‘You didn’t send a team to fetch her in?’ Hugo asked. The hospital stretchers were being set up far down the beach. The idea was that if the fire grew to firestorm status then people could back into the shallows. Every blanket in the town had been collected and was already lying sodden, waiting to cover a needy head.
Kim’s stretcher had already been taken down. In a moment Rachel would go down and readjust the drips that the girl still needed, but Hugo had stopped by Sam’s desk and so had Rachel. She saw the concern etched on Hugo’s face and was immediately worried.
‘Sue-Ellen won’t come if a team of people arrive,’ Sam said, casting an uncertain glance up at Hugo. ‘I tried to tell her the danger but she slammed the door in my face.’
‘Have you seen her today?’ Hugo asked shortly, and Sam shook his head.
‘Not since yesterday. Gary Lewis went up there last night but she wouldn’t let him in either. He’s been on the radio, worrying about her, but there’s nothing I can do.’
‘How did she seem?’
‘Erratic. Jumpy. Angry.’ The two men were looking at each other and their worry was mirrored in each other’s eyes.
‘Problem?’ Rachel asked, and Hugo nodded.
‘Sue-Ellen has schizophrenia. She’s normally good but something like this can throw her. I saw her last week and she was coping well but…’
‘I asked if she was taking her pills,’ Sam said. ‘She told me to go to hell.’
‘She’d say that even if she was taking them.’ Hugo had turned and was staring up into the hills. As if he could see anything. The idea was ludicrous. The smoke was whirling around their faces and visibility was practically zero. The fire trucks had parked on the sand and were surrounding the temporary township in a ring-fire trucks in a semi-circle with the sea at their backs. There was safety here. But not for Sue-Ellen. ‘You know she hates interference.’
‘I was a mate of her dad’s,’ Sam said heavily. ‘I know she stops taking her pills from time to time and I know it used to scare her old man.’
‘Where is she?’ Rachel asked.
‘Out the back of the town,’ Hugo said. ‘She has five acres.’
‘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.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘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.
