Fire in Summer

by JH Fletcher

  Now the flames were much closer. Into the cottage, then, where Jo stood, wild-eyed. Even in the searing heat, her face was shiny with tears. ‘I thought you’d gone without me …’

  Never mind that. He grabbed her arm and hauled her towards the door.

  ‘What about my things?’

  No time for answers.

  ‘Run! For your life!’

  And led the way, dragging her stumbling behind him.

  In Kapunda the doctors had been put on stand-by as soon as the fire broke out. Emergency packs of medicines and equipment had been placed in vehicles. At one point it seemed that the danger was over; now, with a change of wind and the blaze out of control, medical back-up was going to be needed, after all. Don Carlyle told Julia to get over there as quickly as she could.

  Foot flat on the accelerator, she powered up the road. From the top of the pass she could see the smoking and blackened countryside extending halfway across the valley and, for the first time, realised the extent of the devastation.

  Flame everywhere: the main front of fire had come down the hill from the valley’s western flank and was now threatening the town of Hunter itself; further north the flames had leapt the river and set all the eastern side of the valley ablaze. In between, no doubt caused by blazing debris that even now Julia could see sweeping eastwards on the wind, numerous smaller fires threatened a major blaze in the area to the south of the road down which she was now driving.

  Let’s hope I can get through, she thought. She was frightened — who wouldn’t be? — but would not allow herself to think about it. Concentrate on your driving, she told herself. Just get there; you can worry about the rest later.

  Flames towered alongside the road. A roadblock had been set up to turn back traffic, but the man on duty recognised her car and waved her on. Near the bottom of the hill, the flames formed a wall of fire in her path. Inside the car, the heat made her gasp.

  ‘I haven’t come this far to turn back now…’ As loudly as she could, Julia screamed her challenge at the dervish flame. Teeth and jaw set, shoulders hunched over the wheel, she drove into a leaping maelstrom of smoke and fire.

  Kath had been at the washing line when first she smelt smoke. That jolly washing line, she thought, sometimes I think it’s been the focus of my whole life.

  As she thought it, she was already running; people raised in the country didn’t hang about when it came to bush fire. Bush fire, wild fire … The line of the old song rattled in her head as she crossed the patch of lawn, at this time of year as arid as the Simpson Desert, and went into the house.

  Burning down the old church spire …

  The UHF radio was in the kitchen. She grabbed it.

  ‘Hedley? You there?’

  It was tuned permanently to the wave band of the unit he carried in the ute, but there was no response.

  ‘Hedley?’

  Silence.

  She went onto the veranda and looked across the valley. Five miles away, a spreading column of smoke blocked out half the sky. When I see your flames so bright, I’ll know the devil is out tonight.

  Her first, instinctive reaction: at least the crops were in. She thought of phoning the CFS, but left it; they would have had a dozen calls by now. She wondered about the sheep up in the top paddock, but Danielle would be doing whatever was needed; try to interfere and she would be more hindrance than help.

  It irked her to be so helpless, so irrelevant, when her every instinct was to get out there and do what had to be done, but there was no help for it. You’re an old woman, she thought crossly. Start acting like one, for heaven’s sake.

  Unable to do anything, she waited. As though they had slipped a gear, her thoughts raced. Waiting is something you’re good at, she thought. So you should be, you’ve done it all your life. Sometimes it had worked, sometimes not. All those years waiting for Hedley hadn’t worked out too well, had they? But what about the other years when she had waited, without even realising she was doing it, for the courage to invite Jeth Douglas back into her life? My greatest joy, she thought. That, and the birth of my son.

  The day when Jeth came back and I discovered that everything was going to be all right, that the hurt I had caused in deference to what I had thought was duty but was only convention, and a foolish convention at that, would never stand between us again. The wonderful months that followed. Such a little time, yet containing everything that mattered in my life.

  Darling Jeth, dead forty years and as alive as he ever was. His death, and Walter’s, were the moments of my greatest grief. I expected to survive neither, but must be stronger than I thought. Although there have been times when I have wondered whether it would not have been better had I died, too.

  Foolish to think such things, she thought. We do not choose the time or manner of our going. Only suicides choose, and that I have never thought to be. I shall live my life as I must and hope that, at the end, I face death as I have faced life. Death is a part of life, after all, no more to be avoided than the birth that sets things off.

  Life after death? she thought. I doubt it. It would be good to meet Maudie. As for Jeth … I dare not think about it. It is too much to hope that we shall see each other again.

  Several times during the morning she tried to raise Hedley on the radio, but had no luck. Danielle came, racing her ute across the paddocks, the vehicle bucking through the ruts. ‘Seen that bastard Michael any place?’

  ‘No.’

  She swore. ‘You okay?’

  ‘I can’t raise Grandpa.’

  With fire and stock on her mind, Danielle asked, ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He said he was going to Edgemont.’

  ‘It’s not burning that side. He’ll be right.’ She gulped a glass of water and headed for the door. ‘Face it, no fire’s going to kill Grandpa. It wouldn’t dare. You take care, okay? Stick close to the house.’ And was gone again up the paddock, differential screaming.

  Kath thought, Does she really think I’ve lived all my life in these parts and don’t know what to do in a fire? Stick close to the house, indeed. But it was good of her to have found the time to see how I’m doing. I only wish …

  That Danielle was a boy. That she was not so tangled up with that wretched Hugo. That she was not so driven, so focused on herself.

  I wish … That she was different.

  Futile thoughts. Children, grandchildren … We have to love them as they are, or not at all. Sometimes it is hard, but that, too, is part of the business of love. To face difficulty, hurt, and to love despite all … She smiled wryly. If it was easy, anyone could do it.

  She went out to check on the fire, but the wind was carrying it well to the west of the house. Now, with devastation all about her, she had time on her hands. She decided she’d make herself a cup of tea. She filled the kettle and waited for it to boil. She thought, Love is like water. It brims, it overflows, and you are filled. Those who have never known it are dried up inside. It shows: to others, to themselves. That must be the worst thing of all, to know you are empty, to know why, even, and to be unable to put it right.

  She made the tea, took the cup and sat down at the kitchen table. She thought of her husband. Whatever happened to Hedley during the war I do not know. He suffered, of course, but there was more to it than that. I have always believed that, in order to stay alive, he was compelled to surrender something of himself. The man who went to the camps died there. The one who came back was already dead. I don’t know why; don’t want to know, which is proof that I never loved him, as he never loved me.

  That is the miracle and the tragedy: that I found love, despite all, and have lived all my life in its light, whereas Hedley has not. I would pity him; yet that, too, is hard.

  He was always land-crazy. To begin with I thought I would be able to handle it, even identify with it, perhaps admire it. I might have done once but, after the war, he was different. When I met him at Adelaide Station I read the emptiness in him.

  His obsession for t
he land has destroyed him. He has never had enough; he could have owned the whole world and it would not have been enough. He would not give a single blade of grass to anyone, yet in his heart knows he has nothing. If I believed, I would pray that he might find the grace in giving that could, if he permitted, bring him to salvation.

  By early afternoon the danger was over. The fire was now burning on the western slope of the range. The smoke cloud was smaller, proof that the crews had got on top of it. Kath turned to go back into the house and felt a feather touch of breeze. Senses alert, she turned at once to face it.

  The wind had changed. It was blowing from the west and strengthening with every second. The farm, she herself, were now directly in the fire’s path.

  From Edgemont, Hedley watched as flame ate like cancer through the scrubland along the distant crest of the range. It was too far to hear, but he saw clearly as one by one the taller trees went up in an explosion of sparks, burning furiously for a few moments before collapsing into the fire. There would be some burnt roos before the day was out, maybe some sheep, but that would be the total of it. Provided the wind held true.

  Neverthless, Hedley was uneasy. He had lived here all his life, knew the weather patterns intimately, and his instinct said watch out. Burn and be done, he instructed the fire. The loss of a few fences is nothing. Even a few sheep are nothing. But please spare the rest …

  At once despised himself for a weakness that until now he had detected only in others. You really are getting old, he thought. If the fire burns every single thing — house, sheds, equipment, livestock — it will still have taken nothing. The only thing that matters is the land, and that it cannot take. As long as I have the land, I can always rebuild.

  At your age? he mocked himself. Make sense. It’s taken a lifetime to build up everything you’ve got; a lifetime of work, of lying and scheming, of knowing yourself hated and not caring, of focusing on the one thing that has ever mattered … You haven’t got enough time to do it all over again.

  Watching the distant flames, Hedley knew that the fire was threatening more than his life’s work; it was also poised to breach the wall that he had built to guard himself from the memories that would have destroyed him years ago, had he permitted.

  For a few seconds longer he struggled, but it was no use. The heart spasm that had put him in bed before Christmas had weakened not only his body, but his will. He was no longer strong enough to turn back the assault of the past. Once again he was surrounded by the stench and agony of the camp. He saw the skeletal bodies of the dying, the corpses exposed as the monsoon washed away the thin coverlet of soil. His breath laboured as he revisited the beriberi that had so nearly drowned him.

  Nakajima watched, miming death. Soon you free.

  Father Mike shoved the life-saving bottle of Vitamin B tablets into his hand. Don’t let them see.

  Okamura had known. He had not threatened, had needed only to paint Hedley a picture of the rich and dreaming paddocks that could be his. If …

  If he coughed. If he dobbed in the man who had saved his life. Five thousand acres, Hedley thought now. Not even that. Four thousand nine hundred and eighty six. Not much, against betrayal and death. Not much, against a lifetime’s knowledge of what he had done.

  Father Mike was with him now. He had been dead half a century; now he smiled across the smoke-hazed years.

  Do you think I admire myself? Hedley demanded. Do you think I’m proud of what I did?

  The priest watched and did not speak.

  It was the war, Hedley said. The war made me the way I am. It was a lie; greed had made him what he was. What about it? he demanded. I am the way God made me, if you believe in God. What choice did I have, anyway? If I’d kept quiet, Okamura would have killed me. I would never have achieved what I have.

  Again the priest smiled.

  And the devil shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world …

  What would have been the point of saving me, just to have me throw my life away? He would have done it, I could see it in his eyes, Okamura was a devil, he would have had no mercy. I had no choice.

  … And said, all these I will give you, if you will worship me.

  His protective wall ruptured, helpless beneath the hammer-strokes of memory, Hedley raved in an orgy of self-justification, feeble and repetitive, pleading for understanding from a man half a century dead.

  ‘Don’t you see? Don’t you understand?’

  Further images came: of himself and his mates, captured by enchantment in those last innocent days before Armageddon, watching the flicker of shadows on a canvas screen and listening to the sing-song voice of the puppet master as he recited the age-old legends of battle and of love.

  The blue-boned eye sockets of the man wallowing helplessly in the sea; the dirge from lips flayed by flame; himself, turning in hatred from the figure that besought his aid so piteously, in silence.

  Father Mike’s smile pierced Hedley’s heart.

  He was an enemy. One of those who tormented and killed us. Mercy had no place.

  Another lie; mercy, always, had a place. If Father Mike had taught him anything, it was that.

  I could do nothing to help him. It was too late.

  Too late to save his life, perhaps. But for compassion?

  The priest watched, in silence.

  ‘Do you forgive me?’ Hedley cried.

  Which was not the point, nor had ever been. Do I forgive myself?

  He coughed, returning to the present. The eyes of the priest watched him through a haze of smoke.

  Smoke …? Hedley coughed again as fumes caught his throat. His mind cleared. He stared at the line of flame poised like an invading army along the distant crest. The fire had turned. At either end of the line, flame was spilling like lava into the valley. On the northern flank it had already crossed the river and was heading this way. All the country along the eastern bank and halfway up the hill on which he sat was burning. A cloud of dense smoke rolled towards him.

  The wind had gone round, as the forecasters had warned. He could taste it on his lips, knew that it was strengthening with every minute. The entire valley lay open before the fire’s new assault.

  ‘God damn the bloody fire!’ Danielle was working harder than ever before in her life, striving desperately to shift the livestock and equipment out of the path of the flames that were advancing with the speed and ferocity of a cavalry charge. To protect herself from sparks she had pulled her hat so low on her forehead that she could barely see. Eyes screwed up against the driving smoke, shirt sweat-drenched, she cleared the top paddock of sheep, loading the last bleating, terrified animal into the transporter just as the fire spilled out of the bushland bordering the western boundary and began to career across the stubble, rolling a cloud of sparks and blazing debris ahead of it.

  She slammed the transporter gate behind the last animal. Flame bellowing at her heels, the first sparks burning holes in the back of her shirt, she flung herself behind the wheel, switched on the ignition and gunned the accelerator as the motor roared to life. No time to worry about opening gates; the fire would have them within minutes, in any case. She shoved her foot down and drove straight at the wire fence. It burst like a bag on the transporter’s bull bar and they were on the road. Frantically spinning the wheel, Danielle managed to turn the heavy vehicle just before it smashed into the fence on the far side. She cleared it by inches and went roaring down the track with the flames snatching at the transporter’s rear.

  It was a moment’s respite, no more; rivers of flame were pouring through the paddocks on either side as, bucking and swaying, terrified sheep bawling, the truck thundered down the hill. At the junction, she hurled it across the fire’s path and on to a side track. She almost lost it; the offside wheels clipped the ditch but somehow they survived. Danielle accelerated once more.

  Within a minute she was in an area that had been burned out before the wind change. Smoking ruin on both sides of the road: smouldering stubble, tangled
wire, the charred and blackened stumps of trees with still, here and there, the yellow flicker of dying flame. The air was acrid with fumes, the heat barely supportable, but at least they were out of the fire’s path. For the moment, that was enough.

  Ahead of her lay the McCreedy place; the flames had come right past the boundary but, so far as she could tell, the house was untouched. That’d be right, she thought. The hippies okay while everything else was burnt flat. There were farmhouses and cottages all over the valley; no way would they all have got off as lightly as McCreedy’s.

  Driving along the switchback gravel road, Danielle’s brain ticked off the things she had done, had not done. The header and big tractor were safe; Hedley had hired them out to a farmer at Balaklava. The air seeder was under cover at Daley’s place; with only stubble to burn, that should be all right, too. Some stock losses were inevitable. The spraying equipment, small tractor and second ute were probably gone, the fences certainly gone. At a thousand dollars a kilometre, that alone would add up to a massive insurance claim, but sheep numbers could be built up and fences replaced; paddocks would grow again.

  We shall survive, she told herself. But what about the houses? Most important of all, what about the people?

  For the first time since the wind change, she had the chance to think about her own family. Hugo, Michael, Hedley, Kath …

  Hugo had told her he was driving to Clare to see some bloke he knew; he’d be safe enough. Michael? She was so furious with him that she could almost have wished that the fire had got him. Given him a scare, at least. Where the hell was he? Everything it had been possible to do she had done, unaided. Hedley was trapped on the far side of the valley, so his absence she could understand; Kath had been eager to help, would have done so if she’d been younger. For Michael, there was no excuse.

  It’s his inheritance, too, she thought. Well, to hell with him. I won’t cover for him; if Hedley finds out, serve him right. Let him screw the arse off his schoolgirls. Let him spend the rest of his life as a labourer. It’s all he’s fit for.