"A Heavenly Cause"
Chapter Five
Power was now out in the apartment complex's fire wing. So Gage had been forced to take the C-side stairs back up to the third floor.
Outside, the air temperature was uncomfortably hot.
In that solar-heated enclosed stairwell, it was both unbelievable and unbearable.
John's lungs were hurting so bad, and his chest was heaving so hard, he could barely draw a breath. Sweat was streaming from his forehead in steady, ticklish torrents. He couldn't blink fast enough to keep the salty substance from burning his eyes and blurring his vision, so he could hardly see the floor numbers.
'2?' Gage gasped and forced himself to take another step up.
It felt like someone had strapped bars of lead to his ankles, and the equipment he was toting also seemed to weigh a ton.
The fireman's over-heated and over-exerted body kept telling him that he really, really, really needed to sit down and rest a spell.
John kept telling it that he could not—would not rest until his trapped partner had some breathable air.
Roy's rescuer was a firm believer in willpower.
It had always worked for him during past rescue efforts. Hopefully, it would enable him to complete this life-saving task, too.
It had to!
At long last, John reached the fire door that led to the third floor's hallway. He lowered the extra SCBA and borrowed porta-power onto the landing and flicked his turnout coat's collar up before going 'on air'.
The fireman's helmet was replaced and its dangling chin strap was pulled snug.
He reached for the right pocket of his coat, fished a flashlight out and flicked it on.
The fire door was cautiously cracked open and kept open with the toe of his left boot.
Gage gathered his heavy burdens back up off the floor of the landing, his gloved right hand pulling double duty—holding both his light and the air-pac's straps in place on his shoulder. He used his left knee to nudge the heavy portal open enough to allow him passage and promptly disappeared.
A wall of intense heat and smoke hit the fireman full force and, momentarily, halted his forward progress.
Why, the stairwell had been cool, by comparison.
The paramedic immediately dropped to his hand and knees. He gave his now swimming head a few shakes and then started crawling toward the bright orange glow at the end of the long hallway.
The two guys from 10's, that had been charged with the unsavory task of keeping the 'closed' building closed, saw 36's Captain and engine crew approaching, carrying hotel pacs and fire axes. The unhappy pair noted the determined looks on their fellow firefighters' perspiring faces, and the mutinous gleam in their narrowed eyes.
The lineman blocking the entrance on the left emitted an audible sigh of resignation and promptly stepped aside.
Captain Carlton and his men flashed the cooperative door guard appreciative smiles.
The guard returned their smiles. Hell, truth be told, he wished he could go with them. The 'mutineers' were just about to file past him when someone suddenly shouted.
"PRESSURE'S BACK IN THE MAINS!"
Carlton swung his helmeted head around just in time to see 110's Ladder Truck come rumbling up.
The sound of an engine's air-horn, announcing their water pressure's return, and the burning structure's reopening to interior attack crews, was nearly drowned out by the cheers of the fifty, or so, men currently occupying the fire ground—Dave, his grinning guys, and the two extremely relieved door guards, included.
36's rescue attempt would proceed, as promised.
These new, and extremely welcome, developments just meant there'd be a change of tactics.
John Gage was now low-crawling.
Even down at floor level, the smoke was so thick and so black the beam of his light barely penetrated it.
And, the heat!
It was so intensely hot in that hallway! Hot enough to sear his exposed flesh and melt the clear, plastic face-shield on his SCBA's rubber mask.
His fire glove hit something—something other than smoldering carpeting.
It was a ceiling tile.
He'd reached the site of the second collapse! Well…almost. He tossed the tossed tile out of his way and continued down the hall.
An engine's air-horn suddenly sounded. The pattern of its blast caused the crawling fireman to smile.
Pressure was back in the mains! The crews now had water for their attack lines!
Then, over the roar of the fire, came an even sweeter sound, a sound that caused Gage to grin outright.
If his partner was coughing, that meant that he was still breathing!
His mission, to bring his trapped partner some breathable air, was accomplished! Well…almost.
The smoldering carpeting was beginning to ignite, forcing the low-crawler to his unsteady, and somewhat scorched legs. Flames licked out at him from the hall's burning walls.
In order to get to his partner, he was going to have to pass through a gauntlet of fire. To get to the ceiling collapse, the rescuer would have to risk a floor collapse. John retreated down the hall a bit. Then he ran back up to the burning obstacle and made a tremendous leap of faith. "Ro-oy?!"
Speaking of Roy…
DeSoto had taken it upon himself to see to it that their K-12 and porta-power—two very valuable pieces of LACFD equipment—were also 'rescued'.
Their Haligans and fire axes—tools that were a lot less expensive to replace—had been left to fend for themselves.
Roy had just started down the hall, carrying the saw in his right hand, and the hydraulic pry bar in his left, when the second section of soggy ceiling let loose.
The falling sheetrock, itself, hadn't caused him too much damage. But the sudden weight on his back and shoulder's had shoved the fireman to the floor with such tremendous force, he'd ended up cracking a rib on the K-12.
Because his lowered arms had been pinned to his sides, Roy had been unable to assist Mike and Neil in their valiant efforts to free him.
The already completely exhausted pair had managed, somehow, to dig their trapped colleague out to about the level of his belly button, when their SCBAs ran out of air and they ran out of energy.
Roy's own air bottle had also emptied and Mike had mercifully removed the air-tight rubber mask from his face, allowing him to breathe.
The trapped fireman was still lying face down on the hall's carpeted floor, still buried to his waist with ceiling rubble, and with his arms still pinned to his sides. He lay there, coughing painfully…thinking of his family…hoping they'd be okay without him…and praying that asphyxia would cause him to pass out before being burned alive.
He'd heard the air-horn blast but figured rescue would come too late.
When he heard Johnny calling his name, Roy figured hypoxia had to be setting in, for sure. The lack of oxygen to his brain must be causing him to hallucinate.
But, less than an instant later, something 'thudded' onto the carpeting beside his turned head. "Johnny?!"
Gage quickly regained his balance and then aimed the beam of his light in the voice's direction. 'Shit!' He'd damned near landed on his friend's face. He crouched down and freed up his hands so he could crank the extra SCBA's air bottle open. "You hurt anywhere?"
"Feels like I lost a rib," Roy replied, between coughs and involuntary groans. Another rubber mask was quickly positioned over his face, its straps were snugged up, and breathing suddenly became a lot easier for him. "You're NOT alone?" Roy incredulously inquired, when more darting beams of hazy light failed to appear. His buddy may be nuts, but he wasn't completely insane.
"Of course not," John assured him. "I'm with you."
"You are completely insane!"
"We been together for how long? And, you're just figurin' that out now?" John had already positioned the porta-power and was busy pumping it's handle. "Can you move at all?"
"No."
More pressure was applied. The rubble pile raised.
"How about now?"
"A little."
Johnny released the hydraulic pry bar and began tugging debris out of the little cave he'd just managed to create.
Roy's anger left him and he smiled up at his friend, who'd just risked everything, and was now working so frantically, to free him. A thought suddenly occurred to him and his unseen smile graduated into an unseen grin. "I've never pictured myself as 'a heavenly cause'."
"Huh?"
"Isn't that what that song says a person is 'willing to march into hell' for? 'A heavenly cause'? Well, this is hell, and you just came 'marching in' here."
"I came jumping in," the leaper corrected. "This is actually a whole lot hotter than hell. And, you are more of a 'lost cause'."
Roy's grin broadened. "You're getting pretty damn good with the repartee there, partner!"
"It's the company I keep," John quickly came back, "partner!" He gave the porta-power's handle a couple more pumps. "How 'bout now?"
"Yeah! Yeah! Try giving me a tug and maybe I can work my arms free…"
Gage grabbed his friend under the arms and began tugging.
In no time, DeSoto was out from under the rubble pile.
John saw Roy using his freed right arm to stabilize his damaged ribcage and helped him switch his empty air-pac for the practically full one. His partner's helmet was plopped down on his head and he was tugged up onto his feet.
The heat quickly forced both firemen back into a crouched position.
Flames seemed to be everywhere!
Roy had been freed from one trap only to find himself, and his completely insane partner, smack dab in the middle of another. "Out of the frying pan…" he glumly muttered between agonizing coughs, his mumbled words muffled even more by his facemask.
"…And into the fire," Johnny quietly completed for him. Their helmeted heads were close together. Close enough for him to catch his amigo's morbid comment.
The nearly beaten beast had managed to make a complete recovery. In fact, it was blazing hotter and stronger than ever.
Its swords of flame had been steadily closing in on two of its enemies and it now had them completely surrounded.
51's paramedics scanned the entire area, searching frantically for some sort of an escape route.
But their efforts proved to be in vain.
There was no visible way out.
TBC