Marion Lennox - Bushfire Bride

‘Of overgrown bush.’ Sam shook his head. ‘I’m not sending anyone else out there. Not now. If she won’t come, she won’t.’

‘She might come for me.’

‘Yeah, and you’ll put your head in a noose because of a bloody schizo…’

But Hugo’s face had set in anger. ‘Sue-Ellen’s a great woman.’ He looked at Rachel as if he was seeking her approval. By the look on Sam’s face he knew he wouldn’t get approval from him. ‘She used to play with the state orchestra before she became ill.’

‘And now she sits up there with her damned goats, getting madder and madder,’ Sam muttered, but Hugo shook his head.

‘She runs angora goats. She spins and weaves and plays…’

‘And talks to herself.’

‘I’m wasting time.’ Hugo hesitated. ‘I’m the only person she trusts.’

‘Where are her people?’ Rachel asked, dismayed.

‘Her father died five years back. She went out for a while with Gary Lewis, one of the local firemen, but she fretted that her medication was making her stupid. She made Gary leave her be, and since then she doesn’t let anyone else close.’

‘You can’t get up there.’

‘There’s still time.’ They turned to look northward but, of course, there was nothing. An impenetrable layer of smoke. The wind was pushing ash through the air. Rachel could taste it. She opened her mouth to speak and a fine film of ash landed on her tongue. Instead of speaking, she ended up coughing.

‘There’s surgical masks,’ Hugo said shortly. ‘Get one on. You need to be fit. Rachel, I want everyone here wearing them. Can you…?’

‘Can I what?’ But she knew already what he was going to ask.

‘Can you take over? I need to go.’

‘There’s Toby.’ She stared at him helplessly. Myra had collected Toby when the order for evacuation had come and now Toby was splashing happily in the shallows with his mates from school. To them this was still a game. Long may that last. ‘Hugo, let me go.’ She placed a hand on his arm, suddenly urgent with anxiety. ‘I don’t have anyone. I can go.’

‘You have a husband.’

‘Who doesn’t need me.’ There, she’d said it, and even as she said it she acknowledged it was the truth. Dottie was right. ‘But Toby needs you.’

‘You don’t know the way. And Sue-Ellen doesn’t trust you. There’s no one else Sue-Ellen will come with. I’ll be all right. There are dams in her home paddock. We’ll make it in time.’

‘Risk your life for a schizo…’ Sam was bristling in indignation.

‘She’s not a schizo,’ Hugo said wearily. ‘She’s a fine musician and she’s a lovely person and she’s my patient. I should have gone out there myself last night.’ He stared helplessly at Rachel. ‘I need to go. Can you cover for me here?’

Their eyes met. He knew what he was asking, she thought. He knew.

But he had to go. She knew this man well enough even after such a short time to understand that his need was absolute. Toby had an aunt. Toby had a town full of caring people.

The unknown Sue-Ellen had no one. Except Hugo.

‘Of course you need to go,’ she whispered, and watched his face change. ‘I understand. Go, then, but go fast and only go on the understanding that you’ll come back safe. Promise me?’

‘I…’

‘Promise?’ She reached out and grasped his hands, her voice suddenly urgent. She met his eyes and hers locked with them and held. ‘Hugo, you must.’

He stared down at her for a long moment and his gaze fell to their clasped hands. His mouth twisted into an expression she couldn’t begin to understand.

‘I promise,’ he said, and he pulled her to him and kissed her hard on the lips. It was a fast and brutal kiss, a kiss born of fear and of want and of pure adrenalin. Then he was pushing her away, his eyes bleak.

‘Take care of Toby,’ he said as he turned and ran into the smoke. ‘Keep the town safe for me until I come back.’

‘HE’S got time,’ Sam said uneasily. He was watching Rachel, watching the stricken look in her eyes. He didn’t understand all of what was going on here but he understood enough. ‘The fire’s coming through fast but there’s no hint of firestorm yet. If he’s sensible…if the wind stays at its current force…’

Only, of course, it didn’t.

Ten minutes after Hugo had left, the wind strengthened from strong to gale force, ripping across the crowded beach with a force that was terrifying. The blast of hot air before the fire was almost overpowering. Rachel was stooped over a stretcher. Bridget McLeod had turned a hundred the week before. The heat was making her badly dehydrated and Rachel was setting up a saline drip. As the searing wind blasted across the beach, the woman pushed her away.

‘There’s others need you more. Leave me be.’

‘There’s no need to be noble,’ Rachel told her, trying not to sound panicky behind her mask. ‘We’re organised for this.’

She finished what she was doing and straightened, trying to see through the swirling smoke. But the townsfolk were prepared. A heat like this couldn’t last. The gale-force wind would blast through with frightening force but, because of the beach, they could survive. After the initial fire front, firefighting operations could begin again.

But for now… The little populace were hauling blankets over their heads, following orders that had been drilled into this fire-prone town since their childhood. Those who couldn’t walk were being carried into the shallows.

‘Toby.’ Rachel turned to find Myra at her side. Myra had Toby in her arms with blankets wedged between them.

‘There’s nothing more you can do, lass. Stay with us during the worst,’ Myra said, and there was no choice. Two firefighters had hold of Bridget’s stretcher and were carrying her into the shallows, the old lady already covered with a soaking blanket. The rest of the stretchers were lined up where the waves broke lightly over patients’ feet. Every patient had an allocated carer, each with sodden blankets.

Toby was whimpering with fear.

The noise from the fire was almost deafening.

‘Take care of Toby,’ Hugo had said.

Hugo.

Oh, God, Hugo…

She couldn’t think of him, now. She mustn’t.

The people of this tiny town were huddled in the shallows. She could scarcely breathe. There was nothing to do except survive.

Somewhere out there was Hugo.

‘If I survive, so must you,’ she whispered to herself as she dropped to her knees in the shallows. Toby crawled from Myra’s arms to hers and clung. They had their blankets right over their heads, a sodden canopy to stop the shower of burning ash falling directly onto them. The fire was a roaring inferno. Despite the pall of smoke she could sense the flames-a wall of fire bursting down from the mountains. The air was being sucked up. The oxygen. It was so hard to breathe…

‘I want my daddy,’ Toby whimpered, and Rachel held him close and whispered into his hair.

‘So do I,’ she murmured. ‘So do I. But Daddy’s gone to see a patient. He’ll be back soon. Please…’

‘Sue-Ellen?’ Hugo was out of the car, holding woollen wadding over his face to augment his mask as he raced toward the burning house. Vision was down to almost nothing-the fire was all around him. The trees overhead were roaring with flames.

It had caught. The back of the house had caught.

On this side of the house at least there was a little shelter. The house itself was stopping the worst of the blast. So far.

Hugo was coughing, retching. Yelling. Thinking fast. Maybe she’d gone to the dam. Maybe. It was the obvious place.

Surely she wouldn’t still be in the house?

‘Sue-Ellen…’