St. Peter's Finger

“But the job will be to get these children out in time, even so. It won’t be much good to carry them one by one down a ladder, I imagine, even if a ladder can be set up. The fire is gaining rapidly, and the firemen aren’t here yet, because George is only just back.”

They mounted to the attics again. Miss Bonnet had concluded her table of exercises and the children seemed a little more controlled. It was only a matter of time, though, Mrs. Bradley decided, before there was screaming panic. Suddenly Bessie, grim-eyed, set up the languishing theme song of a film. She kept one eye on Mother Ambrose, but the nun made no objection, and after a bit the other orphans joined in.

Taking advantage of this timely assistance from Bessie, Mrs. Bradley explained the position to the nuns.

“Have to chuck ’em out into a sheet, I’d say,” said Miss Bonnet. “They won’t like it, poor little brutes, but it can’t be helped. Even if there were time to get ’em down one by one, I doubt whether the men could climb past that red-hot stuff.”

The position was now truly terrifying, and the children were kept from the windows. A sentry—Mother Benedict—was posted outside on the landing to keep watch on the progress which the fire was making up the stairs, and Mrs. Bradley herself went back to the floor below—which was burning hot to her feet and might, she knew, at any moment fall through in a rush of flame—to shout down orders to George.

The brigade, she saw, had arrived. She went back to the attics to report.

“These blasted bars!” said Miss Bonnett, tugging with maniac strength at the bars which covered the window. All the upstair Orphanage windows were barred, except for the one which opened on to the useless fire escape.

Mrs. Bradley and Mother Ambrose helped Miss Bonnet to pull. Mrs. Bradley had brought Sister Bridget upstairs with her this time, for the half-witted creature had continued to sleep through the danger. She now sat in a corner whimpering, until Mother Ambrose told her to be quiet. So she squatted down obediently, to Mrs. Bradley’s relief, and did not give any more trouble.

“I think,” said Mother Ambrose, “that we should all pray.”

“Pray, nothing!” said Miss Bonnet, from the window. “They want us to climb on the roof! I’ll go up first, if you like, and help haul the kids up. Lord, what a leap in the dark!”

“It’s an impossible jump,” said Mrs. Bradley, under her breath; but, before she could make any other suggestion, Miss Bonnet was out on the landing and had made a cat-like leap to catch at the edge of the open trap-door. She pulled herself up by her arms—a gymnast’s movement—swung her legs, and then was up and through. She lay on her stomach and stretched an arm through the opening.

“Come on, next!” she said. “Make a straight line, you girls, and nobody is to shove! Big ones first, Mother Saint Ambrose. There’ll be no one to mind the babies, else, up here. quiet!” she added, in a bellow which silenced even the terror-stricken orphans.

“They’ll never be able to jump from such a height. It’s four stories,” said Mrs. Bradley, who, assisted by Mother Ambrose, had swung herself up beside her.

“Ladder in a slant from the gatehouse roof,” said Miss Bonnet. “It’s your man. He’s a sensible feller. Push us up some of those kids, and hats off to Casabianca!” she added, with good-humoured roughness, for she was really, it was obvious, horribly frightened.

The little children were carried down first by the firemen. Miss Bonnet and Mrs. Bradley descended again through the trap-door to assist the nuns through the opening on to the roof. It was easy enough to lift Mother Benedict up, and Annie and Bessie, strong girls both, soon hauled her to safety; Mother Jude, too, was not much trouble. But lay-sister Bridget, heavy Mother Ambrose and old Mother Bartholomew taxed the strength and ingenuity of the party, who were now augmented, however, by George and one of the firemen.

In the end, the last of the orphans, children of twelve or thirteen, had to be made to jump. Most of them hung back, and it was pretty to see Miss Bonnet, obviously in her element, lobbing them into the sheet held out by the firemen on the roof of the gatehouse.

chapter 25

conclusion

“He was a shepparde and no mercenarie;

And though he holy were, and vertuous,

He was to sinful manful piteous.”

chaucer: The Canterbury Tales.

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We should never have managed it without her,” said Mrs. Bradley. It was some weeks later, and the time was Easter Saturday. Ferdinand, true to his promise, had come down to see his mother. The school children had all gone home for the holiday, and the religious and the orphans were in church for Compline, Matins and Lauds.

From where she stood, with her son and George on either side of her, Mrs. Bradley could hear the beginning of the Alleluias.

“Don’t apologise to me for having let her go,” said Ferdinand. “I suppose, as long as those two children and the precious vessels are safe, you don’t care whether the murderer is laid by the heels or not? Queer the old chap altering his will like that, and leaving all his money to the convent. Saved the Maslins a journey to New York! How angry that rather spiteful little woman was, wasn’t she? What’s happening to our young friend Ulrica—the girl I saw on to the boat?”

“She is going to stay over there in the care of a Catholic community.”

“What, as an orphan, do you mean?”

“No. The grandfather has set aside a sum of money for her education, and enough to give her a small dowry if she decides, later on, to take the veil. If she does not become a nun, the sum will secure to her a small income, but she will have to earn a little money as well.”