They were jumping out of every window when the fire got bad, high story windows too. I’m almost sure I see them through thick billows of smoke. Others were climbing down from bottom story windows, clawing their way out of doorways through half-ajar doors. The air was full of screams. It was eighteen eighty two. We were ten men from the Fourty-Ninth Fire Brigade, in hard hats and tar-covered jackets. It was a summer day and it was beutiful. We had two horse-drawn fire carriages but no horses.
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