Chapter 02

Sunday

After breakfast it’s back to filtering ashes. Pat speeds this up a little by putting the scoop on Kelpie to pour the contents of two wheelbarrows into it. Once loaded he raises the scoop to hold it just over the screens and they use the hand scoops to push the ash out and into the filter to make it a lot faster and easier to do the filtering of the ashes.

Mid-morning Serge arrives in a ute, and grins when he sees what the two are doing. He walks over and says, “No wonder you don’t answer the phone.” This makes Eve look at the cordless phone handset for the house phone she has in her pocket - it’s showing no charge. She swears while she takes it inside as the two men laugh. He adds, “I’ve got a tool in the back of the ute that should help you, Pat. You can borrow it.”

They go to look at a large pile of chain in the ute. Pat asks, “What the heck is that?”

“Do you know how fishing trawlers work?” Pat nods yes. “This chain is set up like their nets, but you lay it out on the other side of the rubble, hook pulling chains to the ends, then use the excavator to drag the lot toward you by backing up. It should make getting that pile out into the yard a lot easier, then you can use the scoop like normal. We’ve not used the chain for years and I all but forgot about it. The newer big excavators are better for what we used to use this for.”

“Thanks, Serge, please help me get it over to the site.” There’s a lot of heavy chain so it takes them quite a bit of effort to get it over to where it’s needed and laid out to look at it. By the time they’ve got it set out on the far side of the rubble pile with the chains set to hook up Eve has all of the ashes out of the scoop on Kelpie.

After taking a few minutes to switch back to the arms they try it out. With a little work a large section of rubble is dragged across the remains of the ground floor and out what used to be a set of wide French doors. Most of the fine ash was left behind, but the chains slid through it so they know it’s only ashes or very small stuff. The three of them spend the rest of the day using the chains to drag the rubble itself out. Often stopping to drag a large beam to the side and out through the other empty doorway.

Pat provides lunch for Serge when he and Eve stop for their own, and they have all of the large rubble out of the house by the end of the day. There’s still a huge pile of ash spread over the floor, but that’ll be a lot easier to do by hand than when mixed in with the larger rubble. Once they finish cleaning up the chains they load them back into the tray of Serge’s ute since that job is now all done.

Before finishing for the day Pat walks around inside the Mansion to jump up and down as a test of the floor strength. It’s weakened a lot and he doubts it’ll take Kelpie’s weight, but it’s safe to walk and stand on to shovel up the rest of the ashes.

While they have dinner the three talk about the work Pat has to do on the Mansion, and Pat asks Serge about a quote for some of the work he’s not happy to do himself because he wants an expert to do it properly.

Serge leaves soon after dinner, very happy to have assisted a friend and to also get some more work for his employees. Pat watches him leave before he gets to work on some of his uni assignments.

Monday to Friday

Monday morning Pat has a few classes to go to. His uni work load isn’t high because he’s carrying a light load due to doing a lot more classes in his first two and half years so he could take it easy in the rest of it. That decision is now paying off in a lot of good ways because he only has four sets of classes a week, and all of them are in the morning.

Eve spends the morning using the wheelbarrows to move and sift the ashes from inside the Mansion. They’re going to leave the rubble to sift when they’ve Kelpie handy because it’s so much easier for that stuff. She glances over at the Investigation Team from time to time but she has no idea of what they’re doing, apart from seeing them taking bits of the plane out of the ground in some organised manner.

When his last class for the day is over Pat heads home to hand sort a lot of the larger items out of the piles of rubble. Many are smaller beams or parts of beams. The two fuel tanks are found as large parts of jagged metal so he gets the Investigation Team to examine and take them.

For a change of pace Pat helps his mother with the ashes from time to time, and that’s how things go for most of the week. After dinner each day Pat does his uni assignments work plus some checks on the Internet for ideas and help with the rebuilding.

By the end of the week the rubble piles are made into one pile after the large items are sorted by hand and moved into storage or disposal piles. The ashes are off the floor and it’s been swept. The Investigation Team removed most of the plane visible above the ground, but they’ve a lot of it still to go. The big plastic bins for the non-ash items slowly fill as things are found and sorted into them - metal, glass, and plastic items are put into different bins. Only one issue arises during the week - a meeting on the new estate plans they have at Will’s office on Thursday.

Note: The Investigation Team removes what’s left of the dead flight crew when they find them, but they don’t tell Eve or Pat about it.

Change of Plans

Pat arrives at the solicitors to discuss the Development Application with Will, and he’s surprised to find Serge with his sister, Nadia, there as well. Serge opens the discussion with, “I’m sorry, Pat, but when I spoke to Matthew he said he has some cash flow concerns and he doesn’t want to pay for the land in one lump sum. He’s suggests a joint venture where you ante up the land while we ante up the materials and work then we split the money when it comes in. However, the revised rates will be an issue until the houses are sold.”

Pat sits and thinks for a few minutes. They’ve all had a few minutes to think about this, but Pat hasn’t. Finally, he leans forward and asks, “Got a draft copy of the plan I can draw all over?” Nadia pulls out a copy and hands it over. He looks at it and asks, “Got one that shows the whole of the block as well?” She hands him a larger plan. “OK. How much would a block be worth if the services and kerbs were in?”

Will goes to speak but Pat waves him to silence. Serge frowns and says, “About a hundred and fifty to two hundred grand. Why, Pat?”

“I’ve been thinking about this and a few other things since I got the survey report and walked the property.” He turns to Will, “I think we can do this if Matthew and the Council will agree to a couple of things. First, the Council. They normally pay for the land for parks, don’t they?” The other three all nod yes. “Good. If the park is twenty-five metres wide that will make it worth about six to seven hundred thousand dollars. Will, ask the Council if they’ll pay us that amount for it, but as a credit against our rates. No actual cash. They just deduct our rates from the credit. Think they’ll go for it.” They all nod yes as they know the Council wants more parks in the residential areas but it hasn’t the cash to buy the land. “Serge, I think we have to do this differently. Will you do the services and kerbs then bill us for them by writing off the blocks of land against those costs when you take them to build houses on?”

“I think I can get Matthew to agree to that. When I did detailed costs I figured it’ll cost close to two million for the development work, plus my initial estimate of the land was a fair bit under as well. So if we do the services and start the first block of houses we’re about even.”

“Naturally, you’ll incur some costs from the start, but not huge ones because we can defer the pro-rata rates charges until either the Council credit is exhausted or you sell the houses.” Pat turns to Will, “I know this will defer the cash inwards for some time, but it will also cover a lot of the expenditure too.” He draws on the plans, “New rules. The road here is to go straight through the entire block. That makes twenty-six house blocks along one side. The park is one seventy-five metres by twenty-five metres. The two cross streets are to be only ten metres like the other streets. The two blocks in the centre will have houses as planned and the first eight on the other side will be as per the plan. That’s sixty-three house blocks for sale. On the other side of the new road section will be town-houses; twenty metres wide and thirty-five metres deep gives twenty-one two bedroom units. The twenty-five metre deep strip across the back of the Manor will be four larger house blocks. I want the houses and the town-houses for the Trust to rent out as an income source. We’ll pay you for building them by house block credits.”

Serge grins, “Good plan. You don’t get any cash or spend any at the start, but you get a lot of cash at the end. The sixty-three house blocks give you just over twelve million and your other costs will be around six million so you’ll end up with about six million bucks in the end, but get the houses available for rent before then. I need to do full costs and talk to Matthew, but I think it’s all doable. If Matt agrees we’ll get a detailed contract with Rivers Regional Construction written up and I’ll bring it over to Will for signature in the next few days.” He picks up the plans and notes then he leaves the room, closely followed by Nadia.

Will shakes his head while he says, “A bit complex, but that way it can be financed. It also puts the new boundaries outside the limitations but not far enough outside to allow for any further sub-divisions. Thus you now have the Manor block permanently defined. That’s good, so will be the rental income. You do know this will restrict what you can spend until we get some of the money in?”

“I know, but I won’t be able to spend much until after I get the site cleaned up, and that’s months of work to do. The first big expense will be the steel girders and the roof. Also, the windows won’t be cheap. I hope the cheque from the insurance will be enough to cover all of that.”

“Pat, have I missed something here?”

“The rebuild has to look like original from the outside. So I have to get quality windows that look right. I want double glazed units. There is one which has a metal frame that looks like wood, but it’s not cheap. The really big early expense is the steel I-beams to create a girdle to hold the house together because it’s such a huge open area. Then the steel roof frame and panels coloured to match the sandstone. Once that’s all up I can take as long as I want to do the rest of the building because the place will be protected against the weather.”

“I’m not sure it needs all that straight away, does it?”

“Will, the sandstone structure is basically two big empty boxes side by side with a common wall in the middle. It’s not as solid as if it was built all at once. The original building was only sixty-one metres wide by thirty-one metres deep and ten metres tall, a two story job. Then an extra sixty-five metres was added on by building a ’C’ shaped section onto one end. The last addition was to add a third story to make it fourteen metres tall with the castellations on the walls to hide the roof. The result is not as strong as if it was built as a single unit. I need to put strong steel beams along each wall and from the front to the back to give the building a rigid backbone. I can do this by putting them where I have to place the floors, and they can become the main supports for the floor of each level. The tricky part will be drilling far enough into the sandstone to secure the blocks to the steel without going through it. Since the blocks are half a metre deep I’ve got room to play with, and I don’t have to do many since they’re about a metre wide by sixty centimetres high. The base is very solid, but the upper level will sway in a strong wind until I get the building properly braced. That’s why I’m so concerned about getting the roof on first. The steel roof frame will help fix that and hold it steady.”

“I didn’t know it was so fragile, because it looks so solid.”

“Like any structure, once the interior supports are gone the walls are at risk until the inside support is back in place.” After a bit more talk on the details Pat goes home.

Second Weekend

Pat gives the ground floor a close study after scooping up a load of rubble with Kelpie and placing it ready to be sifted by Eve. While he walks all over the floor he stops to jump up and down in places. He also examines the remains of the window and door frames.

Happy with what he finds Pat brings one of the scissor lifts over, runs a long electrical lead from the garage for power, puts tools on the platform, and rises up to the top level. After a few minutes work to remove the remains of the window frame he drops to the window below it to do the same there. He stops now and then to scoop up more stuff for sifting, but by lunchtime all of the window and door frames are removed.

After lunch Pat goes to work on removing the floor of the extension with the basement under it. It’s a big area of sixty-five by thirty metres of hardwood boards, but they have to come out as some of them are fire damaged and all are water damaged while some are suspect for termites and dry rot. He starts at the front of the house and he works his way to the back. Since he knows he won’t be just nailing them back into place he isn’t careful in how he removes them: he just levers up an end and pulls it up. In the process of taking them out he doesn’t find a single board that’s worth keeping as a whole board, but most of the wood will be OK for other uses after some work and having the damaged areas cut out.

It’s almost dinnertime when he has that side of the Mansion stripped to the beams. So they both call it a day and go inside for their dinner.

Sunday morning Pat starts by putting three ladders in the basement: a long one to get in and out because the basement is a deep one and two ’A-frame’ ladders to work off. Wearing his tool-belt with all of the tools he’ll need for removing the beams he climbs down the long ladder while he descends the four metres into the basement. While setting up the ladders to work on the beams he looks at the walls to check they’re OK.

It’s only when he’s about to start work on the first beam he stops to have a long hard look at the basement wall shared with the old building: it’s one solid wall all the way from the basement floor bedrock to the top of the original building. He stops and he goes to have a close look at it.

Pat has spent many hours in the basement over the years, especially when he recently took everything out of it to the old stables so it would be free to use during the renovation work he’d planned. But he’d never noticed or thought about the fact the wall on that end was the outside wall of the original house. He’s very aware of that at the moment as he’s been studying the expansion plans so much and he can now see it.

After a few minutes thought he realises he doesn’t have a copy of the original house plans at all, but only a copy of the first extension and how they did that work. It just includes details of the upper floors as they were then. So he now wonders about the below ground area of the first building. If this wall is down to the bedrock the other three would be too, and he can’t see them refilling the hole afterwards, so where is the access to the basement for that side, because he knows of none?

This work is very simple: remove a few nails to take out the spacing joists then lift the beams out. Surprisingly, they’re all in good condition and will be available for other uses later. He finishes before lunch, and during this work he thinks about the basement for the original house.

During an early lunch he asks, “Mum, have you ever seen anything in one of the journals about a second basement?”

Eve replies, “No, Pat, I’ve not.” They both go back to eating lunch as they’ve been working hard the last few days and need the food energy.

While they tidy up after lunch Eve says, “Thinking on what I have seen in the journals I remember seeing mentions of using the basement in some of the older ones from before the building of the extension. So there must be another one, they just never differentiated them.”

Armed with this new knowledge there should be a basement down there Pat takes a bit more care than he’d originally intended to when he goes to work removing the floorboards of the original building. After a few boards are removed he shines a torch into the gap, and he can see he has a large basement area with a lot of things in it. So a change of plan is called for. He removes enough boards to give them good access, then he phones some friends to come and help him with some heavy work.

By dinnertime the floor has a three metre by three metre section of boards removed, the ground below it cleared, and one of the scissor lifts is on the floor in the basement. It took some hard work to lower it down, along with the power leads to the lift and some lamps on posts set up in the basement.

After feeding his friends dinner Pat leads them out to work at taking everything from the just found basement to the garage for storage. The town car will have to sit in the drive for a while, it’ll sit beside the SUV that was moved out to make space for the lifts. Pat wants the contents out of the basement and into the garage for safe keeping.

He has two people in the basement place the stuff on the lift until it’s full, then the lift is raised to the wood floor and the two people there unload it while the two people below bring more stuff over ready to load. Once the lift is unloaded it’s lowered and reloaded while the ones above move the gear over to the garage. Pat will go through it all when he has more time. Although the basement is very cluttered nothing is in tall piles, so it only takes them four hours to get it all out and into the garage. Most of the items are large trunks, with some smaller trunks and a lot of old furniture items in the mix.

The last task is to lift the scissor lift out again. Pat pays his friends two hundred dollars each for their time, which makes them all happy.

It’s a much later night than he likes, but the job had to be done and now all of the gear is placed in secure storage where the weather can’t do it any further harm. After a hot shower Pat goes to bed, and he’s soon asleep after spending only a few minutes thinking about the fact none of the water from fighting the fire made its way through the wood floor.

Note: While examining the basement Pat finds the stairs go up to the original laundry area. It’s boarded over and he can’t work out why they did that or failed to put in new stairs. No one involved in that renovation work is alive, so it’s left as an unsolved mystery and he forgets about it as not worth worrying about.

Second Week

The week passes quickly with both Eve and Pat spending most of their time on removing the ground floor boards and beams as well as cleaning up the site and sorting the remains. Almost all of the material from the burnt-out house will be reused in one way or another. So very little is going out for landfill.

On Tuesday the logging team arrives to cut the trees where the new construction is to happen. So they understand what he wants Pat has a word with them before he goes to university. They’ll clear the area for the development plus a two metre strip inside the new fence line with a similar strip along the other side of the property. All of the trees are to be trimmed and stacked behind the stables / garage, along with the large and medium sized branches and tree stumps after they’re pulled. These are good native hardwood so Pat wants the wood for the rebuilding.

Wednesday Dan is placing his equipment on site to start work in the morning now Pat has the building back to only the sandstone walls. Also, the company making the steel frames has a team on site using their new laser gear to map the inside of the building to design the beams. Like Dan, they had to wait until Pat cleared the site of all the wood remains.

The Investigation Team are busy each day from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. digging parts of the plane out of the ground. They get very excited on the day they find the cockpit recorder. Their work is slow and steady.

Eve spends the second half of the week just checking up on the hired work teams to make sure they all have what they need to do their work.

Because there’s little Pat can do until this work by others is done he’s at the university most afternoons to work on his assignments and the other research he has going. He’s working hard to get ahead so he’ll have more time to work on the Mansion when he can get back to it.

Friday is a different matter altogether because he has to act for his father on some family issues.

Family Affairs

Pat talks with Will about some changes for the Murphy Family Trust he’s done the paperwork for. Pat takes the documents and heads out to the farm to talk with his great-uncle, Sean Murphy. He has two items to discuss, and one is a major change he suggested to his father some months back. Will has been busy sorting out the paperwork to allow it to happen. While the other is a change Sean asked for in writing which Pat can’t understand why, so he wants it explained to him.

After a phone call to let Sean know he’s coming out Pat has a quick lunch and goes out to Murphy’s Farm. It’s a pleasant thirty minute drive.

On arriving Pat finds there’s a lot of tension, an unusual situation for the family farm as it’s normally a very friendly and jolly place. The issue seems to be between Sean, his wife Sarah, and his daughter-in-law Alice. However, all can feel the tension and they’re a bit snappy while they finish their lunch. Pat makes himself a hot chocolate while he waits.

With a hot drink in hand each Sean and Pat head to the farm office to talk in private. When they enter Pat says, “I’ve Dad’s power of attorney and instructions to get a few changes made here at the farm and to keep it all going properly. First, the easy stuff. What’s behind this request by you to have young Dean dropped from the Entitled Members List?”

Sean is very angry when he replies, “We recently found out Dean isn’t a Murphy, and that Alice had to be cheating on John.”

“Get serious! Take a look at the boy. He has the typical Murphy jaw, eyes, eyebrows, cheek bones, and he’s ambidextrous, while Alice isn’t!”

“The medical checks to get him ready for school next year show he’s blood group A while Alice is group O and John was group O, like every Murphy born. Dean is not John’s boy; and since he was born only eight months after John died Alice had to be cheating on him.” Pat is stunned by this at first, then he thinks back about five years to the time John Murphy died in a huge bushfire when the wind shifted.

Memory of a Hard Time

Pat Murphy, like every member of the Murphy Clan in the area that week, is out at Murphy’s Farm helping with the fire-fighting preparations to fight a major bushfire when it reaches the farm. Unlike many other farm owners in the state Pat’s grandfather, Samuel Murphy - never just Sam, is prepared to take drastic action to save his farm.

After starting down near the Victorian border the fire moves north with a strong wind behind it. The NSW Rural Fire Service tries to set up fire breaks to stop it at several points, while some of their efforts seem to slow the fire for a short time the fire gets past them and it just keeps moving north. The eight year long drought provides a lot of fuel for the fire, which makes it harder to fight and control. The only reason it’s not totally out of control yet is due to some areas burnt out in earlier fires limiting the fire’s ability to cross those areas, and some of the wider rivers also restrict its path.

When Samuel sees the breakfast news report on the thin fire break the RFS is setting up about ten kilometres south of Murphy’s Farm he refuses to send any people or equipment from the farm to be part of what he calls ’a wasted effort.’ He calls the whole Clan and all of the friends he can reach together to set up a real block against the fire.

Samuel Murphy has over fifty people gathered around the big map covering the three metre by two metre dinner table when he leans over to draw on the plastic sheet covering this detailed map of the district. A mark on the main river is all he needs while he says, “There’s no way the fire can jump the gap across the river when it gets there as there’s not enough fuel for it in the last kilometre of the flood plains due to over grazing of them. So our western border is safe. But it’s going to fly over the narrow fire break the RFS are making right now and it’ll hit us from the south like a high speed train due to the amount of fuel available to it. If we can stop it going north it’ll either go east into the hills or die out, depending on how the wind goes.” His listeners all nod agreement with him. Samuel draws a thick red line along the path of the creek that runs through the farm. “Strong Creek, that’s our last wall of defence. By itself it’s nothing, but it’ll be more than enough by the time the fire gets to it.” They all give him an odd look as the shallow gully is only a few metres wide and only two metres deep.

Drawing large red lines across the southern ten percent of the farm’s lands Samuel says, “I want every crop between Strong Creek and Beach Road cut down, burned, and ploughed under. We’ll destroy every scrap of available fuel over that stretch of land. Sure, it’ll cost a lot, but it will save the rest of the farm.” His listeners are so stunned by the knowledge of the thousands of dollars of crops he’s destroying they say nothing.

After a few more minutes two teams of an adult with five early teens are sent to walk the northern side of Strong Creek gully to clear it of all fuel. The rest are set up in teams to destroy the many hectares of the best crops the Clan has seen in several years of drought. By nine in the morning the teams are hard at work destroying all of the crops in the designated area. By five in the evening most of the work teams are back at the staging area of the highway rest area beside the bridge over Strong Creek to have a drink and some hot food while the last of the ploughing is being done by seven men on tractors.

At six in the evening the tractors pass the staging area on their way back to the main farm. All of the equipment and stock on this side of the creek were moved north during the day. While the tired work crews watch the tractors go down the road the news comes over the radio the fire didn’t even slow down when it crossed over the latest RFS fire break to the south and the fire is now racing north toward Murphy’s Farm. The RFS and everyone else along the fire’s path are scrambling to protect their homes or to evacuate the area.

Samuel stands in the back of a ute as he calls out to his work crews, “As you just heard, they lost it down south. The fire front will be here soon. Get in your crews and spread out along the highway as planned. If we can keep on it this side of the highway all night it should burn out by morning. Take lots of fluids with you and drink some every chance you get. Good luck, and keep safe. Don’t take any risks.” While he climbs down the others climb into or onto various vehicles with fire-fighting gear on them and head for their designated areas along the kilometre of the highway just south of their current location.

It seems they only just get into place at their designated positions when the fire front roars up the land with a sound like an angry animal. At first they just stand and watch it pass in front of them, then they’re busy as the fire spreads east toward them.

All are soon busy fighting wind blown sparks between the lanes of the highway and the area just east of it. No effort is being made to fight the fire in the fields as they work to contain it. After a little while the line gets thicker when RFS and volunteer teams from the south join them. Over on the northern edge of the creek the two younger teams there have no trouble dealing with the few sparks that carry across to the gully. The main fire seems to stagger to a stop when it reaches Beach Road since there’s no fuel for it north of there. Many thousands of hot sparks and small clumps of burning material are blown into the cleared crop lands and burn out without doing any further damage due to having no fuel.

They fight the fire until after midnight when they have to pull back due to the RFS teams further south not being able to keep the fire from jumping the highway and getting into the hills to the east. The Murphy teams retire to the farm to get some much needed rest.

The next day the regular members of the local Volunteer Rural Fire Service check their vehicles then they head back into the fray while the others look after the farm and animals as well as cleaning up all of the gear they used the day before.