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Tasmania in 1934 was a tinderbox after months of little rainfall and high temperatures. When bushfires erupted, they were the worst in living memory. Many volunteers fought the blazes, including Percy Statton, one of only ten Tasmanians at that time to have won the Victoria Cross. Statton and about 200 firefighters sought refuge in a clearing beside a railway siding, 'a haven in raging hell'.
Someone noticed that Jack Peterson was missing. Tension mounted high as everyone weighed up the odds against his survival but Percy Statton quietly and without fanfare moved off to the edge of the clearing and disappeared into the smoke, seeking his mate. Some called out to him to come back but he ignored them. The men waited ten minutes – thirty minutes – an hour. Still no sign. It was certain that he had perished in the inferno. Then there was a whoop as they saw Statton emerge from the smoke. He was smiling. 'Peterson's all right, he announced. 'He's on the top of his hut with a bucket of water ... but he's safe.' The white teeth shining out of soot-stained faces could have been seen a mile off. |