Jimmie ignored him. He shaded his eyes with his hand as he proceeded for a few more steps. Then he whipped off his jacket and held it in front of his head.
“Come back!” Biff yelled again. “You can fry an egg on the damn’ windshield!”
Now, Jimmie came over to the car. He, too, shouted, for the night was alive with noise. “Just wanted to get the lay of things! To see what’s burning! They can save most of it—if they know their stuff. But if it ever gets in the turps or the benzine—! I’ll tell the firemen what to do.”
“You’ll tell ’em!” Biff’s voice was sarcastic.
“Sure! Jackass! I know what’s where—and how it’ll burn! Come on!”
They drove past the blinding light and through the heat, fast. When they approached the nearest of the red trucks a fireman waved them back. Jimmie hopped out and asked for the chief. The man said that it was the chief’s night off.
“Whoever is in charge, then!” The man turned. “Hey! Kelly! Here’s a volunteer.”
Kelly walked up in his fire helmet. He had been bellowing orders about the attachment of hose. “Get out of here!”
“I work here. One of the—the bosses. I’ll show you what to do—”
“You’ll show me what to do!”
“Listen! The place is jammed with chemicals. Inflammables.” He saw the man’s contempt. “Gunpowder. Dynamite. Damn it, man, with poison gas! Get that crowd back, first. Don’t use water on the center of the fire now! If the shed behind catches—stand clear. You won’t be able to—!”
The man reached out and shoved Jimmie, not with much anger, but almost playfully. “Listen, son. I’m running this fire.”
“Listen yourself, you thick Irish moron! You’re running this fire! Do you want to be responsible for getting half the people in Muskogewan blown off the map?”
“Thick Irish—! Why, you—!” Kelly thought of fighting. Then he was a little scared. He turned to the men near by. “Hey, you! Get the people outside the fence! Everyone of them! Never mind the cars. Tell ’em it’s dynamite that’s about to blow! And have your men stand back. Use chemicals on the main blaze!”
“That’s better!” Jimmie nodded.
“Now. Clear out!”
“If you’ll just let me get in there and tell ’em which chemicals to use—”
“I said—clear out!”
“But, man, I’m a chemist!”
“I don’t care if you’re a damn’ emperor! I’m in charge. I say—get out!” He saw that Jimmie was not getting out. He turned. “Hey! Some of you men! We’ve a bit of bouncing to do.”
“Come on, Biff,” Jimmie said dully.
They were in the car again. “I’ll drive. Just leave the motor running. Okay, Biff?”
Biff nodded. “Sure makes a wonderful blaze!”
Jimmie drove slowly, inside the fence, around the buildings. The flames spread to the shed. Jimmie stepped on the accelerator and the car raced to the far end of the property. He stalled the motor and sat with hunched shoulders, looking out of the window. As if the earth were a bass drum and the drumstick some celestial body, the first explosion swept upon them. Afterward came four others almost as tremendous at intervals. The flaming contents of both buildings ascended toward the red sky, turning over and over, halting, falling back. A wave of heat oppressed them.
The people vented a great, collective scream. He looked. They were out of danger. Only fragments and sparks fell into the crowd. Some, who had been knocked down, rose and ran—dolls against the hot backdrop. A vast, slowly turning column of black smoke rose in the center of the fire. At its summit a sphere of flame-licked darkness formed. This monstrous object also blew up, with a lush detonation, and it rained down everywhere ten thousand drops of burning liquid.
“That’s that!” Jimmie said. “The rest of it will be more normal! Unless the gas escapes—and I don’t think it will.”
Biff was cursing slowly, gravidly.
Jimmie started the car, aided by his speechless brother. He went back around the buildings, looking at them.
Then he stopped and jumped out.
There was something so electrical in this movement that Biff, also, leaped to the ground and ran to his brother’s side. A big building shielded them from the worst of the inferno. Jimmie was staring at it, staring with all his might. “I thought—?” he said.
“There’s a man in there!”
The building was on fire all along the ground floor. Flames licked through it horizontally. Flames sent the windows tinkling and reached out into the night, embracing the structure with yellow horror. Upstairs, revealed by the wan glow of a lantern, a human figure ran past window after window.
“It’s Mr. Corinth!” Jimmie said slowly. “He must have been working tonight.”
“He’s caught!”
“I dunno. He’s going in his office. Where the records are.”
The light, with the man in front, vanished and reappeared at another window. Biff grabbed Jimmie by the sleeve. “The old man’s trapped! I can’t help much! But if you take the ladder up that tank you could hop over to the roof and get down a skylight! Toss him out the window. I’ll break his fall. Then come back through the roof—or jump, yourself.”
Jimmie pulled his sleeve away. “There’s going to be a blast there—in a minute.”
“Then work fast—you ape!”
Jimmie said, “Chances are it would get both of us.”
“A chance worth taking! Come on!”
To Biff’s dismay his brother stood still, keeping his eyes on the window. The light retreated. It wavered and stood still. “He’s opening the safe,” Jimmie said. “So the stuff in it will burn! God! I wonder if I’d have—” Suddenly he cupped his hands and yelled with all his force. “Mr. Corinth! It’s me! Jimmie! Jump!”
Biff pawed at his brother. “He can’t hear you! Get going!”
“I’m not going,” Jimmie said.
“Not going! You—!” Biff pushed Jimmie toward the tank.
“Leggo. In the old man’s safe is the story of what he was working on. He knows the story, and I do. No other people. If the wrong guy got those papers—even a reporter—! That’s what he’s thinking!”
Biff’s voice was frantic. “You gotta get him out. He’s a nice old guy, Jimmie! You can’t stand and argue! He’ll burn!!”
“I gotta let him take—his own chance.” Jimmie turned toward Biff.
Jimmie’s face was pale as death. Beads of perspiration stood on it, beads that merged and dropped unnoticed down his cheeks. His mouth had split back from his teeth.
His eyes were as bleak as if there were nothing but blackness in their places. It was an expression of incalculable agony. Biff had never dreamed of such pain. He was sure—during one terrible moment of hatred—that his brother had turned into an abysmal coward. But as he looked at that unbearable expression he knew he was wrong. Jimmie was standing like that because he had to. Because it was more important—somehow—for him to stand still, in a safe place, than to go to the aid of the old man.
Biff began to sob, without knowing it.
But Jimmie did not budge.
He waited, bareheaded. He watched small flames rise up in the room where the dim light was. The light moved to another room. Then the old man showed at the window with his lantern. He was fumbling with the catch when the blast downstairs dropped him, and the floor, into a sea of fire. The entire building caught. Its roof split. Its pent heat towered in the air.
Biff also stood still, staring at the building that was the pyre of his town’s greatest man. Then, numbly, he looked down. His brother had fallen.