, so that Weitzel's head has many a time bumped the top support.

The catcher-man must hold himself ready for a dozen different leaps, must watch for the safety clutch where the four hands grip first at the elbows, then slide down the forearms to the wrists and hold there where the tight-bound handkerchiefs jam; he must know how to seize Zorella by the ankles when he shoots at him feet up after a backward double; he must know how to land Danny when he comes turning swiftly with eyes blindfolded and body bound in a sack.

All these feats are hard enough to do, yet still harder, one might say, is the mere starting to do them. There are scores of acrobats, well skilled in doubles and shoots and twisters, who would not for their lives go up on the pedestal whence Ryan and Zorella make their spring, and simply take the first long swing hanging from the trapeze. Nothing else, simply take the swing!

The fact is, there is an enormous difference between working on horizontal bars say ten feet above ground, and on the same bars thirty feet above ground, or between a trapeze act with leaps after a moderate swing, and the same act with leaps after a long swing. Often I have watched Ryan and Zorella poised on the pedestal just before the swing and holding the trapeze bar drawn so far over to one side that its supporting wires come up almost horizontal; and even on the ground it has made me dizzy to see them lean forward for the bar which falls short of the pedestal, so that they can barely catch it with the left-hand fingers, while the right hand clings to the pedestal brace. They need the send of that initial spring to give them speed, but--

Well, there was a very powerful and active man in Columbus, Ohio, a kind of local athlete, who agreed, on a wager, to swing off from the pedestal as Danny and Zorella did. And one day a small company gathered at the practice hour to see him do it. He said it was easy enough. His friends chaffed him and vowed he "couldn't do it in a hundred years." The big man climbed up the swinging ladder to the starting-place, and stood there looking down. When you stand on the pedestal the ground seems a long way below you, and there is little comfort in the net. The big man said nothing, but began to get pale. He had the trapeze-bar all right with one hand; the thing was to let go with the other.

For ten minutes the big man stood there. He said he wasn't in a hurry. His friends continued to joke him. One man urged him to come down. The professionals told him he'd better not try it if he was afraid--at which the others laughed, and that settled it, for the big man _was_ afraid; but he was stubborn, too, and, rising on his toes, he threw his right arm forward and started. He caught the bar safely with his right hand, swept down like a great pendulum, and at the lowest point of the swing was ripped away from the bar with the jerk of his two hundred pounds, and went skating along the length of the net on his face until he was a sorry-looking big man with the scratch of the meshes. Not one athlete in twenty, they say, without special training, could hold that bar after such a drop.

Zorella cited a case in point where a first-class acrobat was offered a much larger salary by a rival circus to become the partner of an expert on the high bars. "This man was crazy to accept," said Zorella, "and everything was practically settled. The two did their act together on the low bars in great shape. Then they tried it on the high bars, and the new man stuck right at the go-off. Queerest thing you ever saw. He had to start on the end bar with a giant swing,--that gives 'em their send, you know,--then do a backward single to the middle bar, then a shoot on to the last bar, and from there drop with somersaults down to the net. All this was easy for him on the low bars, but when he got up high--well, he hadn't the nerve to let go of the first bar after the giant swing. He kept going round and round, and just stuck there. Seemed as if his hands were nailed fast to that bar. We talked to him, and reasoned with him, and he tried over and over again, but it was no use. He could drop from the last bar, he could shoot from the middle bar, but to save his life he couldn't let go of the first bar. I don't know whether he was afraid, or what; but he couldn't do it, and the end of it was, he had to give up the offer, although it nearly broke his heart."

And even acrobats accustomed to working at heights feel uneasy in the early spring when they begin practising for a new season. The old tricks have always in a measure to be learned over again, and they work gradually from simple things to harder ones--a straight leap, then one somersault, then two. And foot by foot the pedestal is lifted until the body overcomes its shrinking. Even so I saw Zorella one day scratched and bruised from many failures in the trick where Weitzel catches him by the ankles. Here, after the long swing, he must shoot ahead feet first as if for a backward somersault, and then, changing suddenly, do a turn and a half forward, and dive past Weitzel with body whirling so as to bring his legs over just right for the catch. And every time they missed of course he fell, and risked striking the net on his forehead, which is the most dangerous thing an acrobat can do. To save his neck he must squirm around, as a cat turns, and land on his back; which is not so easy in the fraction of a second, especially if you happen to be dazed by a glancing blow of the catcher-man's arm.

II

ABOUT DOUBLE AND TRIPLE SOMERSAULTS AND THE DANGER OF LOSING HEART

IN talking with my circus friends I was surprised to learn that a trapeze performer in perfect practice, say in mid-season, may suddenly, without knowing why, begin to hesitate or blunder in a certain trick that he has done without a slip for years. This happened to Danny Ryan in the fall of 1900, when he found himself growing more and more uncertain of his difficult pirouette leap, a feat invented by himself in 1896, and never done by another performer. Danny did it first when he used to play the clown with the spring-board leapers who do graceful somersaults over elephants and horses. With them would come Danny, made up as a fat man, and do a backward somersault and a full twister at the same time, the effect being a queer corkscrew turn that made the people laugh. They little suspected that this awkward-looking leap was one of the most difficult feats in the air ever attempted, or that it had cost Ryan weeks of patient practice and many a hard knock before he mastered it.

And then one day, after doing it hundreds of times with absolute ease, he did it badly, then he did it worse, then he fell, and finally began to be afraid of it and left it out of the act. Acrobats shake their heads when you ask for an explanation of a thing like that. They don't know the explanation, but they dread the thing.

"When a man feels that way about a trick, he's got to quit it for a while," said Ryan, "or he'll get hurt. 'Most all the accidents happen where a performer forces himself against something inside him that says stop. Sometimes an acrobat has to give up his work entirely. Now, there's Dunham,--you've heard of him,--the greatest performer in the world on high bars. They'll give him any salary he wants to ask. Graceful? Well, you ought to see him let go from his giant swing and do a back somersault clean over the middle bar and catch the third! And now they say he's gone out of the business. Somebody told me it was religion. Don't you believe it. He's had a feeling--it's something like fear, but it _isn't_ fear--that he's worked on high bars long enough."

"He's had bad luck with his partners, too," remarked Weitzel. "Couple of 'em missed the turn somehow and got killed. Say, that takes a man's nerve as much as anything, to have his partner hurt. I don't wonder Dunham wants to quit."