Four Fires (68 page)

down her shin and not quite reached the neat little white ankle socks. It doesn't have an E on the end, my dad says it cost more to put an "e"

on the end of Ann and we couldn't afford it at the time because fat-lamb prices were down.'

I don't laugh because she looks so serious. With little Colleen around, I'm used to kids. 'You think that's bad! I'm called Mole because as a baby I used to burrow down in my cot and get
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lost.'

She laughs. That's funny, Mr Mole,' she says.

'It's just Mole. What say we get moving hey, Ann? We ain't got much time.' I jerk my head in the direction of the rolling clouds of black smoke towering above the horizon. The wind is blowing something fierce and there's dust everywhere.

Ray Davis, who, like John Crowe, is a mechanic, works at Philip Templeton's used-car lot. He's sitting in the front with Tommy and stretches his hand out to grab little Ann's as she climbs up into the Blitz cabin. She sits on his knee and after I heave her bike up onto the back, we're off again.

Directly above us I hear the birds - magpies, crows, galahs, sulphur-crested cockatoos, rosellas -heading away from the fire-filled sky. They seem to be calling frantically to those of their kind lagging behind.

The smell of burning leaves fills our nostrils and there's floating embers landing around us that have blown miles ahead of the fire. A patch lights up, ignited by an ember, and Tommy slows down and two of the blokes hop off with their knapsack pumps, killing the smoulder before it gets a hold. Bad enough waiting for the big bastard coming, no point in having a dress rehearsal.

The heat has increased noticeably, so that we're all soaked through and I can feel my overalls clinging to my back and the sweat running down my neck and down the inside of my legs.

Edie Park comes out to meet us, the wind whipping at her cotton dress; she's shielding her eyes against the dust. The party-line phone has run hot and news that the fire has beaten the back-burn has spread terror through the women of the valley. All their men are gone and it's up to them to cope. Most of the younger wives haven't seen a big fire like this.

'We can take you out with us, Mrs Park,'Tommy says, 'you and the kids?'

'There's only me and Ann,' Edie replies, 'No, we're staying put. There's everything me and Tom have worked for here, we built the homestead with our own hands.' It's sandstone and brick with a bullnose iron-roofed verandah. The posts may go, but it's solid right through.'

Tommy looks around quickly, there isn't much time. 'The orchard's a bit close, that'll go, looks like a good crop of greengages, won't get any apples this year.'

'Yes, the plums are good this year,' she laughs, 'We're down to the last barrel of last winter's apples.'

Tommy looks about him at the outhouses, all solid brick. Tom Park has done his thinking ahead of time. The only things that are wooden are the hayshed and the shearing shed some distance from the homestead, no hope there.

Ann has run inside and I take a quick look around. In the horse paddock nearby, there's a dozen cows and two rams in one part and, in a separate area fenced off from the others, is a big Hereford bull.

Edie sees me looking. 'That's our investment, we've had the sheep eat that paddock clean as a whistle all summer.' She points to the stock nervously milling about. 'They're all "boxed" into the one paddock, those were Tom's instructions. The cows and a prize calf, the bull and the rams won't be able to keep ahead of the fire, we have to take the chance the fire will burn around the paddock.' She shrugs her shoulders. 'It's all our capital. Tom sold a truck to put down the deposit on the bull and we still owe the bank for him and one of the stud rams.'

Tommy doesn't try to dissuade her, Edie Park is a country woman who knows her own mind.

'What about the kid?' he asks.

There is a slight hesitation before Edie Park says tight-lipped, She's country-bred, she stays.'Then she looks at us, Tm scared, Mr Maloney, and I don't suppose I have the right to stop Ann going, but this is our life, this is everything we are, I've got to try and save it.'

I think to myself, if it were little Colleen or four-year-old Templeton, I'd have her out of there so fast you wouldn't see our dust!

'It's no problem to take you both?'Tommy tries again.

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There is still the hesitation in Edie Park's eyes, but then sudden resolve. 'It's happened once before to me, when I was Ann's age. I still

have nightmares about it but my parents saved the farm and if we'd moved out that time it would have all gone. I can't take that chance, Tom's worked too hard.'

I wonder if Tommy has the right to force her to come, this is a crown fire and anything could happen, I wouldn't like to be in their boots. But I guess not because Tommy says, 'We left the gates open comin' in, what about the other paddocks, any stock?'

'Yes, sheep and cattle.' Edie points to a Welsh mountain pony standing in the yard still saddled, its flanks wet from hard riding. 'I've just got back in, I've opened all the paddock gates.' She smiles, but it's a sort of sad smile. 'Let's hope some of our stock make it out ahead of the blaze.'

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.

The 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.

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The wind has risen a notch again. Fires make their own wind and its 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 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/1 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
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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.'