Part 9 (2/2)
”Whips,” I answered; ”just fetch your blankets.”
We went back on the run, reaching my place at dusk, and, arming ourselves with green bushes, fired the gra.s.s round the humpy. The sun being off it, it went slowly, and was easily kept within bounds. In an hour we had the hut standing safely in a burnt patch of about a couple of acres. Then tea and bunk. But there was no sleep for me. The sky remained overcast, and the wind cold. I was in and out like a jack-in-the-box all night. About 2 a.m. there was a few minutes' slight drizzle, and my heart sank. At first streak of dawn (”sparrow-crack,” in the vernacular) we were out, choked down some breakfast, then crossed into Braun's and drove Pardy's bullocks into a timber track in the scrub, cooping them up safely with a few bits of barb wire across the entrance. The morning was misty.
”Um!” said old Paddy. ”Might be fine after all. That mizzle las' night won' 'urt. Wasn' 'nough ter but damp the top stuff; 'n if the sun comes out bright and 'ot bye and bye, it'll make the bark split on the big logs, 'n yer'll git all the better burn f'r it.”
How anxiously I waited! At eight o'clock out sprang the sun in full strength. Nine--ten--then eleven o'clock came, and the day was one of the hottest I have ever felt up here. Half-past eleven!
”Now, me little frogs' ears,” said Barker. ”A few buckets of water ready at the hut; then away she goes a million!”
We got the water, then went up to the scrub, running along the edge of the falling and lighting up all round as we went, as quick as possible.
Then back to the hut, fired all the gra.s.s round the burnt patch, and stopped there to watch the building. Before long we wished we hadn't stopped, but by that time we daren't try to cross the burning gra.s.s, roaring away in the daytime. It wasn't too bad the first half-hour.
There was just the thin blue reek from the crackling gra.s.s, and in the background the thicker smoke, rapidly increasing, from the scrub. Every now and again a darting tongue of dark crimson flame, with a fresh volume of oily black smoke, told that the line of fire was quickly joining up round the clearing. A little while longer, then, as the air inside the sixty-acre patch got heated and rarified, a strong breeze rose, setting into the fire from all sides, and going upward in the heated area, as through a funnel. At once a steady m.u.f.fled roar was audible, and some trees left standing in the falling had quite big branches torn off and whirled aloft.
The falling was now fired all over by flying sparks, and the fire speedily a.s.sumed the appearance of a huge waterspout of thick oily black smoke sky-high, shot with innumerable flickering tongues of crimson flame. It roared like a t.i.tanic engine under tremendous steam pressure.
As the smoke bellied out overhead and slowly overspread the sky, the sunlight faded, and gave place to a dim yellow twilight, which had an inexpressibly depressing effect on the spirits--a sort of ”something going to happen” feeling. The strong draught whirled and eddied the smoke clouds round, nearly suffocating us in the hut, but, with streaming eyes and mouths covered by cloths, we kept a sharp look-out, extinguis.h.i.+ng any sparks that alighted on or near the house. At one time it struck awe to our hearts to see a billowing cloud of flame, like a crimson cloth being shaken out, some sixty feet right overhead.
In the midst of it all there came a wild yell from Braun's, ”Hay! Hay!!
Hay!!! You in that 'ut there. I see yer. Wer's me bullicks?” and there was Pardy dancing excitedly about on the creek bank. ”Oh, lemme get atchyer. You wait, you Senex, yer ---- cow. I'll burst yer fer firin'!”
”Yer bullocks” (cough, cough) ”are all right. They're” (cough) ”penned up in Ellison's” (cough) ”track. Can't get out,” I wheezed, eyes, nose and lungs full of smoke. ”Fire caught by acci” (cough) ”dent.”
”Accident!! Acci-oh, Gord! If I cud ---- Blanky good job fer you me bullicks is safe, but t'wont keep me 'ands off o' yer fer burnin' me gra.s.s. Accident!!! Yer COW! I'll ---- you ----,” and just here the gra.s.s suddenly caught at his feet and went roaring past him. He took to his heels up the paddock, and we saw him no more. A minute or two later and the fire leaped on to the old barn, and the poor old place, my first home in the bush, disappeared in a whirling gust of flame.
About 4 p.m. we managed to dodge away, our heads feeling like pumpkins, the worst of the fire being over, and by six o'clock it had died down, leaving a charred black waste, with innumerable twinkling lights all over it, which, in the gathering dusk, gave the impression of a city seen in the distance by night. For weeks after our eyes were blurred, and match or lamp flame was surrounded by a broad blue halo. Barker's eyes, always weak, were bleeding profusely long before we left the hut.
The sole remains of Braun's old barn were one charred post and a few little heaps of nails, and his paddock was as clean and bare as a billiard table. A week later, covered with the new green shoot, it looked lovely, and has never had a weed in it since.
I kept carefully out of Pardy's way for a week or so, but he soon cooled down, for on the evening of the day after I fired the rain came suddenly, like a tank emptied on the roof, as it does in the tropics, and kept up continuously for thirty-six hours. In a week there was ”feed for dogs” all over the district, but it was a near go for my burn. I set to work sowing my paddock carefully and well, finished the job by mid-January, and by the end of the month the gra.s.s was shooting well, giving every promise of the last being every bit as good a paddock as my first burn. My luck was ”in” then.
CHAPTER XIX.
WARDSMAN AND DECKHAND.
At the beginning of February I took up my duties as wardsman at the hospital. The young lady, who had been patiently waiting some ten years or so for me in Melbourne, had written to say that she thought we would be better struggling along together, and she was willing to rough it with me, even if she had to live in a tent. So I told her to have all ready for New Year, 1915, and in the meantime I would devote the whole of 1914 to making a cheque.
With this end in view I would do the light graft at the hospital until the end of May, then, conquering the feeling of dislike, go down to the Richmond again, and try for a job as deckhand aboard one of the tugboats hauling punts of cane up and down the river--technical work, not too hard and well paid. So I communicated with the manager at the mill, explaining that I was a fully qualified sailorman, and received a reply that if I would guarantee to stop the full season he would guarantee me a berth. So that was all right.
I soon fell in with the hospital routine, though continued close companions.h.i.+p with sickness, and sometimes death, had a depressing effect on my sensitive, rather highly-strung nerves.
We always had a Chinaman or two, and it made my gorge rise to see the pretty white nurses attending to some of the specimens, though the was.h.i.+ng of 'em fell to me (ugh!). I remember one dreadful old morphia fiend, about seventy, who was brought in dying, and who pa.s.sed out next day. I was detailed to watch him die, and perform the necessary offices immediately after death, but being called away for a few minutes, I missed his actual pa.s.sing. When I returned he was lying there, his gla.s.sy eyes, shrivelled monkey face and dropped jaws, exposing the long yellow decayed fangs, making a perfectly dreadful sight; and even in that minute or two the horrible flies----. G.o.d! the mere sound of a blowfly has made me feel sick ever since then.
There was another old fellow named Ah Chi who also pa.s.sed out, and in connection with whose death the matron made a peculiar ”mistake in ident.i.ty.” His son had told her to ring up No. 16 when old Ah Chi pa.s.sed in his checks. She rang up No. 60--a business house presided over by a gentleman named Archibald Davidson. I imagine his surprise, and presumably pleasure, on hearing through the telephone a sweet feminine voice, ”Is that Archie?” One could imagine the said Archie tumbling over himself to do the polite, and wondering if he should address the fair unknown as ”Yes, pet; you're the one.”
The sweet voice continues: ”Hospital. Matron speaking. Look here, Archie; your father died last night, and as the weather's so hot you'd better make arrangements for the funeral at once.”
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