“Keep back!”
“Keep back!”
Barry burst into a shout of excited laughter.
“Oh, my goodness, Robin, did you see him! Won’t there be a jolly row! A big bit of rock just sailed through the air, and absolutely flattened him—he never knew what hit him. And the pig was not! Just listen to his brother—he’s got shell-shock!”
They scrambled out of their hole, and gazed at the slab of stone, from which protruded a melancholy curly tail. It was mercifully clear that the deceased pig could not have known what hit him.
“Now you’ll have to tell Mr. Merritt,” said Robin.
“Yes, of course. I’ll pay him for poor piggy. Well, he shouldn’t have hidden in that bracken until it was too late. Anyhow, he died gloriously on the field of battle, and it’s better than living to be made into pork sausages. Wasn’t it a topping blast! Come and see what it has done to my rock.”
The smoke of the explosion still lingered about the head of the gully, mingling with air already murky with bush-fire smoke; but they could see that the charge had done its work very thoroughly. Not only was the big rock gone, shattered to pieces, but the whole face of the rocky wall, for many feet, had been split off: the new, clean-looking stone showed curiously against the weathered and moss-grown stretch on either side. They looked at it respectfully.
“Well, we’ve made our mark,” Robin said, at length. “No sign of burning anywhere, is there, Barry?”
They searched carefully, but found no trace of fire: the explosion had confined itself to the head of the gully, save for the flying fragments. Mr. Merritt’s pig remained the one sacrifice.
“ ’Told you I knew all about it,” said Barry, triumphantly. “I vote we go home now: shooting rabbits would be too tame altogether after a bang like that!”
“All right,” Robin agreed. She looked curiously at the stretch of newly-exposed stone.
“Isn’t that pretty rock?” she observed. “It’s got such queer colours and markings.”
“Just what a girl would say!” was Barry’s scornful rejoinder. “It’s only old rock: I don’t see anything pretty about it. But the bang was gorgeous, if you like! I’m going to be an engineer when I grow up—they always have lots of blasting rocks in their jobs!”
“Do they always kill pigs?” asked Robin, cruelly.
CHAPTER XIISTRANGERS
Itseemed to Mrs. Hurst that the evening grew hotter as sundown approached, and the atmosphere more oppressive. The blue haze drifting slowly down from the ranges made all the air heavy: it had spread gently over the landscape, so that distant objects were misty and indistinct. Since this was not unusual in summer-time, when fires were constantly burning in the distant ranges, it had caused no anxiety to the settlers in the valleys below. But as Mrs. Hurst strolled out into the garden, weary of the hot house, she cast an apprehensive glance upwards.
“I believe it is thicker than it was this morning,” she said, half aloud. “I wonder—if the wind should get up—” She did not put the partly-formed thought into words.
Even in the garden the feeling of being shut in oppressed her, and presently she opened the white gate and strolled slowly down the slope towards the road. There was a log close to the fence; she sat down on it, looking across the paddocks towards the green line of wattles that marked the winding course of the creek.
“I wish the children would come home,” she said.
From the hills a loud booming noise came as if in answer, and she started violently, while the echoes ran round the gullies: laughing at herself as they died away.
“Only the road-gang blasting somewhere,” she said. “I believe I am getting nervous. This long spell of dry heat makes us all jumpy. If only rain would come—!”
A sharp creaking sound, faint at first, but gradually drawing nearer, made her look round; and presently, a bend in the road showed a queer, unwieldy object looming through the haze. It revealed itself, coming closer, as a light cart, drawn by an old chestnut horse that hung its head, shuffling wearily through the dust as though its load had drained it of every particle of energy it had once possessed. Piled high on the cart was furniture: stretchers and bedding, a kitchen-table, a battered meat-safe, and a few rough chairs, with wooden boxes filled with hastily-packed odds and ends. Two dirty children of five and six years old were perched in corners among the load. Beside the horse—it was clearly not necessary to guide it in any way—walked a woman, covered with dust, and carrying a younger child. She stumbled often as she walked, never lifting her face. At intervals she said, mechanically, “Gee up, Bawly!”—a remark which had no effect whatever upon the chestnut horse.
The creaking that had first attracted Mrs. Hurst’s attention came from the off-wheel. The sound was rapidly growing more acute, rising to a long-sustained screech that was the clearest possible demand for more oil: but the woman trudging by the horse’s head did not seem to notice it. A step sounded near Mrs. Hurst, and she glanced round, to meet Danny’s friendly gaze.
“Evenin’, Mrs. Hurst,” he said. “I jus’ come over to see if yous was all right. Been a cow of a day, hasn’t it?—an’ the smoke’s thicker than ever. Wonder who them travellers are? They’ll have a hot axle if they don’t watch it.”
“I was just thinking that, Danny,” Mrs. Hurst said. “Poor things, how tired they look!” She opened the gate and went out into the road.
“Good-evening,” she said, gently. “Your wheel is very stiff, isn’t it? Won’t you rest here for a few minutes while I get you some oil for it?”
The woman had started violently at her voice. The chestnut horse pulled up thankfully, and dropped his nose yet farther earthwards.
“I been thinkin’ it wouldn’t get us much farther,” she said, dully. “Trouble is, I don’t know how much farther we got to go.”
“Have you come far?”
“Out of the hills,” she nodded vaguely backward. “We been on the track all day. Any township near here?”
“Not for two miles.”
“Two mile!” It was clear that it might as well have been twenty, by her hopeless look. “Well, we got to get on. Gee up, Bawly!”
“Oh, but you can’t!” Mrs. Hurst cried. “You—are you going to friends?”
“Oh, no. We don’t know anyone round here. We come out of the hills.”
“Then you are not going any farther,” Mrs. Hurst said, quietly. “Just turn your horse in through this gate. Will you open it, Danny?”
Danny had it open before she had finished speaking.
“Better not try ’n’ get the load up the hill before I grease that axle,” he said. “I’ll slip up an’ get some grease.” He took the rein, and led the tired horse through the gateway.
“But we can’t stay here—four of us,” the woman said. “I thought there’d be a pub somewheres: I got money, y’ know, Missus.”
“Why, I wouldn’t let you go another yard!” Mrs. Hurst answered. “You look just tired out, all of you. Sit down on this log for a few minutes before you walk up the hill.”
The woman sank on the log with a sigh of relief, and the heavy baby in her arms woke and cried. Mrs. Hurst leaned down and took it out of the mother’s arms. Danny had already lifted the children out of the cart: they stood by the wheel, holding each other’s hands, too shy to move, and half-inclined to cry, too.
“My word, it’s good to sit down!” said the woman. “You’re awful kind, Missus. It’s too bad, loafin’ on you like this.”
“It would have been too bad if I had not happened to see you,” replied Mrs. Hurst. “There—isn’t she a good baby!”—as the baby, deciding that she liked the change of arms, ceased crying and looked about in an interested way. A half-smile flickered on the weary mother’s face.
“She’s been jolly good, considerin’ she ain’t a year old,” she said. “But it’s been a long day for all of ’em, an’ I was afraid to stop long anywhere. It’s a bit rough, when you don’t know the country an’ you ain’t got any idea where you’re goin’. Is this near Baroin?”
“Oh, no: Baroin is twelve miles away. But you need not worry any more: you can stay here until you are all rested. What brings you and the bairns alone on the track?”
“Me husband made us come. He an’ his brother have a sawmill back there; jus’ got it well goin’. But we got fair scared of the fires: they been creepin’ nearer and nearer, an’ if the wind changed they’d be down on our camp before you could say knife. I’d ’a’ stuck it out with them if I’d been by meself. But there’s the kids.”
“Is there no one near you?”
“No. There’ll be a road up after a bit: there’s only a track through the bush now, an’ the timber’s awful thick all round us. Great timber for millin’, of course, but you’d be roasted alive if a fire come through it. There ain’t nowhere to get to, you see. There’s a bit of a creek, but it’s that small it ’ud be no use to you.”
“But your menfolk? Is it safe for them to stay?”
“Safe?” was the dull answer. “No, it’s darned unsafe. Y’ wouldn’t catch me leavin’ but for that. I didn’t want to go, anyhow. But Mick made me. ‘Bill an’ I can put up a fight for the mill,’ he says, ‘but I’m darned if we can fight for the kids, too. So you got to clear out with the kids,’ he says. ‘You take the furnitcher an’ the kids, an’ you clear out o’ the timber.’ An’ I knew that was sense, so I done it. But I tell you straight, Missus, I’d like to dump the kids somewhere an’ go back!”
“You can’t do that,” Mrs. Hurst said, gently. “Your husband would only be more anxious.”
“An’ what about me?”
Mrs. Hurst had no answer for that question. She glanced away from the haggard misery of the other woman’s eyes.
“Just come up to the house, all of you, and let me take care of you,” she said. “The wind may not change, and we may get rain at any time—why, your Mick might be down looking for you in a day or two. Come and I will make you some tea.”
“My word, I could do with a cup o’ tea,” the woman said. “The poor kids, too—!” She beckoned to the two small boys, who had never stirred. “C’m on, you two. They been awful good, an’ it’s been a tough day.”
“It must have been a very tough day,” Mrs. Hurst said. “They will like some milk, and I have plenty.”
“Milk! My word, they ain’t seen milk f’r a blue moon!” said their mother.
“They shall have all they can drink now. Can you fix the wheel, Danny?”
“Would ’a’ had a job if the ol’ cart ’ud gone a hundred yards farther,” said Danny, who had jacked up the wheel, and was busy over it. “Dry as a bone, an’ near jammed altogether. Oh, yes, I’ll fix it all right, Mrs. Hurst.” He grinned sympathetically at the woman. “Don’t you worry, mum—I’ll bring the cart up to the house presently.”
“Will you put it into the big shed and turn the horse into the creek paddock, Danny? I’m sure Mr. Merritt would not mind.”
“Not ’im,” said Danny. “Right you are. Mrs. Hurst. Don’t you bother about anything.”
“Gimme the baby, Missus,” said the mother. “She’s too heavy for you to carry.”
“I think she is lighter for me than for you,” Mrs. Hurst answered, smiling. “And I like her—she is such a friendly baby.” She held the dusty bundle closely as they went up the slope.
“Oh—a garden!” said the woman from the tall timber. “Oh, what a lovely garden! Missus, I ain’t seen a flower for near six months!”
“Then I must show you all mine—when you are rested.” Mrs. Hurst put her into a big chair on the veranda. “Just sit quietly until I bring you some tea. No—baby is coming with me.”
“Lor’, it’s like meetin’ an angel from ’eaven!” said the weary creature. She sank back, with a long sigh. “Micky an’ Joe, don’t you touch them flowers!”
“They can’t do any harm—please don’t trouble about them,” Mrs. Hurst said. At the door she looked back. Micky and Joe were standing before a huge sunflower, their faces a study of rapt wonder—never had they dreamed that the world could hold so great a marvel. There were tears in Mrs. Hurst’s eyes as she hurried to the kitchen.
The baby, made happy with a drink, and with hands and face hastily sponged, was placed in an upturned box, where a string of empty cotton-reels threw her into a very ecstasy of joy: she was clearly an unexacting infant, to whom much attention was a thing unknown. There was a kettle boiling: in a very few minutes Mrs. Hurst carried out a tray. Her visitor tried to rise.
“No, you are to sit still. Baby is quite all right. Drink that—don’t try to eat until you feel like it.” She poured out two glasses of creamy milk and put them, with a plate of bread-and-butter, on the edge of the veranda. “Come on, boys!” But Micky and Joe held back, even when their mother called them, overcome with shyness.
“They’re like wild things—they ain’t hardly seen a living soul ’cept ourselves for ages,” said the mother, apologetically. “They don’t mean to be bad-mannered, Missus.”
“And they are not bad-mannered—we’ll be great friends by to-morrow.” Mrs. Hurst smiled. “They will be happier if I go away. Just look after them and yourself, and don’t worry about Baby.” She retreated into the house, and presently, peeping through a curtain, had the satisfaction of seeing Micky and Joe attacking their first drink with faces that began by being doubtful, and ended in pure bliss as the glasses were set down empty.
“You can ’ave more,” she heard the mother say, filling the glasses with a hand that shook. “Drink ’em up, Kids. An’ you be good boys, now, or your Dad ’ll want to know the reason why when he comes!”
“When’s ’e comin’, Mum?”
“Lor’, if I knew that I wouldn’t be near off me ’ead this minute!” said the mother.
Robin and Barry came in a little later, in a frame of mind divided between triumph and depression; pride in their unlawful exploit having become damped, as they neared home, by melancholy forebodings on the subject of Mr. Merritt’s pig. They were trying to calculate the probable value of the victim to its owner, should it have been spared to arrive at the dignity of full growth, when upon their astonished eyes burst the vision of a crowded kitchen. At the table were seated a haggard woman and two small boys—the latter shining from the effects of a recent and thorough hot bath, and clad only in clean shirts. Mrs. Hurst was moving about, plying them with food; while Polly, in a corner, her face alight with happiness, fed an equally-scrubbed baby. The baby sat on her knee, dipped its fingers in its food, and clawed its nurse’s face with them, while the nurse beamed, and uttered incoherent words of pride. Danny was filling kettles with the air of one who insists on joining in a general upheaval.
Robin and Barry stared—not with more amazement than was shown on the faces of the strangers, as the new-comers, guns in hand, halted in the doorway. Mrs. Hurst looked up and nodded brightly.
“Why, there are my warriors!” she said. “Any rabbits? I hope so, because I shall want some badly for to-morrow. We have guests, you see.”
The warriors looked at each other blankly.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Mother,” said Robin, in a voice of tragedy. “We haven’t got one!” Resolve seized her. “Come on, Barry—we’re sure to get some on the flat by the creek if we hurry.” Her face fell. “Oh, and we haven’t milked!”
“I done all the feedin’ and milkin,’ Miss Robin,” spoke Danny, grinning.
“Danny, you’re a brick! Hurry up, Barry—it’s nearly dark already.” They dashed from the kitchen and clattered across the yard.
One of the visitors uplifted his voice in the first remark he had made since his arrival at Hill Farm.
“Ain’t that feller got ginger hair!” said little Mick.
CHAPTER XIIIBLACK SUNDAY
Robinwoke early, after an uneasy dream, in which Mr. Merritt’s pig had been flattening her under a great slab of rock, while its brother exploded plug after plug of gelignite close by, apparently with the hope of killing her. To breathe under the rock was extremely difficult, and she was much relieved when the final explosion removed not only the stone, but both pigs, and left her swimming down the Merri Creek Falls. By great good luck she avoided the jutting crag that divided the main fall, and swam placidly down, using the breast-stroke very slowly, and not at all inconvenienced by being in a vertical position. This lasted until she reached the whirlpool at the foot, when the water immediately took charge of her, whirled her round like a cork at great speed, and washed her out upon a slope, quite dry, which was curious, and very breathless, which was what might have been expected.
She woke, and rubbed her eyes, wondering, half-sleepily, why she should still feel the sense of breathlessness that had followed her throughout her ridiculous dream. Her bed on the veranda overlooked the long stretch of narrow valley between the creek and the foothills, ending in a great spur of the range that towered into the sky, covered with mountain ash-trees. It was a view she loved: her first glance was for it every morning, and she turned towards it now.
There were no hills to be seen. The valley lay peacefully, looking just as it always did, save that it was hazy, as though a soft, transparent grey veil had been drawn over the familiar outlines. But the hills had vanished as completely as if they had been wiped out.
“Whew-w!” Robin whistled, sitting up. “Those fires in the ranges must have come down a good bit.” Her thoughts went to the mother of Micky and Joe. “Poor little Mrs. Ryan will be more worried than ever. I do hope that Mick and Bill of hers won’t stay too long trying to save their mill.”
She got up, and, putting on kimono and slippers, went into the garden. All the hills that ran to north and south of the creek valley were blotted out, as if the valley had, in the night, become a kind of island, ending in nothing. Although the sun was well above the horizon, it was invisible. Somewhere behind the curtain it was mounting, already giving promise of a day that should be hotter than any they had yet endured—there was something sinister in its steady, unseen force. The air of early morning had no sense of refreshment and coolness. It was heavy to breathe, and profoundly still. Not a flicker stirred a leaf in the garden. And Robin suddenly realized that the busy chatter of awaking birds was altogether absent. They were hiding in the trees; there was no merry flutter of wings, no cheery call of cockatoos beyond the creek. The utter silence sent a little thrill of discomfort through her.
“This is too quiet altogether, even for Sunday morning,” she said, with a half-laugh. “It feels uncanny. I think I’ll call Barry, and we’ll get the work done early.”
Barry came into view as she turned to go.
“Hullo, you up?” he said. “Isn’t it a beastly morning? I woke up feeling as if I had been eating smoke.” His black hair was tousled; he rubbed his eyes, looking, in his pink-striped pyjamas, rather like an aggrieved child. “I don’t think this is going to be at all a nice day!”
“And that’s no bad prophecy,” Robin said, laughing. “I think we’ll spend most of it in the swimming-hole: it will be the only place fit to live in. I was just going to call you: we might as well get the outside jobs done before it gets any hotter.”
“Good idea!” Barry responded. “I’ll go and get some clothes on. Don’t go into the kitchen, by the way, Robin: I passed through there, and Polly’s terribly busy making tea, to surprise you.”
“All right, I won’t,” said Robin. Her air of delighted astonishment sent Polly into a flutter of joy when, a few minutes later, she brought her a steaming cup.
“Why, how lovely of you, Polly! I wanted to get the milking done early, and you’ve saved me ever so much time. Toast, too! No one ever makes me early-morning toast but you. I must take a cup to Mother.”
“No—I want to,” Polly begged, her big, dog-like eyes dwelling affectionately on the merry face, and on the shining red hair. Polly loved Robin’s hair so openly that its owner used to declare that it almost made her reconciled to its colour. She put out her hand now, and touched it gently. Her greatest delight was to be allowed to trim it—they had discovered that she possessed extraordinary skill with the scissors—and Barry declared that she treasured all the clippings!
“Nearly time I cut it again, Miss Robin,” she said.
“Yes, I think it is. All right, Polly, you can go at it any time you like. Well, you take Mother her tea, and give her my love. Tell her I’ve gone to milk.”
“Yes: good-oh!” said Polly. “Then I’ll sweep all the rooms.”
“You mustn’t get tired,” Robin warned her. “The Doctor will be angry if you do—and so will I.” At which Polly laughed as if it were the best joke in the world. She loved to work about the house, especially when she fancied that by doing so she could save Robin; the Baroin doctor’s warning that her heart was not strong enough for much exertion had no meaning for her. Robin and her mother had to watch her carefully lest she should overtax her powers.
“Two rooms only, Polly—promise me, or I can’t go and milk.”
Polly made a laborious mental calculation of rooms.
“Four!” she begged.
“No, two. Then we’ll do the others together when I come in.” This was a bait that never failed, and Polly succumbed.
“Good-oh!” she said, beaming. “I’ll go and get that tea now.” She went off happily, and Robin departed in search of Bessy.
When she came back, a bucket in each hand, Mrs. Ryan was standing on the back veranda. The baby was in her arms: Micky and Joe, still tongue-tied with shyness, pressed against her skirt.
“I hope you slept well. Mrs. Ryan,” Robin said. “You needed a good rest.”
“No, I didn’t sleep much,” the woman said. “It was hot—and I kep’ thinkin’ of them back there at the mill. It’ll be a bit of a terror, you know, if that mill goes: we put every penny into it, an’ we got a first-rate lot of timber cut, waitin’ for the road. It’s been hard scratchin’ to live, but we done it somehow, knowin’ we’d get a good cheque when we sold. But if the fire comes——.” She shut her lips tightly.
“It may not come, Mrs. Ryan. Try not to worry too much,” Robin said, pityingly, knowing, as she spoke, how useless were her words.
“You an’ your mother have been awful kind, miss,” Mrs. Ryan said. There was a flash of gratitude in her dull eyes. “I’d never forget it. But it’s hard not to worry a bit.”
“Was the fire very near, Mrs. Ryan?”
“Not so very near. We hadn’t been worryin’ ourselves much about it. But it got hotter an’ hotter, an’ the smoke come down more an’ more, an’ Mick got thinkin’ about the wind changin’. If it did—well, did y’ ever see a fire travel in the ranges, miss?”
“No. I’ve only seen very small fires.”
“Please God you’ll never see a big one. In the ranges, with a wind behind it, it don’t travel—it races. Gets into the tree-tops, an’ jumps a mile at a time. There’s no fightin’ it—you can’t burn breaks in that big timber. Men might have a chance to save their lives, but never kids. That’s why Mick sent us off. But I wish’t I could ’ave stayed. Only for the kids I’d ’ave stayed, too, an’ let ’im talk. But kids are an awful big argument.”
She paused, trying vainly to look into the hills.
“Mind y’, we haven’t been fools. Mick an’ Bill know their way about. We’ve cut every stick as far as we could, all round the camp, an’ burnt off all the undergrowth: we been livin’ on a big patch of bare, burnt ground for weeks. It’s awful livin’, of course—I jus’ give up tryin’ to keep the kids or anything else clean, ’specially with the only water half a mile away, down a big hill. Took over twenty minutes to carry up a bucket, an’ half of it would be splashed away before I got up. You get mighty savin’ with water when you got to carry it like that!”
“I should think you did,” said Robin, under her breath. Bush girl as she liked to think herself, she realized that there were phases of life she did not comprehend. This little woman, with her quiet face and anxious eyes, was only one of many, struggling and suffering quietly in the lonely places. “How did you manage for stores, Mrs. Ryan?”
“Oh, not too bad. Mick or Bill took a day off every fortnight or three weeks, an’ brought things back from the township. I’ve got a camp-oven, so I can make bread all right. I ain’t been off the place meself for six months, ’cept for one day, an’ then it was on’y ’cause Baby was sick, an’ I had to take her to a chemist. That’s what gets y’ down, miss: when the kids gets sick, an’ y’ don’t know what it is. An’ of course they don’t get the right sort of food for kids. But they got to manage on it somehow.”
She gave a short laugh.
“I got a sister—works in a big shop in Melbourne. She come to see us once when she had her holidays, but it fair scared her. She come for a week, but she on’y stayed three days—my word, an’ I’d looked forward to havin’ her, too, an’ I’d got the camp like a new pin. Wasn’t Bill mad, havin’ to knock off work again to take her back! She said she didn’t know how I lived. Like animals, she said—never a soul to speak to, an’ no goin’ out to pictures or darnces or things. Well I reckon I know all about what it means not to have a woman to talk to now ’n’ then. But she can keep ’er pictures an’ darnces: I wouldn’t change my job for hers, bad ’n’ all as she thinks mine!” Her head went up with a queer little flash of pride. “Bill an’ me reckon we’re doin’ a job that counts!”
“I should think you are!” Robin said, slowly. “And you have your three splendid kiddies.”
“Yes—we got them.” She put her tanned cheek against the baby’s soft face for a moment. “But when you got to choose between your man an’ the kids—” Her voice died away; and Robin had no words to offer.
Breakfast was a meal for which no one had much appetite, except Micky and Joe, who wore an air of awe-struck bewilderment at a world which held so many new and unexpected things to eat. The heat increased with a kind of bitter intensity. No animals were to be seen in the scorched paddocks: they had all sought the creek, where they stood with hanging heads, in dumb protest at the breathless stillness. Robin and Barry agreed that it was too hot to walk to the swimming-hole, with the prospect of a worse walk back, to destroy the effect of a bathe. Everyone seemed restless and uneasy; people jumped at a sound, without knowing why they jumped. It was as though the still air was charged with something mysterious and uncanny.
And, at eleven o’clock, came the wind.
It came with a far-off soughing, like the sound of breakers on a distant beach. They heard it for what seemed a long while before they felt it; but at the first sound Mrs. Ryan got up hurriedly and went into the yard, where she stood gazing towards the hills that she could not see. Nearer and nearer: and then it was upon them. The trees in the orchard bent suddenly, and one old pear-tree snapped with a sharp crack: Mrs. Ryan’s thin skirts whipped round her legs: an empty kerosene-tin was blown rattling and banging across the yard with the first wild gust. A burning wind, like the breath of a furnace: it caught the house and shook it, and, racing on, whirled the dust from the road into a dense, eddying cloud. They shut the house against it, closing every door and window; and the wind howled and moaned as it eddied among the chimneys, and swelled to a full-throated roar, sweeping down the valley. So it blew, unbroken in its scorching fierceness, for more than sixteen hours.
Borne on its fiery breath came the smoke: such smoke as made the valley settlers realize that the earlier haze, by comparison, had been but as a light morning mist. It came in a dense, unbroken cloud, blotting out the country, until it was impossible to see more than a hundred yards in any direction. The sun, a great ball of angry orange, seemed to hang framed in it. Like a wall of dull yellow the smoke marched across the land, turning every familiar object into an unreal ghost. The very flowers in the garden lost their colour before it: Robin’s crimson dahlias showed a dull flame-colour, the blue of the plumbago flowers a dirty grey. And ever the roar of the wind grew louder and louder, and its breath more laden with fierce heat.
They could not stay in the shut house. Even though the hot gusts parched the skin and choked the breath—even though they could see nothing but the dense smoke-wall that shut them in—no one could bear to remain indoors. There was worse yet to come, they knew: danger that must be watched for, out in the open. And presently, in the garden, came the first messengers from the burning ranges: ashes, falling thickly, charred fronds of bracken, half-burned twigs, and fragments of bark. No fire lived in them, but many were still hot. They came more and more swiftly, until the coverlets of the beds on the verandas were black with them: blown so fiercely that many were forced underneath the pillows.
The scorching wind grew wilder until it was a very hurricane of heat. A new sound began to mingle with its fury; a dull, far-off roar that made the Hill Farm watchers look at each other in voiceless fear. As they stood by the fence, they heard galloping hoofs, and David Merritt raced up on a sweating horse.
“That you, Mrs. Hurst? They’re bringing people here—the Gordon family and the Watts and Duncans. There’s no earthly chance for their homes. You must be ready to make for the creek.”
“Is the fire very near?” Mrs. Hurst asked.
“God knows where there isn’t fire! All the ranges are burning, on both sides of the valley, and the fire is coming down fast. There’s no fighting it, in this awful wind. Eh, Robin, that’s a good sight!”—for Robin had slipped away, returning with a long tumbler of cool drink. He drained it thirstily.
“Every man in the district is out, doing what he can—it’s chiefly getting people away from the lonely farms back in the bush, and from the sawmillers’ camps. They’re sending cars out from Baroin to take refugees in there. I think your place is safer than most, for it’s surrounded with green—but you can’t tell. Every bit of woodwork is hot to the touch to-day, and if a burning branch lodged on a shed roof or under the veranda, the house would go.”
“Yes—I see that,” Mrs. Hurst said. “What should I do, Mr. Merritt?”
“Keep a close watch, that’s all. There’s no safer place than the creek down below your paddock, for there are good holes with no trees near them to hold the fire. That’s the worst—the trees: the grass and ferns go like a flash, but the trees burn so long, and shower fragments everywhere. If the house catches, or if you see flames coming from the hills behind the smoke, make for the creek—take blankets with you to soak and put over your heads. And don’t leave it too late to go! There would be men here to watch your place only that we don’t reckon you’re in as much danger as most of the places.”
“We do not need anyone,” Mrs. Hurst said, calmly. “But is there nothing any of us can do?”
“Can’t I be some use, Mr. Merritt?” Barry struck in. “I could help the men!”
“No, my son, you can’t. We want only men who know every yard of the country. Be ready to do all you can here—you had better take it in turns to watch, or your eyes will soon give out—three men are smoke-blind already. You might have food and drinks ready, Mrs. Hurst: I’ll tell any of the men they can get a bite here, if I may. They may not have the chance, but if they do it will be a help.”
“It will be a comfort to do it,” Mrs. Hurst said. “I’ll have boracic lotion made, too, for their poor eyes.”
“That’s a real good idea. Well, I must be off.” He swung himself into the saddle, and then spoke again. “We’re pretty anxious about Danny Sanders; his brother’s splitting rails over near Gaunt’s Crossing, camping alone, and we heard by telephone that there’s a big fire there. Danny went off at once on a horse—but he has five miles of awful country to get through, and by the look of it the fire will be across it before he is. Well, it’s a black day for Gippsland!” He wheeled his horse, and in a moment was swallowed up by the smoke.
“We must all work,” Mrs. Hurst said. “Robin, will you and Barry watch, for the present—one in front, the other at the back. We will get food ready: and all of us must eat something, for we’ll need all our strength.” They battled against the raging wind, fighting each step across the yard.
“I’m blessed if I’m going to let the house go without putting up a fight!” declared Robin.
“Same here,” Barry returned. “I say, Robin, I’ll get boughs ready for beaters at every point, and put buckets of water handy. Gee, aren’t your eyes sore!” He rubbed his own furiously, as he hurried off for an axe.
It was a comfort to work, even though work was terrible, in the blinding heat. Together they put the house in a state of defence, as well as they could; and then, an idea occurring to Robin, they dug a hole in the garden and buried whatever money and small valuables the house contained, wrapped in an old mackintosh. Now and then Mrs. Hurst or Mrs. Ryan took their places, and they went in to snatch a morsel of food, to bathe their smarting eyes, or to help in preparing food and drink. In one of the bedrooms Polly played happily on the floor with the three little Ryans—only leaving them to make sure, occasionally, that Robin was not far off: when she would stand by her for a moment, perhaps stroke her sleeve, and then would return contentedly to her charges. Mrs. Ryan worked in utter silence, her face stony in its self-control. And as the dull roar from the ranges mounted on the rushing wind, no one dared breathe to her a word of hope.
Dazed people began to arrive at Hill Farm: mothers carrying little children; old men and women; boys and girls sick with excitement and fear: all of them stumbling in, half-blind with smoke, and stupid from the fight through the gale. They scarcely realized that in all probability the little homes, so toilfully reared throughout years of grinding effort, would be heaps of ashes when they next saw them—some things are mercifully beyond realization. They carried just what they had been permitted to save as they fled: little articles of value, bundles of clothes, clocks that still ticked sturdily: and one childless mother held in her hand the little shoes her baby had not stayed long enough with her to wear out. They sat about in pitiful groups, grateful for what the Hursts did for them, too dazed to speak much. Men came out from Baroin in cars, to take them away.
“Safer there than here,” said one man. “Though goodness knows, the township would go like a flash if a blaze started anywhere—there’d be no stopping it, in this wind. What a hurricane! a bit of charred messmate bark fell on my lawn, and there’s no messmate forest within ten miles of us! And there are no men left to fight in Baroin—every man in the place is out fighting somewhere. The fire-bell rings a new alarm every little while—some fresh outbreak reported from the country. The post-office people have been doing great work telephoning—but half the telephone-lines are down now, brought down by falling trees.”
“Are there fires between here and the township?” Mrs. Hurst asked.
“Half a dozen have started, but they’ve managed to stop them—there are men all along, to keep the track clear. I had a narrow shave in one place: a burning tree came down across the road, and missed the car by inches. But a miss is as good as a mile! They’ll have the tree cleared away when I get back with my load. Sure you wouldn’t like to come in, Mrs. Hurst?”
She shook her head. “I think we are safe here—and there is the creek.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be a joy-ride,” said the man from Baroin. “One fellow met a wall of flame across the track near Heathfield: he made his passengers duck down and cover themselves all over with a rug, and he went through it at forty miles an hour. Got through all right, but the rug was blazing. Nobody even singed, however. Your house had a narrow shave just now, hadn’t it?”
“Mine?” She looked at him questioningly.
“Didn’t you know?” he asked, astonished. “Just as I got up to the back, it was. Bit of burning wood must have lodged against the wall, high up, over the veranda: it was beginning to smoulder. That red-haired young daughter of yours was up with a bucket of water, putting it out, before I could get there. It’s quite all right now, so don’t worry.” He went off to gather his passengers, and Mrs. Hurst continued to cut sandwiches with a calmness that surprised herself. Robin was safe, evidently: and the food was needed. She must not leave her job.
There was no word of Danny Sanders. The fire had raged at Gaunt’s Crossing, wiping out a sawmill and a road construction camp: but of Danny and his brother nothing was known. Cars could not get through, for the only track was blocked by enormous fallen trees, still blazing fiercely: one had been tried, and had encountered a sudden shower of sparks and flying coals as a tree came down—the car had been blazing fiercely in a moment, and the men in it had staggered out of the fire-zone on foot, glad to find themselves alive, their shirts charred rags. No one knew whether Danny had got across the blazing spur to his brother. The men who spoke of his chances shook their heads doubtfully. There were sad hearts, for everyone liked big Danny.
The slow afternoon crawled on. There were no more refugees now; all who were not still clinging to their homes, refusing to leave while there was a chance of fighting, had been taken in to Baroin; and rumour said that the township itself was in grave danger, from a fire approaching from the east. All the men of the valley were fighting to save their homes. The wind had eddied, swinging from one point to another; or long ago the blaze from the hills would have swept down across the creeks. It roared above them, the lashing tongues of flame leaping half a mile at a time; their sullen raging sound, and the mighty crashing of forest giants, loud above the howling gale. Even on the flats, limbs were twisted and flung many yards away, and great trees crashed down before the fury of the wind; two men had been badly hurt, and had been taken away, insensible, to the hospital. The men, strung out below the foothills, raced from place to place, as burning fragments from the mountains fell into the long grass—beating savagely at the blaze that sprang up almost before the fiery messenger had touched the earth. Women fought with superhuman strength beside them, or staggered from one to another with buckets of tea—men and women alike choking and crying with the smoke. And all the while the cruel, scorching gale howled, and they knew in their hearts that, sooner or later, they must give up the unequal fight and think only of saving their lives.
A dozen times the sheds or the house of Hill Farm had caught—but always Robin or Barry had been lucky enough to see the first licking tongue of flame and to quench it before it had fairly taken hold. Polly worked with them, as quick to see as they: as the day wore on she seemed unable to let Robin out of her sight. Whether Robin beat out a springing flame, or worked at preparing food, or toiled across the paddock with cans of tea, Polly was beside her—careless of the blistering heat, always ready with a faint little smile when the girl looked at her. It was useless to beg her to remain inside: she merely shook her head obstinately, still smiling. And there was no time for argument on Black Sunday.
It was four o’clock when David Merritt, with blackened face and red-rimmed eyes, raced to the house again.
“Get to the creek!” he shouted, trying to make himself heard above the shrieking of the gale and that deeper roar that came behind it. “It’s coming down like a wall—there’s no fighting it! Take blankets—and hurry!” He struck his spurs into his horse, galloping to the next farm.
They were all prepared: like disciplined soldiers they made their way out and filed down the slope, leaving Hill Farm to its fate. Only Robin hung back a moment, calling to Barry. They flung the water in their buckets over the verandas.
“Not that it’s much good,” Robin muttered—“it dries almost before it falls, in this wind. But it’s our last kick! Grab your blanket, Barry, and run!”
They trotted after the little procession ahead—already dimly seen through the smoke.
“One of the men told me he doesn’t think the house will go,” Barry said. “So much green all round it, and no big trees that will burn. And he said it was the very fierceness of the wind that would save it, for the fire will go past it in a flash. It’s flying fragments that are the danger.”
“Well, goodness knows there are enough of them,” Robin answered, stamping on a smouldering piece of bark that fell almost at her feet. “No, I guess it’s the finish for poor old Hill Farm, Barry. And we’ve been so happy there!” She raised her voice as she saw Polly hanging back uneasily before them. “All right, Polly—go on, I’m coming!”
“And it was only yesterday,” said Barry, in a voice of wonder, “that we were worried because we’d killed Mr. Merritt’s pig! Doesn’t it seem queer that it ever seemed to matter!”
“Poor old Mr. Merritt hasn’t a pig left,” Robin said. “Dick Merritt told me when I took him a drink that they had all died of the heat and smoke.”
“By Jove!” said Barry, staring. “And I’ve never had a chance to own up about the one we finished. Well, I can do it to-morrow—if any of us are alive.”
“Oh, we’ll be alive, I expect,” said Robin. But in her own heart she did not feel so sure.
It seemed strange to find themselves at the creek, with nothing to do. The day had been all toil and agony: now there was nothing for them but the last effort ahead—of saving their own lives. They all plunged into the water, rejoicing in its cool touch on their suffering bodies: the little boys kicked and scrambled in the shallows, with shrill cries of delight. The hole that they had chosen was wide, and bare of overhanging trees; there was a little rocky island in the middle, and here they placed the basket of food that they had carried, and covered it with a wet rug, held down by a slab of stone. And then there was nothing to do.
Nothing but to watch. Already Hill Farm was only a misty outline through the smoke. Behind it the roar of the fire drove on the hurricane, each moment drawing nearer: embers fell and sizzled on their soaked felt hats, and spluttered as they struck the water. They saw fleeing animals, kangaroos and wallabies, that leaped past them, blind with terror: near at hand a splendid crimson lory suddenly flashed downwards through the smoke and fell dead beside them. The very air was full of terror and death.
Then, for the first time, behind the smoke they saw the wall of flame that leaped down from the hills like a hungry animal. High above the trees it towered in rushing tongues and solid roaring sheets, while the hills shook and echoed with the noise of crashing timber. Nearer it came—nearer yet . . . . . .
A shrill, pitiful sound pierced the gale—a horse’s neigh that was half a scream. Robin glanced round sharply.
“Oh, it’s Roany!” she cried. “He’s trapped in the next paddock—Dick Merritt was using him. I’ll run and open the gate, Mother—it will give him a chance, at least. I can’t let him burn!”
“Robin—come back!” Mrs. Hurst’s agonized cry was lost in the screaming wind. Barry pushed past her in the water.
“I’ll go after her,” he said, between his teeth. Already the slender, running figure was dim through the smoke.
Mrs. Hurst caught his wrist and held it as in a vice.
“No!” she said. “You are all they have—and you can do no good. Oh, pray for her—pray that she may be quick!”
Roany was at the gate, pawing, uttering terrified whinnying. Robin flung it open, the iron latch scorching her fingers, and the horse galloped madly past her, the thudding of his hoofs dying away towards the creek. Robin ran back, more slowly than she had come. She knew that she was very nearly done.
Then the smoke seemed to split in two, showing the fire as is whirled down upon Hill Farm. Behind the green of the garden the immediate blaze died away: but on either side a wall of flame rushed through the long grass and the dry bracken, driving with hurricane speed towards the creek. The hot breath of its coming blinded and choked her. She knew the creek was near: knew that she was staggering uncertainly, her sense of direction gone. Then dimly, through the dense smoke, she saw a running, silent figure: Polly, carrying something, and smiling as she ran. Only for a moment, for Robin’s eyes could see no more. She fell, blind and helpless, in the path of the rushing wall of flame.
The scorching blast touched her. Then came a sudden weight of coolness and darkness, exquisite in its relief. She drifted under it into unconsciousness.