Wildfire

Chapter Ten

It was bad being on the ground, but it was just as bad being off it. The air was seething with thermals.

So far, Ben’s first experience of flying had been the kind that would put most people off for life. Since they’d taken off from the vineyard it had been like riding a rollercoaster — an extreme rollercoaster that didn’t even stop to let you get your breath.

Kelly didn’t stop for breath either. She yelled instructions relentlessly:

‘More throttle!’

‘Stick right!’

‘Stick up!’

‘Stick up now, Ben, now!’

He didn’t think, he just did what he was told. It was like they were one creature. She was the brains and he was the body.

A body that was feeling exceedingly sick.

The microlight dropped 20 feet. Ben was lifted out of his seat: the seat belt cut into his legs and his head bashed against the window frame.

Kelly screamed and the sound drilled into his ear drums. She must have banged her hands — she kept doing that. Judging by the level of discomfort, she probably had some second-degree burns. Those would need medical attention soon.

As suddenly as the plane had dropped, Ben found that they were flying smoothly along again.

He glanced at Kelly. The map was on her knee. She was leaning over it, holding it down with her elbows. Her hands were clasped out of the way so they wouldn’t touch anything inadvertently. She was also very quiet.

Ben kept expecting the plane to start plummeting again but for now they seemed to have escaped the turbulence. He peered out of the window. Below was an unbroken mass of smoke. He couldn’t tell if they were over vineyards or suburbs — or even the outback. There were isolated patches where the wind had cleared the smoke and he could see bright fires burning below. He got his mobile out of his flying suit. ‘Is it safe to use this here? My mum’s down there some-where and I want to see if she’s all right.’

Kelly nodded towards a slot on the dashboard, like a hands-free set in a car. ‘Put it in there.’

Ben set up the phone, then pressed a speed dial.

A recorded voice came through on their headsets: ‘Lines are busy. Please try again later.’

‘Could you try my dad?’ Kelly was pointing at the zip pocket on her trousers. ‘My cell phone’s in here. Increase height by about fifty feet before you do.’

Ben opened the throttle a little, then fished her phone out and slotted it into the dashboard cradle.

‘He’s on speed dial, under “Dad”.’

Ben pressed the navigation key. The picture of Kelly dangling from the power chute glowed briefly, then was replaced by her speed dial menu. He cursored down and dialled.

The response was the same: ‘Lines are busy …’ Ben cut the call.

Kelly checked over the instruments. ‘Bit more left rudder,’ she said.

Ben obliged — though he could see that her mind was elsewhere.

She voiced what they were both thinking. ‘Your mom and my dad were in the same place, so I suppose it makes sense that neither of them was contactable. We’ll try again in a while, huh?’ She winced as she talked.

‘We’d better get you to a doctor,’ said Ben.

Kelly looked down at the map. She had been leaning on it while the plane was throwing them around and now it was creased like a well-used cushion. She tried to smooth it down, having to use her elbows.

‘For sure. I just need to find somewhere we can land.’

Rikki stood at the window. She always liked to watch the racehorses from her tenth-storey apartment. That was why the block had appealed to her and her husband so much. Now the afternoon’s racing was part of her daily routine with her three-month-old son Josh. As usual, she fed him, changed him and walked around the living room with him on her hip, jogging him to sleep while she watched the 1.45 yearlings race.

But today she looked out of the window and got the shock of her life.

The stand was engulfed in a ball of flame. Black smoke boiled into the sky. The horses had started running before the gates had opened. They had dragged the entire structure out of the ground and were galloping caged inside it.

Right in their path were the people who had fled from the flames. They had no chance of getting away. The charging horses knocked them down like a monstrous war machine.

She couldn’t look any more and turned away. The baby picked up on her shock and started to cry.

Rikki had friends on the other side of the racecourse: Molly and Dan. Molly had a daughter the same age as Josh and usually tried to get her off to sleep by the 1.45 race. Could she see this too? Rikki sat down on the sofa, being careful to support Josh’s head properly, picked up the phone and pressed a speed dial.

While it was ringing, she glanced out of the window and got another shock. She couldn’t see the carnage on the racetrack any longer. Smoke obscured it all. The entire horizon seemed to be carpeted in black smoke and flickering orange flames. Blue lights flashed beneath the smoke as though travelling under black gauze.

As she waited for Molly to pick up the phone, another thought crossed her mind. Would the fire reach the flat? Surely not; it was ten storeys up.

But why hadn’t Molly answered yet?

Suddenly the line went dead.

The phone rang for a short time in Molly’s house, but she wasn’t able to reach it. She was trying desperately to open the window onto the balcony. Her baby, Emanuelle, was in a neoprene sling on her chest.

The security locks wouldn’t budge. Behind her, the sofa was on fire. The tapestry cushions and upholstery were nearly all consumed, and the bare frame was showing through the orange flames like a Terminator’s skeleton. Thick smoke poured from the foam interior. Outside the room the hall was a wreckage of burning rafters.

Molly had the key in the window lock, but it was stiff and she couldn’t turn it. Emanuelle was crying and coughing, her face scrunched and red. Hot smoke burned the inside of her lungs. It felt like she had sucked in boiling water. It must be even worse for her baby.

The key slipped out of Molly’s fingers. She gave a strangled sob of despair and fell to her knees. Once she was down on the floor, the smoke got even thicker. She coughed, but there was no oxygen, only the choking black smoke and the fumes from the sofa. She could hardly even see Emanuelle’s face barely inches away. She collapsed while the phone rang and rang.

The flames reached the phone cables, shrivelling them like burning hair. The ringing stopped and the LCD display in the phone station blistered in the heat.

By then the fire had spread to the building next door to Molly’s …

The pall of smoke drifted across the city. The botanical gardens, which Engine 33 had fought so hard to save, went up like a bonfire. Wanasri and her crew couldn’t save it now; they were tied up with other fires. Every fire engine in the city was out on a call, fighting flash blazes. They worked fast, but the fires travelled faster.

Once the fire had taken hold in the outskirts, it began to move towards the city centre.

In the main precinct the staff of the law courts were in the middle of an ordinary working day when they were alerted by the fire alarm. They filed down the stairs, some of them escorting bewildered clients. They assumed it was a false alarm or a fire drill — until they reached the street and saw the mushroom cloud of smoke against the sky.

The dentist’s practice next door was on fire. Firefighters were pumping water in through the upstairs windows; smoke and steam were pouring out. More firefighters ushered the solicitors away to the end of the street, where paramedics were holding a breathing mask over the face of a young woman. She had blood dripping out of her mouth and had obviously been in the middle of an extraction when the alarm sounded. The dentist and his nurse were trying to comfort her, their white coats spattered with her blood.

A woman in a fluorescent coat was evacuating another building. The people pouring out were bare-foot and wore loose, pyjama-like clothes. Some of them carried brightly coloured mats under their arms. They had been in the middle of a relaxing yoga class and looked as dazed as the dental patient to find themselves outside.

Not all the evacuations were so peaceful. In a pedestrianized street just a hundred metres away, the usual lunchtime crowds were enjoying a snack at the many cafés and bars, protected from the sun by fringed umbrellas. One minute they were discussing whether to go indoors because it had got windy. The next, they were enveloped in burning fabric as the umbrellas caught light.

The high buildings turned the precinct into a wind tunnel. As punters knocked over tables in their panic, a gale ripped through the burning awnings. Those who were still able to run were pursued down the streets by pieces of flaming fabric.

The promenade on the west side of town was a mass of people fleeing from the marinas, restaurants and hotels. They ran out onto the jetties, crowded into boats and pushed off into the bay. A pair of old women, their skin leathery from too much sun, were struggling with their boat. As one of them started the engine and the other tried to untie the mooring rope, three waiters wearing name badges from the nearby St Michael’s restaurant ran up and made for the rail. The woman at the helm screamed in fury and pointed a flare pistol at them, forcing the waiters to retreat to the quay. The second woman finally freed the boat and they set off, still keeping an eye on the waiters to make sure they didn’t try to climb aboard.

Soon the bay was bustling with flapping sails. The passengers in the boats looked back at the city in astonishment. Wherever they looked, from the hotels at the water’s edge to the hills away in the distance, were smoke and flames.