Richenda Rudman with her entry, The Seventh Son. Congratulations, Richenda!

The award was announced at the Members’ Night on 31st July.

Sixteen entries were received for the members-only contest on the theme this year of FIRE. The judges were members of the Ballarat Writers committee: Darren Rout, Phil Green, Cassandra Arnold and Bev Foster.

Now, for your delight, here is her winning story:

The Seventh Son

by Richenda Rudman

Children burned when he had a day off.

Chief Blayney realised this an hour into correlating rosters with fires and casualties; it was like condensation being wiped off a window. When Roy Allstock was working, children were saved from fires.

Allstock, always last man out, jogged from buildings sheathed in flames, carrying children, seconds before the buildings collapsed and embers shot like crazed stars into the smoke-dark sky.

‘How the hell did he get them out?’ Blayney asked his deputy as they walked across blackened ground, where an iron bed frame was twisted into a chaotic ringlet. The deputy shrugged. ‘They should be dead.’

* * *

Roy Allstock was an experienced firefighter when he joined Blayney’s platoon in Cranston; he worked hard, said little, was neither tall or short, plain or handsome.

One afternoon in the dayroom, between a card game and newspapers, the conversation turned to families. Allstock said he was the second youngest of eight kids, the last boy before the only girl in the family.

‘Your mother must have been pleased.’ Blayney said.

‘Yeh, she was. Strange, my father was the seventh son, too.

‘Funny how these things run in families.’

Before a seed from memory germinated in Blayney’s head, the discussion ended when they were called out to a fire.

According to the plump wheezing woman living next door, a woman and two little boys lived in the house. ‘The mother’s a drinker. Neglects the kids. I reckon she’s nodded off and dropped her ciggy!’

Another firefighter and Allstock entered the blazing building, while the rest of the crew attacked the fire from outside.  

The woman, coughing, emerged in the clutch of Allstock’s partner, but the height of the flames was fast becoming uncontrollable and Blayney’s gut sank as he looked at the fiery wall. Then he saw it: Allstock appeared, carrying a child on each hip as easily as if they were small clouds. Blayney looked as closely as the smoke and heat would allow, at how the fire was set apart from Allstock and the children, as if a thick and cooling membrane surrounded them. And despite the chaos, Allstock appeared to be calmly talking.

Blayney had to pull the wheezy neighbour off the dazed mother and didn’t recall Allstock’s actions until a final piece in the mosaic of Allstock’s abilities was provided by a child’s drawing.

The newly sober woman and two little boys visited the fire station, where the older child had drawn a picture of a firefighter carrying them out of the fire.

‘Looks like Allstock,’ one of the men said.

Allstock ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘That’s a great drawing!’

‘Yes,’ said the boy. ‘It’s you telling the fire to stay away from us.’

Everyone laughed, except Allstock, who gave a small smile.

And then the seed in Blayney’s head sprouted. The old tale was true: the seventh son of a seventh son talks to fire. And the fire listens.

* * *