“Missus!” he implored.
“Like I said, we stay.” And she threw back her head and stared at the distant flames with all the arrogance of her forefathers.
A de Guise never turned his back on the enemy.
‘Missus…”
“Hurry now.” Not even listening to him she turned and ran back towards the house and, as if sensing her intent, the bullocks lumbered along behind the fence.
“Make sure that gate’s tight shut. Make sure that trough’s full. Let the dogs off their chains. Get them out in the paddock. Round up those sheep. Get the cows out of the shed into the paddock… forget about the milking. Prop the gate of the chicken run open, birds always find safety. I’ll see to the girls, I’ll not be long.”
He started to mutter something. To protest once again about the futility of trying to fend off a fire. She spun round and briefly stared him down.
Unwillingly he checked the gate leading out onto the track. Wearily he turned the handle on the well. Bringing up bucket after bucket, carrying them over and tipping them over the fence into the trough.
Letting the dogs off their chains, he opened the gate into the paddock. No sooner had he given the long, low whistle they understood so well than they jostled the sheep together and the whole flock moved towards the trough.
That took time, sheep being giddy things at the best of times and not at their happiest when there’s disaster in the air. For animals know. They know when danger threatens and when flight is their only escape. Round and round the dogs went, worrying the flock until they shifted faster, one thick mass of animals with the bullocks snorting amongst them.
A strange exhilaration gripped Mary Ann. Both children were asleep but she had left a pile of biscuits at the end of Cathy’s cot - Cathy loved her biscuits. If she woke they’d keep her happy for a while.
Next door’s property had not been grazed in a twelve months, a sea of thick parched grass adjoined her paddocks. Once into that swaying, desiccated mass the fire would sweep across in no time at all. Now a pall of smoke cut off any view of the hills. A persistent greedy glimmer marked the edge of the approaching fire. From left to right the firefront stretched away on all sides.
“Missus, there’s still time,” Job was hard put to it not to run but something in his mistress’s manner, something in the certainty in her voice kept him at her side. Now the sheep were jostling each other near the trough and the bullocks barging in amongst them.
“We’ll not shift.”
“There’s still time,” he muttered again.
She stood and stared in the direction of the fire. A dense, brown pall hid the sky. The slope of the ground obscured the flames.
“Keep those beasts a-moving, keep them all moving.”
He stared at her. He’d no idea what she meant.
“Get them going. Get the whole mob moving out there round the fence. Keep them moving. Don’t stop for one minute.”
Job had known Mary Ann, as he often said, since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. He’d served her grandfather, her father and now he was serving her husband but he’d never seen her like this. But then he’d never before seen someone fighting for their life and their future.
“For God’s sake, man. Come, come on, every minute counts.”
Something in her voice brooked no argument. She snatched up a switch and followed the mass of animals. Job followed behind her with the dogs at his heels. Round outside the fenceline and up past the orchard she urged on the bewildered beasts. Then down near the backyard, round the back of the barn, the dairy and the cowshed, back along the paddock and then up again to the orchard, backyard and round again.
The thundering hooves of cattle and sheep cut into the earth. Clouds of dust flew in the air. Choking, blinding dust engulfed them. In their terrified confusion the animals buffeted and lunged, hurtling on, pursued by the dogs, yelled at by Job and all the time Mary Ann laying around herself with the switch, keeping the mob on the move.
After the third circling of the farm and its yard he was quite convinced she’d lost her reason.
With sweat streaming down his face after the fourth time around, he plucked up courage to speak again. He even opened his mouth but she was shouting, yelling and pointing at the dirt scuffed up by the stampeding hooves. “This is what we have to do. This’ll do it.”
“Roundin’ em up, Missus?” Still he did not understand. What were they being rounded up for? Where could they go?
“Fire’ll never jump the dirt.” Mary Ann’s voice was hoarse and cracked with the heat and the effort of keeping away from the blundering beasts.
“The beasts’ll perish in the heat. Missus, ’tis cruel hot.”
“ ’t’will be hotter’n hell when the fire gets here. But it’s not going to get here, is it?”
Where was she taking them? “Missus? Missus, there’s still time.”
“Save your breath. The flames’ll never jump this.”
And then he realised.
A dusty dry band of twenty feet or more surrounded the fence. The hundreds of hooves had kicked up a dust storm that had settled and spread beyond the fence.
The firebreak would save them, could save them, might save them…
“’T’won’t be enough Missus. Not near enough. The flames’ll jump…”
“Do as I say.” And to make sure the old man understood she flicked the switch in his direction.
Circling the farm, round and round they went. Ten minutes passed, twenty minutes. She had no way of judging the time. She just knew that the sun did not shine; instead, it glowed - a red, angry disc in a grey-brown sky. A false dusk bathed the landscape. An immense pall of smoke preceded the fire, rising higher and ever higher into the heavens. All the while the animals kept moving. The stampede had slowed, some plodded, some trotted, the sheep kept together to avoid the snapping dogs and the bullocks just followed, hides blanketed with dust, the whites of their eyes flashing through the cloud of dust. Soon the animals were brown as the broken earth and many limped pitifully. Every so often she chased some aside to the trough for water for a few moments, then laid about them till they went on their way again.
Her leg muscles cramped with exhaustion, she tripped and nearly fell. “Here, keep going. I’m going to see Cathy’s alright.” Once inside the house she closed every window, shut every door and took a last look at the sleeping children before creeping out again and closing the door. Would the closed-up house be their salvation or their tomb?
When she returned she left him with the animals and stumbled down to the knoll.
Though prepared for the worst, hot and sweating from her exertions, she shuddered as she stared at the fearsome enemy at her boundary.
In spite of the sweltering day a chill went through her. At least no one was there to see the shaking of her hands. Previously the fire had been a distant, though swift approaching, menace. Suddenly the peril was thundering on the doorstep.
On the outer edges of the firefront several stands of gums flared. Even as she watched, one particularly tall gum exploded, sending balls of fire in all directions. Immediately new fires shot up.
Raging across the grassy plain the flames devoured the pasture. Smoke puffed in all directions. The draught of the fire sent it whirling through the air. Fire makes its own wind. First of all a few gusts, rising to a steady blow, then a hurricane of flame beating down all that lies before it.
A small flock of corellas dived and disappeared towards open, clear country. Several kangaroos leapt across the paddock in the same direction. The flames had swallowed the distant plain, eaten up the trees. Nothing was going to stop it marching on to claim its next victim, Bywong itself.
Mary Ann ran back up the slope to the yard. Job heaved a sigh of relief, the dratted woman would agree to them leaving now, alright. She’d seen with her own eyes. She’d be begging him to hurry. He’d get that mare harnessed in two shakes.
So he could only groan when she shouted at him. “Keep on, keep on,
keep those beasts moving.”
Several sheep staggered helplessly. “Over here, bring them over. Over to the trough.” Two sank to the ground with bleeding hooves.
Frantic minutes passed. Job’s face bled from a cut when he’d blundered into the fence. Thick dust thrown up by the mob coated his entire body. His shoulders ached from the buffeting of animals. Mary Ann’s hair had come loose, her bodice was soaked with sweat and one boot had lost its sole. She did not pause for a moment.
“Stop! Get them over to the trough again.” This time three of the sheep sank down and nothing would get them up again. Another had lost a hoof, the flesh was bare and bloody.
“Nearly done for, they is.” He stared at the exhausted animals.
Briefly she glanced at the path the mob had cut outside the yard, the belt of beaten earth outside the fence. She looked again at the sheep; they were failing fast and several of the bullocks had disappeared from the mob.
Time to get the horses out. In a trice she rushed over to the barn where the Percheron and the mare shifted restlessly in their stalls.
“Here…take her.” Shoving the mare’s rope into Job’s hands she went back to bring out the enormous shire horse. Sixteen hands high, its huge shoulders towered over her. “Giddy-up, Giddy-up, Perchy,” and soon his hooves were slicing into the soil. The iron of his huge shoes and the weight of his great body threw dirt in the air as she led him out into the press of jostling animals.
Up till then it had been sight and smell which had been bearing down upon them but now came the sound of the fire. At first a muted disturbance hit the air, then a sudden roar came up the hill as it pounced and devoured the dried-out reeds above the waterline of the dam.
She would not allow herself to look. Sometimes fear can only be faced with shut eyes - but no one can shut their ears. The terror that cannot be seen can still be heard.
Flames leapt across the dam, sizzling the reeds, burrowing into the tussocky grass and consuming the stand of she-oaks. Soon they’d reach the belt of beaten earth.
So intent had she been upon the grass that she had not looked further. Now she could see the full fury of the inferno that would engulf them.
For the first time Mary Ann faltered. Could the cart still be harnessed, or was it too late? No, they could get through to the village still, there’d be others hoping to keep the fire at bay.
Had all her preparations been in vain? Was it time to turn tail and run?
Smoke filled the yard. The huddled sheep slumped around the trough, their last refuge. The dogs’ tongues hung out but their eyes were still bright and watchful. They’d go to the very last step and beyond, faithful to the end. She looked at Job’s ravaged doubting face. What if she had made the wrong decision? Had she made a dreadful, irredeemable, mortal mistake?
No. The time for pulling back had passed.
The fire attacked. It burst over the rise. Flared up. Red and orange tongues challenged everything that stood in its path.
Gusts of hot air scorched their faces.
“Look Missus! Look.”
Burning leaves and twigs flew through the air. Mary Ann could have wept. So intent had she been upon the advancing firefront that she’d thought nothing of any danger from the sky above.
Like burning lances cast by a savage tribe, balls of blazing twigs and glowing cinders showered down upon them.
With a flicker of yellow the roof of the cowshed sent up a plume of smoke. Immediately red tongues of fire shot from the shingles.
Panic-stricken bellows from a sick cow still inside told its own story.
“Get that animal out!”
The enemy was in their midst.
“There’s still time, Missus. We could still...”
“No.” Mary Ann squared her shoulders and stood stock still for one moment. She’d meet the foe head on.
CHAPTER 15
Tears of relief scalded her cheeks as she stood upon the verandah and watched the fire streaking by, to left and to right.
Flames leapt from the cowshed, the pigsty smouldered and the dairy roof still blazed but within that oasis of safety surrounded by the churned-up paddock no more buildings burned. Barn, lean-to, henhouse, verandah and the precious home remained unscathed. Now the firefront moved away as swiftly as it had approached. Grasping the smutty rail for support she leant against it, too tired to move, too exhausted even to go in to her daughters.
“Never would have credited it,” Job muttered as he gathered up the burnt remains of a couple of chicken. “Like they say, truth’s stranger than fiction and no one would credit it, no one. Nothin’ like. I’ll see to the yard. Got to get them cows back and that hay’s all alight down near the sty. You goes indoors now. You’ve done more’n any other mortal woman could.”
Her legs no longer supported herself as she clung to the rail. The deep breaths she took sent smoke deep down into her lungs and she coughed and choked till her body shook with the effort.
Eyes watering and chest aching, she stood for a full five minutes taking in the destruction all around. So much had gone, but so very much remained. Grass would grow, rails and fences could be repaired, the gum trees would sprout once more.
Finally she kicked off her boots and opened the front door.
Oven-like the sweltering atmosphere engulfed her. Hurrying from room to room she threw open the doors and windows. Not a sound came from the bedroom. She paused, stood stock still and listened as smoke swirled around her. Common sense told her that nothing could be wrong but such disaster had surrounded them she could not even turn the handle of the door for dread. She gripped its smooth surface and waited. Unable to marshall the effort to turn the doorknob, she just stood and listened.
Cathy was sitting up chewing a biscuit. She did not even seem frightened by her mother’s wild appearance.
Mary Ann could hear the edge of hysteria as she stood and laughed - what else could she do? To think this dainty bedroom could have been a fiery tomb! The baby stirred and almost at once began to cry. Mary Ann scooped her up and went onto the verandah.
“You poor little mites. Oh Lizzie, you must be starving. Just think, four hours ago you had your last feed. Look what’s happened in that time? Never mind, here we go…” She unbuttoned her bodice and held the baby close.
But her milk had gone. Those hours facing the fire and watching the terror creep closer and closer had drained her body. What was it she remembered hearing? Many a baby died for want of its mother’s milk. Mary Ann fumed as Lizzie nuzzled at her breast and complained relentlessly. Milk, the milk must come back!
Such conflicting emotions gripped Mary Ann that she could not think straight. Triumph at having saved the home, despair at the ravaged farmland all around; but underlying those two extremes lurked sheer exhaustion and solitude. I know how a climber feels, she told herself, struggling up to a peak, achieving a great feat but being all alone upon the mountain.
Times like this, you needed people round you. Some helpful older woman who’d come up with tried and true homely advice, anything to help bring that milk back.
The farm was saved, most of the animals had survived and within a few weeks there’d be shoots of new grass. Inside a month or so tiny leaves would sprout along the bare arms of the gum trees. As the shoots multiplied they’d fill out into balls of greenery, becoming larger and more luxuriant until fresh growth cloaked the entire tree. Fed and succoured, the skeletons would green up again. Then, when the tree had recovered, the balls of greenery would give way to its usual twigs and leaves. That was the way with gum trees. They mended themselves.
But what of the baby? Trees could take their time to recover. Babies did not have a second chance.
She’d tried once before to give the little one a feed of cow’s milk. She’d not been well and her breasts had become so swollen and lumpy that she shuddered and winced with pain when the baby sucked. In desperation she’d diluted milk with boiled water and, filling a bottle, fashioned a teat from a plug of clean rag.<
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Suck! Suck! She’d almost shaken the poor little mite. Suck, damn you! All the while trying not to think of those tales about babies starving to death for want of their mother’s milk. But the baby had turned her head away and screamed her rejection louder than ever and Mary Ann had gritted her teeth and let the baby suck again.
Wearily Mary Ann sat on the doorstep clasping the screaming infant to her breast. What had Grand-mère said? In her young days there had been wet nurses. Oh, to have that comfort for my little one.
Through a fog of exhaustion and despair Mary Ann forced herself to remember Grand-mère’s words.
“Many genteel women never fed their infants at all…but a working woman could make a living as a wet nurse.”
“Ugh!” Mary Ann had shuddered. “That is just so disgusting. A wet nurse! They’d be more like a cow.”
“For years on end a poor woman can support her family just being a wet nurse.”
“How can they keep up the milk all that time?”
“They bathe their breasts. Milk will go on for ever if you don’t bind the breast. That, of course, is how you get rid of the milk. To dry milk up you swab your breasts with vinegar, bind yourself very tightly and don’t drink. To keep it coming you drink and drink as much water as you can, you loosen your garments and you bathe your bosom, first in hot water, then in cold. Several times over you do this and before long the milk will flow once more.”
She laid the child aside in its cradle, forcing herself to ignore the screams and the hopeless whimpering that followed. Too tired herself, she instructed Job to stoke the fire and boil the water and then fetch more from the well.
Painstakingly she bathed her breasts, first with hot water, then with cold, and when the baby slipped into an uneasy, complaining slumber she let herself relax and dozed off, sitting at the table with her head in her hands and the bowls of water before her. Three times she repeated the bathing, first in hot water, then in cold, until exhaustion overcame her and she fell asleep.
A tingling in her nipples woke her.
Wake up! Her breasts swelled when she lifted the baby up in her arms. Mary Ann clutched the downy head against her body with enormous relief.
The Hanging of Mary Ann Page 18