Madeleine in time had consented to come down and meet Mr. Lockwood. It had been a brief en-
counter, but, amicable enough.
"He could be worse," shrugged Madeleine afterwards, "and at least he's not uncouth."
"He's a nice man," said Selina.
"Nice? Yes. But good grief, Sellie, did you ever expect 'nice' of our father ?"
"No—not really."
"I expected—if I ever gave him a thought—the extreme extrovert. A bold, overriding, ruthless character. Sort of swashbuckling in a manner. He's not at all like that."
"He's considerate," agreed Selina.
"And where does that put me ?" shrugged Madeleine. "I don't take after my mother, and I'm certainly not like him. No one" . . —Madeleine tilted her lovely chin ... "could ever call me considerate No, he simply can't be my parent He must be a ring-in, intentionally or unintentionally we don't know. So we must be on our guard, or at least you must be. I've nothing to lose, you have."
"I haven't. Maddie, and I may never have."
"Has Roger said that ?" Madeleine asked sharply, and Selina looked inquiringly at her. "I meant to say," said Madeleine quickly, "just watch the things in the house, that's all. You may come back from your lessons one day and find them and him gone."
"I have lessons on the verandah. I don't leave here."
"Then when you take the brats out for nature study," impatiently.
Selina shook her head. "No, he's not a man like that," she defended. "Anyway, he comes as well."
He . . . Mr. Lockwood, for want of any other name .. loved to come on the nature study rambles. He
loved to go everywhere that Selina and the children went. They in their turn accepted him happily. All of them were separated by distance from their grandparents, and since the bond between children and grandparents is a sweet, intrinsic thing, he filled a strong need. One day one of them said : "Yes, Grandpa," to Mr. Lockwood, and Selina knew a deep shame. These children could accept him as Grandfather without any proof, yet she had proof but could not accept him as Father.
She tried ... but still could not. But she still continued liking him very much.
She was supervising one morning, and Mr. Lockwood was making paper birds for the pre-class children, when the sudden sharp staccato sound came, then as suddenly went. Indeed it came and went so quickly that Selina decided she had only imagined it. Imagined, too, a vague silvery explosion. But, looking up, she saw that Ignace was alerted, too. But no one else. They were all intent on their work. Mr. Lockwood, too, had not looked up.
"What was that, Selina ?" asked Ignace.
"It was so quick I couldn't tell, dear. A bird, perhaps."
"It was not a coachwhip bird," said Ignace, who had sought out such knowledge, "though it had that same sharp sound. But the mother bird does half the whip sound, so Ironbark says—"
"Mr. Grant," corrected Selina.
"And the father bird does the other half. And this was only one sound."
"Well, there's no sound now. Perhaps we imagined it."
"What's that ?"
"Thinking something's there but it is not."
"Oh, but there was something, even though there
isn't now. There was a sort of flash, too, even though
it's gone."
"I agree," sighed Selina. "However" ... cautiously ... "I think, Ignace, we'd better keep it to ourselves. It still could be fantasy."
"Fantasy ?" he queried.
"Imagining things."
"Oh, that again," Ignace shrugged.
An hour later Selina called : "Twelve o'clock, class. Finish what you're doing, then bring it out to me."
Mr. Lockwood helped Selina with the folding of papers, then the enclosing of them in envelopes. After they were finished Selina said she would stroll down to Tallow Wood road and put them in the mailbox to be picked up. Coming back she was met by Joel Grant. He walked up the hill beside her.
"How is the Lockwood affair progressing?" he asked.
"He's a nice man."
"So was the fellow who pulled out all the chairs for the ladies and gallantly seated them, then excused himself politely and went upstairs and pilfered their handbags."
"Oh, not you, too !"
"No, not me, too. Like you, I can't fault him. Whether that's good or not remains to be seen. Did you hear the midday news?"
"I was with the class."
"A small plane missing. Well, I'd hate to be a
grounded pilot in our wilderness."
It was not until mid-afternoon that Selina began thinking of the noise and the silvery explosion again ... then thinking of what Joel had said of a missing plane.
"Oh, no !" The possibility hit her at once. She got up from where she sat.
It took some time to find Joel, one valley sent her to another, but when she did she told him everything at once, waiting for his ridicule, but still feeling he must know.
"At what time did this happen ?" he asked sharply. "It would be around eleven."
"Did anyone else hear and comment on. it ?"
"No one. Only Ignace and I seemed to notice." "Ignace ?"
"Yes."
"Where is he ?"
"Oh, around somewhere. Why, do you want him ?"
"I want both of you," said Joel. "I want you both exactly where you were when you heard the sound and saw what you say you did."
"We were on the verandah."
"But facing where ?"
"Overlooking the totem tree, but the other, the sound and the flash, I mean, would be a very long overlook."
"We'll see what Ignace says."
They found Ignace and dragged him up, unwillingly at first, for he had just been initiated into the marvels of marbles, to the verandah. But when the little boy heard the keen interest in Joel's voice, he became keen as well.
"It was a sharp noise," he said, "like a coachwhip, only it wouldn't be a coachwhip, for that takes two birds and—"
"Yes, Ignace," said Joel patiently, "but wasn't there something else as well ?"
"Yes. Lightning. Only silvery lightning, not gold. Silver like in Selina's weather ruler." "Thermometer," Selina said.
"Yes," Ignace nodded.
"And where ? Where did you see this flash ?" "Over my stepfather's tree, over Svanotovit, but a long, long way over."
"I see," said Joel, and he got up.
"Do you think—" Selina asked.
"Yes, I’m afraid I do. But hell, it's such a big expanse to try to find out. Beyond a certain tree helps, but that's all it is, help."
"I know more," came in Ignace importantly. "It was over Svanotovit but on the twilight jungle side of him."
"Yes," added Selina, prompted to clearer memory now, "but not as far to the twilight jungle as the Puffing Billy clearing."
"I think I get you," nodded Joel. "We'll go down now and see if we can pinpoint the direction. You two will be a great help at least in that."
"I'll keep on helping you," said Ignace importantly. "Wherever you go, I'll show you the way."
"Oh, no, you won't, old son. Nor you, Selina." He turned sternly on her. "You do realise if I take you a part of the way with me, then send you back, that you must go back?"
"Yes," Selina said.
"Then we'll go at once."
They went past the totem tree, down the valley, a little left of the twilight jungle but not as far as the train clearing. Then Joel sent one of them away while he questioned the other, then brought the other back and questioned again. Both their reports tallied.
"It appears," said Joel, "that something did happen around eleven and it happened somewhere over there. Right, Ignace ?"
"Yes, but a long way away."
"Selina ?"
"Yes . . . but far in the distance."
"All right then, we'll go up again."
"Go up ?" Then both looked at him in disappointment.
"Get some men, some provisions, some medical supplies. Alert other services. You see, it could tak
e a long time."
"You're going—over there ?" Selina waved vaguely. ''yes.''
"Can't we come with you ?" Ignace tried again. "No."
"But we showed you where."
"Yes, and I'm very grateful for that. But it's going to be hard going, probably a long, hard trek, and only experienced bushmen will be needed." Joel sighed. "Besides—"
"Besides ?" It was Selina.
Joel turned so that the little boy could not hear him. "Besides, I've a pretty good idea what to expect." He half-groaned.
"You mean—at the scene of the crash'?"
"Yes."
"Was there only one person aboard ?"
"Only the pilot, thank heaven. But young and keen and with all the world before him," Joel said in a strained voice. But the strain was gone as he turned to Ignace again.
"You can get back and tell Cooky to rustle up some nosh, Ignace." Ignace understood that and ran eagerly off at once.
"What can I do ?" asked Selina, feeling suddenly helpless and empty.
"Wait," said Joel. He paused. "And perhaps—pray."
CHAPTER TWELVE
SELINA did pray. She prayed not only for a young pilot but for a group of men who had gone to look for him. She prayed for Joel. Not because of the hazardous journey . . . more than a day's trek over torturous country, so the bushmen who had stopped behind told Selina ... but because of another, more frightening danger that had arisen.
Fire.
The mountains up here had never known the terrors of fire like most Australian timberlands, perhaps because of the plentiful rainfall and the preponderance of watercourses. But the season had been exceptionally dry ... last season as well. Two seasons together meant that the undergrowth became tindery, that a chance spark— To make it so much worse the danger that arose now was from no mere spark. It was a fireburst. A fireburst from a crashed plane. They had accepted that fact the next day when they saw smoke rising in the far distance, it was too thick for any passing bushfire, it was a large-scale fire, a serious fire. A big tree, perhaps, but from big trees a mountain ... mountains . . . can begin to blaze. Very soon several mountains actually were ablaze, and in the dense dark billows of smoke they could glimpse flashes of savage red.
It all must have stemmed from something much larger than a careless match, they knew, from the
sun's rays on a piece of glass, the usual scrub fire causes, and the time and the direction that Ignace and Selina had given, the reports from the aviation control, only made it all the more positive. Without any doubt there had been a tragedy in the mountains, but it seemed that the tragedy was not stopping there, that it had only just begun.
Now Selina saw a different side of Roger. Although she loved him ... yes, of course she loved him, she loved him as she always had . . . she had always been aware of something somehow confined in Roger, something that stopped at certain boundaries and never permitted one step more. -
But suddenly Roger was no longer only that Academy graduate, that book man, though she should have known it by the gymkhana that he had another side. The first thing he ordered were fire breaks. There always had been fire breaks, but now Roger burnt them, or directed them to be burnt, literally everywhere.
Then look-outs. They were a new idea, and Roger did not stint himself on them. Like Svanotovit, these look-outs looked out on four quarters. They comprised small landings on tall trees with a break around each, accessible by steep ladders and the platform enclosed for safety by a rail. Usually they were built a hundred feet up, they needed to be fairly high to be of any advantage, and, since Roger had rostered the men for night watching, there was a chair with a cushion, a small table, a jug of water and some biscuits.
Then Roger decreed that the moment the black, red-smudged atrocity came uncomfortably closer, all
the women would be shifted down to Tallow Wood.
"No," said Selina for herself, "after all, this is to be mine one day. At least" . . . a little uncertainly for the first time in public . . . "that was the idea." She looked at Roger.
Roger said nothing.
"Not me, either," said Madeleine, "after all, you're—" She also was looking at Roger. But she became silent, too.
There were radio bulletins concerning the fire, always bad ones. The blaze now was raging on three fronts. At one front, it had extended to an attacking width of sixty-five miles.
"But that," said Roger, "would be mostly scrub. It's the small intense fronts you have to watch."
The radio bulletin also reported that a party had set out from Tall Tops to locate the missing plane, but little hope was held for the pilot if they ever located the Cessna. It also hinted that the rescuers' role was not an enviable one, not now that the fire had grown to such an extent.
At that, Selina turned the radio off.
"They shouldn't have gone," Roger said. He had been standing listening.
"They had to try."
"One life isn't worth the risking of six."
Roger was worried about many things. There were millions of dollars outlaid in softwoods in the forest. He did not want to jeopardise their wellbeing with closer firebreaks, but if he didn't, they might be lost altogether. Never the eucalypts. The gums were the only trees on earth to go through a fire, burn black, then rise stronger and more triumphant than ever.
Indeed, a fire benefited a eucalyptus valley, it burned off the trash and had no hope in penetrating the iron-hard bark. But the trees in these parts were mostly planted trees, trees suitable for veneers, for building, for ship deckings, for delicate purposes as well as tough, and such trees are destroyed for ever by fire.
There was little sleep for anyone these days. Madeleine had come down from the Ridge to live again at Tall Tops. If the fire did reach them, in spite of Roger's efforts, it should deal with Tall Tops first, being further down the valley, so there was no immediate danger in leaving the new home on the hill untended. They could all gc there later when it was no use holding out here any more.
Selina in the finish gave up trying to supervise the youngsters. How could they be expected co bend over books when to the south-west that mushroom of black, red-streaked smoke grew taller and wider every moment ?
Roger instructed the women in hosing. Fortunately they had plenty of water, which made the situation all the more ironical, fretted Selina, a bush fire of this size in a land of flowing water, abundant water. But between the many waters lay the thick undergrowth, and the undergrowth was biscuit-dry.
The women hosed the outside of their chalets frequently. Cooky hosed the outside of his kitchen. Madeleine and Selina hosed Tall Tops in turn, never leaving it less than soaked. They even did it at night.
Something had come over Madeleine, she worked as eagerly as did Selina. She often openly wondered about it herself.
"Am I the same jet-setter?" she asked. "You could have fooled me !"
"You're wonderful, Maddie," praised Selina. "I want to be for a wonderful person."
"I know, dear. When I look across the mountain and think of him there .. ."
Madeleine gave Selina a stunned look, went to say something . . . then didn't.
That night there were more flashes in the black mass to the south-west, there were lightning-like spirals of scarlet and gold. Sometimes, in spite of the valleys, they actually could see flames rising.
The radio bulletins were gloomy. The fire had spread on all fronts, the sixty-five mile scrub fire now extended almost to a hundred. Nothing had been heard of the pilot ... nor of the six-man rescue party that had left from Tall Tops. The weather, the bulletin went on, was not helping. It remained hot and dry and a wind was springing up. There was no sign of rain.
By noon, a smoke pall began at Tall Tops. It was hot, choking and very unpleasant, and Selina took the children to Joel's big blue bathtub pool, as she had often disparagingly spoken of it, though today it was not so blue, the wind already had blown across masses of charcoal and the charcoal had changed the water to an uninviting grey.
Roger had called upon all the men now, even Cooky was brought in, so that the women had to take over the cooking. Mr. Lockwood, too, was found odd jobs.
The road was still open to Tallow Wood, but not one of the women had said she wanted to leave.
When she found time, Selina sought out Mr. Lockwood. After all, he should go, this was no concern of his.
"You'll be safe down there," she smiled to the man. "But that's not what I want," he answered quietly. "Not safety. Please don't ask me."
"We can't make you, of course, we just thought you might wish to."
"I wish to be here." He said it so sincerely, so fervently, that Selina could only smile gently and lean forward and touch his hand.
"It's as you say, of course," she assured him.
He made himself useful in many ways. Whenever and wherever a man stood at the ready with a brush and a wet chaff bag, Mr. Lockwood stood behind him with a cup of tea, or a packet of smokes. At these times Selina wondered foolishly about Joel Grant's pipe. Had he taken it with him ? And his tobacco ? Did he have time to fill it ? Joel, where are you, how far have you reached? Don't make it too far to get back.
It was decided that if the worst came, they would all make it to the twilight jungle, there the bushes were always wet, no fire could penetrate into that damp corridor. But to reach it you would have to pass the train clearing, its erected platform of new oiled wood. You would have to pass the mill. Neither were operating, of course. Puffing Billy had been taken up to the ledge. But they were still fire hazards.
"Let's only hope it doesn't come to that," Roger said.
The next morning the radio bulletin put the fire as fifty miles away from them according to Roger's
interpretation of the report.
"Fifty miles ! We're all right, then," Madeleine said with relief.
"Fifty miles," said Roger in a tight voice, "could be less than an hour, less than that again, given a favourable wind change."
"Favourable ?"
"Favourable to the fire, unfavourable to us." Madeleine now had taken over the telephone duty. Fortunately the wire was still intact.
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