I hardly recognized Jim, his face was blackened with smoke and his eyes reddened, his eyebrows and eyelashes scorched. There was nothing familiar about him, but the white grin of his teeth.
"You look like a hunk of smoked beef," he remarked. "It's time we were out of this."
The center of the fire had swept in advance down the valley, but the left wing was still fighting along the upper slopes on the opposite side of the valley.
"One drink for me at any rate before we start," I cried.
My thirst was something awful and I raised the canteen to my lips, but I threw it down with a yell. The very metal seemed hot.
"That's a cursed shame, Jo," said Jim in sympathy. "You wait, we will get water before we camp again. We are going to get out of this hades of a place." This was not profanity but description.
"All ready now, Jo?"
I nodded, for I could not speak, and we started to attempt to escape in the wake of the fire. We made our way slowly down the rock trail and then out on the slope of the hill.
A scene of desolation lay around and above us. Nor was it all over. There were many blazing trees that had not fallen and there was plenty of light to guide us on our fiery journey.
The undergrowth was burnt off and nothing left but black bushes and grey smouldering ashes everywhere.