



Produced by Clare Graham & Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature
(Images generously made available by the Hathi Trust)






THE DOOM OF LONDON


Six Stories by

Fred M. White


Illustrated by

Warwick Goble


First published in Pearson's Magazine, London, 1903-4

[Illustration: The Hotel Cecil in flames--a realistic picture of an
unlikely contingency, pictured in the "Four White Days."]




TABLE OF CONTENTS.


 THE FOUR WHITE DAYS.

 THE FOUR DAYS' NIGHT.

 THE DUST OF DEATH.

 A BUBBLE BURST.

 THE INVISIBLE FORCE.

 THE RIVER OF DEATH.




[Illustration: The Four White Days.]


THE FOUR WHITE DAYS.

A Tale of London in the Grip of an Arctic Winter--Showing the Danger
Any Winter might Bring from Famine, Cold, and Fire.


I.


The editor of _The Daily Chat_ wondered a little vaguely why he had
come down to the office at all. Here was the thermometer down to 11°
with every prospect of touching zero before daybreak, and you can't
fill a morning paper with weather reports. Besides, nothing was coming
in from the North of the Trent beyond the curt information that all
telegraphic and telephonic communication beyond was impossible. There
was a huge blizzard, a heavy fall of snow nipped hard by the terrific
frost and--silence.

To-morrow--January 25th--would see a pretty poor paper unless America
roused up to a sense of her responsibility and sent something hot to
go on with. The Land's End cables often obliged in that way. There
was the next chapter of the Beef and Bread Trust, for instance. Was
Silas X. Brett going to prove successful in his attempt to corner the
world's supply? That Brett had been a pawnbroker's assistant a year
ago mattered little. That he might at any time emerge a penniless
adventurer mattered less. From a press point of view he was good for
three columns.

The chief "sub" came in, blowing his fingers. The remark that he was
frozen to the marrow caused no particular sympathy.

"Going to be a funeral rag to-morrow," the editor said curtly.

"That's so," Gough admitted cheerfully. "We've drawn a thrilling
picture of the Thames impassable to craft--and well it might be after
a week of this Arctic weather. For days not a carcase or a sack of
flour has been brought in. Under the circumstances we were justified in
prophesying a bread and meat famine. And we've had our customary gibe
at Silas X. Brett. But still, it's poor stuff."

The editor thought he would go home. Still he dallied, on the off
chance of something turning up. It was a little after midnight when he
began to catch the suggestion of excitement that seemed to be simmering
in the sub-editor's room. There was a clatter of footsteps outside. By
magic the place began to hum like a hive.

"What have you struck, Gough?" the editor cried.

Gough came tumbling in, a sheaf of flimsies in his hand.

"Brett's burst," he gasped. "It's a real godsend, Mr. Fisher. I've got
enough here to make three columns. Brett's committed suicide."

Fisher slipped out of his overcoat. Everything comes to the man who
waits. He ran his trained eyes over the flimsies; he could see his way
to a pretty elaboration.

"The danger of the corner is over," he said, later, "but the fact
remains that we are still short of supplies; there are few provision
ships on the seas, and if they were close at hand they couldn't get
into port with all this ice about. Don't _say_ that London is on the
verge of a famine, but you can hint it."

Gough winked slightly and withdrew. An hour later and the presses were
kicking and coughing away in earnest. There was a flaming contents
bill, so that Fisher went off drowsily through the driving snow Bedford
Square way with a feeling that there was not much the matter with the
world after all.

It was piercingly cold, the wind had come up from the east, the steely
blue sky of the last few days had gone.

Fisher doubled before the wind that seemed to grip his very soul. On
reaching home he shuddered as he hung over the stove in the hall.

"My word," he muttered as he glanced at the barometer. "Down
half-an-inch since dinner time. And a depression on top that you could
lie in. Don't ever recollect London under the lash of a real blizzard,
but it's come now."

A blast of wind, as he spoke, shook the house like some unreasoning
fury.


II.


It was in the evening of the 24th of January that the first force of
the snowstorm swept London. There had been no sign of any abatement in
the gripping frost, but the wind had suddenly shifted to the east, and
almost immediately snow had commenced to fall. But as yet there was no
hint of the coming calamity.

A little after midnight the full force of the gale was blowing. The
snow fell in powder so fine that it was almost imperceptible, but
gradually the mass deepened until at daybreak it lay some eighteen
inches in the streets. Some of the thoroughfares facing the wind were
swept bare as a newly reaped field, in others the drifts were four or
five feet in height.

A tearing, roaring, blighting wind was still blowing as the grey day
struggled in. The fine snow still tinkled against glass and brick. By
nine o'clock hundreds of telephone wires were broken. The snow and
the force of the wind had torn them away bodily. As far as could be
ascertained at present the same thing had happened to the telegraphic
lines. At eleven o'clock nothing beyond local letters had been
delivered, and the postal authorities notified that no telegrams could
be guaranteed in any direction outside the radius. There was nothing
from the Continent at all.

Still, there appeared to be no great cause for alarm. The snow must
cease presently. There was absolutely no business doing in the City,
seeing that three-fourths of the suburban residents had not managed to
reach London by two o'clock. An hour later it became generally known
that no main line train had been scheduled at a single London terminus
since midday.

Deep cuttings and tunnels were alike rendered impassable by drifted
snow.

But the snow would cease presently; it could not go on like this. Yet
when dusk fell it was still coming down in the same grey whirling
powder.

That night London was as a city of the dead. Except where the force
of the gale had swept bare patches, the drifts were high--so high in
some cases that they reached to the first floor windows. A half-hearted
attempt