by Gil Hogg
“We’ll have to rest for a bit,” Marchmont said. Sophie looked around warily. The burning seemed to be closer. The air was full of smoke. They settled into the shade of a rock for a rest. Marchmont insisted that he had been noting landmarks as they moved and that they were going in a more or less straight line, but Sophie doubted it. The alarming possibility was that they had been circling the same place. Apart from the screech of an occasional cockatoo and lizards in the grass, they saw no living creature. They heard the chatter of helicopters. Sophie reckoned they had been lost now for about three or four hours, but it felt more like days. Tiredness rose in her and flooded out the fear and she fell asleep.
*
Sophie awoke suddenly out of a confused and senseless dream – it was dark and her body was chilled. Marchmont snored beside her. The sky was full of stars. Although she could not see it, she knew that there was a big moon behind the rock. The bush screamed with cicadas; creatures moved there unseen. The air was still laden with smoke. Flickering in the distance she could see fires. She huddled against Marchmont, dozed and they were both awake at the first finger of dawn.
“We should march away from the rising sun toward the west, the dry creek and the Mirabilly escarpment,” Marchmont said.
They set off, hungry, ash-stained, thirsty and weak but the urge to get on was strong in both of them.
“There’s no need to worry,” Marchmont said, “they’ll have dozens of people looking for us this morning. By God I’ll stir up some of those idiots about this. They could have got us out of here yesterday, if they tried!”
At first the sun was gentle, stretching golden rods across the bush, slowly dissipating the deep purples of shadow. But when the sun had levered itself higher, the rays began to prick Sophie fiercely, red hot knives which burned the already scorched skin on her neck and shoulders. Sophie slogged on as the sun blistered through her thin shirt from behind, streaming through her cotton sunhat, down every strand of her hair into her scalp. She could hear the helicopters and she surged with hope.
They had no way of knowing where the fires were because they had no perspective across the bush. When they came to a place where they might have been able to a see a few miles, the view was obscured by smoke. A layer of thin smoke, orange in the light, now pervaded the land before them. But what had been distant burning changed rapidly as they moved. At some points, they faced a wall of flame and had to swerve from their westerly course. The conflagration in the grass was so fierce at times that it was almost invisible and Sophie had to look up to see the tips of flame. The quivering curtain breathed and roared like a dragon.
Marchmont stopped and turned to her and she could see for the first time that he was as afraid as she was: “We’ll have to run for it! Go back, back!” he shouted.
They fled back the way that they had come, stumbling, falling at times, too weak to run sure-footedly, the smoke now following them, the crackle of burning grass in their ears. Sophie ran and ran until her legs ached, the smoke grating her lungs, choking her and she fell and felt the stones grind into her breasts and thighs.
Marchmont, behind her, groaned, “Keep going Sophie!” He grasped her arm and she struggled to her feet and they ran on together.
As she lurched forward, Sophie saw two figures rise up in front of her, two thin black giants who seemed to be seven or eight feet tall. The two men held out their arms to catch her and dragged her and Marchmont into the shelter of a crevice and gave them water. It was the most beautiful drink she had ever had in her life. She didn’t know how long they stayed there while her body tried to recover. She could hear Marchmont talking to one of the Aboriginals, Mike or Johnny, as they said they were called; questioning him slowly, calmly, patronisingly, about what they were going to do. She could hear the words but was too dazed to follow the meaning.
Marchmont said to her, “They’re saying that to get back we have to skirt the burning and that makes sense. But instead of going directly west we have to cross in front of the fires and then turn west.”
“We have to do what they say,” Sophie said.
“We’ve got surveyors and pilots and Christ knows what in the way of people who ought to have been able to find us in five minutes.”
“The helicopters couldn’t see us and we couldn’t see them,” Sophie said.
“All we’ve got to do is cross half a mile of open ground that way.” Marchmont pointed toward the open ground and the escarpment which they could now see at times, as it appeared through the smoke.
“Mike says we have to go round,” Sophie said.
“He does. How far?”
Mike raised two fingers then three.
“Miles?” asked Marchmont scornfully.
Mike assented.
“What does he know?” Marchmont exploded. “I can see where we have to go.”
Sophie looked at the Mike for reassurance. He shook his head negatively.
“What in hell does he mean?” Marchmont shouted.
“Crocodiles,” Mike said.
“So we’re going to risk our lives trying to beat the fires, instead of skirting around a pool of crocs?” Marchmont said, his cheeks shaking.
“We can beat fire. Let’s go now,” Mike said.
“Fuck you!” Marchmont said, “I’m going across that stretch and up the escarpment to my plane! Come on, Sophie.”
“No!” Mike held up his arms to bar Marchmont. “Tjuringas.”
“Ah, now we’ve got it. A spiritual objection. I’ve never heard such arrant bloody nonsense in my life!”
“He’s saying that their sacred stones are buried there, John.”
“I know exactly what he’s saying. That, against our lives? Come on, Sophie,” Marchmont said, taking her arm and pulling her with him.
Something inside Sophie told her that Marchmont was wrong. It was better to try Mike’s way even though it was risky. She pulled away and Marchmont looked at her in surprise and then with derision. For her, it was a simple gut matter of the best way to save her life. For Marchmont it was perhaps more.
“These men know…” Sophie said.
“You’ll get back all right,” he said sarcastically. “But I’ll be there hours before you. I’ll make sure a hot bath is waiting for you.”
Marchmont strode off in the direction of the escarpment. The two trackers shook their heads and turned their backs. Mike took Sophie’s arm. They headed across the front of the fire. “We can do it,” he said.
*
Marchmont was out of sight almost immediately and with Mike in the lead and Johnny bringing up the rear, they pushed along a low cliff edge. Occasionally they could hear fierce crackling as the fire consumed dry wood. Mike made a fast pace and Sophie had trouble keeping up. Her feet were sore and swollen; the trainers she was wearing were so soft on the hard ground that every stone bruised her bones.
She kept looking back to try to get a view of Marchmont but she couldn’t see him. It was the weird effect she had already noticed. The place looked at first so benign and even open, but people disappeared from view very quickly. The trees and grass and scrub absorbed them into a world with no landmarks.
Mike stopped and offered her water and she asked him what there was to fear in crossing directly to the escarpment. “Crocodiles,” he said again.
She couldn’t weigh the importance of the Aborigines’ belief that the crocodiles there embodied the spirit of their ancestors and guarded the sacred site; for her it was the mere presence of crocodiles, so inert and yet so lightning fast.
Mike began to drag Sophie after the first mile. “Not far now,” he said. “Creek there.” He pointed through the smoke. She could see that their path followed a sheer drop chiselled out by past watercourses. It was dangerous to go near the crumbling edge. The slope ran down to the dry course of the Gudijingi in about half a mile. Once they were there, they were safe. The danger was that the bush in front of them was being consumed in a line which was moving ever nearer to the cliff edge along its w
hole length.
“We’re trapped!” Sophie shouted to Mike when they had gone 200 yards. With a fifty foot drop on one side, they were confronted by a red army on the other which could drive them over the precipice. Looking back, she saw that the flames had advanced behind them. There was no going back. Mike grabbed her, the silent black man whose skin shone as though it was steely hot. He pulled out her shirt and tore a strip off the tail. He doused it with water and tied it across her lower face. Then he knotted the strings on her hat under her chin, tucking her hair inside. He rolled her shirtsleeves down and tucked her jeans into her socks. For himself, he took a dirty rag from his pocket, wet it, and tied it over his mouth. “We now run pretty fast,” he said. “No stopping.”
He set off into the flames with Sophie loping behind and Johnny behind her, three fire-walkers, Mike holding up his arms to fend off the branches of trees and saplings that they could hardly see. Sophie followed his stained white shirt, stumbling, branches tearing at her clothes and lashing her face, feeling the heat touch her clothes, run its fingers over her body. Her chest was exploding and she couldn’t feel her feet properly; they had become numb and the numbness obscured the pain of the stones. Her eyes streamed and she was near blind. But she tried not to lose that jigging white shirt before her. And then she smashed into a tree trunk, feeling an intensity of pain in her forehead and chest, and then…
26
When Sophie awakened, she was lying on hard ground under a makeshift awning, insect bites swelling around her eyes, scarcely able to breathe. Flies buzzed at the net over her face. Men whom she didn’t know were standing around. Two were preparing a stretcher. She felt painful all over. Her shoes had been removed. Her feet and hands were roughly bandaged. She felt a sudden horror that she had been burned and sat up trying to touch her face.
“You’re OK Miss Ryland, take it easy,” one of the men said. “You’re scorched and bruised but you’re quite fit.”
She sank back with relief and then thought of John and the tall black man who saved her. “Where is John Marchmont? Is he safe? And Mike and Johnny?”
“Mike carried you in. We don’t know about Mr Marchmont. He’s out there somewhere.”
Mike came over to her. She thanked him in a few agonised words. He hardly appeared to be the worse for his ordeal. “Paul Travis and his boys, they will come back. Mistah Marchmont, I don’t know.” He shook his head depressively.
Sophie was carried on a stretcher back down the dry creek, up the escarpment to the sheds by the airfield. Here she insisted on getting up and trying to walk around but it hurt. Her bones ached and the soles of her feet were bruised. She had an iced lemon drink made by one of the pilots and sat in the shade of the huts, where the temperature was nearly a hundred degrees. She refused the offer to be flown back to Mirabilly and instead waited with the pilots and the first aid team. Mostly, they sat in worried silence. She could hear the distant roar of the fires and the spluttering of a helicopter, far away.
She fell asleep sitting in a plastic chair and when she awoke she heard fresh voices. Three or four men were approaching. One was the almost unrecognisable Paul Travis. His hat had been replaced by a soiled burnous, his shirt torn and blackened. His arms and face were blotched with charcoal. His expression as he approached her was hard, tight-lipped.
“He’s dead,” he said quietly when he was beside her.
“Do you know what happened, Paul?”
“I was never close to him but I saw him moving from a distance.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“He seemed determined to move directly toward the escarpment, which meant crossing close to a pool and through saturated ground. He may have slipped or simply been bogged down. He was taken by crocs. The boys in the chopper hoisted up… what was left.”
“Horrible! Could you have gone there?”
“Not if I wanted to live.”
“Mike warned him.”
“Anyhow, you’re OK, Sophie.”
She sank down in her chair with Paul towering over her. A few hours ago Marchmont had been breathing venom and determination, lashing others with his words and now – no more. She sobbed and then saw, behind Paul, two men carrying a bulging black plastic bag that was not really a human shape. The bag was hefted into the luggage space of one of the planes and everybody started their silent, weary preparations to fly to Mirabilly.
*
At Mirabilly Sophie found that after a shower all she had was a few aches and cuts, burns on her hands and arms, another burn on her cheek, bruised feet and breasts and singed hair. She changed into slacks and a t-shirt and went into the drawing room. The judge’s party had left.
Curtis Lefain had quietly taken charge of the MCM team, who were preparing to leave. He had asked Paul to come to the Big House. When Paul came in, he too was showing no more than a few cuts and bruises. He was pallid under his tan. He had an unfocussed look of shock in his eyes. Werner Fliegler stood back, for the first time startled and confused. Curtis Lefain embraced Paul and thanked him warmly for his efforts. “Now, Mr Travis, this is not a time for business. It is a time for mourning, but we are thrown together here in an unusual way…”
“Curtis, surely you’re not going to try to talk business now?” Sophie said sharply.
“It’s OK,” Paul said, “talk about anything you want to.”
“Hear me out, Sophie,” Curtis Lefain said gently. “You won’t be offended. I know John was a friend of yours as well as an employer. As he was for most of us in this room. What I have to say will do his memory no violence. You, Mr Travis and your people, along with Mirabilly staff, have just risked your lives to save John and Sophie and you have our grateful thanks. I will say no more about the case between us today, but I have hopes that we can meet in Darwin in the next few days and resolve matters.”
Sophie, sickened by what she thought would segue into business talk, walked on to the verandah and in a few minutes Paul followed. They stood looking across the lawns, the heavy scent of honeysuckle in the air, a cockatoo screeching in the blue gums.
“You’ll get what you wanted – at a price,” she said.
“It’s a painful price. I wished no harm to Marchmont.”
“Haven’t you got enough?” she asked, frowning and going back into the house.
*
A week later in Darwin, Sophie was at a meeting between Curtis Lefain, Paul and their advisers.
Lefain said, “When I received details of your offer to settle the boundary claim my personal view was that it was generous and I urged John to accept. He did not, but now as chairman of the board it’s my duty to deal with this litigation and I am proposing that we accept your offer if it’s still open. Mr Travis, can we end this battle?”
“Yes,” Paul said, immediately.
There seemed to be a collective sigh of relief. In any other circumstances, there would have been a popping of champagne corks. The advisers moved quietly away while Werner Fliegler buttonholed Paul in Sophie’s hearing. Fliegler, the architect of the planned psychological blitzkrieg of yesterday, was the most fervent admirer of the peace of today. He said to Paul that he had always shared Curtis Lefain’s view.
27
When the meeting at the Intercontinental Hotel finished, Paul asked Sophie to have a drink with him in the bar. He steered her to a remote couch. He waved the waiter away.
“Up at the Big House when we talked, Sophie, you asked if I had enough.”
“Well you do, as of about an hour ago.”
“You know what I’m talking about. I think you’re very upset…”
She didn’t reply. After a pause, she swallowed awkwardly and reached her hand across to his.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, troubled.
“That night on the Gudijingi Creek when you couldn’t start the aircraft. I was sixteen.”
“We’ve missed a lot of time together, Sophie.”
“There’s time ahead.”
His mood cha
nged abruptly. He smiled and dropped his hunched shoulders. “There’s something I have to tell you…”
The words flattened Sophie’s rising spirit. She imagined what he meant was, ‘Wait a minute, there’s something I have to confess and maybe you won’t want to go on with me.’ The dirt which Werner Fliegler was beginning to unearth had reminded her that few single, healthy men of thirty would have an entirely uncomplicated background.
“If you think you need to,” she said, reluctantly.
“Ellen told me on her deathbed that I am Marchmont’s son.” He shot the words out.
They hit Sophie like a bullet. Her mind lurched, partly in relief at not hearing the tawdry story she had expected, but more at what this vastly different confession meant. Paul had kept this to himself in the years since Ellen’s death, despite their talks. The course of her life, where it touched John and Paul, reeled through her thoughts. She raised her hand to her brow for a moment, trying to sort out the confusion in her mind.
“It’s all past history now, Sophie,” Paul said softly. “But I wanted you to know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when you knew – or when you came to the Grange?”
“Because you wouldn’t have given up trying to convince Marchmont. Could you have succeeded? I doubt it. He would have viewed me as some kind of fortune hunter.”
“I’m crying inside at the folly, Paul, the terrible folly of the three of you. John’s arrogance in what he thought he knew and what he missed. Your mother’s vindictive sense of inferiority and the life she missed and only had to reach out for with her little finger. And your wounded pride in not being able to take a step, even a late step, toward the man you knew was your father. So much folly!”
Her words must have seemed like stones grinding on each other inside Paul’s head. His mood had changed. His cheeks were hollow. His lips quivered uncertainly. “I never… saw it like that.”
“I guess you thought of yourself as modest and undemanding, standing back.”