30 Days in Sydney (10 page)

'As far as we're concerned, the people that remained up on the ledge above them fully expected to get up in the morning and find their friends camping on the ledge below,' he said.

However, the next morning they realised the worst, and freed their dead friends before starting a three-day slog to safety over what one police rescue squad member described as 'the worst terrain I have ever seen or ever want to see'. They were picked up by a search party, near Kanangra Falls, on Tuesday afternoon.

While the survivors were reunited with family and friends, the grim task of retrieving the bodies resumed in fine, clear weather yesterday.

The two bodies were quickly located, in a pool near the foot of the eighth waterfall, and brought out in two trips by the police rescue helicopter.

The deaths brought to four the number of people killed in Blue Mountains bushwalking accidents last weekend.

Police and rescue services, however, declined either to criticise the adventurers or to support restrictions on the numbers and types of people using wilderness areas.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THAT NIGHT IN SHERIDAN'S cave I tried to persuade him to tell me about his adventures in the local Volunteer Fire Brigade but no matter how many times he filled his glass he would not soften. I've talked too much already, he said. Ledoux is right, when you've gotten off the hook it's best to be very quiet.

Well let me talk to Skink.

Skink is not a talker, mate, but I'll tell you who is, I'll tell you who is perfect - what's his name, he is married to that gorgeous woman.

You mean Marty Singh, don't you? He lives near here.

How would he get a woman like that? demanded Sheridan.

Well, he's smart. He's attractive.

Attractive, do you really think so?

Sure, and he's curious about everything. He's full of life.

I'm fucking curious, said Sheridan belligerently. Anyway, call the bugger. You need some prize-winning celebrities to liven up this thing. Or ex-celebrities. Either way, he'll talk your leg off. Here, use my mobile phone.

I did ring Marty, and as it turned out he would be happy to tell me about his firefighting adventures but he was leaving the next morning for Broome.

Tape him, hissed Sheridan fiercely. Tape the bastard.

Finally Marty was obliging enough to tape himself and I had nothing to attend to but Sheridan who insisted on pushing his big untidy head against the phone so he could hear the other side of the conversation.

I was, said Marty, down on the coast with Astrid at Bateman's Bay.

That's her, hissed Sheridan, she's fucking gorgeous.

Shut up, Sheridan, said Marty. I was there with Astrid and her mother. Fires were springing up all over Sydney at that time. I don't know what caused them all - lightning, dropped cigarettes.

There was a fucking pyromaniac about, said Sheridan. I don't see how he can say he doesn't know.

Perhaps he's right, sighed Marty. I know one fire was deliberately lit at Mount Wilson. Then, in the town of Colo, a woman had jumped into a swimming pool with her children to escape a fire but they were all killed.

The Mount Wilson fire was not the only one in the Blue Mountains so I telephoned our place just to see what the danger was. We had a couple of friends house-sitting, and I noticed there was a strange tone in their voices. I know they don't scare easily. I mean, these are Tibetan activists who demonstrate in China. But now it seemed they had to rush to Canberra.

Willem, Astrid's brother, was also in the mountains.

Good bloke, said Sheridan.

Willem is an amazing guy, agreed Marty. He'll never panic about anything, he's always so serene and unruffled, but when I asked him about the fires I could hear he was
concerned.

That's when
I
knew it was time for me to go. For the first time in our marriage, Astrid packed me a cut lunch! And I set off towards the mountains at 140 kilometres an hour. As I drove I listened to the radio, commercial radio, and I remember hearing the fires on Pittwater were burning right down to the jetty and I knew that meant your old place must have gone. Also that fellow who designed the Aussie dollar notes. His house went. And Dorothy MacKellar's house is right near there, isn't it? You know who I mean, that famous hymn to El Niiio!
I
love a sunburnt country
/A land of sweeping plains?
We were very sunburnt that day, believe me.

There was a police roadblock on the M4. You were only allowed west if you had a mountain address on your driver's licence.

Fuck this, said Sheridan, finally abandoning the tiny phone. I heard a cork pop and then the door slammed shut as he lurched out into the night.

From the plains, Marty continued, all you could see was smoke in the sky and it seemed I was the only car heading west. As I came into the foothills of the mountains I noticed the cars coming towards me had household goods tied on top, towed behind, like refugees. There was absolutely no information on the ABC. There were fires all over Sydney but they had scheduled a broadcast of Arab lesbian quatrains and nothing was going to change their minds.

Meanwhile as I came into the mountains I found ash was falling from the sky. The cars coming round the bends had their headlights on.

An hour later I was at our house, and there was good old Willem. He had already taken down the curtains and was clearing the vegetation back from around the house.

But he had his own place to look out for. So I took over and he went home. It was very, very hot and smoky. Darkness was falling and of course it did not get much cooler. When there was no longer sufficient light to work outside I went up to our tower. There was a ring of fire, burning on the ridges all around. It was really
beautiful.
Can you just imagine - you're up in a tower and through every window, in every direction - fire. At that stage there was no wind and there was no clear indication that it would come up the Grosse Valley, which is our Grand Canyon if you like. So I was not, at that stage, terrified. In fact I had a really good night's sleep.

Next morning it was very hot, hazy with smoke. I dressed in overalls, boots, garden gloves. First I nailed corrugated iron over the skylights. Then I had to make a water dam in the roof gutters. Our house has wide box guttering, and I couldn't block the downpipes with tennis balls like everybody else was doing all over Sydney. I had to be innovative. I found some old dresses of Astrid's - well I thought they were old dresses although it turned out later they were Kenzo - and I wrapped them in plastic and shoved them into the downpipes. Then I flooded the gutters with water. And that's how the day went on, all these fortifications, defences against the fire. I was insanely busy, but not at all unhappy.

And the great thing was, people kept coming in to help. There was an old fellow, Sandy Blake, who was living alone down the road. He came up to help. Then someone brought a chainsaw and dropped a few trees that were hanging too close to the buildings.

Then Willem came back. By this time I'd given up on the radio. There was dense smoke and haze all around us. I didn't need a radio to know I was in the middle of a fire.

The phone lines were all still working and Astrid kept phoning up.

Photo albums!

So I found the fucking photos, which were all of Astrid and her old boyfriends, and I stored them in the laundry which has a double ceiling. Then the phone was ringing again. My Chinese porcelain!

So I stored her Chinese porcelain.

Then: the wardrobe!

Fuck the wardrobe.

I put some stuff in the laundry and some stuff in the boot of the car but I had no idea what was safe. By the end of the day, all the things Astrid cared about were in the laundry covered with wool blankets. The gutters were brimful of water. There were also buckets of water everywhere. But what do you do with videotapes? I had tapes of all my animation, every foot of film I had ever produced, and videotapes are like little barrels of oil, the most explosive things of all.

Early evening on this second day, I got a call from a niece who works in National Parks. She was phoning from a helicopter: Marty, I'm over your way now. The fire's coming up on Governor's. That was close, only a few miles down the end of our road.

Then I got a call from a neighbour who said he'd seen fire trucks going up towards my place.

I'd just hung up when all these volunteer firefighters came bursting into my house. There were a couple of guys I recognised, including the guy from the local garage. Marty, he said, we need tea towels.

So I gave them my tea towels.

We've got to get you out of here, Marty.

They wet the towels and tore them up and wrapped them round their faces but they could not hide their panicked eyes. I don't want to demean these volunteers. They were very brave and they were very helpful to me. But those eyes were scary to behold.

We've got orders. You've got to be evacuated.

I don't need to be evacuated.

No, no, don't give us any trouble, Marty.

So where's the captain?

But they had already escorted old Sandy Blake out to the car. And I was next. I didn't want to be an arsehole but I was absolutely livid. I was thinking, they can't do this to me. We were escorted in a convoy, and as we were driving down the road there were more fire trucks coming towards my house.

The convoy drove for about ten minutes to the point where the dirt road meets the asphalt road which the locals call 'The Rink'. This was now basecamp for the firefighting units - fire trucks, cop cars, my neighbours. You couldn't see a hundred yards. There was a feeling of panic.

Then I discovered I didn't have my wallet.

I've left my wallet behind, I said to the cop.

Any guy understands this. A man must have his wallet.

I've got to go back and get it.

All right, Marty, he said, I'll see if I can get permission.

Come on, I said, we don't need permission.

All right, get in the bloody car.

As I was getting into the car, who did I see, talking his way through the roadblock? It was Willem. So this young cop drives us both through the smoke and ash back to my house.

By now the place is swarming with firefighters, but they didn't have the outside lights on and they couldn't find my water tanks.

I've got to stay. These fellows don't know where anything is.

Finally this young cop gives in.

The firefighters had a map which showed the contours of the land between our house and Governor's Rest, but they were having trouble reading it.

They were asking how many valleys there were between my place and Governor's.

Well, said Willem, the first one's here.

And straight away there was order. As Willem briefed them on the land my living room became like a war room.

By this time poor old Sandy Blake had been taken off and spent a hideous night in a boarding house. But I was in my home with my brother-in-law, who helped build the house and was very confident about its ability to withstand the fire. Mind you, I also had these guys with my tea towels wrapped around their faces. What was that about? I asked them. Why were you evacuating me?

Mate, we've been fighting bushfires for twenty years and we never saw anything like that. We were down on Governor's Rest and we never seen flames like that, not ever.

Anyway, everything was calmer now. I showed them where my tanks of water were. I had a
lot
of water. And they brought a tanker very close. I showed them the tracks and dirt roads. I showed them the other buildings and we made decisions about what was to be sacrificed and what was to be fought for. The main house was most important, then that building, then that one, and so on. We turned the outside lights on.

At about one in the morning the winds slowed down a bit and I was informed that we were going to need to back-burn. And then these guys came out of the dark with these things like watering cans and I watched as they poured liquid fire on to the ground. They just wandered round, in big fucking circles, setting my garden alight. Holy shit. Now I had two rings of fire, a close one and a distant one. And, yes, it was a little scary. I was running around saying, no, not that tree, because I was trying to stop the oak trees being burnt - the Aussie trees will replenish after fire, but the English oaks will die.

Then, suddenly, the house lights went off.

I asked the National Parks guy, what happened with the power?

Oh we cut it off.

Why would you do that?

We're doing a back-burn.

Yes but if you turn the power off my water pumps won't work.

Agh, he said. Nothing ever goes simply, does it?

So now I had no bloody power. And I had these new fires close around my house. Naturally, I was feeling a lot more vulnerable.

There were a lot of experienced firefighters but also some who were in training. There were twenty or thirty guys, chainsaws singing right through the night, lots of rakes, shovels, containing this back-burn.

Then, suddenly, it's dawn, and they're packing up their chainsaws, drifting back towards their trucks.

And suddenly I'm left alone, with no power, no hoses, and all this smouldering bush, these flaming stumps surrounding me. Also our pine trees are big, fifty or sixty years old, and the fire has gone underground and is, without me knowing it, quietly burning along their roots.

And the winds, as they say, become 'variable'. The spot fires began to come up everywhere and all I had were buckets of water to put them out.

There was a roadblock in the street, so none of my friends could reach me, except for Willem who could always get through a roadblock.

So that was my life that week, and it didn't alter when the power came on. Hardly any sleep. Constantly putting out these fires. Not even answering the phone. Not being terrified, but staying very, very alert.

And then, said Marty, another fire was coming from the east, from Wombat Rock.

So I started chainsawing back the bush around the hut where Astrid has her pottery.

Then people did start to turn up, with food, helping to beat back the fire with wet sacks. Willem came and went often. Some others came and fled. You know the old days when people came to watch wars? It became a little like that.

There was a rooster in the house and a pet rabbit. And at this stage they suddenly became very domesticated and friendly. You can't have an Aussie story without a chook in it, can you? So here it is, accompanied by a rabbit. I went down to the tree house, they came with me.

The sky was scarlet. It was hard to breathe. Behind my back the fire was raging down Spy Hill. So there was only a road between me and Spy Hill. And the noise! You could hear it crackling, roaring. The sound was completely terrifying. Also the fire was shooting out flaming debris in advance, so all this burning ordnance is falling from the sky.

And that was when I thought, I could die. And here is the thing, the big thing for me. I felt that was all right. I didn't curl up in the foetal position.

I walked away from the house, down towards the escarpment, and began to deal with spot fires there. Somewhere about this point my sister Jodie and her boyfriend came to bring me some food.