Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  Tommy doesn’t waste time on sentiment, ‘Righto then, let’s fix the house.’ He glances around, and his eye fixes on the shearing shed about two hundred feet from the house. ‘The shearing shed, what’s in it?’ Tommy asks.

  ‘Nothing much, but the tractor’s under the lean-to at the back, the keys are in it.’ Then she adds quickly, ‘I was just about to go for it.’

  ‘Any fuel?’

  ‘No, Tom emptied the drum two days ago.’

  Tommy nods. He’s calm, completely in charge, his voice flat, like he’s chatting about the weather. I must say I admire Edie Park, she’s tough all right and though she’s frightened she doesn’t show it. The point is that we’re all frightened, scared shitless as a matter of fact, but you’d expect a woman to show it, only she don’t.

  ‘Mole, get the tractor out, park it in the paddock with the cows and the rams, don’t forget to turn off the fuel taps.’

  In the meantime most of our crew have spread out with their knapsack pumps putting out little fires everywhere. Two of the blokes are on the roof, they’ve blocked the downpipes from the roof gutters with tennis balls. They’ve started the tanker pump and Ollie Brook, who is too fat to do much running around, is feeding the hose up to them and they’re splashing down the roof and filling the gutters with water. Tommy doesn’t bother to tell them what to do, they know the drill backwards. He now has to make sure Edie Park has things inside the homestead organised.

  Little Ann is no fool either, she’s led the pony down to the paddock where I’ve just parked the tractor. She and the pony are nearly blown over by the wind, which is howling at gale force. I help her unsaddle and I carry the saddle back to the homestead. ‘Mr Mole, are you related to Mole in Wind in the Willows?’ she asks, shouting against the noise of the wind.

  ‘Me great uncle,’ I shout, ‘Not a bad old rodent, as I recall.’ It’s a book Sarah read to us when we were small, so I know what she’s pulling my leg about. We’re running back up to the house, her two kelpies yapping at our heels, the wind behind us this time. I’m that hot I think I’m going to burst open any moment, the dust is irritating my eyes like hell. ‘Can you take the dogs and put them in the separator shed with the saddle?’ she asks. I’m beginning to wonder who’s in charge around here. ‘Where’s that?’ I shout.

  ‘Where we separate the cream, silly!’ Fortunately she points to a small solid-brick structure about twenty yards from the homestead.

  ‘Oh, okay,’ I say, ‘What’s their names, the dogs?’

  ‘Toby and Lassie, they’ll come if you call. My dad says working dogs have got to be obedient.’

  I call the two kelpies and, to my surprise, they follow me. Bozo and Mrs Rika Ray are not the only dog trainers in the world. I lock the dogs in the creamery together with the saddle and come out to see little Ann carrying two very large cats into the laundry behind the house. Later I learn that they’re called Blackie and Sooty, both of them being pitch-black, only difference between them is Blackie, or is it Sooty?, has one eye missing.

  The wind has risen a notch again. Fires make their own wind and it’s unpredictable, we can see it gusting and swirling across the paddocks coming towards us and ahead of the fire. The whirlwinds, seemingly starting from nowhere, are gathering momentum, collecting everything in their path, dancing like dervishes across the paddocks, spreading the spot fires until they look like some sort of disease visited upon the land. The cows and the bull bellow in terror, milling about, going in circles while the two big rams simply jump out of the way of the terrified cows, afraid of the fire and the cattle around them. One ram, in a panic, jumps up onto the tractor engine, then slides down and falls to the ground sprawling on its back, hooves frantically thrashing. The high-pitched whinny of the mountain pony cuts through all the other animal sounds. Soon they too are drowned by the howling of the wind.

  We can see the fire now, great orange streaks of light against the black smoke, leaping up and momentarily dying down before rising higher. It seems to be positively galloping towards us, malevolent, anxious to get at us. Already the sound of its fury is reaching us.

  ‘We’re out of here,’ Tommy yells. He looks at Edie Park,

  ‘Comin’, Mrs Park?’ he asks again.

  He’s done all he can, everything that can contain water inside the house has been filled, the bathtub, kitchen sink, wash troughs, every available container. Blankets have been soaked, he’s left a knapsack pump full to put out any fires that might start inside and I’ve got mine as well. There’s a pile of blankets soaked and the new carpet in the lounge room is saturated. All the windows have been shut and any gaps stuffed with rags, the outside gutters are full and the outside front walls hosed down.

  Edie Park shakes her head. ‘We’re staying, Mr Maloney, we’ll be needed after the fire has passed over.’

  Tommy can’t stay to argue. He’s cut things fine as it is and he has to think about the greater good, which is trying to save Yankalillee.

  Then little Ann comes up to me and hugs me round the waist. ‘Please stay with us, Mr Mole, I’m very frightened. Please, please, Mr Mole!’ she begs.

  ‘Ann, pull yourself together!’ Edie says sternly. But little Ann hangs onto my waist, her eyes pleading. I’m feeling pretty guilty leaving two women alone in an isolated farmhouse and I look at Tommy. Whatever he says, I have to obey, that’s the code. ‘Can I stay?’ I ask.

  I’ve never seen Tommy’s face, I mean his expression, like it is now. I can see he can’t make the decision, his bottom lip is trembling, he’s fighting something inside himself. I can’t bear to see him like this. ‘I’m staying,’ I say, helping him out. He nods and turns away, not looking at me again. Something’s been stirred inside of him, something old that’s damaged him. I mean our chances of survival are pretty good, but that’s not what I’ve seen in Tommy’s eyes. It’s a kind of pain and defeat and even hatred, I dunno, something like all them three things.

  ‘Oh, thank you, thank you!’ little Ann says. ‘Thank you,

  Mr Mole!’

  Mrs Park turns away, but not before saying to her daughter, ‘That was not necessary, Ann, we could have managed perfectly well.’ But I see it in her eyes, just before she turns, the relief that there’s someone else going to be with them. I reckon I’d feel the same.

  We watch as the Blitz moves away. The old tanker had better not stall in the heat or they’ll have no chance. Hell is on its way and it will gobble them up, licking them off the landscape like a cow at a salt lick.

  It doesn’t take long before the dull roar becomes deafening and drowns everything out. At any moment the fire will be upon us. We’ve wrapped ourselves in the wet blankets and we’re lying on the floor in the bathroom where there are no windows. I’ve talked about the roar before, but I’ve never ever been in the middle of a fire, inside a box enveloped by roaring flame. I’ve never been this close to my own death. If the fire gets into the house, like blasts out the front windows, it will fill every room, roar through it, looking for a way to escape.

  I have everything covered with the wet blankets, my head as well as my body. Mrs Park and Ann are the same, I’ve seen to that myself, the mother clasping her little daughter to her breasts while I cover their heads and put more wet blankets over them. If we’re going to die, she wants her little girlie in her arms. ‘Thank you, Mr Mole,’

  Ann says, then she smiles, ‘See yer later alligator.’

  ‘In a while crocodile,’ I say back. It’s the last thing anyone says. The roar and the fire hit us. Of course we don’t see the flames grab a hold of the house, but they’re driven by a tornado-like wind and the whole house shakes as if any moment it’s going to be ripped off its foundations and take off into the burning sky, a part of the debris being hurled forward by the monster consuming us. I’ve never heard a sound that’s to be compared with it, express train is the one most often used, but that’s not right. There’s
a sort of highpitched wail along with the roar and the fury, as if the house itself is screaming at the touch of the furious flames. I’m finding it difficult to breathe, but I’m not game to put my head out of the blankets. The roar is so intense that it’s become more like deep silence than sound, nothing comes through, we can’t hear if the windows are popping and if flames are already inside looking for us. The holocaust isn’t just physical, it is everything, it consumes my every thought, enters my mind so I know that if we escape I’ll never forget it, it will haunt me for the rest of my life.

  Then it’s gone. The all-consuming sound has gone, diminished; all there is now is a dull roar in the distance, which does sound like an express train.

  I rip the blanket from my face and body, struggling to get out, the wet blankets now steaming. It isn’t easy. I’ve wrapped myself in a sort of cocoon and the more I struggle to get free the tighter it seems to pull. Breathing hard, I tell myself to take it easy, unwrap slowly. Don’t panic, Mole, it’s over.

  By the time I’m free, I can see Mrs Park and Ann moving and I unwrap them, their dresses are soaked and I can see Edie Park’s breasts showing through the wet cotton of her dress. ‘Outside, quick,’ I instruct, ‘keep a blanket wrapped around you.’ I grab the knapsack pump, sling it on my back and lift a bucket of water. The two of them follow me to the kitchen door. There’s tiny whiffs of smoke coming through the cracks in the door and I tentatively touch the door handle and, to my surprise, it isn’t that hot. I turn it but the door won’t budge, so I kick at it and it flies open and we’re hit by a wall of heat, but that’s all it is, a blackened landscape and the heat leftover from the fire. I turn and see that the outside surface of the door is alight, the green paint bubbling and the wood only just beginning to catch. The six verandah posts are all burning vigorously, more than the door, and I douse them first with the knapsack pump and then return to do the door.

  Edie has gone inside to grab two buckets of water. There is surprisingly little smoke about, what’s burnt has burnt clean with almost nothing left behind. I check for fire in the eaves but the water in the gutters and the hosing down of the outside wall seems to have done the trick, the bullnose roof has also protected the eaves. Tom Park and his wife have built a house that can protect itself from a fire. Now it stands alone with only the two outhouses, the creamery and the laundry, sitting on blackened desolated earth as far as the eye can see. The neat garden has gone, nothing, not a single bush or shrub left behind. Then I see the apple orchard. The trees still stand, they’re leafless, branches bare to the sky, the fire has moved through so quickly that the apples and greengages are still hanging from the branches. Later we will discover that every one of them has been roasted, the greengage plums turned into sort of prunes.

  Little Ann wants to go to her pets, the dogs and the cats. ‘Better check the house first,’ I suggest, ‘don’t want to lose it now, do we? You go check inside with your mum and I’ll do the outside.’ I can see the anxiety in her eyes, so I point to the creamery and then to the outside laundry where she’s put the two cats. ‘See, the roof is still on both, the doors are not alight, they’re safe enough for the moment, Ann.’

  I don’t think she believes me, she hesitates but then she goes back into the house with her mother. She’s strong-willed, just like her mum. I walk around the house, the heat from the fire-scorched earth making the soles of my feet burn through the leather of my boots. There’s half a dozen windows cracked but none are blown, which is a miracle, the fire must have been moving at a terrific speed. A dry-burning branch from an old lemon tree at the back of the homestead has fallen onto the roof of the sleep-out and hangs over the side so that one of the window frames is smouldering, not yet alight. I pull the branch down and spray the window with a shot from my knapsack pump. Otherwise there’s nothing to be concerned about, the roof is iron and probably bloody hot at the moment. I walk into the burnt-out vegie garden until I can see if any of the corrugated sheets have lifted, none have.

  Edie is coming out of the house as I walk around again from the back. ‘The cow! She’ll cut herself to pieces!’ she yells. I’ve already looked down at the paddock and the tractor is untouched and the stock, still bellowing and panicky, seem to be okay. Now I look again, one of the cows has been caught on the barbed-wire fence. Her calf has escaped the paddock and would be prime roasted veal by now. We’ve got wire cutters on the Blitz of course, but not on me. ‘Pliers! Have you got a pair of pliers?’ I yell out. She waves her hand and I see she’s already thought of that. Farm women are different, even Sarah wouldn’t have known what to do.

  Little Ann is heading for the creamery and Mrs Park and me run down to the paddock. I know bugger-all about cows and it’s threshing around with its back leg caught in the wire, the leg is already a bloody mess where she’s been struggling to free herself.

  ‘Cut the wire, I’ll hold her by the horns!’ Edie Park instructs. The cow must have been a favourite or something because the moment she touches it, it seems to calm down. I quickly cut the wire and the leg is free and the cow pulls away as Mrs Park lets go of its horns. It looks like a pretty bad cut to me but Mrs Park says she’ll dress it later, not too much to worry about, it should heal quickly.

  Little Ann comes running up, sort of jumping from one place to another to avoid the hot, still-smoking patches of ground and the dogs yelp after her. ‘Back!’ Edie Park shouts, ‘Send them back, Ann, their paws will get badly burnt, we’ll need them for the muster!’Ann stops. Chastised, she runs back, calling the dogs after her. ‘Take them to the house!’ Edie yells. Then she turns to me, smiling. ‘Thank you, Mr Mole, thank you from the bottom of my heart.’

  ‘It wasn’t nothing, Mrs Park,’ I say, feeling a bit foolish.

  ‘I just lay in the blankets same as you two.’ It’s another Mrs Rika Ray situation where I’ve done nothing much. I hope I don’t get a bottoms-wiping certificate out of all this.

  ‘It was knowing you were there, it was a great comfort to us both.’ She’s walked over to the pony and has pulled its head against her chest and is stroking its nose, making comforting noises. I look over to where the shearing shed and the hayshed once stood and which have been completely razed to the ground. You can see the set of harrows I left behind when I took the tractor from under the lean-to. Now it looks like the skeleton of some strange creature that met its end in the fire, the leaves are its fleshless ribs.

  ‘Well, it could have been worse. We’ve got the bull, the rams, the cows and the tractor, the house is safe, my pony hasn’t come to any harm. Maybe even some of the sheep and cattle have made it out of their paddocks to safety.’ She smiles, ‘There won’t be an apple crop this year and we won’t be building a haystack, that’s for sure.’

  It’s like she’s doing an inventory in her head, then Edie says, ‘I suppose we should count our blessings.’

  Just then Ann comes running down to the paddock again and hugs her mother around the waist, ‘Do you think Daddy is still alive, Mummy?’ she asks.

  Suddenly it’s all too much for Mrs Park. She hugs her little daughter and both of them begin to sob. I don’t know what to do, so I grab them both and start up as well, the three of us howling, holding each other, with the smoking earth all around us.

  Then I think of Nancy and it stops me bawling. If it were her standing there in Edie Park’s boots, she wouldn’t be counting her blessings. She’d be yelling up at God and shaking her fist at the heavens, letting Him know He’s not gunna get away with this. Father Crosby would be yelling at her for the thousandth time not to commit a blasphemy.

  Edie is made of sterner stuff and she knows better than to blame God. Fires happen, nothing you can do about that. I think her tears are just relief that they’ve come through safely. She’s got guts and I admire her a lot.

  It’s almost sunset and with them two safe, I’ve got to think of a way to get back to Yankalillee where the fight will still be going on.
The party-line phone isn’t working, I guess some of the poles have been burnt.

  ‘I’ve got to get to Yankalillee, Mrs Park,’ I say. ‘Can I use your tractor?’

  ‘If it’s got any petrol, yes, of course.’

  Oh shit, she’s right, the drum in the shed has been emptied and there’s precious little in the tractor.

  ‘You can take the pony,’ she suggests, ‘but I don’t think he’ll be that good with fires and the smoke still around. He was pretty jumpy when I took him over to open the paddock gates.’

  I don’t tell her I’ve never been on a horse in my life, much less one that’s going to shy at every patch of smoke and falling tree. ‘No, you’ll need him,’ I say, ‘you’ll want to get around the place first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Won’t you spend the night, you’re very welcome to stay,

  Mole?’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Park, but I’ve got to try and get back. If Yankalillee’s threatened I’ve got to be there to help and be with my folks. I can walk it in just over two hours if I get going now.’

  ‘There’s always Ann’s bike? It’s a bit small, but it’s quite sturdy.’

  So there I am with me knees pumping way above the handlebars of the little girl’s bicycle, dirty, tired and moving through a completely blackened landscape. In the pocket of my overalls, I’ve got a bottle of water and four apples Mrs Park has pressed on me from a basket in the kitchen. I dare say they’re the last apples they’ll get from their orchard for a year or two.

  The light is beginning to fade even though it’s summer and it should stay light until nearly eight o’clock, but there’s that much smoke about it’s going to be dark pretty soon. The fires, both of them, must be getting close to the gorge, coming like a pincer movement, the one in the River Red Gum moving remorselessly up the Reedy Creek tributary and the grassfire coming up the other end of the gorge. There’s a bit of lightning around and with nothing else to hit but the blackened earth, I think of myself riding along the rutted farm roads, the only metal object likely to attract it in these desolate surroundings. Just my luck, escape a bushfire and get struck by lightning. There’s been lightning this time of the afternoon for weeks and it doesn’t mean there’s going to be rain, which, if there is and it’s enough of a thunderstorm, it will save our lives. As Tommy always says, ‘Hope is a whore with a bad nature’ and is not to be taken into consideration when planning anything. ‘Always look for the dirt behind the shine’ is definitely his motto.