THE BATTLE UNDER THE STARS
This is the homestead—the still lagoon
Kisses the foot of the garden fence,
Shimmering under a silver moon
In a midnight silence, cold and tense.
—_W. H. Ogilvie._
SARAH, the housemaid, was at the big bell of the station, ringing it
wildly. Long after every man and woman on Billabong was awake and busy,
Sarah continued to ring. She said afterwards that it seemed to ease her!
A flying fragment from the burning loft had been carried by the wind
across the gardens to the oldest part of the homestead—wooden rooms
that were now used as storerooms and out-offices. In five minutes they
were blazing fiercely.
Jim and Wally had raced for the garden fence, vaulting it, and landing
in the midst of a bed of pansies.
“Lucky for us they weren’t roses!” gasped Wally, picking himself up out
of the soft soil. “A fellow wants to have on more than pyjamas for this
sort of a lark!” They tore on, ploughing over Hogg’s most cherished
flower beds.
“Where is that blessed hose?” Jim uttered, wrathfully. He dived into
various dark corners where taps existed. Then he stopped, frowning.
“Hogg was mending it. Confound the delay!” he said. “Start with the
little one, Wal.; you know, it’s near that palm you were climbing. I’ll
find Hogg.” Shouting, he ran round the corner of the house, and collided
violently with the gardener, hurrying to meet him with the great rubber
coil in his hands. The shock sent them both staggering, and Hogg sat
down abruptly.
“Ye took me—fair i’ the wind!” he gasped. “Run on, laddie. A’ll get ma
breath presently.”
Flames were shooting from half the windows upstairs when Jim at length
got his hose to work. The fire had caught the wooden balcony, spreading
from it to the upper rooms, and downstairs the kitchen was burning, and
the back verandah had caught. Mr. Linton, running over after carrying
Norah far out of the way of heat, and leaving her in Jean’s care, saw
how the flames were being sucked into the house through the wide-open
back door.
“Won’t do!” he muttered. Dashing in through the smoke, and gripping the
almost red-hot door-handle with his felt hat, he managed to slam the
door. He staggered off the verandah just as the flooring collapsed.
Black Billy, his eyes apparently starting out of his sable face, was at
his elbow.
“Run round and shut the front door, if it’s open, Billy!” Mr. Linton
said, coughing.
“Plenty!” murmured Billy. He disappeared round the corner of the house,
a black streak of fear.
On the eastern side the window of Mr. Linton’s office stood open. The
squatter swung himself through it with the lightness of a boy, and ran
to his desk, which stood open, its roll-top flung back. It held papers
that must not be risked—he thrust them into his overcoat pockets
hurriedly; then, spreading the cloth from a little table on the floor,
he emptied the drawers upon it, working by the dancing glow of the
flames that lit up all the surroundings. Already the heat and smoke were
almost unbearable.
“The safe’s fireproof,” he muttered, glancing towards its
corner—“that’s a comfort, anyhow!”
The room was becoming untenable. Clouds of smoke rolled in from the
windows and crept, snake fashion, under the door. On the side of the
room nearest the fire the plaster began to crack, and the paper
shrivelled on the wall. It was difficult to breathe—David Linton’s
panting gasps seemed to choke him. He knew he could do no more. He added
to the heap on the table cloth the portrait that always stood upon his
desk—Jim and Norah’s mother, sweet and young, smiling from her silver
frame. Then he gathered all into a bundle and groped his way to the
window.
Every available hose was already at work. The hiss of the water, falling
on the flames, sounded like snakes angry at being disturbed. Beneath the
office window, flames were licking at the wall; the woodwork at one side
was blazing and crackling. David Linton hesitated, one hand on the
sill—it was hot, and his load made him awkward.
From the garden came Jim’s shout.
“Half a minute, Dad! Don’t try to get out yet!”
The stream of water from his hose played suddenly upon the burning
woodwork, splashing on the sill, and sprinkling the man who stood
waiting. Above him the flames died out sullenly. Jim played on the hot
bricks of the wall for a moment, in fear less already the fire in the
house should be finding its way into the office—then he shouted again,
deflecting the stream, and Mr. Linton climbed out, bringing his bundle
carefully after him. He carried it across the garden, nodding at his
son.
Behind the house, Murty O’Toole and Brownie had organized a bucket
brigade.
“I can’t carry buckets up to much,” Brownie observed, “but I can pump a
treat!” She worked the force-pump manfully, never ceasing, though the
heat from the burning house made the metal portions of the pump too hot
to touch, and her plump old face was crimson, and her breathing
pitifully distressed. Sarah and Mary were in the line, passing the
brimming buckets to the men with the easy swing of young bush-trained
muscles. Mr. Linton, arriving at a run, shook his head.
“There’s not a hope of saving this part,” he cried. “We’d better
concentrate on the front. Brownie, you’re not to work like that—go over
to the pepper trees and look after Norah. No—I’d rather you did——” as
Brownie hesitated, unwillingly. “It would really be a relief to me to
know you were with her—she said she had no burns, but I don’t see how
she can have escaped without any.” Even at that moment a twinkle came to
his eye, for at the hint Brownie uttered a dismayed exclamation, and
fled away across the yard to her nursling. With Norah needing her, the
house might burn, indeed!
“We’ll save what we can from the front rooms, Murty,” the squatter went
on, leading the way with rapid strides. “Some of you get to work with
the buckets—there are four of them hosing. It’s a mercy the water
pressure’s good.”
They flung open the French windows in the front of the house. Already
every room was filled with smoke; the men dashed in and out, holding
their breath—bringing out silver and pictures and books first—the
things that no insurance money could replace. Jim, from his post near
the tap, smiled a trifle to see his father’s first load—his own silver
cups, trophies of his years at school. Stopping at the edge of the lawn,
Mr. Linton bowled them down the sloping grass, and hastened back for
more.
From the window of the drawing-room came Dave Boone and Black Billy,
staggering under the piano. At the edge of the verandah Billy’s end
slipped and jarred heavily upon the kerb, the strings setting up a
demoniacal jangle. Billy uttered a yell of terror, and bolted down the
lawn, being recalled with great difficulty by Mr. Boone, who expressed a
harassed wish to “break his useless black neck.” But the dusky one
firmly refused to touch the piano again.
“That pfeller debbil-debbil!” he said. “Baal me hump him any more.” He
rescued the drawing-room fire-irons with heroic determination, while Mr.
Linton came to the assistance of the bereft Mr. Boone, whose wrath was
tending towards apoplexy.
Lee Wing held the nozzle of one hose firmly directed upon a dangerous
point. He was a peculiar spectacle. The prudence characteristic of the
gentle Chinaman had induced him to put on as many clothes as possible
before leaving his hut, and he was attired in at least three suits. They
were uncomfortable, but he had the consolation of knowing where they
were; and a spark might send his hut up in smoke at any moment. Upon his
bullet head were four hats, each pulled down firmly. His pockets bulged
with miscellaneous possessions, his pigtail floated behind him. If the
worst should come to the worst, Lee Wing was clearly prepared to start
back to China.
His hereditary enemy, Hogg, worked not far off. As a rule the feud
between the gardeners did not slumber, but just now they were as
brothers. Hogg’s mind was too full of woe over the destruction of his
garden to be troubled by what he was wont to call contemptuously the
Yaller Peril, and Lee Wing, his trim expanse of vegetables well out of
harm’s way, felt something resembling pity for his competitor, whose
flower beds were mere highways for trampling feet. Even as they looked,
Billy dashed out of the house carrying a heavy carved box—Jim’s
handiwork—and dropped it upon a delicate rose bush with a loud,
satisfied grunt. At the spectacle of slaughter Hogg gave a heavy groan
and a sudden involuntary movement of the hand that held the nozzle of
his hose. It turned the stream of water from its course—a matter of
which Hogg, gazing open-mouthed at the destruction of his hopes, was
quite unconscious, until a wrathful shout brought him back to earth with
a start. Then he realized that he was hosing Jim vigorously, deaf to his
very justifiable remarks.
“What on earth are you up to?” sang out the dripping Jim. He burst out
laughing at the Scotchman’s dismayed face. “I’m not sorry for the bath,
Hogg, but the house needs it more!”
“Losh!” gasped Hogg, gazing at his handiwork—paralysed past any
possibility of apologizing. He swung the stream of water again to the
fire, muttering horrified ejaculations in broad Scotch.
The stable had almost burned itself out. A dull, red glow came from the
smoking bed of coals that smouldered angrily between the broken and
blackened brick walls. One of these had fallen, with a crash that echoed
round the hills; the others still stood, black holes gaping in them
where windows had been, like staring eyes that watched the ruin of the
pride of Billabong—for there had been no such stables in the district.
Harvey’s little plan had hit even harder than that ingenious gentleman
had anticipated.
Beyond the fences the cattle stood in interested groups, fascinated by
the fire; further off were the horses, thrilled with more fear than the
stolid bullocks, but unable to tear themselves from the mysterious glow.
But Monarch and Garryowen and Bosun were away at the farthest corner of
the homestead paddock, quivering and starting yet, their hearts still
pounding at the memory of the terrible moments in the burning stable;
and on Garryowen’s quarter were round, burnt patches, while half of his
tail was singed off. Yet pain was not so dreadful to the big
thoroughbred as Fear—fear that he could not understand, that had come
to him in the darkness, and was yet knocking at his heart.
At the house the fire was slackening. Billabong was built of solid
brick, so that there was not a great deal of inflammable material for
the flames to fasten upon; and they had been discovered soon—not
allowed, as in the stables, to obtain a firm hold. The defence had been
prompt and thorough. David Linton blessed the forethought, coupled with
the love of his garden, that had made him equip the homestead with water
laid on from the river as well as with many tanks. They had needed it
all.
He was at the hose now, having relieved Jim, to whom the business of
standing still and holding a nozzle had been no light penance, despite
the necessity of the proceeding. One of the men had taken Wally’s place,
and the boys had dashed off on a tour of the homestead, to look for any
possibility of a further outbreak. David Linton looked at what remained
of his house, his mouth stern—going back in memory to the time of its
building, and the old, perfect companionship that had been by his side.
Now the rooms that he and his wife had planned were black, smoking
ruins, and the roses she had planted were shrivelled masses on the wall.
There was no part of the house that did not have its memories of her, so
vivid that often it seemed to him that he saw her yet, flitting about
its wide corridors and the rooms that even until now had borne the magic
of her touch. All the years the home had helped him to fight his
loneliness and his longing. Now——. He stared at it with eyes suddenly
grown old.
Then across the grass came a little odd figure—Norah, still grimy with
smoke, and very shaky, with Brownie’s arm near her to help, and Jean not
far off. Norah, her coat open over her blue pyjamas, and her hair, in
her own phrase, “all anyhow,” about her, and her grey eyes swimming as
she looked from the house to her father’s face. David Linton put down
the hose and held out his hand to her silently, and Norah clung to him.
“Oh, Daddy, poor old Daddy!” she whispered.
Jim came round the corner with long strides; even odder than Norah, for
he had not waited to put any overcoat over his pyjamas, and he had been
drenched and dried, and blackened and torn, until he resembled a
scarecrow in an advanced stage of disrepair. He gripped his father’s
free hand.
“It’s not so bad, Dad!” he said, cheerily. “Lots of the old place left.
We’ll all build it up again, Dad!”
David Linton smiled at his children, suddenly.
“Right, mates!” he said. “We’ll build it up again!”