Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Put them on.’

  ‘No way! Mum’ll kill me, they’re only for school.’

  ‘Put them on, Mole! You can’t fight a bloody bushfire barefoot!’

  ‘Will you tell her then, when they’re messed up?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, okay. Now hurry! Can’t keep a bushfire waiting.’

  What I can’t understand is why Bozo and Mike don’t wake up during all this talk, which isn’t exactly whispering. Then I realise that they probably are awake, but they’re playing possum, buggers not wanting to get involved. Lying in of a Saturday is the best thing that happens all week and I’m missing out again.

  Outside there are two blokes in blue overalls in a ute with the engine running. I recognise the driver, it’s John Crowe, Tommy’s best friend, maybe his only friend, they’ve been together since kids and were only separated by the war. He’s a good bloke and often brings Tommy home when he’s been on a bender. He shouts gidday to us. ‘Jump in the back, Mole,’ Tommy says, hopping into the back himself. There’s shovels and rake-hoes and a pile of wet hessian wheat bags, two army blankets folded, two knapsack stirrup pumps and a hand axe in there already. We stand up, hands flat on the roof. Tommy bangs on the top of the ute with his good arm and we’re off.

  It’s just coming up light but you can smell the smoke before we see the fire. It’s only then that I think of the old Indian lady in her bark hut.

  ‘Where’d you say the fire was?’ I shout at Tommy.

  ‘Silver Creek!’ He points ahead and I can just see a spiral of smoke rising in the early-morning light.

  ‘There’s an old lady lives there!’ I shout against the wind.

  ‘Nah,’ Tommy shakes his head, ‘Nobody, the old houses on the ridge are abandoned!’

  ‘No, in a bark hut, in the bush about two hundred yards in back of that old tractor shed, next to the creek.’

  Tommy grips the top of the driver’s side window frame and leans over and shouts down to John Crowe, his words carried away in the wind, but suddenly the ute picks up speed and he straightens up and nods at me. ‘Do you know exactly?’ he shouts.

  I nod, but don’t answer. I’ve been there four times to get Sarah’s medicine.

  We get to the fire and there’s three other utes already there but the Furphy tank towed behind someone’s ute hasn’t arrived yet, probably still filling up with water. About eight men are working with wet sacks to prevent the fire jumping the road, which would take it in the direction of Yankalillee. Then I see that one of the old houses and a barn are alight and the fire appears to be in a wide arc and there’s a lot of smoke. It’s still a grass and scrub fire and doesn’t appear to have reached the stand of ironbark where Mrs Rika Ray has her hut in a clearing among the trees.

  Though, in all the smoke, you can’t really gauge the distance. Anyway the tops of the ironbark are not yet ablaze but everywhere you look it’s smoke and flames with embers and ash dancing up into the sky.

  I point the whereabouts of the hut out to Tommy. ‘It’s next to the creek,’ I say.

  Tommy nods, ‘Righto, we’ll get to its nearest point and follow the creek around, hope we can get there in time.’ He points to the back of the truck. ‘Grab two sacks, Mole.’ Then he turns to John Crowe and the other bloke in the ute and talks to them. They nod and one takes a rake, the other a shovel and they grab two sacks each.

  I take two of the sacks from the back, which are pretty heavy because they’ve been soaked in water. Tommy takes one of them and, with his pocket knife, rips the seam on one side and also the bottom of the sack open. He shows me how to put it over my head like a monk’s hood, so it covers my shoulders and back, but first he makes me put the sweater on. ‘Wool’s near fireproof,’he says. He points to the other wheat sack. ‘That one’s for beating out the fire.’ He puts both his hands on my shoulders and looks directly into my eyes, his expression dead serious. ‘Follow me, Mole, do exactly what I do and never get ahead of me, you understand? You walk where I walk, jump where I jump.’

  I nod, but he still grabs a hold of me, ‘Even if you think I’m doing wrong and your instinct tells you to do otherwise!’ He gives my shoulders a little shake, ‘You understand?’

  I nod and then we’re off, heading towards the fire. I notice that John Crowe and the other man, who Tommy hasn’t introduced me to, so I don’t even know his name, are also following Tommy, who is clearly the boss. It’s pretty weird because I’ve never seen Tommy in charge of anything or anybody and for a moment I’m a bit proud of him. Then I’m not so sure. We’re headed straight into the fire, into the flames, and we’re running sort of zigzag.

  I’m a dead man! I think to myself and I’m only twelve years old. There’s flames either side of us and we run through this corridor and it’s hot on the leather soles of my school shoes. Then we’re out the other side and onto an unburnt patch of ground, but there’s flames everywhere around us, leaping up, embers licking at the edges of this unburnt island we’re standing on. Tommy darts off again, back into the flames it seems to me, but again we’re through, we dodge and zigzag and Tommy seems to anticipate the changing of the breeze, so one moment there’s flames and the next there’s not and we’ve got past somewhere you couldn’t have a moment before. The sack on my back is getting warm and there’s steam rising from it and my whole body is so hot I can’t believe I’m not going up in a puff of smoke and a sizzle of flame.

  We hit the stream and it’s only about ten inches deep but running fairly fast and we drop into it, getting wet all over. But only for a moment. It feels like heaven, I’m still alive and it’s a miracle! Then it’s on again, following the stream which goes in a wide arc and is not the quickest way to where the hut is, but it’s wide enough to keep us clear of the flames on either side.

  We come around a small bend in the creek and there’s the hut, or more exactly there’s the conflagration that was the bark hut, the flames roaring and rising up, the lean-to collapsing in an explosion of sparks just as we arrive. It’s still not even half-past five in the morning and the old lady would have been asleep when the fire hit. Tommy looks back at me and shrugs. ‘There’s nobody coming out of that alive!’ he shouts back.

  Then I see the carpet, it’s in the creek ahead of us, water all around it and just a big bump in the middle sticking up above the surface. The flames are roaring and the canopy of the ironbark is beginning to catch, orange licks of flame cutting through the branches to the sky. I point to the carpet and start to move towards it. The water at this point has formed into a pool about three feet deep which the old lady must have once made for herself. When we get to the edge of the carpet, which is underwater, we all start to pull it up. But a heavy woollen carpet that’s soaked weighs a ton and it needs all our combined strength.

  Now we see what’s happened, the sticking-up part is because there’s a pole holding it up, a stout green eucalyptus tree used like a tent pole. There’s a hole cut near the apex of the tented carpet. We manage to pull the carpet back over the pole and under it crouches a terrified Mrs Karpurika Raychaudhuri, with only her mouth and the top of her head sticking out of the surface of the water, her grey hair floating every which way around her and her dark eyes large as bottle tops. Also floating or sunk to the bottom in the pool are all her various bottles and cushions and bits ’n’ pieces and I can see air pockets of her damask tablecloth with the broderie anglaise suddenly rising up above the waterline.

  I must have been the first person she saw because her mouth falls open, ‘My goodness, it is the Mole boy himself! I am seeing a ghost maybe?’ It’s like she’s already decided she’s dead and better make the most of it and now she’s alive again. Hooray! Then she looks around and sees the others. ‘You are coming to the rescuing and I am very, very grateful.’ She’s shaking all over, but her voice is calm enough.

  Tommy laughs, ‘Nah, you’ve rescued yourself, lady. You could’ve sat under that there carp
et all day and come to no harm. It’s wool, see, and soaked through, practically fireproof. The creek would have had to dry up or started to boil before yiz would have been in trouble, though the heat’s always a bit of a worry. Bloody good thinking cutting that hole in the carpet, though, let the air in, eh? If yiz hadn’t a done that you might have suffocated to death.’ He looks over to where her hut was. ‘’Fraid yer house has gorn up in smoke, no saving that.’

  It’s a different Tommy who’s talking, his voice has got this authority, like a teacher or someone.

  ‘We are thanking God for small mercies, for the fiery furnace I am not yet getting ready and the carpet I am soon mending like new,’ the old lady says cheerfully.

  ‘Well, we’d better all stay put until the last of the fire passes over, wind’s blowing away from us. Let’s hope it don’t change.’ He grins, ‘We’ll probably all be heroes for this, though we’ve done bugger-all.’ ‘You are talking the modest poppycock!’ Mrs Karpurika Raychaudhuri exclaims. ‘You came to rescuing an old Indian lady and that is exactly what I am telling everyone. “They have walked through the flames like Vishnu himself,” I am saying. You are heroes the one and all, also you, Master Mole, you are saving my life and I am very, very grateful.’

  ‘Yeah, right enough!’ Tommy grins, ‘It was him who told us about you.’

  ‘Master Mole is a very excellent and very, very intelligent boy with the head screwed on right as rain,’ the old lady says.

  John Crowe is usually a pretty talkative bloke but he hasn’t said a word, I reckon them two have never come across someone like Mrs Karpurika Raychaudhuri before. They’re just standing there in the pool grinning and looking at me with the water up to their knees and the fire raging on either side of the creek. Then John Crowe says, ‘In Hepburn Springs they’ve got this hot crick, water’s bloody near boilin’, smells of sulphur, folk go there to get rid of their rheumatiz.’

  ‘Yeah?’ the other one says. ‘Heard o’ that. Couldn’t do it meself, though. Couldn’t stand the smell. Flamin’ sulphur smells like rotten eggs.’

  ‘Best sit, fellows, it’s getting a bit hot, oxygen supply is better at the waterline,’ Tommy instructs. They both crouch down in the water and I do as well so that I’m up to my neck in the creek. My head’s copping the heat and the three blokes’ faces are black so I suppose mine must be as well. My eyes smart and we’re all doing a bit of coughing from the smoke.

  So there’s the five of us sitting in the pool, the four of us blokes in a sort of a circle with the old lady in the middle with all her things and her skirt floating up so you can see her thin legs sticking out of her bloomers. There’s this thing sticking into my bum so I put my hand below the surface and feel the spout of her old black kettle. Mrs Rika Ray’s forgotten nothing.

  ‘Master Mole, you are not minding your manners,’the old lady now says, ‘you are not introducing me to your very, very nice friends who are helping you to making the rescuing!’

  I bring my hand out from under the water and point to Tommy, ‘This is my dad, Tommy Maloney.’ I’ve never introduced Tommy to anyone before, least of all as my dad, and it feels strange but also quite nice. The old lady brings her hand out of the water and so does Tommy and they shake hands. ‘And this is Mr John Crowe, me dad’s mate and . . . er ...’

  Tommy jumps in, ‘Ian McTavish, Ian and John and I’m Tommy.’

  ‘How do,’ Ian says, grinning.

  ‘Gidday,’ John says, doing the same.

  ‘And you are ...?’ Tommy asks.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I say, because I’ve forgotten to say it,

  ‘This is Mrs Karpurika Raychaudhuri.’

  ‘Beg yours?’ Tommy says, not sure he’s heard it right in the crackle and roar of the bushfire.

  ‘Mrs Rika Ray,’ she says quickly. ‘That Master Mole I am telling him only once and he is never forgetting my very, very difficult name, his sister too, you have a very clever family, Mr Maloney.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Tommy replies, not too sure how to take the compliment, seeing he’s never thought about being a father to us and, as well, his being against Sarah studying to be a doctor.

  After that there’s silence. I’m the kid so there’s not much I can say and the others are country blokes who probably don’t have too much to say to an old Indian lady they wouldn’t have known from a bar of soap until today.

  I look to where the vegie garden is. I found out on the second visit to get Sarah’s stuff that although it had quite a lot of vegies in it, carrots and potatoes, stuff like that, it was also a herb garden, where the old lady grew the herbs for her potions. Now it’s simply a black-charred patch but amazingly the sunflower is still standing upright. Its stem is black and the yellow petals have been singed off so there’s just the great soup-plate head that is smoking a bit now the fire has passed it by, but the seeds are still in it, roasted I suppose. I wonder to myself whether birds will eat roasted sunflower seeds.

  Then Tommy speaks up. It’s not like him to volunteer small talk but he does. ‘What are you going to do about a home, missus?’ I can see he’s already forgotten even the short version of her name.

  The old lady tries to smile, ‘It’s going to be jolly well all right, Tommy. When the sun is shining, I am drying out all my things and then I am sleeping under the stars tonight.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ John Crowe says, ‘I’ve got a tent, army disposal, what say we let you have that for a bit, eh?’

  The old lady looks at him amazed. ‘I am thanking you from my heart’s bottom, Mr Crowe.’

  ‘No problems, missus. Just call me John, like Tommy said. Easier that way, Rika.’ He points to the now smoking ruin of the bark hut, ‘Shouldn’t be too much trouble to knock yiz up one o’ them humpy homes, few slabs o’ bark and a bit o’ bush carpentry, no problems.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tommy says, ‘termorra I’ll go up the river a bit, cut a few bark slabs, some corner posts, roof beams, shouldn’t be too hard.’ He looks over at John. ‘Bring your tent over today, will yiz? Using the ute termorra, mate?’

  ‘Nah, I’ll come with yiz, Tommy,’ John says, ‘take a sickie, be good to have a day doing a bit o’choppin’and cuttin’, bloody sight better than stripping down a Dodge engine at the workshops!’

  John Crowe works for the shire council as a mechanic. ‘Yeah, I’ll be in that,’ Ian now volunteers, ‘could do with a day off meself, not much going on at the abattoir.’

  I’m sitting there feeling dead proud of Tommy and his two mates. They can see the old lady has a ‘touch of the tar’, but they’ve done the right thing by her anyway. She’s a human being in distress and they’ve come good.

  Lots of people I know would have thought she was just some old roadside Abo gin who could make a humpy herself and wasn’t worth bothering about. Tommy doesn’t know the story about Sarah’s medicine, because he’d gone bush at the time. But in a funny way it’s us should be grateful to her. It’s not her fault the stuff she gave Sarah didn’t work, because she said right off she didn’t think it would. Although Sarah’s copping a fair amount of shit from the town gossips, the best thing is that, because the medicine made Sarah sick, now Sophie and Morrie are going to have a new family and everything’s turned out happily ever after. Well sort of, Sarah’s still got to have the baby, which isn’t an ‘it’ any more. The only person who’s unhappy is Father Crosby and maybe God, but we don’t know about Him yet.

  The fire passes over and the three men climb out of the creek and, using the shovel and rake-hoe, they clear a bit of ground so the old lady can put her stuff out somewhere. We all help to get it out of the water and onto this clear patch so the carpet and the silk cushions and sheets and the tablecloth can dry. The old lady says, ‘I am never-minding that the silk cushions are ruined, it’s a pittance to pay.’ ‘Your jars are okay, that’s one thing,’ I say, trying to com fort her because the silk cushions were very be
autiful and now they’re stained. The Vacola jars are all watertight, so her herbs and medicines are okay inside, though I’ve had to recover a good few that floated down the creek a bit and some of the labels are missing, but I guess Mrs Rika Ray will know what’s inside just by looking.

  By the time we get back to the firefighters, they’ve already decided we were dead so there’s lots of congratulations. The old lady has come with us to get something to eat, which is what Tommy insists she must do. That’s something else I learned, it’s just about breakfast time and there’s this trestle table with five women there, two from Bell Street but the others I don’t recognise. They’ve got sandwiches and some sausages going and hot tea from an urn and water to drink.

  Mrs Karpurika Raychaudhuri tells everyone the story of the rescue and I’ve got to hand it to her, she’s a bloody good storyteller because we come out like we are these heroes in a book. Tommy, Ian, John and me are shuffling our feet and kicking at the dust, saying it was nothing, pointing out how she’s used her commonsense and protected herself real good with the carpet and the air hole. But I learn something that I’d not known about adults, that grown-ups, same as kids, like to believe in bravery and heroism, and the more the four of us protest the more the others believe her. If they gave out VCs for bushfires and they based it on the old lady’s version of what happened, we’d all be awarded them for sure.

  It’s nearly lunchtime by the time we’ve got the whole fire under control and there’s more women who have brought cold lamb and homemade chutney, bread and butter and more tea from the urn and all the cordial you can drink. It’s like a party in the blackened bush and I find I’m a part of it. Old Mole Maloney is a fair-dinkum bushfire fighter, although all I’ve done is sit in a pool of water in the creek and beat at a few flames licking up beside the road. It’s also the first time I’ve seen the people of Yankalillee come together and there’s kindness in them I’d never known about.

  And something else has happened also. I’ve seen a fire raging, been in among the flames and I know there’s something in me that understands it, wants to learn more. Not just about fire, I want to know more about the bush, about how a fire behaves and the animals we’ve seen fleeing, little creatures you’d never normally see, going hell for leather and some not making it, burning up in a frizzle. I also have a new respect for my dad, Tommy Maloney, the little bloke with the slight limp and the crook arm and one eye.