Ash Road Read Online Free Page A

burning; humus was burning. There were flames on the trees, bark was burning, foliage was flaring, flaring like a whip-crack; and the heat was savage and scaring and awful to breathe.
    â€˜We can’t, we can’t,’ cried Wallace. ‘What are we going to do?’
    They beat at it and beat at it and beat at it.
    â€˜Oh gee,’ sobbed Graham. He was crying, and he hadn’t cried since he was twelve years old. ‘What have I done?
We
’
ve got to get it out!
’
    Harry was scrambling around wildly, bundling all their things together. It was not that he was more level-headed than the others; it was just that he could see the end more clearly, the hopelessness of it, the absolute certainty of it, the imminent danger of encirclement, the possibility that they might be burnt alive. He could see all this because he hadn’t been in it at the start. He wasn’t responsible; he hadn’t done it; and now that he was wide awake he could see it more clearly. He screamed at them: ‘Grab your stuff and run for it.’ But they didn’t hear him or didn’t want to hear him. They were blackened, their feet were cut, even their hair was singed. They beat and beat, and fire was leaping into the tree-tops, and there were no black shadows left, only bright light, red light, yellow light, light that was hard and cruel and terrifying, and there was a rushing sound, a roaring sound, explosions, and smoke, smoke like a hot red fog.
    â€˜No,’ cried Graham. ‘No, no, no.’ His arms dropped to his sides and he shook with sobs and Wallace dragged him away. ‘Oh, Wally,’ he sobbed. ‘What have I done?’
    â€˜We’ve got to get out of here,’ shouted Harry. ‘Grab the things and run.’
    â€˜Our shoes?’ cried Wallace. ‘Where are they?’
    â€˜I don’t know. I don’t know.’
    â€˜We’ve got to find our shoes.’
    â€˜They’ll kill us,’ sobbed Graham. ‘They’ll kill us. It’s a terrible thing, an awful thing to have done.’
    â€˜Where’d we put our shoes?’ Wallace was running around in circles, blindly. He didn’t really know what he was doing. Everything had happened so quickly, so suddenly.
    â€˜For Pete’s sake run!’ shouted Harry.
    Something in his voice seemed to get through to Wallace and Graham and they ran, the three of them, like frightened rabbits. They ran this way and that, hugging their packs and their scorched sleeping-bags, blundering into the scrub, even into the trunks of trees. Fire and confusion seemed to be all around them. The fire’s rays darted through the bush; it was like an endless chain with a will of its own, encircling and entangling them, or like a wall that leapt out of the earth to block every fresh run they made for safety. Even the creek couldn’t help them. They didn’t know where it was. There might as well not have been a creek at all.
    â€˜This way,’ shouted Harry. ‘A track.’
    They stumbled back down the track towards Tinley; at least they thought it was towards Tinley, they didn’t really know. Perhaps they were running to save their lives, running simply from fear, running away from what they had done.
    When they thought they were safe they hid in the bush close to a partly constructed house. They could hear sirens wailing; lights were coming on here and there; the headlamps of cars were beaming and sweeping around curves in the track. They could hear shouts on the wind, they heard a woman cry hysterically, they heard Graham sobbing.
    Over all was a red glow.

2
    Ash Road
    Tinley was in the foothills near the north-west extremity of the ranges; Ash Road, where the Pinkards had their country place, was in the Prescott district at the head of an immense valley on the opposite side of the ranges, the eastern side and somewhere near the centre, the side that caught the first rays of the rising sun.