"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 grass. Accident!!! Yer COW! I'll —— you ——," and just here the grass 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 grass 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 companionship 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 washing of 'em fell to me (ugh!). I remember one dreadful old morphia fiend, about seventy, who was brought in dying, and who passed 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 passing. When I returned he was lying there, his glassy 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——. God! the mere sound of a blowfly has made me feel sick ever since then.