Scrublands(27)

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.

There is smoke now, seeping in through the windows and doors, smoke from the scrub, smoke from the verandah. A wooden shutter bursts into flames. Snouch sprays water onto the window frames. Another shutter erupts, a cruel orange flaring. Snouch is into one side room then the other, spraying water quickly before retreating. The room is starting to fill with smoke. The men move back towards the corridor: Martin then Snouch, who soaks the kitchen side of the door, and finally Robbie, who closes it.

Snouch hoses the corridor side of the door, then turns the hose on Robbie, sticking it down his overalls, down Martin’s, down his own, shouting above the thunderous roar. ‘It’ll go from the kitchen into the roof. We go right to the front of the house. Don’t want to be under a collapsing roof.’ He’s about to say something more, when the hose coughs once and stops. The men exchange grim looks. Martin can feel heat pumping through the closed kitchen door. ‘Fire’s got to the pump house. Front’s moving past us, fifty metres at least.’

They withdraw down the corridor. Robbie goes ahead, running to the front door, slamming it closed on the flaccid hosepipe. Snouch moves more slowly, looks into each room off the corridor, as if saying farewell, before closing their doors tight. For the first time Martin has a moment to pause, to consider the house: its foot-thick walls, high ceilings, kauri pine floors, wraparound verandah. No bush hut, no corrugated-iron improvisation, but a nineteenth-century homestead. He glimpses a formal dining room, a large polished wooden table, a dozen seats, a huge sideboard. A crystal decanter, cut-glass tumblers, a chandelier. And a burning shutter. The door closes. Another room. A study, broad mahogany desk, covered in papers, calligraphic pens and ink pots, rulers and markers and a magnifying glass. A computer and printer on a side table. Antique maps on the walls. Snouch slams the door shut.

They gather by the front entrance. Martin removes his glove, places his hand against the door. It’s hot, possibly burning on the other side. But it’s solid hardwood. The corridor is starting to fill with smoke.

‘Listen,’ commands Snouch.

Martin tries to hear above the roaring fire, his own panting and the pounding of blood. ‘What?’