“Doesn’t it strike you as odd that they’re all emerging now, Rowly?”
Rowland thought for a moment and then shook his head. “I guess Hayden’s appearance is what made the police look into my story and hunt down the others. I don’t even remember them questioning me back then.”
“And this Hayden… why does he suddenly turn up after thirteen years?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps he heard about Father’s pistol being found.”
Milton got up and checked that there was no one listening outside the door to the anteroom before he spoke. “Rowly, you know that we’re with you no matter what you did. You do know that?”
Clyde turned on the poet. “Bloody hell, Milt! What do you mean by that? ”
“We need to know the truth if we’re going to sort this out.”
“Are you out of your tiny drunken mind?”
“If I’d been in Rowly’s place,” Milton said, without taking his eyes off Rowland, “I might have shot the bast… him.”
“Well, Rowly’s not you!”
Rowland watched them argue. His face was unreadable, almost distracted.
It was Edna who intervened. “Stop,” she said. The word was softly uttered yet somehow it had the force of a slap. Both Clyde and Milton fell silent. “We’re not here to make things more difficult.” She took Rowland’s hand in hers. “We’re worried about you, Rowly.”
Rowland squeezed her hand as he met the poet’s eye. “I didn’t shoot him, Milt. Lord knows I thought about it. During all those beatings, I killed him over and over again in my mind… but someone else actually did it first.”
Milton slapped him warmly on the back. “Good, we don’t have to smuggle you out of the country to avoid the gallows, then. We’ve only been back a few months.”
Rowland laughed. If it came to that Milton probably knew someone who could oblige. “Wil’s handling it. He’s called in an army of lawyers. There’s more silk on his payroll than there is in all of China. It’ll blow over.”
Milton glanced at Clyde. “There’s really only one way to make sure you don’t go down for your father’s murder, mate, and that’s to find out who really did shoot him.”
“I didn’t kill my father—Gilbey and Angel will work that out eventually. As for who really did it,” Rowland’s bearing hardened, “I’m inclined to wish him the best of British.”
The drive back from Yass to Oaklea was quiet, though the silence was not strained. They had all said everything they could, or would. Rowland knew full well now that his friends had dropped everything—abandoned Christmas plans, disappointed family and risked Wilfred’s ire—simply because they thought he needed help. They’d done so without any idea of how they could help him. He appreciated it but, as much as he trusted them, this was a family matter.
It was quite late when they reached Oaklea. The evening was bright under the full moon that Harry Simpson had mentioned earlier. The house was still. Rowland turned off the engine.
“If we use the back door we won’t have to wake everybody up,” Rowland suggested. “Mrs. Kendall leaves it unlocked.”
It was as they were cutting across the lawn that Rowland noticed the light in the south wing.
“Someone’s up,” he murmured. The south wing was where the nursery and the children’s rooms were located. Perhaps Nanny de Waring was engaged in some late-night duty.
He looked again. There was something odd about the light… it wasn’t steady. It flickered. And then he realised what it was.
“Fire… my God, it’s on fire!” He turned to Edna. “Quick, go to the front door, wake everybody, pull the servant’s bells—get them out!” Rowland began to run towards the glowing room. Clyde and Milton went with him.
At the window they could see into the room. The drapes and furnishings were ablaze. The fire had spread to an adjoining room. Rowland could see Ernest’s rocking horse in the flames.
“Milt—it’s spreading. We’ll need men!”
Milton nodded. “I’ll alert the managers.”
Clyde pulled a capstone free from one of the newly constructed dry rock walls. “Stand clear, Rowly!” he warned as he threw the stone through the glass. The flames, fed anew, surged greedily towards the opening. Rowland ripped off his jacket and used it to protect his arm as he broke away jagged shards of glass. With the window broken, they could make out screams from inside.
Rowland hoisted himself in. Clyde followed.
“Where are they, Rowly?” Clyde shouted, gasping and coughing as the dense black smoke pushed into his lungs.
Rowland paused to cough and orient himself, to pick up the source of the screams. The wallpaper peeled and crackled off the upper walls as the wainscoting below scorched and split. The heat was immense.
“This way,” he said moving towards the rooms on the left. The fire had not yet engulfed the short hallway and the door at the end of it was still shut. Rowland tried the handle but the door was locked. He could hear a child screaming clearly now. Desperately, he and Clyde charged the door. It gave. The room within was filled with smoke and, when they shut the door against the fire, black.
Clyde pulled the light switch to no avail. Rowland followed the cries and discovered Ewan in his bed by the window.
“Rowly, I found the nanny,” Clyde called from the other side of the room.
Rowland opened the shutters. The moonlight faded the black marginally. Clyde held the semi-conscious nanny in his arms. She was coming round. “Ernest,” she mumbled as she revived. “Ernie?” Then she screamed. “Ernest!”
Rowland put Ewan back onto the bed and grabbed a stool, using it to break the windows. They could hear the commotion and panic outside.
“Get them out,” he said to Clyde, pulling a blanket from the bed. “I’ll find Ernie.”
“Upstairs,” the nanny said. “His room is upstairs.”
Rowland grabbed Clyde’s arm. “Can you—?”
Clyde nodded. “Go.”
Rowland gulped what air he could and opened the door, plunging back into the corridor and the burning sunroom. The fire had all but engulfed the room. Throwing the blanket over his head he made a blind dash for the stairs. The runner secured to the centre of the stairs was alight but the structure had not yet caught.
“Ernie!” Rowland took the stairs two and three at a time. The landing adjoining the first floor corridor was choked as smoke funnelled up the stairwell.
Rowland blinked, his eyes stung and watered as he tried to remember which room was Ernest’s. The first door led to a storage room.
“Ernie!”
And then he heard the sobbing, terrified cry. “I’m here. I’m here!”
Rowland pushed open the second door. The smoke was less dense here. Ernest ran into his arms and clung there. Rowland shoved the door shut behind him and tried to think. He went to the window and looked out. The lawns were now teeming with men with buckets and fire blankets. The irrigation system had been mercilessly torn up to turn against the fire.
He could see Harry and Arthur trying to prevent Wilfred from running towards the building, Kate on her knees, hysterical… and then Clyde and Ewan, thank God. With Ernest still clinging to him, Rowland fumbled with the brass window fastenings. “Chin up, Ernie, I’m here now.”
The smoke was now beginning to seep under the door and he could hear crashing on the floor below. Finally the window lifted.
A large bay window protruded from the wall directly below them. As with all the bays on this wing, the small area of its flat roof had been surrounded with a decorative wrought iron rail to define a false balcony. Rowland considered the drop from that roof. They would still be about twenty feet above the ground but perhaps he could lower Ernest down somehow.
“Ernie,” he said into the boy’s ear, “just hang onto me, mate. Don’t let go, until I tell you.”
Ernest whimpered but he nodded into Rowland’s neck.
“Good man.”
Rowland called out to his brother then. Wilfred
heard him on the third frantic shout. For a moment, he simply stared in horror and disbelief and then as Rowland climbed out, he sprinted towards the window.
Rowland lowered himself and Ernest gingerly onto the roof of the bay, only too aware that the structure had not been designed to bear the weight of a grown man. He could feel the heat rising from the burning room beneath.
“Rowly, hang on!” It was Milton’s voice. “We’ll find a ladder.”
“A rope,” Rowland gasped, coughing now. “Get me a rope.”
“Rowly!”
Rowland glanced down at his brother’s ashen face. “Ernie’s all right, Wil.”
Milton returned with a coil of rope. “Ready?”
“Yes. Toss it up.”
Rowland held onto Ernest with one arm and caught the rope with his other. The roof underfoot creaked and groaned. It took him several moments to pry Ernest from him. “Ernie, I’m going to lower you down to your father. I have to tie the rope around you.”
“No!” Ernest tried to cling to him again. “I’m scared,” he sobbed.
“Look down there, mate. You can see your father waiting for you. Don’t worry, I won’t let you fall.”
Ernest looked, but to a small boy it seemed a great height and his father appeared very far away.
“Come on, mate, put your dukes up!”
Still crying, Ernest raised his fists in front of his face. “That’s right, Ernie, a good boxer protects his head.” Rowland tied the rope securely under his nephew’s raised arms. He twisted the rope around his hand and forearm and began to lower the boy to the ground. Terrified, Ernest struggled and kicked, forcing Rowland to step back to keep from over-balancing. He felt the bay roof give way a little.
“Ernie! Don’t move! Do you hear me? Don’t move!” Wilfred roared, seeing what was happening.
His father’s voice seemed to shock Ernest into compliance. Rowland worked quickly, against the heat, against panic. Men positioned themselves below ready to catch Ernest should the rope or Rowland give way.
The coir skinned Rowland’s hands as it slid through. Ernest’s eyes were closed and he cried for his mother. For a time everybody seemed to hold their breath. And then cheering as Ernest reached his father’s outstretched arms.
Rowland stumbled, relieved, exhausted. He had been so determined to get Ernest out that now, with the boy safe, his body just wanted to stop, to rest. His head was beginning to swim.
“Rowly!” Wilfred did not pause to celebrate, handing his son to Arthur, and bellowing at his brother to pull himself together. The rope was sent back up.
Rallying, Rowland forced his limbs to move, this time to secure the rope to the balcony rail.
Below him the windows of the bay shattered outwards with the heat. The surge of flame forced the men on the lawn back. There wasn’t time to think. Rowland swung himself over with only his grip on the rope to support him. He was about halfway down when the bay structure finally collapsed.
15
FIRST AID AT HOME
Asphyxia
Continuous insensibility when breathing is absent is known as asphyxia…
The treatment applicable to all cases of insensibility should be given. Ensure that breathing is possible, by making sure that the air passages are not obstructed, that pressure does not prevent the necessary expansion of the chest, and that there is abundance of pure air… To ensure the possibility of breathing, direct action should be as follows: Strangulation: Cut and remove the band constricting the throat. Hanging: Do not wait for the arrival of a policeman. Grasp the lower limbs and raise the body to take the tension off the rope, cut the rope, and free the neck… Suffocation by smoke or gases: Remove the patient into fresh air. Before entering a building full of smoke, tie a handkerchief (wet if possible) over the nose and mouth. Keep low, or even crawl, while in a room full of smoke or gas that rises.
The West Australian, November 1930
The Lister pumps which had been installed to irrigate the new garden designed by Edna Walling deluged the bay window and its surrounds with water as the structure disintegrated. In the fire, and smoke and water, there was a while where no one was sure what had happened to Rowland Sinclair.
His friends, his brother and Harry Simpson plunged into the chaos to find him.
Rowland was aware he was on the ground, and that he was having difficulty breathing. Beyond that, he could not seem to focus.
“Rowly, thank God!” Wilfred’s voice.
Two sets of shoulders under his arms… he wasn’t sure whose. And then the world became hazy and incomprehensible.
When Rowland was next aware, he was lying on the lawn a distance away from the burning wing. Every breath was painful, but it was air at least.
“Rowly?” Edna loosened his tie and released the first button of his shirt. She rubbed his back as he coughed violently. “Wilfred’s just gone to check on Kate. Rowly? Can you hear me?”
Rowland nodded, falling back exhausted. His ears were ringing but he could hear Edna. He began to take in what was happening around him: people running, shouting, carrying buckets and blankets. Bells, sirens, someone barking orders. The cars had been driven up so that their headlamps could illuminate what the full moon didn’t. He tensed when he saw the clergyman. “What the hell’s the Canon doing here?”
Edna calmed him, stroking the hair away from his forehead. “He came to help with the fire, Rowly. No one’s died.”
“Oh… good.” Rowland closed his eyes still unable to think clearly, but glad. Wilfred returned with a blanket, spoke to him briefly and was called away again. Edna cradled his head in her lap, answering his questions, telling him repeatedly that his nephews were safe. Later he would remember that she kissed him—tenderly—a kiss that was so out of context that he became sure he’d imagined the softness of her lips on his.
By the time Wilfred returned once more, the fog in Rowland’s mind had cleared to some extent and he’d recovered enough clarity to recognise the bearded gentleman standing by his brother’s side.
“Maguire,” he said weakly, wondering how and from where Wilfred had managed to produce the renowned Sydney surgeon.
Maguire nodded and with no further pleasantry proceeded to examine Rowland. He addressed his findings directly to Wilfred as if his patient were a child. “I’m optimistic that his lungs have not been damaged. His ribs seem to have been bruised by the fall.” Rowland gasped as Maguire poked him to illustrate his point. “The pain when breathing is related to that. And there’s quite a tremendous bump on his head which is why he’s so disoriented. Rope burns on his hands, a few minor lacerations—from falling on the glass, I presume—but miraculously he seems to have avoided any burns.” He stood up, using his hat to dust off his trousers. “However, as I was always taught to be cautious, I want you to keep him quiet, see that he rests, send for me immediately if he loses consciousness or begins to vomit.”
The surgeon moved on to attend the next casualty in what was beginning to resemble a field hospital.
“Give me a hand, Wil.”
“Are you sure you should—”
“Yes. I am.”
Rowland grabbed the hand Wilfred offered him and, slowly, pulled himself to his feet.
“Are you all right?”
Rowland nodded, gazing at the ruined wing where the fire had started and was now successfully confined. The fire fighters were working to keep the flames away from the sandstone walls of the older part of the house. “How’s Kate… and Mother?”
“Mother is coping surprisingly well—more worried about the fire spreading to the stables than anything else. Kate will be all right now that the boys are safe.”
Rowland flinched as another beam crashed in the inferno. “Good.”
“I’m sending Kate, Mother, Lucy and the children to lodgings in town,” Wilfred said grimly. “I want you to go with them.”
Rowland shook his head. “No, I’m all right. I’d rather stay.”
“Rowly, I need to over
see the mop up. I can’t—”
“I don’t need a nursemaid,” Rowland said irately.
“Very well, just stay out of the way.” Wilfred replied with his customary gruffness. Even so, he braced his brother’s shoulder before he returned to direct the men now consolidating control of the fire and attempting to finally extinguish its flames.
Edna, who had somehow avoided being sent away with the women and children, slipped her hand into Rowland’s. She looked critically into his face, frowning as she studied the bloody bruise on his brow now visible even against the soot. “Are you sure you’re all right, Rowly?” She reached up to test the temperature of his forehead. “How do you feel?”
“Like the house fell on me… but otherwise fine. Where’s—”
“Milt and Clyde are still helping out with the fire. Harry too, and Lenin is safely asleep in the back seat of your car.” Edna pre-empted a number of questions. She rubbed his arm. “I’m so sorry, Rowly. It must be heartbreaking to watch your family home—”
He placed his arm around her shoulders. For a moment he fancied he could smell her rose scent through the smoke and the smoulder. “The older part of the house is untouched, see,” he said, pointing. “Fortunately, the blessed fire seems to have been confined to that one wing.” He surveyed the destruction. For some reason, he thought of Ernest’s rocking horse in the flames. “I’m just jolly glad we came back from town when we did.”
Edna shuddered. She had been present when Kate had realised both her children were inside the burning building. She’d watched Kate’s joy and her terror when Clyde had delivered Ewan with the news that Rowland and Ernest were still inside. “You’re right, it could have been a lot worse.”
They watched McNair, the one-armed gardener, limp between the pump and the flames with a wet hessian bag, cursing and beating the fire as if it were a cognisant enemy that could be turned back by the ferocity of his threats.
“Rowly!” Milton spotted them from amongst the men on a bucket line. He handed the tin pail to the next man in the line and ran over to shake his friend’s hand.
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