The policeman stood in the centre of the road with his arm held aloft. He wore the green shirt of the national police force, short in its sleeve, with a tie to match. A white lanyard ran from his broad shoulders to a brown handled pistol, which poked from a black leather holster worn on his belt.
Fritz stopped, fingered a gold stud in his left ear lobe, and worried for a moment. He watched the policeman approach, heard the stomp of his black laced jackboots, and saw the trousered fatigue of his dusty uniform. Then he saw the pistol poking from the policeman’s leather holster. The policeman was time-served, etched in his face, swagger in his walk, forty something. Parked behind the policeman was a dark green Landrover belonging to the national police.
Fritz studied the Landrover, with its deeply grooved tyres, and realised the vehicle was just what police would use to negotiate Monchique’s rough terrain, ideal for those mountain tracks and twisting pathways that led to the Colombian plantation. Winding down his window, Fritz leaned out and acknowledged the approaching policeman as an aircraft flew overhead. Looking skyward, Fritz saw the aircraft visibly climb as Monchique’s mountain tops reached towards its underbelly.
An aperture in the aircraft’s belly appeared and a cloud of chemicals scattered earthwards across the raging flames below.
There was a woman on the road, hobbling, frail in the movement of her varicose legs, stooped in the weak carriage of her body. She was elderly, weighed down by many years and the heavy bags that she carried. From head to foot she was dressed in black, a shawl, a woollen cardigan, a long plain cotton dress that skirted to her ankle, all coloured black: widow woman. The widow woman glanced over her shoulder and looked towards the mountains, tried to see the flames that drove her from her home, and wept a tear which ran down the wrinkled cheek of her face. Her fear of the bushfire was set deep in her tired brown eyes. It was as if her brown eyes had been replaced by the raging inferno’s yellow flames. She hurried by, shuffled with the weight of her belongings crammed into bags that she carried. She ignored the aircraft overhead, the policeman, and a man leaning from the window of his car.
The policeman ignored the widow woman; he was at Fritz’s car window. His hand rested casually on his holster as he bent down and spoke to Fritz. The policeman told Fritz that a major evacuation of Monchique was taking place; the road ahead was blocked, and would be blocked for quite some time. He told Fritz that emergency services were rushing resources to a bushfire whilst removing a frightened local population to safety.
A family walked past, frayed at the edges, tired, carrying their suitcases and bags, carrying a holdall, carrying a puppy dog that was limp in its leg. Father’s thumb stuck out as a wagon approached. All the family stopped, thumbs in the air, hoping, pleading with moistened eyes. Stress plagued the father’s face, smudged, and blackened from smoke and fire.
The wagon drove on, a puppy dog whimpered, and a thumb dropped.
The flat-bedded wagon was laden with boxes and bags, two beds and a wooden table with its carved legs pointing skyward. The wagon’s exhaust pipe bellowed black gaseous fumes. The wagon was rusting at its wing, creaking with the weight of its load, chugging towards safety. The driver did not stop, did not wave, and did not pause. He was crying as he drove down the hill with his rescued belongings sagging on his flat-bedded wagon.
Fritz watched, fingering his gold stud in worry. He saw cars turning back, heard sirens, saw anxious faces on bewildered people, and then saw black curling smoke rising from the blue of a dying sky. In mountains, fields, and nearby plantations, Fritz saw the Bushfire destroying. Chaos ruled with curling smoke and heat and flames dominating the area.