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"Dnight?" Fireman Buckley
enquired · of Fireman "Ginger”. Bates, who was setting his quiff with delicacy. Bates yawned. "There had been an exacting series of alarms during the past duty- spell nasty fires, all of them: rubber works and marine-stores and such; where much labour was entailed and astonishing little glory. Even now the smell of burnt oily rags filled Bates' nos- trils disgustingly.
"Feel more like a spot o' shut- eye" he told his sidekick. Station Officer Pyman, Bates chief, and sworn foe, shouted suddenly: "Fireman Bates!"
"At the melody of yon beau- teous voice, I 'ops it!" said Bates, and wondered what new indignity his superior intended to heap upon him. Pyman drew his at- tention to certain lengths of indif- ferently-coiled hose that were in Bates' province.
"If you looked after your job, instead of craning around to see what new wench was coming round the corner-" fumed the Chief. It was true; a slip of a girl had shewn interest in fire station work just when those lengths were being set to rights.
i.
"See to it!" ordered Pyman. One thing about it: bitter resent- ment against his officer had the effect of clearing Bates' smoke-
Short Story
thickened brain of its earlier de- sire for sleep. After all, sleep was a thing a man could get any time -in season or out and it was a balmy day in autumn when a fire- man's thoughts might lightly turn to love.
when
"Well?" asked Buckley, Bates, breathing vitriol and mus- tard gas threats against all off- cialdom, was dusting himself off.
''Ow about lookin' 'em over a
queried Bates, and cocked his cap jauntily, smirking at his reflection in the official mirror reflection in the official mirror,
bit 2
one.
"Suits" me," agreed Buckley. "But if you asks me, a pint or mebbe a pint and an "arf, makes fem all look more beautiful to the näkid eye.” Buckley was a reluc- tant wencher, following timidly in the wake of his more adventurous comrade, admiring his dash and audacity when dealing with the fair sex. For his own part he preferred the solid-or liquid- comfort of mild-and-bitter in equal proportions, served in honest pint pots. Yet, in a small way, Ginger Bates possessed qualities ́of leadership which needed only a real opportunity to develop into #something surprising. He marched into the Fireman's Joy with all the manner of a conqueror. Mag nificently he ordered two pints.
NOVEMBER 11, 1938
"GINGER BATES"
of a Woodbine. "To-day's goin' to be a lucky day."
"Fancy suthink for the two- thirty?" Buckley asked hopefully. His dream was of pulling off a hundred to-one shot, so that he might build up the fund with which he intended to start a small tobacco and news business, where fire-alarms never troubled a bloke.
"Fancy · nuthink, .shipmet." Bates had spent far too much with the visiting bookle ever to hope for that sort of luck. **Well, santy again; an' after the other 'arf, we'll give 'em a treat, what?"
Buckley sighed resignedly. Wen- ching never did appeal to him; but he was a helpless satellite in the wake of a major planet, and Ginger Bates was his idea of what a man should be. With the other half tucked under each man's belt, they sallied forth. The balmy day seemed to have turned even the dingy London streets into a mobile flower-garden: every girl. had donned her summer frock and blossomed out like a daffodil. Several times Ginger Bates cocked his cap over a glinting eye. As many times a closer inspection caused his eyes to dull into a fish- like opaquity. He was, he admit- ted, pretty choosey; but a man.
By Captain Frank H. Shaw
own
had a right to make his' selection, since he had enough in his pocket to give any girl ав good a time as she could expect. It had been payday that morning.
'Buckley rambled
about equine form in a drooling mono- tone. He thought that Saucy Lens might run for a place in the four-thirty, and—
on
he
"Cripes!" said Bates of a sud- den. "How's that for an eye- ful?" He knew his undress tunie fitted him like a glove; but he religiously smoothed it as.. swaggered up to the girl. She was a remarkable pretty girl, with a hint of class about her; not ro- guish, as so many were, but de-
mure.
nicest
"Sweetuese, you're the thing I've seen for a week," Gin- ger opened fire with practised skill. The girl looked at him and through him, apparently con- sidering an approaching 'bus; hut her mouth registered scorn' and derision. Snubs never penetrated Fireman Bate's thick hide. “As I was a payin” to `n
o “my mate here,” hé essayed, “you can allus tell a top-notcher."
47 Thatgirl's mouth
curled somewhat. She said, biting-
·ly:
her
cap
Can you see me with a fire- man?"? Scorn heightened charm. Ginger cocked his
refetchingly. more
́She had - he.. come desirable through sheer In-
“Such a fireman !" he praised himself,
#Nice.pnes, Mä!”, he follled the blonde behind the bar. Then - accessibility. Slew off the froth, and drank the usual toast of eternal confusion to Station Officer Pyman, smiled wet-. lipped
"I got a feelin"" confessed Gin- ger, through the ragrant smoke
"Any fireman !" was her wither-. ing retort, and Buckley fidgeted nervously. He was more sensi- tive than his mate.
"Rather and your purse over to Guardee?" was Ginger's ecath ing comment. "Now, me, I don't arsk no lady to pay my settlin's, if you see what I mean?"
He jingled loose silver enticingly in his pocket. "How about the Cosmopolitan fer a start, 'an
bit
The rub arterwards, Miss?"
opulent picture house was just across the road, and it ap peared a suitable place into which to escort even such a swagger girl as this.
She said, her features hardening slightly:
"I wouldn't be seen dead with a
"Arsk me anythink," hoarsely muttered Buckley, “she don't like, firemen come on, Ginger, yer waatin' time." At
or turn out a Brigado in record time.
**“Right, pal," said Bates bitter- ly. He saluted the icy one care- fully. "If I die in a drunkard's grave, sweetie," he warned her,
it'll be all your fault."
rather have carnations chrysanthemums for reath, say so. now," the girl
snapped. A flower seller pushed his barrow along. Ginger plunged ... “his hands deeply, suddenly collard an armful of bronze blooms, paid, crammed the lot into the girl's unexpectant arm.
It was, he felt, a gesture; it showed her where one of her sort got off.
The flowers hinted that,
fireman" And even though just far as he was, concerned, she was already dead and forgotten. then a fire engine clanged past "After all," he told Buckley, with every aspect of action, ro- "beer's a thing you can trust-so mance and bravery, her expres- come on. Outwardly nonchalant, sion did not soften; she didn't the snubnevertheless rankled. even follow that spectacular pro- Some of the splendour departed gress.
from his day; the mild and bitter tasted acrid, unsatisfying. For once in his life Fireman Bates felt a bit of a failure: Even beer didn't help in building up, his self-respect. He felt disposed to seek out Station Officer Pyman and tell him exactly where he got. off; he had a wild idea of travel- ling to Dockland and resuming his previous career as a foreign-going seaman-until he remembered the cockroaches in the average freigh ter's forecastle, and the way hard- case mates hazed long-suffering sailormen,...
But Bates preferred the out-of- reachers rather than those who dropped easily into his palm.
"If it hadn't been my time off, I'd ha' been on, that engine," he told the girl, and struck what he imagined to be an heroic pose.
"If .you start running now, maybe you'll catch it!" she scof- fed.
""Ave an "eart!" Bates pleaded: The mellow day quickened all his romantic feelings. To walk ber side this stunning female_would add lustre to the whole Brigade, he felt; he intended to arm her past the Station, and let Station Officer Pyman, himself a critic, see what his staff could do when on their mettle.
"It's packed in ice when a fire- man goes by," the girl relaxed. enough to say. She watched the streaming "buses anxiously. "So keep on going by," she advised, her mouth hard-set. Even Gin- ger's mortified grin, which had softened many hearts, failed to touch her.
.
"We can set back another pint afore they shuts," said Buckley,
not ill-pleased. His experie
rummy,
with Bates always soured him little, for most girls ran in pairs, and Ginger always picked the best-looker.. It was Buckley thought, how gals always acted that way one good-looker, one-well, one any sort of a looker. And to him invariably fell the one with a dial that would stop a clock
VAAS
But Time" was called, and the two comrades were compelled to face the real facts of life again.
"Wot's eatin' yer, Ginger?" Buckley asked, after several of his suggestions had been sneerfully dismissed.
“Skirts!" gloomed Bates.
"I know a place where there. ain't any," said Buckley.
A after
“Lead me to it," Invited Bates. In the result it was a boxing club of no outstanding importance, where ardent youth trained itself in sprightly fitness. Half a dozen battles went on under Ginger's morbid eye; club members pranced gaily on their springy toes; action was indicated everywhere. trainer welcomed Ginger introductions; invited him to strip and participate. Ginger remem- bered himself as a previous deep- water bruiser; memory took him back to a dozen rough houses.in the world's grimmest ports. He donned trunks and was matched against a boy with a piston-like left; a streak of lightning, who (Continued on Page 7)
HUNTLEY
WATEN
*NO. 148 DES YOBUXARO