Terence gently laid Max on the utility flatbed and the dog immediately jumped in and sat beside him, one paw protectively resting on Max’s chest as he continued to growl.

Gwyneth looked at her son’s pale, lifeless face and felt her heart contract with sorrow. He’d endured so much during that awful war, had isolated himself from all who loved him – except for Brandy, who’d given him loyalty and companionship, and Sal, who perhaps had brought him some joy. How fitting it was that he should die here with them both by his side, at peace beneath the trees and with the sound of the dawn chorus which had sustained him through his lonely life.

She touched his cold cheek and brushed back the long tangle of tawny hair as tears rolled down her face. ‘Rest in peace, son, and know that you were always loved,’ she whispered.

*

There was hardly a woman in Morgan’s Reach who wasn’t frantic with worry – and those who didn’t have a husband, father, brother or son fighting the fire knew someone who was. In this far-flung community, where silly squabbles and old enmities could so easily flare up, for once there was harmony. For everyone mattered in this desperate fight for survival.

Amy had put George to bed in the isolation room and gone to relieve Emily. Her lonely vigil by the two-way had lasted for over twelve hours and she was almost incoherent with weariness and worry. Sandra had made sure Delilah’s children were fed and changed before she put them to bed in cots next to George, while Jane and Louise Harper organised more beds on the back veranda.

The dead had been brought in on the back of a wagon and taken straight to the church, where Frances Baker and Enid Harper respectfully washed their bodies, covered them in clean white sheets and laid them out on the altar steps. They hadn’t known quite what to do about the Chinese cook, who was no doubt a heathen – but as he’d lost his life fighting for Carey Downs, he was treated the same as all the others.

Everyone was expecting more casualties, for although the fire had been quenched at Blackman’s Creek, the news from Carey Downs wasn’t good. The inferno had spread through the western boundaries of Wilga and was heading rapidly towards Warratah Forest.