Wildfire

by Chris Ryan

  Kelly bundled her hair up and put her hat back on. ‘Man, this weather is freaky today. It’s a good thing we’re down here and not trying to fly in it.’

  * * *

  Matt and Jenny Forrest, and their army of helpers, stood around the picnic tables. All the guests had arrived and Matt was pouring glasses of last year’s vintage while Jenny handed them out.

  Suddenly the checked rug on the table billowed up like a sail. Matt tried to grab the wine glasses but they crashed over, sending Chardonnay and broken glass all over his bare legs. The chairs set out in a row next to the decking folded up by themselves and keeled over. Sun hats were snatched off the visitors’ heads and whirled into the air.

  There was a sound of screeching, like fingernails down a blackboard. Moments later a tangle of metal landed on the parched earth. The wind had torn the TV aerial off the roof.

  ‘Inside!’ Jenny yelled. Her voice was a tiny thing against the wind roaring in her ears. She waved her arms towards the house.

  Her guests, half blinded by dust blowing in off the vineyards, struggled after her.

  Once they were all inside, Matt pulled the door shut with difficulty. They looked out at the hillside. The vines were shaking violently. Dark clouds were drifting across the sapphire-blue sky.

  Jenny’s father shook dust out of his grey hair. ‘Of all days to get rain …’

  ‘Maybe it isn’t rain,’ said Matt. ‘It wasn’t earlier.’

  ‘Dust or rain …’ Jenny sighed. ‘Someone up there must have it in for us …’

  The clouds massed up from behind the hill, hugging the ground. There was another vineyard there, belonging to the Forrests’ neighbour.

  ‘I’ve never seen rain looking like that,’ said Jenny’s father.

  In the distance, the cloud began to creep over the hill. The landscape looked like someone had smudged its edges with charcoal.

  Jenny grabbed the binoculars they kept on the windowsill. As she turned the focus wheel she saw flickering tongues of orange flame.

  It wasn’t rain approaching …

  The binoculars fell from her hand as she gasped: ‘Fire!’

  Alex Porter and his wife Jacquetta were on holiday, over from New Zealand. They’d hired a Toyota Corolla in Adelaide and had headed out into the hills to tour the wine-growing region.

  The air conditioning was on full blast in the car, but it was barely coping with the heat. Jacquetta fanned herself with the map on her knee. Outside, the rows of vines looked like they were wilting. The grapes hung in tight clusters, a blue bloom on the skins, ready for picking.

  ‘Those grapes must be tough,’ she said. ‘I can’t understand why they’re not shrivelled to raisins by now.’

  Suddenly Alex found he couldn’t see the dials on the dashboard. The sky outside had gone dark. He flicked the lights on. ‘Hey, looks like we’re in for a storm.’

  ‘We certainly could use it.’ Jacquetta turned the dial on the air conditioning but it was already at maximum. ‘Look at the temperature,’ she said, pointing to the dashboard display. ‘It’s fifty degrees outside. I thought it was supposed to get colder before a storm, not hotter.’

  ‘Fifty degrees?’ Alex tapped the display. ‘That can’t be right. There must be something wrong with it.’ He swung the car round the corner.

  Then they saw why it was getting so hot and so dark. In front of them, the vineyard was a wall of flame the height of a two-storey building. It rolled towards them, roaring and crackling.

  Jacquetta screamed.

  Alex slammed on the brakes, jammed the car into reverse, screeched through a turn, then when they were facing back the way they came, he gunned the accelerator.

  Jacquetta twisted in her seat, staring back through the rear windscreen. The fire was an orange ball, boiling towards them.

  ‘Faster, Alex! It’s going to catch us!’

  Alex kept his foot flat on the floor. They reached 80 kph, then 90. A bend came up. He was going too fast. The back end of the car swung like an opening gate and crunched into some vines. The impact knocked Jacquetta’s head hard against the window. She slumped down, unconscious.

  They had come to a standstill. Alex revved the engine. The wheels spun on the dusty track. In his rear-view mirror he caught a glimpse of the flames drawing nearer. Smoke started to seep into the car.

  Then the tyres bit and the Toyota moved off again.

  But the fire was gaining. Flames began to light up the darkened interior of the car, flickering over Jacquetta’s face. She was moving her head groggily and muttering. There was blood coming out of one of her ears. That shocked him for a moment and he stopped concentrating on driving.

  His hesitation cost them vital seconds. The flames in the rear-view mirror were now much closer. Alex pushed the pedal to the floor. Another corner was coming up. He threw the steering wheel to the side – – and saw the headlights of the pick-up truck coming towards him. He didn’t have time to stop or swerve. There was nowhere to go anyway. Alex glimpsed the horrified face of the driver in the cab, then the two vehicles crunched together. Jacquetta and Alex were thrown against the windscreen.

  Their seat belts stopped them going all the way through, but the impact knocked them out cold. The truck driver looked up and saw the wall of flames boiling over the car towards him.

  As the heat ignited their petrol tank, Alex and Jacquetta were mercifully no longer aware.

  Chapter Nine

  Kelly only just managed to grab her hat in time. The wind was gusting one way and then another like it was playing with them.

  ‘You see,’ she said, ‘you can’t possibly fly a microlight in these conditions.’

  Even a half-wit would know that, thought Ben. She was obviously thinking, He’s thirteen, he must be a moron. Well, he knew how to deal with that. Putting on an innocent face, he said: ‘What if we can’t take off again?’

  ‘Of course we can take off,’ said Kelly. ‘We have to wait till the weather changes, though.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Ben, still acting innocent. ‘But George’s shift ends at three. And we’ve still got to get back.’

  ‘If I miss him today there’s always tomorrow. Then I’ll be footloose and fancy free.’

  Ben played his trump card. ‘George is going on holiday tomorrow.’

  Kelly looked at him sceptically.

  ‘It said so in his records,’ said Ben.

  He couldn’t help laughing. But as he did so, he got a lungful of smoke that kicked off a coughing fit. All of a sudden his eyes were watering. Through the tears he saw thick black smoke and smelled burning. Where was that coming from? Had somebody lit a bonfire in the middle of the vineyard?

  Kelly grabbed him and shrieked, ‘Fire!’

  A mass of tumbling, burning branches blasted towards them.

  They turned and hared back the way they’d come. It was uphill, and strenuous going in the strong mid-afternoon heat. Ben could feel the smoke in his throat. It was hard to get his breath but adrenaline gave him a burst of speed.

  Kelly looked back. From the vantage point of the brow of the hill, she saw a wall of flame stretching right across the vineyard. The wind was fanning it towards them.

  ‘The whole place is on fire!’ she yelled. ‘We can’t outrun it!’

  They turned the corner by the signpost and saw the microlight a little further up, that funny glass-pod body with a white fabric wing on top and a tricycle underneath. It looked flimsy, but with flames raging at gale-speed through the tinder-dry vegetation, their only chance was to get airborne.

  A flaming branch whirled past Ben’s ear. It landed in the vines. He heard the crackle as the dry leaves started to smoulder.

  He reached the plane before Kelly and tried to undo the catch on the door one-handed, his other arm up, shielding his face from more burning debris.

  Kelly got her door open, but then another gust of wind brought hot stinging sparks.

  She screamed and climbed up onto the wing.

&nbs
p; Ben hoisted himself up on the other side to see what was wrong and saw that the wing was covered in debris, glowing like hot coals.

  Kelly grabbed a blackened branch as big as a butcher’s bone and hurled it away. ‘Get them off! They’ll burn a hole and then the plane’s useless!’

  Ben pulled his sleeve down over his arm and swept it over the wing. The embers left sooty marks on the stiff white material, but luckily there were no burn holes. Kelly cleared the other side.

  They got down and scrambled into the plane.

  The engine spluttered into life. To their right, the vines were starting to burn. Ben could feel the heat through the back of the cockpit. Kelly increased the revs and took the plane jolting up the path. Her headset was still around her neck – there wasn’t a second to waste. Ben was sorry he’d made jokes about not being able to take off in that wind. Would they manage it now?

  They started to lift off the ground, but the wind blew them sideways and Ben felt the vines swish along the undercarriage like a row of hands trying to grab the wheels. Kelly had the throttle all the way forwards but the microlight was still trying to go sideways. Then suddenly it soared upwards and they were leaving the vegetation behind.

  Ben breathed a silent prayer of relief.

  They climbed up into the sky. Clouds of smoke turned the windscreen black, filling their mouths with a gritty, pungent taste. Glowing embers like red fire-flies whirled past them. Then the black clouds were behind them and they were flying into sunlight again.

  Down below, smoke was billowing up out of the vineyard.

  The plane suddenly dropped like a stone.

  ‘A thermal!’ Kelly screamed. ‘You have control! More throttle! More throttle now!’

  Ben felt beside him. His fingers grasped the handle and he pulled it upwards. The engine grew louder. He didn’t even have time to question why she wanted him to take control now, of all times.

  ‘Grab the stick! Get the nose up!’ called Kelly.

  Ben pulled the stick back. He felt the pedals moving beside his feet as Kelly operated them. The microlight stopped plummeting and started to climb. There was another moment of dark smoke clouds, then bright sunshine.

  Ben suddenly realized there was rather a lot of blue sky on his side of the plane, while through Kelly’s window there was a dramatic view of the ground.

  Kelly whacked the stick with her left forearm. The view out of the windows evened out, with a proper amount of sky on each side.

  ‘Level out! Let the stick go!’ She was still shouting – she hadn’t yet put her headset on. It was still around her neck. Then Ben noticed she was holding her hands oddly, like she was trying to avoid touching the palms to anything.

  And why was she making him do the flying at such a crucial stage?

  He reached across and placed her headset over her ears so that he could talk to her.

  ‘Kelly, why am I in control?’

  Kelly looked down at the palms of her hands. Ben reached over to see what was wrong but she flinched and pulled them away before he’d even touched her.

  ‘You’ve burned your hands.’

  Kelly nodded. ‘You’re going to have to go from basic training to graduation in one lesson. I’ll tell you what to do – but you’ve got to fly this thing home.’

  * * *

  The hills around Adelaide were covered in vineyards. Nobody knew which one started burning first, and how exactly the fire had begun. But once it took hold it roared easily through the endless lines of parched, dry plants in a matter of minutes. Even where the leaves were not in direct contact with flames, the surrounding heat scorched them. This made the vegetation give off gases, which, because of the heat, started to burn spontaneously. The blazing hills created their own weather system, sucking in air to feed the flames, like a fire drawing air from a chimney. The fire gobbled up acre after acre until it reached the red, dusty outback.

  And as well as travelling outwards, the fire also swept inwards. The first places it reached were Adelaide’s many parks and green spaces on the out-skirts of the town.

  Victoria Shilton stood in the circle of emerald-green grass. Her eyes were on only one thing: the little dimpled ball in front of her feet, just metres away from the seventeenth hole. On the fairways, the grass of the golf course was parched to the colour of straw, but around the holes it had been watered to keep the surface perfect.

  A gust of wind tugged at Victoria’s hat, sending the brim flopping down over one eye. The wind had been getting more and more erratic since they’d set off from the clubhouse after lunch, but they were nearly at the end of the course and Victoria was determined to finish. She had noticed a scent of smoke and heard the distant wail of sirens, but she was a dedicated sports-woman and had learned to let nothing distract her. She pushed the hat back off her brow to concentrate better, and the wind snatched it right off her head.

  She didn’t see where it went; she would get it in a minute. Right now, she was in the zone, a state of perfect concentration. Just a gentle tap and the ball should roll into the hole. Victoria breathed in, ready to play the stroke.

  A voice suddenly ruined her concentration. ‘Strewth!’ It was her opponent, a Thai restaurateur who she knew only by the name Troy. Victoria whirled round, ready to give him some choice words for spoiling her shot.

  Troy was pointing at the rough – the woodland around the seventeenth hole. Flames were crackling through the trees, sending smoke rolling towards them.

  Victoria was so startled she dropped her club. ‘Oh my God.’

  They stood, stunned, as they watched the orange flames licking through the wood, catching anything they touched and sending it luminous with flame. In no more than thirty seconds the entire wood was on fire, all the way back down the edge of the fairway. The wind was whipping it up into an inferno.

  Troy slid his iron back into his trolley. ‘We’d better get the groundsman.’ He turned and set off down the green.

  Victoria grabbed her trolley and hurried after him.

  Then something very strange happened. The wind snatched up some burning branches, carried them over Victoria’s head and dashed them against the trees on the other side of the fairway, several metres away.

  Like a spark jumping a gap, the fire was leaping through the crowns of the trees.

  On both sides of them, the woods were on fire.

  Victoria and Troy forgot about their trolleys. They ran for their lives.

  * * *

  The golf course backed onto the racecourse. So far, two races had been run since the wind started to pick up, but things were getting worse.

  The wind was upsetting the horses, filling their sensitive ears with strange noises. They could hear everything that was going on in the adjoining streets – dustbins falling over, gates banging and trees creaking. To these highly strung creatures it sounded like a riot was coming their way.

  Another race was due to start but the jockeys couldn’t get their mounts into the starting gates. The wind was making them rattle. To the horses it sounded like the metal bars would collapse on top of them. It was too much for their taut nerves.

  When the jockeys tried to whip the horses in, they wheeled round and reared. The jockeys pulled them up, turned them back and urged them towards the gates again. The horses rebelled and tried to gallop away. Now they were all spinning in circles, dust kicking up from their hooves, looking at the gates with terrified eyes.

  The stand was next to the starting gates, filled, even on a weekday, with a couple of hundred people. Most of them were racing professionals – trainers, owners, potential buyers, newspaper reporters and bookies. All of them watched anxiously as the young thoroughbreds spun round and round. Those graceful legs were so easily injured – and that might write off an expensive horse. But these seasoned racegoers had seen plenty of equine tantrums before. If the horses got into the starting gates they could run the adrenaline out of their systems safely.

  All eyes in the spectators’ stand were on the horse
s. No one noticed the deadly cinders that were blowing in from the golf course next door.

  At first a few flaming leaves flew over. They landed on the roof of the stand and on the piles of rubbish that had fallen out of the bins. The greasy papers from the nearby burger stall caught in seconds.

  The smoke reached the sensitive nostrils of the horses below, but they were already so upset that it made little difference.

  Some burning twigs blew as far as the car park. Many of the grooms had tied haynets to the horse-boxes for the horses to eat while they were being rubbed down. The hay was dry and glowing embers set it alight in no time. The burning debris blew in easily through the open ramps. The horseboxes, already hot as ovens from the sun, were soon ablaze.

  In the spectator stand, the organizers were discussing whether the wind meant they should cancel the rest of the day’s racing. At first no one spotted the fires taking hold all around them.

  Out on the track, a big black yearling had had enough. It leaped into the air with a twisting buck. The jockey didn’t have a chance of staying in the saddle. He pitched straight over the horse’s shoulder. The loose horse now took off in a flat-out gallop away from the rattling gates. It crashed through the white rails as though they were matchwood.

  On the other side was a row of cars parked tightly together. The horse saw there was no gap, so it tried to jump a green Ford.

  It misjudged and landed on the car. The impact made a sickening noise. The horse crashed to the ground, twisted up onto its feet like a cat and carried on fleeing, sparks flying off its shoes.

  The car was a write-off. Its bonnet was crushed, its roof staved in. Being hit by half a ton of horse travelling at 65 kph had the same result as a head-on collision with another car.