“Same here,” Barry returned. “I say, Robin, I’ll get boughs ready for beaters at every point, and put buckets of water handy. Gee, aren’t your eyes sore!” He rubbed his own furiously, as he hurried off for an axe.
It was a comfort to work, even though work was terrible, in the blinding heat. Together they put the house in a state of defence, as well as they could; and then, an idea occurring to Robin, they dug a hole in the garden and buried whatever money and small valuables the house contained, wrapped in an old mackintosh. Now and then Mrs. Hurst or Mrs. Ryan took their places, and they went in to snatch a morsel of food, to bathe their smarting eyes, or to help in preparing food and drink. In one of the bedrooms Polly played happily on the floor with the three little Ryans—only leaving them to make sure, occasionally, that Robin was not far off: when she would stand by her for a moment, perhaps stroke her sleeve, and then would return contentedly to her charges. Mrs. Ryan worked in utter silence, her face stony in its self-control. And as the dull roar from the ranges mounted on the rushing wind, no one dared breathe to her a word of hope.
Dazed people began to arrive at Hill Farm: mothers carrying little children; old men and women; boys and girls sick with excitement and fear: all of them stumbling in, half-blind with smoke, and stupid from the fight through the gale. They scarcely realized that in all probability the little homes, so toilfully reared throughout years of grinding effort, would be heaps of ashes when they next saw them—some things are mercifully beyond realization. They carried just what they had been permitted to save as they fled: little articles of value, bundles of clothes, clocks that still ticked sturdily: and one childless mother held in her hand the little shoes her baby had not stayed long enough with her to wear out. They sat about in pitiful groups, grateful for what the Hursts did for them, too dazed to speak much. Men came out from Baroin in cars, to take them away.
“Safer there than here,” said one man. “Though goodness knows, the township would go like a flash if a blaze started anywhere—there’d be no stopping it, in this wind. What a hurricane! a bit of charred messmate bark fell on my lawn, and there’s no messmate forest within ten miles of us! And there are no men left to fight in Baroin—every man in the place is out fighting somewhere. The fire-bell rings a new alarm every little while—some fresh outbreak reported from the country. The post-office people have been doing great work telephoning—but half the telephone-lines are down now, brought down by falling trees.”
“Are there fires between here and the township?” Mrs. Hurst asked.
“Half a dozen have started, but they’ve managed to stop them—there are men all along, to keep the track clear. I had a narrow shave in one place: a burning tree came down across the road, and missed the car by inches. But a miss is as good as a mile! They’ll have the tree cleared away when I get back with my load. Sure you wouldn’t like to come in, Mrs. Hurst?”
She shook her head. “I think we are safe here—and there is the creek.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be a joy-ride,” said the man from Baroin. “One fellow met a wall of flame across the track near Heathfield: he made his passengers duck down and cover themselves all over with a rug, and he went through it at forty miles an hour. Got through all right, but the rug was blazing. Nobody even singed, however. Your house had a narrow shave just now, hadn’t it?”
“Mine?” She looked at him questioningly.
“Didn’t you know?” he asked, astonished. “Just as I got up to the back, it was. Bit of burning wood must have lodged against the wall, high up, over the veranda: it was beginning to smoulder. That red-haired young daughter of yours was up with a bucket of water, putting it out, before I could get there. It’s quite all right now, so don’t worry.” He went off to gather his passengers, and Mrs. Hurst continued to cut sandwiches with a calmness that surprised herself. Robin was safe, evidently: and the food was needed. She must not leave her job.