Accordingly the captain showed Bruce the two great coils of hose, and the different nozzles fitted for different emergencies, and he told him how the hook and ladder truck served at a fire very much in the same capacity as the sapper and miner corps in the army.
“The hook and ladder company carries the picks and axes, scaling ladders, net and all that sort of thing, while all we do is to turn a stream of water on and put the fire out. There’s a good deal of competition between the different companies and there’s nothing we hate more than to get to a fire and find that another company has got its stream on first. A few years ago, when the Duke of Sutherland was here, the fire commissioners determined to show him what the New York department could do in the way of getting to a fire in quick time. You see, the Duke used to belong to the London brigade, and has been what we call a ‘fire crank’ all his life. They came down to this engine house one night, and when they went away we knew that the chances were that we’d be called out before long. As they went up the street I heard the commissioner say to the Duke ‘We’ll go over to Twelfth street and Fifth avenue and ring the alarm there.’ So I determined to have my men all ready so that at the very first stroke of the gong we could get out without waiting to get the number of the station. I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to be beaten by any other company that night, so I had everything ready with the driver in his seat, and before the gong had struck twice, we were off. And we made such time getting over there, that we came up to where the party was standing and found the Duke with his hands still on the alarm box. You never saw a man more astonished in your life than he was.”
On their way back the chief again impressed upon the boy’s mind the enormous value of time. “It is necessary,” he said, “first of all, to have everything in apple-pie order and ready to start at a moment’s notice. Then when the alarm comes we must be ready and able to go without a second’s delay. Each man has his own place to fill and if a man neglects to snap a horse’s collar or the engineer fails to get to his place on the ash-pan in time, the chief of the battalion knows whom to blame.”