Thirty minutes later, Desmond reached the thicket where he’d been building his fort. Without wasting a second, he set about the hard work of moving stones from the nearly dry creek bed and packing them with mud to form walls. He had left a small hatchet and a shovel in the bush, to help with his work. If his father knew, he would be angry. Desmond made a note to bring them back with him that day.
He didn’t have a watch, but he occasionally glanced up at the sky, dreading midday. In dutiful fashion, Rudolph kept guard while Desmond stacked stone after stone. He was covered from head to toe in mud when the sun told him his time was up.
He wished the creek still flowed, even a trickle to wash his hands with. It had dried up two weeks ago.
He headed back toward the homestead.
The second he cleared the trees, he smelled it: smoke.
Dark clouds rose in the east. A bushfire, moving in from the direction his dad had gone—moving toward their home.
Desmond dropped the hatchet and shovel and ran. He had to get home and warn his family. His father would be okay. He was the toughest man of all time; Desmond was sure of that.
Rudolph was at his heels, barking.
With each step, the wind seemed to gust harder. It whipped at his face. On the ridge to his right, the wind carried the fire, picking it up, tossing it about, slamming it into the land. The blaze danced like a dervish, swirling, jumping, wrapping around trees, turning them into smoke and soot.
At the ridge where he had stopped before, Desmond cried for help, hoping someone would hear him. Smoke surrounded him, a black curtain closing in. And when the wind parted the cloud for a second, Desmond froze, terrified by what he saw.
Flames rose from his home.
He screamed at the top of his lungs. Rudolph whimpered.
Desmond descended into the valley, charging toward the blaze. At the demarcation line where the fire was devouring the tall grass, he stopped and thought for a moment. Rudolph came to a skidding halt beside him, looking around. Quickly, Desmond took the sack from his belt, tore it in two, wrapped it around his forearms, and tied it with the string.
Then he pulled his shirt up to block the smoke and cover his face. He gathered up his courage and ran for his life—for his family’s life—into the blaze.
The first few steps into the fire didn’t faze him. Adrenaline fueled him. The flames singed the hair on his legs. Black ash and red coal kicked up in his wake, tiny specks stinging as they hit him.
When the bottom of his shoes melted, the pain took over. He screamed, almost fell. The fire was only waist high, and through a break in the smoke he saw his home’s roof fall in, the flames devouring it. And with it, a little piece of him caved in too: an emotional wall, a hope he had held out. He screamed at the top of his lungs for the pain in his body—and in his heart.
He turned and ran out of the fire, not as fast as before, his legs shaking now. He screamed for help again, hoping, expecting his father to ride through the fire on his horse, throw him on the back, and charge out of the agonizing inferno.
But he never came.
Desmond’s feet failed him. He wasn’t going to make it. He could hear Rudolph barking. He pushed on toward the sound. He was lost in the smoke cloud. He felt dizzy, like he was going to pass out. Smoke filled his mouth, smothered him. He coughed, doubled over, but the heat of the flames near his waist propelled him back up. He couldn’t think. His pace slowed. He was walking now.
Through a break in the flames, he saw Rudolph, dancing across the singed ground, barking. The sight gave Desmond a burst of energy. He pushed himself, dashed with the last bit of strength he had.
He fell the second he cleared the fire. The simmering coals on the burned ground were digging into his legs. He began crawling, the sack wrapped around his forearms sparing them the agony his legs endured. Rudolph whimpered, licked his blackened, soot-covered face, encouraging him.
Right before Desmond passed out, he thought, I failed. I could have saved them. I should have saved them.
When he awoke, he still had the smell of smoke in his nose—and the taste in his mouth. His body ached, legs burned as if the fire were still roasting them. As he acclimated to the pain, he realized something was on his chest: a cold metal disc. He opened his eyes, which were watery and irritated from the smoke. A brown-haired woman, maybe in her early twenties, leaned over him, listening to a stethoscope. Desmond thought she was incredibly beautiful.
She smiled. “Hi.”
Desmond looked around. He was in a large room with heavy blankets on the floor. White bedsheets hung from twine pulled tight, held with clothespins, loosely separating several makeshift beds from one another.
It was night; he could tell from the air. There was no power where they were. Gas lanterns lit the place.
At the end of the row of white sheets, he saw a blackboard with letters of the alphabet strung across the top.
A classroom. At the school where he would start soon. Or would have.
Moans and cries rose from every corner, seeming to have no point of origin. Screams erupted every now and then. And the smell… it was like nothing Desmond had ever experienced. A barbecue came the closest, but this was different. And he knew why. When animals were slaughtered, the organs and fluid were discarded before the meat was cooked. But here… the fire was indiscriminate. The smells assaulted him. Charcoal. Sweet perfume. Burned fat. Copper. And rot, like a carcass shut up in the barn for a few days.
When his eyes returned to the woman, she said. “You’re going to be all right, Desmond. You were very lucky.”
He didn’t feel very lucky.
“Where’s my family?”
Her smile disappeared. He knew before she told him. He closed his eyes and cried. He didn’t care who saw him.
She returned just before lunch the next day, performed an examination as she had the night before, and changed the bandages covering his legs and a few other places. He gritted his teeth through the pain, but never cried out. From the look on her face, he thought the episode might have caused her more anguish than him.
She told him her name was Charlotte and that she was a volunteer, one of many working in southeast Australia in the wake of the deadly bushfires.