Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  On the way home in the back of the utility I say to Tommy, ‘Dad, I’ll come out with you into the bush any time you want.’

  He looks at me surprised. ‘What’s changed yer mind then?’

  ‘Well, it’s only under one condition.’

  ‘What’s that?’ he shouts above the wind. ‘If I lay off the grog?’

  ‘No,’ I say, ‘Mum says it’s only you who can decide to go on the wagon.’ ‘What then?’ he asks.

  ‘If you promise to show me the Alpine Ash.’

  ‘We’ll have to see about that,’ he says, ‘I can’t promise, yiz’ll have to earn the right, son.’

  Bloody hell! I think to myself, I thought I had him by the short and curlies, volunteering to go bush with him and all. Goes to show you can never guess how a parent is going to react.

  ‘How are your shoes?’ he asks.

  I’ve forgotten about them but I look down and I see they’re completely wrecked. The front of one has the sole coming off and a bit of the toecap is burned on the other, which must have happened before they got wet. They’ve dried out and all the polish has sort of come off and the leather uppers are crinkled real bad, no way the bootmaker can fix them.

  ‘Shit, Mum will kill me!’ I shout out.

  ‘No, she won’t, remember you’re a bloody hero.’

  ‘Oh yeah! If you think that will make any bloody difference, you’re crazy.’

  ‘I’ll buy you a new pair next pension day,’ he says, ‘boots also, for the fires.’

  What I think he’s really saying is that he won’t spend the money on grog and that’s a pretty big promise so I decide not to hope for too much. If I have to go to school barefoot, it’s not the worst can happen to a bloke and it’s summer anyway. Funny, how suddenly when your attention is drawn to something, they start to hurt. I realise that my feet are swollen and I can’t wait to get them into a bucket of water when we get home.

  Well, weekends, mostly Saturday, I’m out with Tommy in the bush learning things, but because it’s the bushfire season he concentrates on fire. I’d always thought that the danger in fire was the flames, but this turns out not to be the case. Of course, flames are pretty dangerous and you can’t go taking them lightly.

  ‘Radiant heat’s the bastard, Mole,’ Tommy tells me. Then he goes on. ‘Three year ago, up near the Snowy, this old bloke is lookin’ after his son’s five kids on the farm. There’s a bushfire heading their way and so he thinks, fair enough, take the kids to the dam, same as we did in the pool for that old Indian lady. Sit them in the dam, wait for the fire to pass over, everything will be ridgy-didge. Well, he sets off, plenty o’ time, fire’s still a mile and a half away. What he hasn’t reckoned on is there’s a wind blowing around twenty knots an hour and it’s carrying these embers, which is what we call ‘radiant heat’. It sucks all the oxygen out of the air, like the air burns up. They don’t even make it halfway to the dam, which is only two hundred yards from the house. They’ve died of radiant heat.’

  Then he tells me about embers. ‘Watch out for embers, Mole. People think the fire has passed, just a few hot spots here and there, little flames you can stamp out with your boots. Don’t, mate. Don’t stamp at glowing embers. City bloke up from Melbourne come out with us. We tell him we don’t think it’s a good idea, but he’s a big nob, a barrister and a friend of the Yerberrys, so there’s not a lot we can do. He wants to skite, see, tell his mates back in the city that he’s fought a bushfire. He’s wearing all the right clobber, gumboots and long trousers and a wool jumper. It turns out later that his trousers are made of this new stuff called rayon. He doesn’t know about not stamping embers and walks away from the group of us. He’s having a fine old time stamping away when an ember flies up and drops down one of his gumboots. By the time we found him he was history. Died in the hospital three days later. Stupid bugger’s gorn and took off his jumper because he’s hot. The trousers are a firetrap and his legs are like burned mallee roots. He’d have been saved if he’d had his jumper on but with it off, the top half of him also goes up in flames and poor bastard had ninety per cent third-degree burns and wouldn’t have been able to walk ten steps before he was a goner. Once a fire’s down to embers, leave it be, unless you’ve got plenty of water to douse it and even that can spread sparks. It’ll die out by itself once it’s got no more fuel to feed it.’

  There’s lots of things I learn from Tommy and every once in a while I’ll tell you something you probably didn’t know. You never know when it might come in useful. For instance, did you know that a fire travels uphill faster than downhill? Well, it does. Fire travelling uphill doubles its speed for every ten per cent increase in the slope, up to thirty degrees. Up a twenty-degree slope, which isn’t all that steep, a fire travels four times faster than on flat ground.

  So, if you’re fleeing a fire and there’s a small hill or flat ground to choose from, don’t go for the hill because you think it will give you protection. There’s also something else to remember. Flames moving down a slope grow four times higher the moment they reach flat ground, but then if they start to travel uphill again the flames grow four times higher still.

  Remember, if there’s a slope with the fire behind you, run down the slope, it’s better even than flat ground. But if there’s a fire behind you and a hill ahead, don’t run up the hill, run around it.

  We’re coming home one night from where Tommy and me have been to this bloke’s farm to help him burn off and I’m pretty hot and tired from having the heat in my face all afternoon. We come to a bright-green patch where someone’s grown some lucerne. Everywhere else you look the grass is brown and the late-summer landscape is dried out against a pale-blue sky without a single cloud.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be good if all of Australia looked like that?’ I say to Tommy, pointing to the paddock that’s got lucerne growing.

  ‘Wouldn’t be Australia then, would it?’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ I ask.

  ‘Australia is the driest land on earth, it’s the continent that burns more than any other. We are a land that has adapted to fire, we’ve got to have it because many of our essential plants are pyrogenic.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’ I ask. It’s not like Tommy to use big words except when he’s naming a eucalyptus tree with Latin names.

  ‘It means certain plants can’t propagate, renew themselves without fire. Most Australian native plants and even our animals and insects are fire-adaptive, they can survive a bushfire without too much trouble. Mate, we’ve gotta have fire, it’s a good thing for us, fire isn’t bad for the land, it’s good. It’s only bad when it threatens to burn our houses and towns, but that’s mostly our own fault for not planning our townships properly. Remind me one day to tell you about Black Friday in 1939.’

  And here I am thinking that fire’s the worst thing can happen. The worst thing out. It just goes to show that when you start to learn things about stuff you can often be amazed at what’s the real truth.

  One Friday night in February, me and Tommy go to a lecture on firefighting at the CFA bushfire headquarters, which is in the Mechanics Institute next to the Masonic Lodge building and is shared with the Amateur Dramatic Society and the Ladies Auxiliary. It has a built-in stage and we have our meetings there. We also store all the fire-fighting gear and the Furphy tank in a tin shed behind the Institute.

  We usually have firefighting lectures of a Sunday morning for an hour after all the churches have come out. But I don’t suppose this bloke from the Melbourne Fire Brigade could make it then, since he is giving this lecture on a Friday so he can get back home for the weekend. He’s rabbiting on and on in a monotonous voice. I’ve been up since sparrow’s fart doing the garbage and I can’t keep me eyes open. If I wasn’t so tired maybe I’d have learned a bit more, but he’s talking all this technical stuff about combustion in the pine woods in Canada and I don’t think even Tommy’s taking i
t all in. I must have fallen asleep because suddenly I hear my name called out and Tommy is digging me in the ribs. ‘Wake up, mate!’ he whispers, ‘It’s flamin’ Templeton, the shire president wants you.’

  Bloody hell, it’s Mr Templeton who’s calling out my name. The last time I seen him was when he was sprawling out cold on his own carpet from a Nancy haymaker.

  ‘This young lad,’ Philip Templeton is saying, ‘showed intelligence, resourcefulness and great personal initiative as well as bravery when he took three firefighters to go to the rescue of Mrs . . .’ He looks down at the paper he’s holding, ‘Mrs Kar ...Ray ...er...cha ...’ he looks up and then down at the paper again ‘. . . hadhuri.’ Making a proper mess of the old lady’s name. Good thing she’s not here, I think.

  ‘It is Mrs Karpu-rika Ray-chaud-huri!’A voice rings out at the back of the hall. The old lady must have come in after Tommy and me because I don’t know she was there. ‘You are calling me Mrs Rika Ray please, that will do nicely, sir! Rika Ray!’ She pronounces it carefully again, then she says, ‘Master Mole is learning it straight off, the whole naming catastrophe, Karpurika Raychaudhuri, he is a very, very intelligent boy!’

  There’s a laugh from the audience and everyone turns around to look at the old lady, who is wearing this beautiful yellow-silk dress down to the floor which is called a sari, though I didn’t know the name of it until Mike told me later. Also the diamond in her nose is catching the light and she’s pulled back her hair in a bun and has some bushflowers in it. She’s painted this red spot in the middle of her forehead.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Rika Ray,’ Philip Templeton laughs, trying to cover his embarrassment. ‘Anyway, as I was saying, Peter Maloney, at great risk to himself, led three rescuers to the home of Mrs Rika Ray and effected her rescue. It is now my proud duty to present young Peter with a certificate of appreciation from the president and the members of the Owens and Murray Shire Council.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Tommy whispers. ‘They didn’t say nothing about this! Bugger must a wanted to keep yer mum away!’

  ‘Peter Maloney, will you step up to the platform, please,’ Philip Templeton shouts out.

  I don’t know what to do, because he’s our mortal enemy and maybe I shouldn’t go up.

  ‘Better go, mate,’ Tommy whispers, ‘I’ll explain to yer mum couldn’t be helped.’

  I get up and walk towards the platform, I’m pretty nervous and I don’t trust Tommy to get it right when he’s explaining it to Nancy, who is going to go right off her scone when she hears I’ve took this certificate from our family’s mortal enemy.

  There’s all this clapping from everyone as I go up the steps to the platform. Philip Templeton shakes my hand and gives me the certificate and Toby Forbes from the Gazette has got this fancy flash camera which must be new because he didn’t have it when he took pictures of Nancy and Sarah after Mike won at the Melbourne Show. He makes me and Mr Templeton shake hands again and with my other hand hold up the certificate. The flashbulb goes off and everyone claps and a few people shout, ‘Good on ya, Mole!’

  I’m about to leave the platform when Mrs Karpurika Raychaudhuri comes storming in like a steam train and charges her way up the steps to the stage. She stands facing Philip Templeton with her back to the audience. ‘It is medals they must be giving this boy! Medals, not bits of paper for wiping your bottoms on!’ Then she turns to face the stage and puts her hand on my shoulder and Toby Forbes’s flash goes off again. As the din dies down, Mrs Karpurika Raychaudhuri has another go. ‘This is a very, very brave boy and I am writing to the Queen and I am telling her the story of Master Mole who is fighting fires in Yankalillee and Silver Creek and rescuing old ladies from death and destruction and is only getting a piece of bottoms-wiping paper!’

  Everyone’s laughing and some are clapping and Mr Templeton doesn’t look too pleased and has put up his hand and is trying to make everyone be quiet again.

  I’m pretty embarrassed standing there next to the old lady with her hand on my shoulder. She has that same smell her house had when we first went in and that little stick was burning. When I went back the next day to fetch Sarah’s medicine, I asked her if Sarah was right and it was called incense?

  ‘Incense, yes, you are calling it correct. A very beautiful smell, this one is sandalwood, Master Mole,’ she’d said at the time. But I can’t say I agreed with her. It smelled like very old things burning. Now she smells a bit like that standing next to me.

  The din eventually dies down and Mr Templeton calls out, ‘Let’s have three cheers for the brave little chap, eh!’ He says the hip-hips and the hoorays follow. But I hardly notice. I’m in deep shit. What do I do now? I’m sandwiched between a family enemy and an Indian lady who gave my sister Sarah stuff that didn’t luckily get rid of her baby, which Morrie and Sophie want badly. Nancy’s going to kill me!

  But now everyone’s clapping again after the cheering. Toby Forbes’s new camera is going pop-pop-flash right in our faces and Philip Templeton puts his hand on my other shoulder. When everyone’s quietened down, he looks down at me, his huge gut sticking out, then he sort of smiles and asks, ‘Would you like to say something to us, Peter?’

  Kids don’t say things in front of grown-ups. He knows that. Everyone knows that. I’m embarrassed enough and wish there was a hole in the floor I could disappear down into. All I can think is that Philip Templeton is having his revenge on us Maloneys in front of everyone by asking me to say something.

  The old lady has made a fool of him and a bit of me too, but I know she doesn’t mean to. But he thinks it’s those Maloneys having a go at him again. Most of the people, if not all, know about Murray Templeton and Sarah. It’s popular gossip and the town’s tongue-waggers haven’t stopped working overtime and he knows that some of the firefighters would be on our side even though Murray Templeton was captain of the school footy team.

  I shake my head and look down at the new shoes that Tommy’s bought me and I can feel my face and the back of my neck is burning hot. There’s no way I can say anything and my mouth is dry like my tongue is stuck to the roof.

  When I get home I’ll have to answer to Nancy who’s going to question me about every detail of what’s happened tonight. If I tell her I didn’t say nothing, she’s going to be disappointed. Like, she won’t say anything herself, because she knows kids don’t talk in public, but she’ll think I’ve let us Maloneys down in front of Mr Templeton by not saying at least thank you for the certificate. Our manners are important and she’s strict on them and she probably hasn’t had her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth like mine is now. Now Mr Templeton’s gone and pointed out to the rest of the town how Maloneys are real stupid and not able to say anything when they’re asked and don’t have nice manners like civilised people.

  I somehow manage to get my tongue unstuck and I work up some spit so my mouth isn’t all dried out. ‘It wasn’t me done nothing, sir. My dad, Tommy Maloney and Mr Crowe and Mr McTavish, they done everything except what Mrs Karpurika Raychaudhuri done herself with the tent pole and cutting a hole in the carpet to let the air come in so she didn’t smother. All I done was sit in the creek.’

  There’s a lot of laughter, like I’ve said something funny, which I ain’t. I’ve only told the exact truth. I’m so nervous my hands are sweating and I’ve gone and scrunched the certificate Mr Templeton gave me into a little damp ball in my fist.

  But all I can think is that I’ve called Tommy ‘my dad’ in front of everyone and it feels real good and Mr Templeton can get stuffed for all I care.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  What I want to know is this: if your name is Maloney, why trouble seems to follow you wherever you go. I didn’t do anything brave to get that certificate and I wasn’t a hero like they said I was, but that didn’t stop Toby Forbes putting a big picture of me and Mrs Karpurika Raychaudhuri on the front page of the Gazette and writing under it in huge letters:

/>   SILVER CREEK FIRE

  LOCAL BOY PETER MALONEY SAVES MYSTERIOUS INDIAN WOMAN’S LIFE

  What he’s gone and done is cut Mr Templeton’s picture out of the group, but if you look carefully you can see the toecap of his left shoe in the corner of the photo. The old lady has her hand on my shoulder and it looks to all the world like she’s thanking me for saving her life. Then it goes on to say a whole heap of bull about the flames leaping and roaring around her house which was totally destroyed and, but for my quick thinking, Mrs Rika Ray, an elderly woman of Indian descent who has appeared mysteriously in our town, would have gone up in the ‘conflagration’. There’s almost nothing about Tommy and Mr Crowe and Mr McTavish and what they done, which is the true story as everybody who was there well knows.

  Nancy says it’s typical of Toby Forbes and his gutter journalism and then she goes spare because now the whole town will want to find out why we know this Indian lady and how come I knew that she lived in her humpy tucked away in the bush.

  It’s the word ‘mysterious’ in the headline that’s the big problem. Why is she mysterious? Everyone wants to know. Admittedly, probably no one in town has seen too many Indian ladies walking around the place, but Mrs Karpurika Raychaudhuri has been in town shopping plenty of times before the fire and has been around quite a while. It’s just that nobody’s talked to her, because she’s from ‘over there’. So now she’s all of a sudden mysterious? Being a herbalist doesn’t help either. People don’t know what to think. Maybe, like I admit I did that first time, they think she’s a witch or something.