BLACK SUNDAY
ROBIN woke 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.