David Dickinson - Death and the Jubilee

The Town Hall clock struck one. Powerscourt peered out at the sea front and the West Pier. Nothing moved. There was only the low murmur of the English Channel, small waves rolling in along the pebbles of the beach. Then it started. It started very slowly. Two floors beneath him the first of Joe Hardy’s barrels began to pour a thick stream of smoke up the side of the building. That’s nothing at all, Powerscourt thought, it’s a drop in the ocean. Then other barrels began to join the chorus. Soon there were five, then ten, then fifteen, then twenty, then thirty, then Powerscourt couldn’t see very much at all.

The front of the hotel was wreathed in smoke, the west wing almost invisible. The breeze from the sea was keeping the smoke close to the side of the building. Then the flames started. Two great sheets of flame leapt upward into the night sky from the floors above. Powerscourt learned later that the flames came from blankets soaked in Joe Hardy’s most inflammable liquids. At thirteen minutes past one the hotel fire alarm went off. Hotel staff, supplemented by Tait’s policemen, were running round the building, knocking on doors, shouting to the people inside.

‘Fire! Fire! You must leave now!’ Outside the first fire engine had arrived and hosepipes were being dragged into position. ‘Ladders,’ one of the firemen shouted, ‘we need some bloody ladders. Now!’

At the front of the hotel a melancholy procession of sleepy residents was straggling out of the main entrance. The men were in dressing gowns. Women had thrown their coats over their nightgowns to face the night air. ‘Move along, now, move along.’ Powerscourt knew that the police were going to move the residents along the side of the west wing, directly underneath Rooms 607 and 608.

‘Fire! Fire!’ The shouts were everywhere in the hotel. There must have been about twenty or thirty men shouting now. ‘Come along, come along please.’ The voices of the policemen were more insistent and more irritated as the residents tottered out of the great doors. The hotel fire alarm was still sounding, a high and insistent note that wore away at the eardrums. A woman screamed very loudly just under Powerscourt’s room on the second floor. Then another. Then a chorus of screams rose up along with the smoke and the flames to the sixth floor. The rooms above me must be an inferno by now, Powerscourt thought. Police whistles began to sound through the confusion.

Outside the hotel the firemen were raising great ladders, shouting encouragement to each other as they crept up against the side of the hotel.

Powerscourt opened the door. Great waves of smoke poured in. The smoke was getting thicker and thicker up the stairway towards the higher floors. After a minute Powerscourt could scarcely see the Praetorian Guard of policemen and firemen deputed to capture the kidnappers. Behind him another fireman had appeared with a hosepipe. ‘Fire! Fire!’ The shouts were still echoing round the rest of the King George the Fourth. They must come now, Powerscourt thought to himself. Surely to God they can’t stand much more of this. They must come now. Maybe they would have to storm Rooms 607 and 608 after all. Maybe the people weren’t going to come out. Maybe they were dead.

Hardy materialized out of the inferno. He pointed upwards. Powerscourt and his little band went up the stairs very slowly. He was straining for any noise coming from the upper floors but all he could hear were the shouts of the policemen and the instructions being bellowed to the firemen outside.

They were on the fourth floor now. Still nobody came down the stairs. Had they jumped out of the window? Powerscourt knew there would be a party of firemen below, waiting to catch anybody leaping from the windows. If they could. If they didn’t miss them. If the fall wasn’t too great. The thick smoke, dark grey, almost black, was still pouring up the stairway. The banisters on the far side had completely disappeared from view. Desperately Powerscourt reached for one of Joe Hardy’s handkerchiefs and tied it round his face. He didn’t think he could bear much more of this. Beside him, invisible in the murk, Johnny Fitzgerald was coughing in great spasms. Powerscourt felt dizzy. They must come now, he thought. Nobody could take this amount of smoke. More whistles sounded through the fumes. Powerscourt wished he had paid more attention to Chief Inspector Tait telling him what they meant.

Underneath the door of the fourth-floor rooms he could see flames dancing towards the ceiling. Outside there was a succession of screams and distant shouts that Powerscourt couldn’t distinguish. Still the hotel fire alarm rang out into this smoke- filled night. They heard a noise above them. A crash, as if somebody had just fallen against the side of the wall. Someone was swearing loudly in German. They heard more noises. Powerscourt wondered if they should advance up the stairs. Wait for them to come down, Hardy and the firemen had said, wait for them. That way you hold the initiative. More noises were coming down the stairs. Hardy had explained to Powerscourt earlier how people come down stairs in the smoke. ‘You try to hold the banisters with one hand. You try to touch the person next to you with the other hand.’

How many people were coming down the stairs? One? Two? Three? Powerscourt couldn’t tell. Then phantom shapes could be discerned very dimly through the smoke. Powerscourt heard a whistle blowing very loudly on the upper floor. The fireman behind him suddenly advanced and turned on his hosepipe. The force of the water was a complete shock to the phantoms. They fell backwards, then rolled forward down the stairs. The Praetorian Guard moved in. Powerscourt saw that two figures had been apprehended and were now being bundled downstairs at great speed. There were only two of them. They were both men. The bastards, he said to himself, the bastards. Had they left Lady Lucy alone in that cauldron upstairs? Had they killed her before they made their stumble towards freedom down the stairs?

Panting, choking, spluttering, Powerscourt and Fitzgerald made their way up the stairs to Room 607. Behind them they heard one long continuous blast on the police whistle. It seemed to sound for nearly a minute. That’s the ceasefire, Powerscourt remembered, or the end of smoke signal. As they reached the sixth-floor landing he could hardly move. The smoke seemed to have gone right down into his lungs. Quite soon, very soon, he thought to himself, I’m going to pass out. Johnny was in front of him now. Together they staggered into Room 607. The smoke was very thick. ‘Lucy!’ Powerscourt shouted. ‘Lucy!’ There was no answer. They crawled into the next room through the connecting door. ‘Lucy! Lucy!’ The only noise they could hear came from the street outside. Lady Lucy was not there.

A party of four firemen appeared in the doorway. ‘Search the rooms,’ Powerscourt said, and then he allowed one of the firemen, a giant of a man, to carry him downstairs. He met Matthews of the local fire brigade on the second floor. Johnny Fitzgerald was doubled up beside him. ‘Please, search that room. Please,’ said Powerscourt with the very last of his breath. ‘They might have put her in a cupboard or under the bed or something.’ Four more firemen raced upstairs. Powerscourt was retching now. It was very hard to breathe.

‘You must go outside at once,’ said the fireman. ‘Otherwise you may do yourself permanent damage. I shall bring news to the main entrance if you care to wait there.’

Supporting each other like a couple of drunks, Powerscourt and Fitzgerald staggered down the stairs. Perhaps this was their last battle, Powerscourt thought. Of all the battles they had ever fought this was the one he least liked to lose. As they left the west wing, the smoke abating now, great black marks on the walls, the carpets turned dark by the smoke, the hotel began to return to normal. The Palm Court where the orchestra had played Beethoven’s hymn to love six hours before was undamaged. The dining room waited in the moonlight for its breakfast customers. Outside the front door, Powerscourt sat down on the pavement. He wanted to cry. He had failed Lucy. How high her hopes must have risen when she heard the music. Now he had let her down.