She felt as though bricks pressed her eyelids shut, and no force on earth could open them. Despite her exhausted stupor she became aware of a presence in her room. Whatever it was could stay there. After the bizarre creatures she had already removed from her bedroom, nothing was going to make her stir again till morning.
Was that a cough? Discreet, muffled; but definitely a cough. Hannah sighed. Could she open her eyes at all? One lid responded, then the other. Her room was still half-dark. The raucous morning chorus of birds told her it was dawn. She blinked and focused. ‘Merelita!’
‘I sorry. Not good wake you if you sleep. Bad thing.’
Gradually it seeped through Hannah’s tired brain that Merelita didn’t make a habit of appearing in her room, especially uninvited. Propping herself up on one elbow, she brushed loose strands of red hair away from her face. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Sorry …’
‘How did you get inside?’
Merelita’s furtive peep at the window answered that question. The curtains were ruffled by a breeze.
‘Fire,’ said Merelita. ‘You come quick.’
Brought up in a country where the word ‘fire’ was treated with respect, Hannah instantly swung her feet over the edge of the bed. She grabbed her wrap from the chest of drawers, tied the belt with clumsy fingers and ran, barefooted, outside.
It was true. The cookhouse at the rear had one wall engulfed in red flames, and smoke seeped from the back of the mission house.
‘Uncle Henry!’ Hannah raced back into the house. Her aunt and uncle were already struggling to sit up when she barged into their room, without knocking. ‘The house is on fire! Hurry!’
In one swift movement, Uncle Henry was out of bed and through the door in his nightshirt, not bothering about modesty. ‘Wake Joshua and Deborah! Everyone—out of the house!’
Joshua was already right behind him.
Uncle Henry snapped, ‘Joshua, get all you can out of the cookhouse. That’s our only supplies for the next six months!’ He wrenched a low-hanging branch from the nearest shrub and began to belt the flames. ‘You girls, grab a branch.’
Aunt Constance pushed Deborah into Merelita’s arms. ‘Take her over there where it’s safe … please.’
Wide-eyed, Deborah clung to Merelita’s neck. Merelita patted the little girl’s back and retreated to a safe distance. Aunt Constance and Hannah worked alongside Uncle Henry; beating, smothering, slowing the spread of the cancerous flames. Hannah wasn’t certain which was worse—the heat or the smoke which stung her eyes and caught in her throat.
‘Hannah! Help me with this!’ Through the open doorway of the cookhouse, she could see Joshua, his face flushed, struggling to move the heavy barrel of flour on his own.
She threw down the branch and leapt to his aid. Inside the small building, the crackle of the fire, the smoke, were more obvious. Fear of being caught inside lent extra energy to their efforts, and Hannah was gripped by a feeling that the walls were closing in around her.
The barrel was astonishingly heavy. With accompanying grunts, the two cousins manoeuvred the barrel through the door by twisting it in half-circles, then heaved it onto its side and rolled it clear.
Flying back into the fray, Hannah retrieved her branch and bashed at the back wall of the house, while her aunt threw buckets of water over the cookhouse, which was in a far worse condition. Water was limited. Only a single barrel-full was kept at the house and, again, Aunt Constance resorted to her branch.
The mission house itself had just caught alight. It took only a short while to smother the smouldering thatch. Joshua staggered, coughing, out of the cookhouse again, arms laden with foodstuffs. Uncle Henry beat the flames with almost superhuman strength and though Aunt Constance was slower, each pair of hands helped.
In the briefest of seconds, Aunt Constance swung her branch, her unrestrained hair flew sideways and brushed the naked flames. The ends of her hair began to burn.
Hannah screamed. ‘Aunt Constance! Your hair’s on fire.’
A look of terror flashed over the woman’s face, and she did the worst possible thing: she ran.
‘No!’ Hannah wrenched off her wrap and gave chase. A few quick steps with the wrap held high, and Hannah caught up with her aunt.
Constance tripped, sprawled and Hannah threw herself down beside her, hurling the wrap over her head to smother the enemy before it took hold.
Back in Australia, Hannah had seen two bushfires, but never had she seen anything burn as quickly as hair. Afraid she would suffocate the woman she had just saved, she removed the covering from her aunt’s head.
Uncle Henry was yelling. Joshua was yelling. Deborah surpassed both by screaming. Her loyalties seemed to be divided: at fever pitch she demanded both her mother and her doll.