Facing the Flame

by Jackie French

  ‘So you decided you would?’

  ‘So I put a funnel-web spider in her lunchbox — which might have killed her and, foolish as she was, she didn’t deserve that. But I was only six years old. You don’t realise death is real when you’re six. It just seemed a joke, like something in a cartoon on telly. The fifty-kilo weight drops on the villain and he gets up again with a headache. We’re in the middle of the river now. It falls away steeply on either side of the ford, but it’s always shallower in this corner. There are two outcrops of boulders that catch the sand. And, yes, finally I decided that I’d prove people like her wrong and be top of everything.’

  ‘And you were top of everything?’

  Ms Sampson-Lee laughed. ‘Nope. I realised I was letting fools dictate my life, and after that I did enough to pass and had a life as well. And here I am, happily married and with two kids who drive me barmy. They take after their dad’s side of the family. We Sampsons are always quiet and polite . . . And here we are, across the river. The gate is to our right.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Of course you would.’ The tone was not patronising. ‘Does Mountain Lion come when you call? I don’t think we can find him in this darkness.’ The anxiety was back in her voice as they went into the paddock. ‘We’d better leave the gate open in case we can’t find him. That will give him a chance to get out himself if there is a fire.’

  ‘He’ll come to me.’ And not just because of the apple in her pocket. She reached for it, then stopped, standing as still as possible.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Ms Sampson-Lee.

  ‘Sshh. I . . .’ Lu didn’t know how to explain about seeing with her skin. Nor was this the time to try. She let the wind buffet her skin. Hot wind, but this was hotter. No, not just heat. Dryer, as if a giant oven had opened to their right . . .

  Fire. Flames to the right, bearing down on them, not just more heat but the snicker, flicker . . .

  ‘We have to run!’

  ‘I don’t understand . . .’ said Ms Sampson-Lee. Then suddenly she must have seen what Lu could feel, because she tugged Lu with her. Easy to know which way to run. Run with the wind, because the wind carried the fire, except the very heat caused the fire to fly and circle. All at once it was ahead of them as well.

  Lu tugged Ms Sampson-Lee in the other direction, the wind on their left side, neither behind them nor in front. ‘Mountain Lion!’ she yelled, not because he knew his name but because he knew her voice, perhaps trusted her enough to come to her instead of keeping as far as possible from the flames. But he was trapped inside a paddock here. There was no escape, except through the gate to the river.

  She tried to listen, hearing only the wind, Ms Sampson-Lee’s breathing, hoarse and smoke struck, and her own.

  And suddenly, miraculously, he was there, stamping, snorting, almost crushing Ms Sampson-Lee as he pushed his face at Lu, trusting she could make the monster vanish, take him once more to safe pasture.

  She reached automatically for the halter that was slung over her right shoulder and slipped it over Mountain Lion’s ears. ‘We have to get out of the paddock.’

  ‘We can’t.’ Ms Sampson-Lee’s voice shook. ‘The fire is between us and the gate.’

  Visualise, thought Lu desperately. Feel with your feet. Your skin. Remember how the ground felt in this paddock yesterday . . .

  Short grass. Grass a fire would snake across and be gone.

  ‘We have to circle around it then, till it burns itself out enough so we can get over the ground where it’s been.’

  ‘Lu, I can’t see anything, except a metre in front of us . . .’

  ‘But I can,’ said Lu.

  ‘Can’t he jump the fence with us?’ asked Ms Sampson-Lee urgently. ‘Or over the fire front?’

  I have absolutely no idea, thought Lu. Mountain Lion had not been bred nor trained as a jumper, and trying it for the first time with two people attempting to ride him bareback was a terrible idea. Possibly the only thing stopping him from panicking now was his confidence in Lu. If she panicked, so would he. If she showed the slightest fear, he might lose his trust . . .

  ‘No, he can’t jump the fence,’ she said shortly. She kept one hand on Mountain Lion’s neck, stroking, muttering at him, keeping her voice calm, and undid the buttons on her shirt with the other hand.

  ‘Lu . . . what are you . . .?’

  ‘Sshh. I’m sorry. I mean, please be quiet. I . . . I have to focus. Think.’ Use every sense she had, including her ears.

  The fire smell had changed. Before it was grass, the tang of gum trees, the burned-cardboard smell of bark. This was sharper, like the time the oven caught alight, the sharp tang of plastic.

  Buildings were burning nearby. Were they the River View cottages? Burning debris could have blown across the river. But she could still smell it in a single stream, a bit like the way you could taste cordial if you poured it last into your glass. Most of River View was still fire free. They could find their way along its paths to safety.

  Probably. Possibly.

  And that was still their best bet to get to somewhere safe. Though even Gibber’s Creek itself might not be safe. Towns could burn as well as the bush; sometimes even far more fiercely, as they often had more fuel to burn. But at least in Gibber’s Creek there’d be people to hold the fire back. But to get there they’d have to cross burning grass . . .

  Mountain Lion suddenly reefed backwards, pulling at her arm. Were they surrounded by burning paddock now? Her lungs screamed for air. She tried to breathe through her nose, hoping it would catch the soot, or most of it, and let enough air in to allow her to keep going.

  She shrugged off the shirt, then reached up, found Mountain Lion’s ears and, with Ms Sampson-Lee’s sudden comprehending help, tied the shirt over his eyes. He reared, nearly knocking her over, and then accepted it, tossing his head so she had to struggle to get the sleeves tied under his jaw. He broke away from them just as she completed the knot.

  For a moment she thought he would run from her. But he was blind now, as sightless as she was. And he was no longer as terrified by the glare of flames, and he still had her. She pulled the apple out of her jeans pocket, held it out, then when she felt his lips take it, grabbed the dangling lead rope.

  We have seconds, she thought.

  ‘Lu . . . do you know where —?’ began Ms Sampson-Lee.

  ‘Shush!’ She had to use every sense she had. Skin, ears, lift her fingers to try to sense each heated current of the wind and judge which was the hotter.

  Heat, at knee level, like an iron, was pressing against her legs. Burning grass between them and the gate. But only the heat of an iron to the right, not the pizza oven to their left. They could survive an iron, but not an oven.

  Her legs were covered in jeans, her feet in wet boots. She wasn’t sure what the physio was wearing, but hoped the woman wouldn’t go out on a day like this in a skirt.

  Mountain Lion was unprotected. Nor was there time to try to wrap his legs now, even if he would allow it.

  ‘Run!’ she ordered him, ordered Ms Sampson-Lee. She pulled on the lead rope, trying to run herself while dragging half a tonne of horse, hoping desperately that she was right, that the gate was only fifteen paces that way, a small line of short grass still flaming, the rest burned out.

  He skittered back just once and then obeyed. A trot that she could just keep up with, as she ran half leaning against his shoulder, still in control of him. And now the line of low flames . . . The rising heat scorched her bare arms. Mountain Lion threw his head up and snorted in pain, but did not plant his hooves and refuse to move. Instead he went faster over ground that was oven hot but not sizzling at their flesh . . .

  Fourteen paces, fifteen. They must be at the gate soon. Sixteen paces, seventeen . . .

  She’d taken them in the wrong direction. The fire would catch them at the fence. She’d killed them all: Ms Sampson-Lee, who had been so kind; Mountain Lion, because she had not thought to fetch him earlier; hersel
f, when she had only just realised she wanted to live.

  And suddenly her feet were wet. Her ankles, knees. They were in the water. Blessedly cool water. Mountain Lion had led them through the open gate and into the river without her even realising they were through. She felt him drop his head to drink. She let him suck up the water for a few seconds, then pulled his head back up. Too much water taken too quickly would make him sick.

  ‘Ms Sampson-Lee?’

  ‘Here.’ Panting. Not panicking.

  ‘Where’s the ford?’

  ‘Upstream a bit from us, I think. I can see even less now. It’s like night. Like no night I’ve ever known. The sky is red.’

  Once more Lu stood still, her arms now around Mountain Lion’s neck, shivering. She reached up, undid the blindfold . . . She had read that horses would not cross flames, had no idea if it was true. Still didn’t know if the blindfold had helped or hindered.

  And now her legs could feel the current, stronger downstream, lighter above them. Yes, the ford was up there . . .

  She stilled again, feeling the wind, smelling the stench of melting plastic. ‘Ms Sampson-Lee?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘River View is burning.’ Those dry wooden cabins, built in the 1930s as a self-sufficiency camp for those on susso, with their casuarina shingles, the plastic furniture inside.

  ‘Are . . . are you sure?’

  ‘As sure as I can be.’

  ‘Then I have to go. Lu, I’m sorry, I have to get the kids . . .’

  It was possibly the greatest compliment she had ever been given, left in charge of a racehorse in the middle of a river during a bushfire.

  ‘Show me the ford first.’

  She felt Ms Sampson-Lee’s hand take her arm, lead her while she led the horse. Four paces, ten paces. Yes, here it was, the hard sand and shallower water.

  ‘Can you find your way up from here?’ Lu asked, not even realising the irony of a blind girl asking a sighted woman if she could find the safest route.

  ‘Yes. I know this place like the back of my hand.’

  ‘The fire is on the side away from Gibber’s Creek,’ said Lu urgently. ‘You should make it up to the cabins and office if you run. We’ll take the path on the far side.’

  ‘You’ll be all right?’

  Were Mountain Lion’s legs burned? Would he fall, stumble, collapse in the heat and smoke? Would she?

  But all she said was, ‘Yes,’ and listened to the splashes as Ms Sampson-Lee ran across the ford.

  Then she reached down, gently, to check the horse’s legs.

  Chapter 41

  SCARLETT

  Scarlett swung her van into the lane next to the Blue Belle Café — there was no chance of parking on the street — leaving room for Jed to park beside her, and swung out her wheelchair, lowered herself into it and grabbed her kit. Others could come back to get the sheets and blankets. She didn’t bother to lock the van . . . no one locked their cars in Gibber’s Creek. Of course town had never been crowded with strangers either, but if someone needed the stuff in her van, they were welcome to it.

  The main road had been a chain of dim lights heading into town as she drove in on the deserted Overflow road. She had never seen so many cars heading to Gibber’s Creek. Refugees from Jeratgully, she supposed, or people coming to help. Luckily she had right of way . . .

  Had that been Merv she’d seen back near Dribble? She had a feeling it was. But Jed would be safe at the Blue Belle soon, with friends around her. She’d have to remember to let Constable Ryan know as soon as the emergency was over that Merv was still hanging about.

  She met Mark pushing a wheelbarrow out the front door of the café. She peered into it, wondering what food Leafsong had decided people who had lost home, community and much else might need.

  A box was full of old-fashioned apple tarts, rich in cinnamon and cloves. A box of custard tarts nestled next to them, and a bucket of hunks of fruit skewered onto satay sticks — chunks of watermelon, pineapple and orange, dripping freshness, each topped by a ripe strawberry. Comfort food, thought Scarlett. And food that didn’t need plates or cutlery either.

  ‘Leafsong’s cooking, I’m delivering,’ said Mark. ‘Lee’s are donating the ingredients. The CWA is looking after the fire crews while we feed the evacuees. Leafsong’s got a batch of sausage rolls in the oven now, except they’re not really sausage.’ His voice held deep pride for his partner.

  ‘How many evacuees are there?’ Scarlett wheeled along fast to keep up with him.

  ‘Roughly a hundred at the hall. It’s pretty crammed. The Red Cross and Lions Club are trying to billet as many as possible.’

  Scarlett nodded. Most of the members of the Gibber’s Creek CWA belonged to the Red Cross too — and the Historical Society and half a dozen other local groups — while their husbands were in the Lions Club or Rotary. She suspected today people would just turn up where they were needed. ‘When you see Jed, could you tell her that Leafsong needs her in the café? Give her a quiet job like peeling apples that she can do seated.’

  ‘Will do,’ said Mark.

  They turned the corner into the main street. The town sat, eerily quiet, under the ash-sifted sky. Even the dogs had deserted the lampposts.

  Scarlett wheeled herself up the new ramp into the hall while Mark ferried his boxes up the stairs, then headed back to the café for more. Inside, women marshalled mattresses, bedding and kids, and made tea and sandwiches along the trestles set up on both sides of the hall. Andy McAlpine lugged in a bucket of water and poured it into one of the urns.

  It was strangely quiet: people silently at work; wide-eyed kids holding their parents’ hands; families clustered together despite the heat, as if they had realised that the most precious heart of their world was each other.

  A space had been screened off down the back. Scarlett wheeled herself between the mattresses, the kids playing Scrabble. ‘Excuse me. Excuse me. Would you mind moving? . . . Thank you . . .’ She reached the screens and saw a small line waiting. Dr McAlpine sat behind the screens, examining each patient.

  ‘Can I help?’

  Dr McAlpine nodded. ‘Triage.’ He meant an initial sorting out of cases from minor to more serious. ‘Let me know if anyone needs to head to hospital. If it’s a straight burn, you can handle it. Call Mah over if they’re in major shock, but she’s already made sure everyone who arrives has sweet tea and something to eat. Call me for any breathing problems or mysterious pain . . . you know the kind of thing.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. She wheeled down the line, smiling reassuringly, examining, then set up her own station to clean and dress the minor burns and hand out pieces of butterscotch to soothe smoke-roughened throats. No one needed more major care, or at least not yet. She had a feeling there’d be more heat prostration, heart attacks and all the other tragic fall-out of stress soon.

  She expected the line of injured to grow. It didn’t. There is nothing left of Jeratgully to burn, she realised. All who could be evacuated had been, with only a few homesteads in the way of the fire now, and the fire crews would have given them warning already.

  She pressed three of Dr McAlpine’s jellybeans into the hand of a small boy with wide eyes and a teddy bear and an unbreakable grip on the gnarled hand of his grandfather, then wheeled herself back over to Dr McAlpine.

  ‘You need tea and food,’ she informed him.

  ‘Yes, Doctor,’ said Dr McAlpine.

  ‘One day,’ said Scarlett sternly, ‘that will not be a joke.’

  ‘I know.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve known for about sixteen years.’

  ‘That long? I couldn’t even move my hands back then.’

  ‘But you could swallow. And talk. You never did stop talking. Or asking questions. You were only six years old when you demanded a half-hour lecture on the appendix and were decidedly dissatisfied when I couldn’t tell you why humans had appendixes. I knew you’d make it.’

  ‘Was that why you took me with you on house calls?’


  He hesitated. ‘Partly. And because if for some wild chance you didn’t make it,’ he added frankly, ‘you would at least have had that — the feel of what it was like to be a country doctor.’

  ‘I might decide I want to be a fabulously wealthy cosmetic surgeon, treating only the richest clients.’

  He grinned tiredly and followed her through the field of mattresses to the side kitchen. ‘No way. You’ll be back here to do your residency. And I bet you’ll stay after that.’

  She sighed a breath of relief. She had worried no hospital would take a woman in a wheelchair for the residency that was the final part of a doctor’s training. But of course Dr McAlpine would have sorted that for her. And she’d be good. Better than good, even if people had to do a bit more lifting and fetching for her . . .

  ‘Sit,’ she ordered, fetching him a cup of tea strong enough to paint the fly-speckled walls. Mark stuck his head in, offering his fruit-salad sticks. Scarlett took two, handed one to Dr McAlpine, then the other to his brother when he came in with another bucket of fresh water for the urns.

  ‘Tea,’ demanded Andy McAlpine. ‘I’m parched. Can hardly see anything out there, my eyes are streaming so much from the smoke. Never seen anything like it.’

  ‘The wind is heading straight over to us from Jeratgully,’ said Dr McAlpine.

  ‘Which means debris might be dropping here too.’ Andy McAlpine knew his fires. He took a long drink of tea, hot enough to burn anyone who hadn’t toughened his mouth and throat with just-off-the-boil tea for decades, then ate the fruit in two bites. ‘Any sandwiches?’ He bit into a cheese and pickle one, then handed one with cottage cheese, sultana and grated carrot to his brother. ‘Eat. You always forget to when you’re working.’

  ‘Once an older brother, always an older brother,’ muttered Dr McAlpine.

  Andy grinned. ‘And don’t you forget it.’

  Jed, thought Scarlett. How was she feeling in this heat and smoke? She hoped she really did have her feet up. ‘Have you seen Jed?’ she asked Andy.