The two of them collided. The tray fell clattering to the ground, sending the glassware flying, splintering into glinting shards. Wilger gasped and instinctively threw up his hands to shield his face and his eyes from the showering fragments. In doing so, he half fell against one of the stone plinths, knocking his head against it, and slumping to the ground. I started forward to help him, but it was already clear he was no more than slightly stunned, for he sat up almost immediately, brushing off the shards of glass, but looking fearfully at it, clearly expecting punishment.
There was a movement behind me, and I saw Augustus Breadspear standing in the doorway. I don’t think he saw me; he strode forward to where Wilger half-lay. It was, I suppose, stupid to expect him to help the boy to get up, to make sure that neither he nor anyone else was cut from the glass. He did no such thing. His concern was all for the damage to his precious glass, intended for customers.
His large face was suffused with purple, and he shook his fists at the hapless boy, shouting that he was a clumsy oaf, fit for nothing but the most menial work, and that an entire tray of expensive materials had been smashed to splinters because of his inattention.
Before anyone could intervene – not that I think anyone would have dared, because even I was hesitating – Breadspear had kicked the boy hard in the ribs. Now, I am an honest and a fair man and I would have to say Breadspear’s intention was almost certainly to simply remove from his path the boy who had ruined a batch of glassware, and then to see if anything might be salvaged from the wreckage. But the kick sent Wilger – still partly stunned – skidding and toppling towards the stone pillars enclosing the open kiln. There was a moment when he fought to stop himself, flailing at the air with his arms, but the force of the kick was too strong. He fell between two of the pillars, half into the kiln itself. The fires roared upwards, and the sudden glow reflected on the trays, causing the glass to glint redly like the eyes of watching devils.
Wilger was silhouetted blackly against the fire, writhing and struggling like a spitted worm on a pin, and screaming like a trapped hare. The sounds were only partly smothered by the frantic rush of the others towards him – I was among them, of course – and amidst confusion and panic we managed to pull the boy clear. His clothes were smouldering, and we had to beat at them to quench the sparks. I shouted over my shoulder for a doctor to be fetched, and when I saw Breadspear hesitate, I yelled furiously at him to damn the expense; I would pay.
By then someone had fetched a servant of some kind, for a stout woman, flushed and puffing with agitation, arrived with a bowl of something and cotton cloths.
‘Soda bicarbonate, sir,’ she said. ‘Helpful for burns.’
They slathered the mixture over the boy’s skin – I helped by cutting away some of his clothing, but two of the overseers had to hold him down. And even then I think it was clear to all of us that the burns were far beyond the help of the mild domestic remedy. Almost the whole of one side of Douglas Wilger’s upper body was burned – in places the skin was charred for pity’s sake – and although most of his face had escaped, angry weals and blisters showed down one side, down his jaw and neck. Mercifully his eyes seemed to have been spared, but this was a very small mercy indeed.