Phillips Harbour
Thursday, October 22, 1868. Pre-dawn.
After returning home the previous evening, Herbert Shaft and Caliban spent a few hours working with the Analytical Engine and the Spirit Lamp. The test of the Lamp on low power appears to have worked: they trapped two spirits and no ghosts showed up screaming for vengeance. Caliban felt a certain amount of anxiety during the test, and though he wasn't sure if it was normal worry because of the troubles they'd had last time or something more, Mr. Shaft opted to shut the lamp down after the second capture. By then, it was late enough that they opted to unmoor the Babbage and push off for the night rather than take the time to determine the quality of necroplasm the captured spirits would provide.
Perhaps it's lingering concern, or maybe it's the ache of his injuries, but whatever the cause Caliban doesn't sleep well that night. He wakes several times in darkness before drifting back to an uneasy sleep. He dreams of flickering flames consuming the house he lived in before he met Mr. Shaft, where he'd been kept in a cage. When he wakes this time, he fancies he can hear voices over the waves outside the porthole. As he lies in the darkness, the sussuration of waves doesn't quite cover the imagined voices -- making him reconsider whether or not he really is imagining them.
The chimpanzee stirs sleepily, then freezes. Voices. But they're in the middle of the water, nowhere near the shore. He moves slowly to avoid any sudden noises, to peer through the porthole.
Caliban doesn't see any boats in the dark water near the ship. But on the mainland, a few hundred yards away from their mooring point in the bay, he can see pinpricks of light ... and a distant flickering orange glare. Those are voices he's hearing: cries of alarm.
Caliban widens his eyes. Fire! He jumps to his feet and, not bothering to change from his nightclothes (and they are a striped shirt and loose baggy pants) to go rouse his master without so much as knocking on the master cabin's door. "OOK! OWOOOK!"
"Wha?" Herbert says, stumbling out of bed and opening the door. "What is it Cal?" he asks a bit blearily.
The monkey points at the porthole. "Ook ook ook!"
Herbert glances out of the porthole, then wakes up fully. "We'd better go to the wheelhouse and use the big spyglass," he suggests, and heads for the deck hatch.
"Ook," the ape says, nodding in agreement. He hurries back to his room to change.
Herbert is still wearing his nightshirt as he climbs into the wheelhouse and turns the mounted pair of binoculars towards the lights.
The darkness is lightened perceptibly by the distant glare of flames. Herbert can make out dim figures passing buckets up and down a line from the bay towards the north of town; the fire itself is at least a few blocks inland.
Changed to a work jacket and shirt, the chimpanzee joins his master up in the wheelhouse. "Ook?" he suggests, pointing over at the faraway orange glow.
"We're heading back in," Herbert says, as he goes to start up the engines. "You pilot while I go get dressed, okay, Caliban?"
"Ook," says the monkey, making a snappy nautical salute.
Once the boiler pressure is high enough, Herbert undogs the wheel and turns control over to Caliban, hurrying down to the cabin to get dressed. "A fire in the middle of town," he mutters. "This could be bad."
The monkey takes over and starts turning the ship about and bringing it up to speed. His brow is furrowed grimly. He does, however, take a moment to pull the floppy captain's hat off of a nearby counter top and jam it on his head.
It takes several minutes to get the boiler up to speed and The Babbage returned to dock, during which Caliban and Herbert alternate between anxious glances through the spyglass. It's not clear whether the people or the fire are winning at present. It doesn't seem to be getting any closer to the bay -- but then again, the wind would blow it away from the shore in any case. And yesterday's stiff wind is still unfortunately present.
Caliban ooks at his master inquiringly, then points toward the shore, then the boathouse. "Eek?"
The bucket brigade starts at a point on the shore not far from their own dock and boat, as it turns out.
Herbert grimaces. "We don't even have shovels. We'll have to try and reverse the bilge pumps.. wait, no hoses.. hmm," the man says, looking momentarily lost in thought. "We can use buckets to wet the boathouse down, but we might have better luck fighting the main fire itself."
The monkey nods and steers for the closest point on shore to the bucket brigade effort.
As they approach the dock, the location of the fire becomes clearer. From the glow of flames and the even more copious smoke silhouetted against the slightly paler sky, it's north of the docks and about three blocks inland ... roughly where Mrs. Everchild's house is.
The ape frowns as he peers through the windows of the wheelhouse at the fire. He darts a glance at his master, though most of his attention is on pulling the ship up without going at too unsafe a speed.
"Oh dear, that is definitely not good," Herbert says once he figures out where the heart of the fire is. He runs along the deck to cast the mooring lines as soon as they're close enough to the dock.
Caliban brings the ship to a stop, then goes about shutting the engine down, so it won't boil over while they aren't there to watch it.
Quickly tying off the lines, Shaft calls to the nearest bucketman, "Did everyone get away in time?"
Caliban hurries out of the wheelhouse, leaving the boat cooling behind him, to help secure things.
Shaft's inquiry receives a half dozen replies, the gist of which amounts to "uncertain at this time." "Have you got more buckets, man? Tryin' to get another line set up, it's bad!"
The ape tugs on his master's sleeve. "Ook," he suggests, pantomiming reaching down to pull something out.
Herbert blinks at Caliban, uncertain of what he means, and then just nods. "Yes, whatever you think will help, Cal. We need to find out if Mrs. Everchild... we need to find out things!"
The ape salutes, still wearing his pilot's hat, then dashes off toward the town.
Standing there stunned for a moment, Herbert wonders what he just agreed to. Then he snaps out of it and goes to unravel the deck hose. Nominally used for washing off the deck, it should at least make filling buckets easier.
Though the deck hose isn't nearly long enough to reach the fire, once Mr. Shaft makes it clear what he's trying to do, it does make filling buckets faster and easier than standing on the steps to sea level and bending to fill them there. The second bucket brigade goes up to the hose, while the first remains in place. Apparently, Phillips Harbour has no fire engine; the one at Innsham has been sent for, but it'll be hours before it can get here. The mood on the docks is grim.
Herbert does what he can to increase the water flow, opening up the intake valve and running the engine back up to full pressure - anything to get the water to go a little further to speed things up. On his way back from the wheelhouse, he also ducks into the cabin to snatch up the modified Compass. He doubts the fire was an accident, and would be handy to know if a certain lady was lurking close by.
Meanwhile, as Caliban rushes to the scene, he can hear a cat -- Islington? -- yowling at the top of its lungs. The uproar of humans at the scene is considerable, and the smoke and flames only add to the confusion. At least three houses are on fire and the fighters are working more to keep it from spreading than to save the burning homes. Mrs. Everchild's house is at the center of the holocaust, and the trees and leaves on the ground beside it have also caught flame.
The ape howls up at the cat, trying to be heard, then waves his arm vigorously as he hurries to join the little white Persian.
The yowling is coming from Mrs. Everchild's erstwhile lawn. Smoke from the house and the trees obscures the spot, though some parts of the fence were knocked down and had dirt shoveled over them before the volunteers were forced back to fight the fire from a greater distance.
Slipping the compass into his jacket pocket, Herbert hauls out several extra blankets, which he drags onto the deck and quickly soaks with the hose, hoping that they'll provide some protection from the fire. He can't just leave Caliban out there by himself!
Caliban fans the smoke away from his face, then covers his broad monkey nostrils with the sleeve of his work jacket as he pushes through the confusion. It sounded like Islington was in the yard -- could he be trapped?
Handing the hose off to one of the volunteers, Shaft starts slinging the wet blankets across his shoulders to carry them, thinking it would be much easier if Slate and Bernice were to suddenly show up. He grunts under the weight, but gets moving towards the fire. Given that the compass was, for a moment, standing up and pointing northwest when he got to the cabin, he figures that he'll feel it move again if he gets within range of St. John.
As Herbert reaches the site of the fire, he sees three houses, as well as the yards and trees around them, are in flames. The townsfolk are digging trenches and using the water from the bay more to contain the fire than to put it out, stopping small blazes on adjoining properties from catching. Shaft can tell that Mrs. Everchild's house is one of those in flame. Caliban's distinctive form is visible in the yard near her home, crouching on a mound. Shaft can hear the yowling of a cat over the bedlam.
Pausing to catch his breath, Shaft tries to not fall to his knees. Hoisting up his wet load (which has soaked him down to his socks already) he lurches towards Caliban.
As he lurches in, he sees a dripping-wet Miss Townes dashing into the flaming yard, too.