by Justin D'Ath
It seemed a very slim chance. Chainsaw had managed to put several hundred metres between us and the firefront, but the effort had taken a heavy toll. He was exhausted. His head hung, his breath whistled and his hooves dragged. Still he trotted on.
Soot and embers fell around us like ugly black snow. We were the only ones on the road now. The other creatures had disappeared. Probably they were ahead. Or dead.
I found myself thinking about Susie, and wondering if she and the brumbies had made it to safety. But it was hard to keep my thoughts on anything other than the fire. I tried to shut out the crackle and roar of the approaching flames. They seemed to be gaining on us again. The wind on my back felt red hot. My eyes were running. My throat burned. I was dying of thirst and felt faint from heat and carbon-monoxide poisoning. It must have been twice as bad for Chainsaw. I hoped he’d had a drink at the stream twenty minutes ago. The next twenty minutes, I sensed, would seal our fate one way or another.
There was a loud whoosh behind us. It was accompanied by a blast of heat that nearly blew me off Chainsaw’s back. I turned and saw a terrifying sight. A tornado of twisting yellow flame raced towards us. It was as wide as the road and coiled several hundred metres into the sky, disappearing into the seething pall of ash and smoke.
Chainsaw must have seen the danger, too. He veered out of the twister’s path and plunged into the forest beside the road. I had to duck to avoid low branches. The twister roared along the road behind us, showering us with a confetti of sparks and flaming debris.
I was clinging to Chainsaw’s neck, much as I’d clung to Susie earlier that day. Branches and vines and ferns swished past, tearing at my clothes, scratching my hands and feet and ankles. I couldn’t sit up. I could do nothing to stop Chainsaw’s panicked flight through the forest.
We seemed to be going downhill. The fiery twister was behind us somewhere. Now I could see a yellow wall of flame through the trees to my left. It was sweeping towards us on a kilometre-wide front. Since leaving the road, Chainsaw had taken a course running parallel to the firefront, rather than away from it. If he kept going in this direction, the bushfire would be on us within a minute. Perhaps less.
The silly old bull had totally lost the plot. He was going to kill us both!
21
OUT OF THE WOODS
It wasn’t until I saw a shimmer of silver through the trees ahead that I realised I’d seriously misjudged Chainsaw. He knew exactly what he was doing. He wasn’t killing us, he was saving our lives.
Nan and Pop had pointed out the turn-off to Platypus Dam a week earlier. Chainsaw hadn’t waited to reach the turn-off. He’d smelled the water from Corcoran Road and now he was making a beeline towards it. Nothing was going to stop him. Not even the fire.
It was very close now, only about forty or fifty metres to our left, and coming fast. The air was full of smoke and falling sparks. Already we had passed a number of small spot fires. Luckily, the forest was shielding us from the blast-furnace heat of the main fire. Even so, it was incredibly hot. The air shimmered. The outlines of trees had become wobbly and blurred. I was gasping for breath. I felt nauseous from dehydration, dizzy from lack of oxygen.
Hugging Chainsaw’s withers, I closed my eyes and hoped for the best. The big old bull huffed and chuffed beneath me. He staggered but recovered quickly and ploughed on like a bulldozer towards the dam.
We made it. Thanks to Chainsaw, we beat the fire to the dam by about ten seconds. By the time the flames exploded through the trees along the bank, the bull and I were standing in the cool oozy mud twenty metres from the shore. Only our eyes and noses were above the water.
It was muddy but I didn’t care. I drank and drank. A few metres away, Chainsaw was gulping like a sewer pump. It was a wonder the water level didn’t drop!
After I’d taken the edge off my humungous thirst, I began to notice other eyes and noses around us. The dam was full of animals. There were kangaroos, wallabies, possums, wombats, goannas. Snakes!
One came wriggling through the water towards me, probably looking for something to climb onto. But I wasn’t agreeable to that. I splashed water at it and it swam away.
I looked around for horses but didn’t see any. The dam was quite large and there was a lot smoke. It was possible that Susie and the brumbies were at the other end, where I couldn’t see them. Birds had gathered near the middle of the dam. There were ducks, coots, grebes, swamp hens, a couple of herons perched on a floating stick. I wondered what had happened to the other birds, the ones that weren’t aquatic.
The honeyeaters!
In a panic, I ripped off the denim jacket and opened the pocket in which I’d put the little green and yellow honeyeater. It rolled out into my cupped hand, a limp bundle of wet feathers. I’d forgotten about it and now it was dead. Poor little critter. It was only a bird, but it would have been nice to have saved it. Today wouldn’t have been such a total disaster if I had managed to do just one thing right. Instead, I’d stuffed up just about everything.
A translucent eyelid slid open. A tiny claw came slowly unclenched. The honeyeater sat up on my hand and shook itself, settling its feathers into place. Then, in a flurry of damp wings, it darted low across the water and alighted on one of Chainsaw’s horns. The bull flicked his ear. Otherwise he seemed unconcerned.
I looked at the pair of them, the bull and the honeyeater, and smiled. It felt like the first time I’d smiled in about a century. The last few hours had seemed like a century. But they were over now. As the saying goes: I was out of the woods.
22
… AND INTO THE FIRE
I heard the helicopter again.
As the sound grew steadily louder, my heart began pumping. It was coming to Platypus Dam! The pilot needed more water to fight the fire and he was going to refill his bucket from the very dam where I had taken refuge. I was saved!
I couldn’t see the helicopter because there was too much smoke. The bushfire completely encircled the dam. Whichever way I looked, towering yellow flames leapt into the sky. Banks of choking brown smoke rolled out across the water. I hoped the pilot could find his way through. He wouldn’t bring his machine down if he couldn’t see the dam; that would be too dangerous.
Thumpa thumpa thumpa thumpa!
The helicopter drew closer. It thundered out over the lake and passed directly overhead. I strained my eyes, but all I could see was smoke. The sound moved away to my left, then I heard the rotor-beat quicken as the helicopter climbed.
‘Come back! It’s down here! The dam’s right here!’ I screamed, waving Adam’s jacket above my head, aware that I was wasting my energy.
I was desperate. If the helicopter went away, I would be trapped in the dam until the fire burned out. And then I would have to rely on Chainsaw to carry me to safety. I groaned at the thought of having to ride him again.
Thumpa thumpa thumpa thumpa!
The helicopter was coming back. It had flown in a circle and returned to the dam. A large shadow loomed overhead. I felt a powerful downward draught on my wet hair and face. A hole appeared in the smoke, blown open by the helicopter’s rotor, and the big orange bucket came swinging down. It flopped into the water halfway between me and the middle of the dam. Ducks and waterbirds scattered in all directions.
The helicopter came into view. It was hovering about thirty metres above the mostly submerged bucket. It was a blue and white Bell JetRanger – the same model that had rescued me and my cousin from a crocodile infested river in the Northern Territory. Luckily there were no crocodiles here. There were snakes, though. And a bushfire. And a tired old bull that looked like he could quite happily spend the rest of his life in the dam.
I waved Adam’s jacket, I yelled my lungs out. But the JetRanger was facing the wrong direction; the pilot couldn’t see me.
Tossing the jacket aside, I began swimming out towards the helicopter. I was frantic. It was unthinkable that it would leave without me. I had been through too much to be abandoned now.
I reached the bucket and grabbed hold of the wobbly rim with one hand. I waved my free hand desperately at the JetRanger. It was right above me.
I was moments too late. There was a small window in the floor of the helicopter which allowed the pilot to look through when filling the bucket. But the bucket was full and he had just turned his attention back to the controls. He tipped the nose forward and put the JetRanger into a steep climb.
I should have let go. But, by the time I realised what was happening, I was already twenty metres above the water, dangling one-handed from the bucket’s rim. It was too far to drop. Straining against the multiplied G-forces of the helicopter’s climb, I clawed my other hand up over the side of the bucket for a more secure hold. It was lucky that I did, because as soon as we were higher than the flaming treetops, the pilot executed a 90-degree pedal turn, swinging the bucket in a wide gut-churning arc that nearly flung me into the firestorm. Somehow I held on. Just. The bucket was made of heavy nylon. Its narrow rim sagged down where I gripped it, causing a steady stream of water to spill onto my face. Dangling by my fingertips two or three hundred metres over the raging bushfire, I was slowly drowning!
The bucket resembled an upside-down tepee, held open at the top by a circular metal frame. Four steel cables were attached to the frame, connecting it to the helicopter.
I grabbed one of the cables and hooked one leg over the lip of the bucket. Trembling with effort, I hauled myself up. At the point of balance, my knee slipped and I went headfirst into the water. I came up spitting and spluttering, gripped the edge and collapsed breathless against the side.
I’d made it! I was safe. Bubbles rose all around me where air was leaking in somewhere down near my feet. It was like being in a flying spa.
I thrust my chin over the side and blinked the water from my eyes. We were clear of the smoke cloud, flying along the side of a burning ridge. As I took in the view, the truth hit me like a hammer blow. I wasn’t safe. Pretty soon the pilot was going to dump the water onto that fire. And I would go with it!
I had to attract his attention. But how? The JetRanger was travelling fast, trailing the bucket behind it. Even if the pilot looked down, he wouldn’t see me.
I would have to climb the cables. Was it possible? Would I be able to climb the cables using just my hands and my unbroken, though badly gashed, right foot? I had to. My life depended on it.
Careful not to look down, I gripped two of the thin steel cables, placed the toes of my right foot on the bucket’s narrow rim and hauled myself out of the water.
Fear of heights isn’t something you can control. You can be the bravest person in the world when it comes to other things (riding bulls, for example, or staring down humungous spiders) and then freak out at the view from the top of a stepladder. I’m actually pretty good at stepladders now, but fire buckets dangling from helicopters? No way. Here I was balanced on the edge on the toes of one foot. My hands were clamped around the two skinny steel cables. I was holding on so tight my knuckles were white. The wind was whistling in my ears and tearing at my dripping-wet clothes. And I couldn’t move. I couldn’t climb the cables, and couldn’t climb back down. I was frozen.
My timing was bad. I was standing on the edge of the bucket when the pilot put the helicopter into a long, steep dive. My stomach climbed into my rib cage.
I knew it was a bad idea but I couldn’t stop myself. I looked down.
Ohhhhhhh myyyyyyyyy goooooooooooooosh!
We were dropping into the mouth of a volcano!
Only it wasn’t a volcano. It was a dead-end gully totally surrounded by fire. From my perspective it looked like a scene from the end of the world. And it was the end. For me. I think my eyelids were the only part of my body that I could still control. I snapped them closed. It was better not to look.
Heat. I began to feel warm. Then hot. The air was on fire. Smoke burned in my nostrils. I stopped breathing. My whole system closed down, except for the little voice in my brain.
I don’t want to diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie! it shrieked.
Suddenly, my stomach slumped back down to where it was supposed to be. We had stopped descending. But my troubles were far from over. I was no longer going down, I was going forward. Straight towards the source of the unbelievable heat. Orange glowed through my eyelids.
This is it, I thought.
Above me, there was a sudden change in the engine note as the helicopter went into a climb. Its rotor clawed at the air with a deafening thwap thwap thwap thwap. The world tipped and began to swing like a giant pendulum. Enormous G forces gripped me. I felt my toes slip off the bucket’s rim, the cables sliding through my hands. I felt myself falling …
My eyes snapped open.
I was inside the fire!
Burning trees whirled around me. I was surrounded by gusts of yellow flame, explosions of sparks, whipping, red-hot branches. Yet none of it touched me. I felt peaceful and oddly cool. I was looking at the fire from another dimension – from a dream, perhaps. I seemed to be underwater, inside a giant bubble looking out at the flaming inferno, completely engulfed by fire yet not burning.
Twang!
I was dropping. My stomach flew all the way up into my ribcage again. Down, down, down I went, helpless in my plummeting bubble, smashing through the trees in a whirl of flames and sparks.
Then, with an impact that seemed to stop the whole universe, I hit the ground.
23
REUNION
I found out later what had happened.
The helicopter pilot’s name was Vin Alison. He had flown down into the burning gully to bomb it with water. When he looked through the porthole in the JetRanger’s floor to line up his drop, he saw me standing on the edge of the bucket. The sight was so unexpected, so weird, that it took him a few moments to grasp what he was seeing. In those few moments things went horribly wrong.
The helicopter was swooping into the burning gully at roughly 50 knots (which is 80 kph if you’re in a car). Vin had been about to level out and commence his water-drop when he saw me. By the time he gathered his wits, the JetRanger was much lower than it should have been and heading straight for the wall of flame. Vin put it into a power climb. But he was too late. The helicopter was carrying a 500 kilogram payload of water, not to mention a 60 kilogram stowaway, and it didn’t rise fast enough. The bucket smashed into the burning treetops and became entangled in the branches. When Vin tried to free it, the cables snagged on one of the JetRanger’s landing skids and the helicopter went into a partial rollover. By this stage Vin thought I was dead. He didn’t realise I had fallen into the bucket and not off it, so he hit the emergency cable-release in a last ditch effort to save himself and the JetRanger.
I heard it flying away. I wasn’t sure what had happened. It was only later that I would work it out. The water in the bucket cushioned my fall. Now I found myself sitting in a tangle of cables and wet orange nylon, with solid ground beneath me. I was unhurt, apart from my throbbing right foot, which had lost its make-shift bandage some time in the last half hour. At least the bleeding had stopped. My broken foot was completely numb.
A flaming branch landed on the wet ground beside me, sending up a hiss of steam. It woke me up to the grim truth of my situation. I had survived the fall from the helicopter, only to end up back in the bushfire. Above and behind me, the whole sky seemed to be on fire. Yet the ground all around me was damp and steaming. I saw an opening in the flames ahead. On hands and knees, I crawled between the black steaming tree trunks and out into the open.
I was in a narrow gully. Bushes and small trees smouldered here and there along the steep rocky sides. Higher up, fire ringed the sky. Ash and sparks rained down. So far the gully floor seemed to have escaped the flames. Using a stick as a crutch, I hobbled slowly into the gully through the waist-high ferns and bracken. The foliage felt damp. Why was it damp? I wondered. The bucket was at least forty metres away; no way could its contents have splashed this far.
&nb
sp; I stopped in my tracks. Stones crunched. A stick snapped. There was something in the gully ahead of me.
‘Hello? Is anyone there?’ I called. As if it would be human.
I heard a thump, followed by a low coughing sound. Whatever it was, it sounded big. I looked nervously behind me at the burning trees. Some of the ferns at the side of the gully were smoking. I had to go forward.
In my brief glimpse of it from the air, I had seen that the gully had a dead-end. Whatever was ahead of me would be trapped. I knew that some animals could become quite dangerous if they are cornered. I’d heard stories of kangaroos attacking people and inflicting serious injuries. But I couldn’t go back. The fire was behind me. I pushed aside my fears and hobbled nervously forward.
More noises. The shuffle of feet.
Sweating now, I eased a fern frond to one side. No more than five metres away, a shaggy grey horse raised its head and snorted. It cantered up the gully and joined a mob of ten or eleven other horses gathered near the vertical rock wall at the end. Brumbies. Twelve of them. They stood watching me, their eyes wide with alarm.
I was only interested in one of them – a small palomino mare that was standing slightly apart from the others.
‘Susie!’ I called.
24
THROUGH THE FIRE
Here’s something else I found out later.
Vin Alison, the helicopter pilot, had been trying to save Susie and the brumbies. He had spotted them trapped in the gully on one of his earlier fire-bombing runs. Vin’s an animal lover. Instead of continuing on to the top of Copperhead Spur, where he was supposed to be fighting the bushfire, he dropped his load of water on the burning trees hemming in the horses. He came back twice more to douse the fire-encircled gully. On his fourth trip, he brought me along.
There was a small spring at the head of the gully. It had nearly dried up over the long hot summer but there was still a tiny pool, less than a metre across, where the water trickled down the rocky wall and collected at the bottom. The smell of water must have attracted the brumbies and Susie as they fled from the bushfire. They had filed up into the gully and become trapped.
