CHAPTER XVIII.

BURNING OFF.

It was time to burn-off. Since Braun's paddock would inevitably go when I fired, Braun himself, with philosophic acceptance of the fact, had dismantled the old barn and told me to go ahead. However, he had rented his paddock to old Pardy for a few months, and that nuisance had his bullocks there.

Like a damned ass, I went to give him notice that I intended to burn. Cripes! Wasn't there a storm! "---- ---- it!! You burn, and see what I'll do. Only bit of (sanguinary) grass I can get in the (luridly fiery improper) district, and now ---- ----!!!"

I reminded him of the possibility that rain might come any day, and the Rainy Season was due to burst on us in a fortnight. No use. The old cow wouldn't hear of any compromise. If I burnt he'd blanky well burn _me_. "Selfish old rotter!" I muttered, and retired in dudgeon. I, of course, wasn't selfish. I went to see old Paddy, and took him and Barker into my confidence.

"Yer a fool," said Paddy. "If yer don't fire now, yer'll lose yer charnst, and then yer'll be ----'d (ruined). Fat lot Pardy'll care ef y'are! 'E's only got a few bullocks, and they won't starve. Whips o' grass on th' road, and ef y' don't git y'r burn, y'll be like Barney's bull. Don't say nothin'. Just burn." Sensible advice.

Then Barker: "Well, me little frogs whisker" (I winced), "if I was you, I'd burn, and if thar-role snake's ears" (I writhed) "ses owt, just scruff 'im." Not so good, this, I thought, seeing that Pardy weighed fifteen stone, and I nine and a half.

However, in spite of their opinion, I pusillanimously decided to hold off for a fortnight, and then fire without notice. They agreed to come and help me, but opined they wouldn't be wanted, as it would be raining before then. A week went by with only a light thunderstorm; then the sky commenced banking up every night, to the southward. On the tenth day the bank came up to the zenith, with mutterings of thunder in the distance. Off I went to Barker's camp, and got there sweating.

"Come on, blokes; I'm burnin' to-morrow. Blast Pardy. We'll burn the grass round the hut to-night."

"Too late, I'm feared," said Paddy, looking at the sky. "But we'll come, anyhow. Got 'ny tucker?"

"Whips," I answered; "just fetch your blankets."

We went back on the run, reaching my place at dusk, and, arming ourselves with green bushes, fired the grass round the humpy. The sun being off it, it went slowly, and was easily kept within bounds. In an hour we had the hut standing safely in a burnt patch of about a couple of acres. Then tea and bunk. But there was no sleep for me. The sky remained overcast, and the wind cold. I was in and out like a jack-in-the-box all night. About 2 a.m. there was a few minutes' slight drizzle, and my heart sank. At first streak of dawn ("sparrow-crack," in the vernacular) we were out, choked down some breakfast, then crossed into Braun's and drove Pardy's bullocks into a timber track in the scrub, cooping them up safely with a few bits of barb wire across the entrance. The morning was misty.

"Um!" said old Paddy. "Might be fine after all. That mizzle las' night won' 'urt. Wasn' 'nough ter but damp the top stuff; 'n if the sun comes out bright and 'ot bye and bye, it'll make the bark split on the big logs, 'n yer'll git all the better burn f'r it."

How anxiously I waited! At eight o'clock out sprang the sun in full strength. Nine--ten--then eleven o'clock came, and the day was one of the hottest I have ever felt up here. Half-past eleven!

"Now, me little frogs' ears," said Barker. "A few buckets of water ready at the hut; then away she goes a million!"

We got the water, then went up to the scrub, running along the edge of the falling and lighting up all round as we went, as quick as possible. Then back to the hut, fired all the grass round the burnt patch, and stopped there to watch the building. Before long we wished we hadn't stopped, but by that time we daren't try to cross the burning grass, roaring away in the daytime. It wasn't too bad the first half-hour. There was just the thin blue reek from the crackling grass, and in the background the thicker smoke, rapidly increasing, from the scrub. Every now and again a darting tongue of dark crimson flame, with a fresh volume of oily black smoke, told that the line of fire was quickly joining up round the clearing. A little while longer, then, as the air inside the sixty-acre patch got heated and rarified, a strong breeze rose, setting into the fire from all sides, and going upward in the heated area, as through a funnel. At once a steady muffled roar was audible, and some trees left standing in the falling had quite big branches torn off and whirled aloft.

The falling was now fired all over by flying sparks, and the fire speedily assumed the appearance of a huge waterspout of thick oily black smoke sky-high, shot with innumerable flickering tongues of crimson flame. It roared like a titanic engine under tremendous steam pressure. As the smoke bellied out overhead and slowly overspread the sky, the sunlight faded, and gave place to a dim yellow twilight, which had an inexpressibly depressing effect on the spirits--a sort of "something going to happen" feeling. The strong draught whirled and eddied the smoke clouds round, nearly suffocating us in the hut, but, with streaming eyes and mouths covered by cloths, we kept a sharp look-out, extinguishing any sparks that alighted on or near the house. At one time it struck awe to our hearts to see a billowing cloud of flame, like a crimson cloth being shaken out, some sixty feet right overhead.

In the midst of it all there came a wild yell from Braun's, "Hay! Hay!! Hay!!! You in that 'ut there. I see yer. Wer's me bullicks?" and there was Pardy dancing excitedly about on the creek bank. "Oh, lemme get atchyer. You wait, you Senex, yer ---- cow. I'll burst yer fer firin'!"

"Yer bullocks" (cough, cough) "are all right. They're" (cough) "penned up in Ellison's" (cough) "track. Can't get out," I wheezed, eyes, nose and lungs full of smoke. "Fire caught by acci" (cough) "dent."

"Accident!! Acci-oh, Gord! If I cud ---- Blanky good job fer you me bullicks is safe, but t'wont keep me 'ands off o' yer fer burnin' me grass. Accident!!! Yer COW! I'll ---- you ----," and just here the grass suddenly caught at his feet and went roaring past him. He took to his heels up the paddock, and we saw him no more. A minute or two later and the fire leaped on to the old barn, and the poor old place, my first home in the bush, disappeared in a whirling gust of flame.

About 4 p.m. we managed to dodge away, our heads feeling like pumpkins, the worst of the fire being over, and by six o'clock it had died down, leaving a charred black waste, with innumerable twinkling lights all over it, which, in the gathering dusk, gave the impression of a city seen in the distance by night. For weeks after our eyes were blurred, and match or lamp flame was surrounded by a broad blue halo. Barker's eyes, always weak, were bleeding profusely long before we left the hut. The sole remains of Braun's old barn were one charred post and a few little heaps of nails, and his paddock was as clean and bare as a billiard table. A week later, covered with the new green shoot, it looked lovely, and has never had a weed in it since.

I kept carefully out of Pardy's way for a week or so, but he soon cooled down, for on the evening of the day after I fired the rain came suddenly, like a tank emptied on the roof, as it does in the tropics, and kept up continuously for thirty-six hours. In a week there was "feed for dogs" all over the district, but it was a near go for my burn. I set to work sowing my paddock carefully and well, finished the job by mid-January, and by the end of the month the grass was shooting well, giving every promise of the last being every bit as good a paddock as my first burn. My luck was "in" then.