Errol shakes his head, ploughs on. ‘Anyway, smart leaving early. Is Codger still in there?’
‘Yeah. Me and Shazza stopped by to warn him, but couldn’t fit him onto the bike. You blokes should get in and get him out.’
‘First priority. What about Snouch?’
‘What about him? He’s got a car. He can look after himself.’
Errol turns to Robbie. ‘Can you get Codger? Take Moxie. Don’t muck about. Grab him, what he can carry, leave the rest.’
‘And no going onto my place,’ interjects the man with the motorbike.
‘Fuck off, Jason,’ retorts Robbie, ‘or I’ll search those bags over there.’
Jason shuts up.
Robbie and Moxie head off, and Martin gets a quick briefing. He’s assigned to help a taciturn young bloke called Luigi. Luigi will direct one of the fire tanker’s two hoses; Martin will follow a few metres behind him, helping to manoeuvre the canvas tube. A farm tanker pulls up, full of water to replenish the fire truck’s pumps. A light aircraft flies over, Errol communicating via the radio in the tanker’s cab. And all the time the smoke cloud is spreading lower and wider, the pale blue retreating south-east. In front of him, not twenty metres away, a mob of forty or fifty roos comes hurtling out of the scrub and across the road. For a moment the wind dies and the first ash starts to fall, like black snowflakes.
‘All right, gather round,’ yells Errol. ‘It’ll be with us in about fifteen minutes; the Bellington crews will be here in about twenty. It’s moving quick, but the front is still narrow. We’ll try and flank it on the road, stop spotting. The Bellington crews will head straight into the bush along Glondillys Track, east of the highway, and start back-burning. Once we’ve done what we can here, we either join them, or move round the back of the scrub and stop it escaping onto the plain. Questions?’
There’s silence; soldiers before a battle. The wind is up again, stronger than ever.
Robbie’s police truck comes barrelling out of the bush, emergency lights flaring brightly, skidding to a halt in the gravel beside the tanker. He’s out of the car in a flash. ‘Has Snouch come out?’
Errol shakes his head. ‘Nup. Sure he’s not in town on the piss?’
‘No, he’s in there all right. Old cunt. Saw him drive past this morning.’ It’s Codger Harris, climbing out of Robbie’s four-wheel drive to join them, dressed in a mishmash of ill-fitting clothes.
‘Fuck,’ says Robbie, looking at Errol.
‘Fuck,’ says Errol, looking at the ground, hand kneading his brow. ‘Fuck.’
‘He’s got a car. Leave him.’ It’s Jason’s partner, Shazza.
Robbie is shaking his head. ‘Nup. Can’t do it. I’ll get him.’ And he’s running back to his four-wheel drive. And running after him, not knowing why, is Martin. He gets the passenger door open, climbs in as Robbie fires the engine. ‘Martin, get out. Get out now.’
‘No. I’m coming.’
‘You’re a fucking idiot then. Hold on.’ Robbie guns the engine, swings the truck around, hurls it down the dirt road into the bush. ‘We get him, throw him in the back, and get the hell out, okay?’
Martin grunts assent, and then the two men are silent, lost in their internal remonstrations, while the world around them grows increasingly apocalyptic, the sky closing in, the light fading, ash falling, some of it glowing orange at the edges. Robbie pushes the four-wheel drive through the bends of the dirt road, his face intent, driving as fast as he can, their safety inconsequential. They round a curve; two wallabies are standing in the road. Robbie mows them down, not braking before, not braking after, one animal thundering off the roo bar, the other crushed beneath the wheels. Martin holds on, his knuckles white; Robbie staring through the gloom, a man possessed. The sky is almost black, and the cloud of smoke is so low it’s almost down to the roof of the speeding vehicle. Day has gone, there is no light left, they’re driving through night, headlights piercing smoke as they might mist. Another bend, and they burst into a clearing. Martin takes it in: an old Holden, up on a jack, one wheel off. A farm shed. A garage. The banks of a farm dam. The house. Snouch, with a garden hose trained on the house, turning as they burst into his existence.
Robbie and Martin are out of the car as one, Martin keeping abreast of the younger man.
‘In the truck now! We’re going!’ yells the policeman.
But Snouch is shaking his head. ‘Look,’ he says, pointing up.
Martin looks up, through the blizzard of ash: the clouds that just a moment ago were black as coal are turning blood red, brighter and brighter as he watches, as if glowing from within, bathing the yard in orange light. And he can hear something in the distance, above the wind: a roaring, like a freight train heading straight towards them.
‘Into the car!’ yells Robbie. ‘We’ll drive into the middle of the dam!’
‘No!’ shouts Snouch above the roaring. ‘The house. Brick and stone. It won’t go up straight away!’
Robbie nods, and the men sprint for the house, the policeman first, the journalist second, the old crim not far behind. The roaring is almost upon them. Martin can hear explosions, like cracking whips or gunshots, and as he gains the verandah he can glimpse it through the scrub, the licking orange tongues of death. Last through the door is Snouch, pulling the hose after him, water pouring from its nozzle. Down a wide central corridor they go, rooms off either side, the house dark save for the glow before them.
It’s Snouch’s house, and it’s Snouch who takes control. ‘I’ve soaked the back of the house as much as I can, shuttered the windows. But the verandah is wood, goes all the way around. It’ll catch for sure. Roof’s tin, but some embers’ll get under sooner or later. The walls are stone and brick, though, thick as buggery. Gives us a fighting chance. Here.’ And Snouch turns the hose on them, soaking them, sticking the nozzle down inside their overalls, giving them dripping towels to put under their hard hats. ‘C’mon. We’ll start at the back, fight it, retreat as we have to. Cover your mouths, stay low if there’s smoke. We’ll go back out the way we came in, but leave it late as you can, okay?’
And the freight train smashes into the back of the house, engulfing it in orange and red mist, like a dragon devouring its prey. Snouch pushes forward, as if against a tide, hose spraying out in front of him like a shield, followed by Robbie and Martin. They’re in a kitchen, like a room in a nightmare, conjured from hell. It’s out there, thinks Martin, and it wants to come in and eat us. It’s alive: a serpent, a dragon. The sink is full of water; there are buckets of water on the floor. Snouch has prepared. The heat is unimaginable, overwhelming.
Robbie heads into a room off the kitchen with a bucket of water. The policeman is steaming. Steaming. Martin looks down at himself. Steam is pouring off him too. How hot is it? He’s hit by water from the hose again, lets it cover him. He looks up; Snouch has turned it on himself, then on Robbie as he comes back with the empty bucket. Martin grabs a bucket, heads into a room running off the other side of the kitchen, sprays the water across the curtains, hoping like hell he doesn’t shatter the glass behind them. There are shutters on the window, protecting it, but they appear transparent, as if the fire is an X-ray, penetrating the wood as easily as the glass of the window and the cloth of the curtains. A quick look around: a tidy room, a baby’s cot, a cedar dresser, paintings on the wall in gilded frames. Then he’s back in the kitchen, holding his arms wide for the kiss of Snouch’s hose.