They hunted round and collected a pile of broken branches, and as Ess felt their clammy wetness and shook the water off them, she was more mystified than ever how the fire was going to be produced.
“I’m going to sacrifice a cushion if need be,” said Dolly. “They’re full of kapok, I expect, and that’s good tinder. But I want to show you how this thing is done without any luxurious aids of civilisation like kapok. See here now.”
He took a stick as thick and as long as his thumb, and split it in halves, and split the halves again, and shaved a splinter off each of the inside corners. He did this with several more pieces till he had a good handful of dry splinters carefully placed in his hat on the ground. Then he went on to split thicker pieces with his jack knife, and to break them into short lengths. When he had his hat filled, he dug at the ground with his knife and scooped with his hands till he came down to dry earth, built his fire of dry chips in the bottom of the hole, and touched a match from the bottle to it. It caught and flickered and flamed, and in a moment was blazing and crackling. He built thin bits of branches across the blaze, and, although these hissed and steamed at first, they also caught and burst into flame. Ess had been watching with breathless interest and excitement, and as a substantial crackling blaze shot up, she clapped her hands and called out to him, “Well done, oh, well done, Dolly. I wouldn’t have believed it could be done. You are a bushman.”
Dolly bowed melodramatically, with his hand on his heart. “I thank you,” he said humbly, and then sprang erect. “Now for the tea—interval for light refreshments, please.” He tipped Scottie’s bottle of water into the billy, hooked the handle over a stick, and held it in the blaze till it boiled, lifted it off and dropped in a handful of the wet tea, and put the lid on again for a minute.
“No sugar,” he said. “Dear, dear, I must speak severely to your uncle about this. Most careless. And please excuse the shortage of cups. Here, you can use this,” and he turned the lid of the billy upside down and gave it to her to hold, and poured some tea in it. “It cools quicker so,” he said, “and we’ll have turn about.”
They drank their tea, and Ess felt grateful for the warm glow it sent through her chilled body.
“I call this jolly,” said Dolly Grey; “really, it’s not half bad sport, y’know.”
“Well I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say jolly,” said Ess, “but, really, it’s a lot better than it was. What a difference a fire makes, Dolly. It was all so dark and dismal before, and now the blaze seems to make a nice cosy room, with the dark walls outside us.”
“Take your boots and stockings off,” ordered Dolly, “and dry them. You’ll feel so much more comfy. I’m going to dry my jacket.”
He piled the branches on the fire, and heaped the others beside it to dry, and to support his jacket and Ess’s boots and stockings. Everything else about her was quite dry, she assured him. When Dolly’s jacket was dry, he pulled off his shirt and spread it to the blaze, and put his jacket on, and stood in front of the fire and gravely turned himself round in a cloud of smoke and steam. “I’m drying beautifully,” he said.