Chapter Thirty #4
Shyla had secured Franz more tightly and she and Billie hauled him up and pulled him from the smoke-filled bedroom and down the hall, his arms secured behind him.
His haughty demeanor had dissolved in the face of the emergency he had created, his chalky face now red and pulled into a mask of fear, his mouth stretched.
Coughing and spluttering, they made it onto the grass outside, near the shed, Franz falling to his knees.
Shyla ran behind the shed and appeared a moment later with a large ax in her hands.
She gripped the wooden handle strongly, the ax looking near as big as her, and in no time she was throwing the blade into the boards across the second girl’s window like a man twice her size, shards of glass and slivers of wood flying.
Billie ran to the front of the house, where she was relieved to see Ruthie and the young girl.
They sprinted into the paddock, Ruthie holding the young barefoot girl by the hand, the pair lit golden by the glowing building as it went up.
The fire had already spread with shocking speed down the corridor.
The second bedroom, even with the door shut, would not hold much longer, Billie realized.
She tore back to the window, where Shyla was pulling at the broken boards with desperate hands.
There was smoke inside already, black and heavy, and the fresh air caused flames on the far side of the room to jump and dance.
Billie flung herself through the jagged gap, feeling her clothes catch on the glass, to find the girl hiding under the bed, curled into the fetal position, hands over her ears.
Billie pulled at her, dragging her out and begging her to stand, not sure if she was strong enough to lift the small, shaking body alone.
“Come on, we’ve got you. You’re going to be okay,” Billie said to the girl, pulling off her driving coat and wrapping it around her. She put her hands under the girl’s arms and managed to lift her onto the bed. Now she had to get her out through the broken glass of the window.
“Come with us, it’s okay,” Shyla coaxed her, and Billie half pushed, half handed the girl to her, first covering her face with the coat, forcing her past the sharp glass and the broken boards, and she was out.
Behind Billie the angry flames spat viciously, as if in protest, and she realized her lungs had filled with the lethal fumes.
Her head felt light. Her eyes stung, burning.
Out. Get out, now or never . . .
Billie threw herself through the opening and landed on the grass on her side, lungs screaming. Bright flames licked the broken gap she had emerged through. The house itself was roaring now, as if with objection, having lost its human sacrifices. It moaned and cried in the darkness.
Billie lurched to her feet, not sure how fast their party could move.
The motorcars? Perhaps she could start one of them and drive them out of this mess, together?
As if in answer, angry flames danced across the dry grass, light, swift, and deadly, snaking with speed to the rear of the nearest shed.
The shed she had been inside. It lit like a pack of matchsticks, as if it had been waiting for this moment.
The Packard and the Daimler would be surrounded or even engulfed before they had time to find the keys or force them to start.
Billie watched as the fire raced over the treetops and lit the hill behind the homestead.
Her own automobile was down the road, fifteen or so minutes away by foot, but less if they ran.
If the roadway remained clear they could reach it, but the fire was already moving at a terrifying rate, devouring the dry summer grasses and spreading toward the roadside.
She didn’t like their chances with the girls in tow and a struggling Franz.
“To the river,” Shyla said, “it’s our only chance,” and she pointed the way.
Together, the five women and girls, with Franz as their captive, struggled down a dusty path, bent over and moving their feet as fast as they could.
Billie’s lungs protested and she spluttered and coughed but kept on, her suit streaked and torn, her hands and arms scratched and grazed.
Behind them, the wrathful fire was rising, the wind shifting and starting to blow harder, creating a roar of the kind Billie had only ever heard during bombing campaigns in the war.
Shyla lifted one of the young girls into her arms, carrying her and running forward with impossible strength for someone her size.
“Feuer, Feuer . . .” someone was saying as they ran and stumbled down the track toward the river.
It was Franz, the man who was to blame for all this. The man who had forced the girls into those prison rooms, who had started the fire. He stopped, crouching and whimpering, as terrified as a small child, the roles now reversed. He repeated the same word again and again. “Feuer, feuer.”
Fire.
He was terrified of the flames, Billie realized, now sure that he had tried to free himself from the ropes but had not counted on the lamp spilling, had not counted on the dry Australian bush, which came alive with terrifying flame at the slightest opportunity.
Not counting on the drought and the hot Australian summer.
The bush here loved to burn; the burning was part of its nature, part of the cycle of life and death. And he’d triggered it.
“Feuer,” he cried again. He was wailing now, trying to cover his head.
Shyla put down the girl she was carrying and told Billie to get her to the river.
Billie took the girl’s hand, urging her onward, Ruthie and the other girl running in front of them.
Shyla grabbed the ropes binding Franz and hauled him through the paddock like a bull.
“You won’t get far in Darug Country,” Billie heard her say to him as she yanked at him fiercely.
They pushed through a thicket of thorny bush, Billie cutting her hand, tearing her stockings, her suit, and then they were through a fringe of trees and jumping down to the level of the river, where beige sand glowed in the moonlight.
Here was water, slow, lazy water, enough to keep them from the flames.
They waded in, submerging themselves to the thighs.
The two younger girls were immersed to the waist, and Ruthie was with them, slightly taller, cradling them maternally.
The water, cool and welcoming, brought tears to Billie’s eyes, making tracks down her soot-covered face.
Shyla reached them, dragging their prisoner by his ropes. He collapsed onto the sand.
The sky was red with flames, embers rising like fireflies and falling again like black snow. The fire was like thunder now, like a freight train, the taste of smoke on their tongues, the air itself filling with falling ash.
Without words, Billie opened her arms and Shyla joined her, then Ruthie and the other girls, too. The five women and girls formed a circle in the slow river, arms locked protectively around one another.
“I’m Eleanor,” the smallest one said, in a child’s voice that tore at the part of Billie that was just barely hanging on.
“I’m Ida,” the other girl said.
The five of them huddled together in the cool water of the Colo River, heads close. Behind them, the white-haired man was curled on the sand of the riverbank, shaking as the world around them roared and danced with flames.