Darkness, Be My Friend

by John Marsden

  I guessed then what he was thinking. "Sabotage the fuel?"

  "Yeah. Exactly."

  "What with?"

  "Sugar."

  "Where would we get the sugar?"

  "We'd break into Tozer's."

  "How do you know there's sugar in Tozer's?"

  "I've seen that too. During the daytime they have the delivery dock open at the back of Tozer's, just like in the old days, and there's plenty of sugar there. Pallets of it."

  "But the sugar's not the only thing," Homer broke in. "We want two different points of attack. Supposing you and Fi do that, lace their fuel. At the same time we could start another bushfire, at the bottom of that hill behind the airfield. If the wind is right, like it was the other day, it'd go right through the place in five minutes, before they got their planes in the air. They'd never get them all up in time. We could wipe out half of them."

  "So if one plan failed, the other should work," Lee said. "And if they both work, so much the better. The next lot of planes they bring in, to replace the burnt ones, would get a nice load of sugar in their fuel tanks."

  "But by then we'd be back in New Zealand," Kevin said.

  Obviously that was the part of the plan he liked the best. Fair enough, too.

  We sat there going through it all. It had a lot of attractions. One was that we could return to New Zealand with our honour intact. Although we'd lost contact with Iain and Ursula and the Kiwis, we had to recognise that there was nothing we could do about them. They might be a thousand k's away. If they'd been caught they wouldn't still be in Wirrawee. They could have been carted off in ten different directions. Anywhere that had a maximum security prison.

  And, of course, they might be dead. Dr. K. knew nothing about them, and I assumed Fi's parents knew nothing about them either, or else surely they'd have said. But if we could carry out their mission at least something would be salvaged from the wreckage. We could call Colonel Finley and order up the chopper and get out of here. I could talk to Andrea again.

  Our rush to leave Hell and save the Kiwis seemed pretty naive now. For a while we'd thought we were heroes on white horses, saving the people in distress. Well, we'd ended up on horses, that part came true, but nothing else from the dream had. And our rush, throwing away our normal care and caution, had caused us the trouble we were now in. Stumbling into those kids: that had messed things up badly.

  So as far as saving something from the wreckage, the boys' plan did have a lot of attractions. It had a lot of problems too, of course. The first was to get access to the sugar. Lee had made a number of little trips around Wirrawee in the middle of the night when he was sick of the cemetery, and he thought there were no guards at Tozer's. There were patrols through the town at random times, on average about half an hour apart, but Tozer's itself was just locked up the way it was in peacetime.

  Assuming we could get in there, the next big problem was to get all the sugar to Curr's, the fuel depot. Getting through Curr's fence would be another risk. We could get wirecutters, from the Technology Room. They'd cut the wire OK, once they'd been cleaned and oiled. Then if Fi put the panel of wire back into place behind me when I went in, the guards shouldn't notice it.

  But so many little problems worried me. If just one thing went wrong the whole plan failed. I suppose that was the case with everything we did, but it seemed even more so this time. And the same with what the boys were planning. Lighting a fire mightn't be so easy now. The long spell of hot dry weather, so early in the season, was certainly helping, and so were the dewless nights, but on the other hand the enemy knew we were loose in the district so they would be more vigilant than ever.

  The petrol plan actually appealed to me more because it was kind of lateral thinking or whatever they call it. It was using brains, imagination, which seemed like a good start.

  Homer quite seriously wanted us to use a golf cart, from the golf club, to carry the sugar. He wouldn't give up on it. He figured it'd be quiet, which was true, of course, because they're battery operated. But they're also slow, conspicuous, and probably hadn't been charged up since the war began. The batteries would be as dead as bricks. Homer still didn't agree. "Are you kidding me?" he said. "Are you telling me that the officers wouldn't be down at the golf club every day having a round or two? I bet you, in every army in the world the officers manage to find themselves a golf course."

  I had to admit it was possible. "But you can see them a mile off," I argued. "They're always white, and they have little flags on them. And they do make some noise."

  "At three o'clock in the morning, who's going to hear them?" Homer pointed out.

  He was quite obsessed with it. I couldn't help wondering if he just wanted another good story to tell when we got back to New Zealand. But sometimes when people argue long enough and hard enough you can end up losing your sense of reality and agreeing with them. They wear you down, even if it's ridiculous. So at one stage I nearly did give in.

  "Look," I said, "if you can have a golf cart sitting outside Tozer's at 3.01 a.m., we'll use it. Just make sure you wipe your blood off the seat though. I don't want any mess."

  I regretted that comment the moment I'd said it, of course. Homer looked a bit shaken and Lee looked like I'd hit him. We didn't normally make jokes like that. They'd stopped being funny ages ago.

  "Sorry," I said. "Bad joke."

  There was an awkward pause, then we went on with the plans. How were we going to break into a department store? There might be burglar alarms, although the ones at school hadn't worked. We couldn't rely on that, though. If we made a noise getting in we might alert someone. If we broke a window the patrols would notice and we'd be more busted than the window. The more I thought about it, the more I thought that could be our biggest problem.

  "There is one way we could do it," Fi said. "It's a big risk, but it might work."

  "Yeah?"

  "Well, you know how sometimes you see an open window and you can't tell if it's open or not?"

  "Like it could be glass or it could be nothing? Yeah."

  "We're assuming that we'll break a window and the soldiers will see the broken glass. If there was no broken glass, though, if we cleared all the glass from the window and from the ground, then how would they know it was broken?"

  "Most of the patrols are in cars and trucks now," Lee said, after we'd sat for a minute or so thinking about it.

  He meant that it'd be harder for a soldier in a car to see that a window was broken.

  What we did then was just about the most fun we'd had since the invasion. With the deaths of Lee's parents and Corrie hanging over us, we needed something else to think about. There was a teatowel I'd seen at Corrie's place ages ago, before the house was destroyed by bombing. Somewhere in the rums that teatowel was probably slowly rotting away now. It had been one of Mrs. Mackenzie's favourites. She loved all those corny things. It said something like, "When this is all over I'm going to have my nervous breakdown. I've worked for it, I'm entitled to it, I deserve it, and I'm going to have it." I thought it was mildly funny the first time I'd seen it, and after that I hardly noticed it. But it seemed to sum up our attitude to life now. My attitude, anyway. I just wanted to get back to New Zealand and have my nervous breakdown. By God, I deserved it and, by God, I was going to have it.

  But before I had it, there was work to be done. It was just like life on the farm. "Hate it but do it." I want to watch TV I want to ring Come. I want to take a motorbike and go over to Homer's. I want to play on the computer, E-mail Robyn, go for a swim, eat, sleep, listen to music.

  Preserving pan could do with a good scour if we want any jam this year. Finished that seed grading yet? Chain on the chainsaw needs sharpening. Time to get out and chip a few burrs, Ellie. Ashtray in the Aga's full. Ellie, can you check that mob of wethers in Bailey's for footrot? Rock-picking, stick-picking, blackberry-spraying. Hate it, but do it.

  I hated what we were doing now, but I knew it had to be done.

  I didn't hate
what we did that evening at school though. We got to vandalise the place and no one was ever going to get mad at us for it. No one except the enemy, of course. But what we did was try different ways of breaking windows without making any noise. We only broke inside ones along the corridor in A Block, and we didn't break them all, although Homer would have if we'd let him.

  We soon found the best way: put a blanket over it then tap it with something hard, like a hammer. We'd have to make sure the glass all fell on the inside, then we'd knock out any glass left in the frame so a patrol wouldn't see the jagged broken pieces.

  Fi and I decided we'd turn down Homer's kind offer of a golf cart and use a wheelbarrow instead. We'd have to steal one beforehand and have it close by.

  As for security systems—well, there was nothing we could do. If they had one we'd just have to run away again. If we didn't hear anything go off, we'd take the risk and continue.

  Eighteen

  "Towel."

  "Check."

  "Hammer."

  "Check."

  "Wirecutters."

  "Check."

  "Wheelbarrow."

  "Oh no, Ellie, what do you think this bloody great thing is?"

  "OK, OK, just making sure."

  Fi swearing: one of life's rarest moments.

  The familiar tension was with me again. God, would we ever reach a stage where we could stop doing this? And how many more times could we get away with it? "Well," I thought, "no sleazing out now. Let's get it over and done with."

  I was feeling a bit stunned actually, and upset. After we'd made our plans we wandered off in different directions. I suppose we each had to get ready for what was ahead, and we each did it in our different ways. Everyone except me that is—I had sentry duty for three hours.

  But after I'd finished and handed over to Homer, I did what I badly wanted to do. I went looking for Lee.

  He took a bit of finding but eventually I tracked him down. He was in the Technology area, gazing moodily at a dusty jigsaw. Most of the big stuff in there was gone—plundered, probably—and I guessed that the jigsaw would one day follow it.

  "What are you doing?" I asked Lee.

  I felt quite nervous.

  "Getting some fuel."

  "What for?"

  "To help this fire off to a good start."

  "Find any?"

  He nodded without speaking at a twenty-litre drum that stood at the foot of the jigsaw.

  "Is it full?"

  "No, only half. But it's better than nothing."

  I didn't really want to talk about fuel, of course, and I assumed neither did he. I put my hand on his arm.

  "Lee, I just want to say it again. I'm so sorry about your parents."

  "Did you ever meet them?"

  "Not really. We went to the restaurant a few times. And I saw your mother at school stuff every now and then."

  He sighed and looked at the window. It was dark out there but he seemed to be seeing something.

  "They'd put up with so much already. It doesn't seem fair."

  I didn't say anything.

  "My mother got out of Vietnam when she was eleven."

  "Was she like, a refugee?"

  I was pretty hazy about all this stuff, how people emigrated.

  "Her father paid a fishing boat captain to take them."

  "So was it illegal?"

  "Oh, yes. It cost a lot of money, too. Luckily they were quite wealthy—my grandfather was a trader in cloth and furniture. But by the time he arranged their escape there wasn't much left. He brought some gold with him, that's all." Lee sighed again. "There were more than fifty people on the boat, but it was a sound one and the captain was a friend of my grandfather, so it should have gone OK. And they did get away without any major problems. But, somewhere in the South China Sea, they were boarded by pirates. It was a common thing then, and the captain was ready for them. He handed out rifles and they tried to fight them off. But they lost. Too many pirates, and they had better weapons.

  "So they boarded the boat. They searched everyone and found my grandfather's gold. All the men who were still alive they chucked overboard. The women they took in their boat. The children they left. I guess they thought they'd die soon enough anyway. So the last my mother saw of her father was when the current carried him away, and the last she saw of her mother was her face as the pirates' boat disappeared in the distance."

  Lee paused for a moment. I was still holding his hand but I'd forgotten that I had it. I was mesmerised, frozen with the horror of this story that he told so calmly, seemingly so unemotionally.

  He continued. "The children survived. A day and a half later a patrol ship from the Singapore navy found them and took them in tow. It became quite a famous case. The boat of orphans' the newspapers called it. My mother came to this country after eighteen months in an internment camp. She boarded with a Vietnamese family who'd known my grandfather back in Nha Trang. Eventually they adopted her and they became the only grandparents I've known. That scroll I told you about, that's the one thing I have of my mother's father. My mother kept it even through everything that happened on the boat."

  "How did your parents meet?"

  "Oh, in high school. They were friends briefly but they didn't see each other again for three years, then they met by accident on a train. They started talking, decided they liked each other, and it grew from there."

  "And..." My throat was croaky and I had to clear it and start again. "And your father? How did he come here?"

  "It was a bit different. His father was working for an American company in Bangkok, as a computer programmer, and they transferred him here. He liked it, and ended up getting citizenship. But he was angry when my father married a Vietnamese woman, and one who didn't have what he considered to be a real family. And when they came to Wirrawee and started the restaurant he cut them off completely. He felt that my father should have aspired to something better. I don't know where my father's family are now. I guess I'll probably never track them down."

  He paused again. "You see, that's why it seems so unfair. My mother especially. She survived so much, only to be killed by some gun-happy little shit in the Wirrawee Showground."

  "Are ... are you angry with your father for getting in a fight with the guards?"

  "No, of course not. I was brought up to have more respect for my parents than you Anglos. I would never criticise my parents in the way you guys do. Anyway how can I say what they should or shouldn't do? I wasn't there to see."

  That was the first time I'd heard Lee comment on the differences between our families. It showed how much the death of his parents had affected him.

  I think I did the wrong thing then. I leaned over and took Lee's face in my hands and kissed him. I was embarrassed and disappointed when I realised he was not responding. I sat back again. I suddenly wondered, "Did he think I was trying to crack on to him?" I hoped not. I thought not. It was more complicated than that. But I was still upset, the way he just sat there. Then, to make matters worse, he got up and without a word to me, or a look, left the room.

  So that's why I felt a bit shaken. I'd realised lately how strong my feelings for Lee still were. His story had held me in total fascination. I felt such an agony of grief, not just for him but for his parents, and for people I'd never met, like his Vietnamese grandparents. I felt it for every refugee, every orphan, every victim of war and cruelty. When I went to kiss him it was because of all those feelings. But to him, I don't know what it seemed like, just some immature reaction, I guess.

  That's why I couldn't concentrate on what Fi and I were meant to be doing. Of course I knew that she was holding a wheelbarrow. It'd be strange if I didn't, seeing we'd gone and got it ourselves.

  We'd said goodbye to the boys. One of our usual sentimental scenes where we made weak jokes and said moving things like, "See you," "Good luck," and romantic stuff like that. I'd thought I wouldn't be able to look at Lee, but he gazed at me calmly, with his grave eyes, and even kissed me on
the cheek.

  Sometimes, especially since we'd met up again, I felt like he was about twenty years older than me, which was very annoying. This had been one of those moments. Maybe people suddenly grow older when their parents die.

  Getting the wheelbarrow had been so nerve-racking that I wondered how I'd go when it came to the tough moments, like breaking into Tozer's or wheeling bags of sugar through the streets of Wirrawee, or sneaking into the fuel depot. At least three o'clock in the morning should be pretty quiet. But still in my mind was the knowledge of how I'd cracked up when I'd been with the New Zealanders and seen the enemy soldier. I was sure it wouldn't happen again, but it did take the edge off my confidence sometimes.

  We went from backyard to backyard looking for a wheelbarrow and found one in the' fourth place. Well, that's not totally accurate. We found one in the second place and another in the third /place, but the first was too small and the second had flat tyres. The one we chose was good. Big deep tray and well pumped up. The thing that worried me though was how nervous I'd been getting. The risks were fairly small, after all. We only went into the yards that were easy, with houses a good distance away from each other and no big fences to get over. We took our time and moved quietly. So why did I have the shakes?

  We moved the barrow to Jubilee Park and hid it in the bushes. There was still plenty of time. We'd deliberately left early so as not to put more pressure on ourselves. This whole operation was relying heavily on times being right. The boys had to light their fire when we were ready to break into Curr's so the soldiers at the depot would be distracted. We'd then have to move fast to meet up with the boys and get out of town. We needed to be well away by dawn. The plan was to go back to Hell, call Colonel Finley, and arrange the pickup.