When Deirdre returned from the pool, where she had left Lass, the crate
of fowls, and the cows with the old dog standing guard over them, Mrs.
Cameron was already beating an arrow of flame that had struck the
paddock on the hill-top, and Jenny on the other edge of the fences was
also beating.
Darkness had fallen. The glare of the fire was visible above the thick
standing wall of haze.
Deirdre saw a glittering line break through the grass at a little
distance from Mrs. Cameron, and seizing one of the green branches Jenny
had thrown down in the centre of the paddock, beat the fire until it
went out. Other threads of fire appeared near her, and she followed them
along the fence, slashing with the branch until they died down, leaving
blackened earth and breaths of virulent blue smoke.
"Stay near the top of the hill, Deirdre," Mrs. Cameron called, "and
watch to see if there's a break on the front clearing, or the pool side,
or near the sheds!"
Then the fire began to show in a dozen places at once, wriggling
lizard-like through the dry, palely-gleaming grass. Beating became
automatic, an unflagging lashing and thrashing, and watch had to be kept
that the enemy was not attacking in another part of the clearing. The
blackened earth smoked under a dead flame one moment, the next a spark
kindled and wispish fire was running through the grass again. Far down
the hillside, through the smoke mists, to Deirdre on the top, Mrs.
Cameron and Jenny looked wraith-like in their white cotton dresses.
The fire in the trees, of which these swift, silent runners in the grass
were fore-warners, was still some distance off. But they could hear the
crash of falling trees, the rush and roar of the flames in the tangled
leafage, shrill cries of the wild creatures of the bush, the blare and
bellowing screams of cattle.
Mrs. Cameron's light skirt caught fire. Jenny beat it out with her
hands. She and Mrs. Cameron fell back a moment.
The glare lighted the whole of the clearing. In the valley flashing
shafts of flame could be seen. They leapt athwart clouds of smoke which
drove, billowing, across the sky, sprayed by showers of sparks.
"Mrs. Cameron!" Deirdre screamed warningly as a fire-maddened steer
leapt into the paddock and careered across it into the darkness on the
other side.
The heat was suffocating. The heavy, acrid smoke in their lungs made
their heads reel. Deirdre was fighting a brilliant patch of flames
half-way across the paddock when Mrs. Cameron called to her.
"It's no good, child!" she said. Her face was dim with smoke, her hands
burnt and blackened. "It's no good trying to do any more, we must go
now."
They ran from the hill-top to the house, Mrs. Cameron caught up her
bundle, Jenny, the blue vases and the spinning wheel, and Deirdre,
taking Socks from the stable in which he was beginning to whinny with
fear, led him down the track in front of the house. They were half way
across the clearing when Mrs. Cameron came to a standstill. Flames had
eaten their way up the paddock and lay across the track.
"We're cut off," she said.
"What can we do?" Deirdre asked. "There's no time to lose."
Jenny screamed, dancing up and down, beside herself with terror and
excitement: "We're cut off! Cut off!"
She dropped one of the vases she was carrying, and it broke in a
thousand pieces.
"I don't know," Mrs. Cameron said slowly. Her eyes wandered to the
broken pieces of the vase.
For a moment Deirdre's brain was paralysed too. She stood staring down
the track. All the terrible stories of the fires, of people who had been
burnt to death, flashed into her mind.
A shout was raised behind them.
"It's father!" she cried.
The Schoolmaster dashed round the corner of the house. His face was
blackened and had angry weals where the fire had lashed it. His eyebrows
and beard were singed close to his head. At a glance he took in the
situation. His horse with head hung was blowing like a bellows.
"Davey's just behind me!" he gasped, looking at Mrs. Cameron. "Mr.
Cameron and he didn't know the fires were making this way till I told
them; then he sent Davey. I came ... to give him a hand. Never thought
we'd get here--miles of fire across the road. Get a couple of blankets,
Deirdre, and we'll make a dash for the creek."
Deirdre ran back to the house, tore the blankets from the beds inside
and threw them on to the verandah. He dipped three of them in a bucket
of water that stood by the kitchen door, wrapped her in one, and Mrs.
Cameron and Jenny in the others.
Davey swung into the yard on an all but spent horse.
"Keep her going, Davey," the Schoolmaster cried, "and get down to the
water. I'll look after your mother. Deirdre, you take Jenny up behind
you. Fly along and let down the slip panel. Socks'll stand the grass
fire if you keep him at it."
Davey and Deirdre dashed across the smouldering and smoking paddock,
putting their horses blindly towards the corner of the fence where the
slip-rails were already down.
Trees on the edge of the clearing behind the house were already roaring,
wrapped in the smoke and flaming mantle of the fire. A shower of sparks
thrown up by a falling tree scattered over the stable and barns.
A hoarse yelping, the cackling of fowls and the wild terrified lowing of
the cows, came from the pool. Davey rode into it, hustled the cows into
the centre, and took the old sheep-dog up on his saddle. Socks, with
Deirdre and Jenny on his back, splashed in after him. The Schoolmaster
and Mrs. Cameron followed a few moments later. He had caught up her
spinning wheel and she was clutching her bundle and the other blue vase.