The Dead of Night

by John Marsden

  Major Harvey's tent was so big by our standards that it was like a drawing room. The five of us could have slept in it, no worries. But all it contained was a camp stretcher covered by a mosquito net, a table and three chairs, and a few boxes and trunks. We dropped off our packs at the entrance. Major Harvey walked briskly to the chair behind the table and sat there, leaving us to sort out where we'd sit. In the end Homer and I took the chairs and the other three sat on the ground.

  The major caught my eye as I glanced at the mosquito net and gave a rather nervous laugh. "Bit of a luxury that," he said. "Fact is, I've got rather sensitive skin." I smiled a stupid lopsided sort of grin and said nothing. The major turned back to Homer.

  "Now," he said, "firstly, congratulations on still being free of the enemy's clutches. You've obviously done very well for yourselves. You'll have to tell me what you've been up to."

  I leaned back in the chair. I felt tremendously tired. Suddenly I could hardly stay awake. Adults! At last we had adults around us, people who could make the decisions, accept the responsibility, tell us what to do. I closed my eyes.

  "Well," Homer began nervously. I was surprised by how nervous he sounded. His confidence seemed to have left him, in the face of this man who made it so clear that he was in charge. "Well," he said again, "we were camping in the bush when the invasion started. So we missed the whole thing. When we came out we found everybody had disappeared. It took us quite a while to work out what had happened. When we did realise, we shot back into the bush in a hurry, and we've been there ever since. Except for a few raids. We've done a bit of damage. We blew up the Wirrawee bridge and we attacked a convoy, and we've been in a few other fights. We lost one of our friends, who got a bullet in the back, and another of our friends who drove her to hospital, and Lee here got shot in the leg, but apart from that we've done OK."

  I opened my eves and looked at Major Harvey. He was gazing thoughtfully at Homer. His face was expressionless but his eves were alive, brown and sharp. After a few seconds, when it was obvious that he wasn't going to say anything, Homer stumbled on. "We're rapt to find you. We just came into the Holloway Valley to have a look around. We had no idea there'd be anything like this. You look like you've got a small army."'

  There was silence again, I couldn't work out why he wouldn't speak, but my brain was too heavy and slow to work properly. Was there something obvious that I'd missed? After all, now that we were back with adults, we expected a bit of praise, a bit of recognition. Wasn't that what adults were for? We weren't looking for medals but we felt we'd come through some hard times and done the best we could. I'd expected the major to get a bit excited when he heard what we'd achieved. Maybe he thought we hadn't done enough?

  When he did speak I really did get a shock.

  He said: "Who gave you permission to blow up the bridge and attack convoys?"

  Homer gaped at him, mouth open like Jonathan Jo. He gaped at him for so long that I finally took over as spokesperson. "What do you mean, permission?" I asked. "We didn't have anyone we could ask about anything. We've hardly seen an adult since this whole thing started. We've just been doing what we thought was best."

  "This bridge. How do you know so much about explosives?"

  "We don't," Homer answered. "We don't know anything about them. We used petrol."

  Major Harvey gave a tight little smile. "All right," he said. "I'm sure you feel you have done your best. It's been a difficult time for everybody. But you can hand things over to us from now on. No doubt that'll be a relief to you. Although none of us here are regular soldiers, I have had Army experience and this is a military camp, run to military standards. From now on you'll come under my command. There'll be no more independent action. Is that understood? By all of you?"

  We nodded, rather dumbly. He seemed to relax a bit when he realised that we weren't going to put up a fight. Everyone was mentally exhausted, not just me. We sat there and listened as he explained the set-up of Harvey's Heroes.

  "The enemy are currently in control of this valley," he said. "But the troop concentrations here are much less than in the Wirrawee area. Wirrawee is vital to them because as long as they control Wirrawee they control the road to Cobbler's Bay. And we believe Cobbler's Bay to be one of their main landing points.

  "Our job is to harass the enemy as much as possible, causing maximum inconvenience to him and disrupting his activities at even possible point. We are severely outnumbered in terms of manpower and severely disadvantaged in terms of firepower. Nevertheless, we have made a difference in our own small way. We have sabotaged a number of enemy vehicles, destroyed two power stations and inflicted significant casualties." He gave a tight little smile. "I think I can say that the enemy is more than aware of our contribution."

  We smiled back and muttered polite comments as he continued.

  "In a few moments I will introduce you to my two ic, Captain Killen." I let out a giggle at this name,'but the major looked at me blankly.

  "Sorry," I said.

  He continued to talk, without looking at me, and it took me a moment to realise that I'd seriously offended him. "We are a combat unit on active service," he said. "And you have just had a perfect demonstration of why you will not see many members of the fairer sex among our numbers. A tendency towards levity at inappropriate moments is not something we encourage."

  My little giggle was replaced by cold violent anger, mixed with disbelief. Only Homer's quick hand on my knee stopped me saying something. The fairer sex? Levity at inappropriate moments? Jeez, all I'd done was laugh.

  I didn't notice the rest of the speech, just sat there smouldering until the two ic, Captain Killen, came in and was introduced. Only then did it strike me that the major hadn't even asked us our names.

  At least the captain seemed harmless enough; a tall thin man with a soft voice. He had a prominent Adam's apple which bobbed up and down as he talked, and he kept blinking all the time. He was a man of few words though. He spent a minute with us outside Major Harvey's tent, pointing out the layout of the camp, then said he'd show us our sleeping quarters. He led us through the camp again, to the western edge, and stopped outside another big tent.

  "The two boys," he said, pointing at the opening. Homer and Lee hesitated, and looked at us. Homer raised his eyebrows, rolled his eyes and disappeared into the tent. Lee, his normal impassive self, followed. Captain Killen was already walking away and we three quickly caught up with him. We threaded our way along a row of tents, stepping across fly-ropes. Beyond that row was a brush fence, a rough bush job, about a metre high, and beyond the fence more tents, all green coloured.

  The captain stopped and called out "Mrs Hauff!" It sounded like a cough, the way he said it. From the front tent Mrs Hauff emerged. She was a big woman, about fifty, and heavily made up. She wore a black sweater and blue jeans. She looked at us a bit like a shop assistant looks when you're trying to exchange a top you don't like.

  "So you're the girls I've got to find room for?" she said. "All right, just come with me. Thank you Brian," she said to Captain Killen, who nodded and turned on his heel. Nervously we followed Mrs Hauff. She allocated us to separate tents, me to one next to Fi, but with a sleeping bag in it already. Robyn was eighty metres away.

  "Now we haven't got any girls your age," Mrs Hauff said to us as she pointed out the tents. "And we don't want any nonsense. I've raised three girls myself and I know what goes on. You'll pull your weight the same as everyone else. Don't waste your time expecting it any other way."

  I was too subdued by all these adults to say anything. I crawled into the tent, pushing my pack ahead of me, and unzipped it. All I wanted to do was sleep. I moved the sleeping bag that was already there, before pulling out my own one and laying it down the right-hand side. Stuffing a few clothes into a shirt to make a pillow, I lay down slowly, like a tired old lady with arthritis. For a few minutes I was too weary to think about anything. I watched the light glowing green through the sides of in the tent. The day was end
ing, and as I lay there the light changed quickly, to a darker, dimmer shade. A shadow, large and distorted, passed across the fabric as someone went past outside. I shrank away from it, remembering the shadow that had clung to me after I'd shot the soldier. As my mind began to settle I asked myself what I was thinking, what I was feeling. Slowly I realised it was relief. I didn't care how stupid these people were, how unreasonable, how prejudiced. They were adults, they could do all the worrying and make all the decisions. I could leave it to them. I didn't have to fight with these awful choices any more. I'd just do what they told me: be a good girl, shut up, veg out.

  My eyes were closed by then and I welcomed the slow drift into sleep.

  I was woken by someone bumping around in the tent beside me. I opened my eves abruptly, but unwillingly. It was too dark to see anything except for occasional glimpses of a figure struggling with the bits and pieces scattered around the tent: the boots, the toilet bags, my pack.

  "Sorry," I said, reaching out sleepily to move my jeans.

  The girl didn't look around, just said, "You'll have to be a lot neater than this if you want to stay in this tent."

  "Sorry," I said again. She sounded older than me, and irritated, but it must have been a drag for her to find a stranger suddenly sharing the little tent.

  I lay there watching, as my eyes adjusted to the light. She was arranging everything in neat lines. She pulled off her jeans, folded them, and placed them so they were square to the base of the sleeping bag. "Jeez," I thought, "I'll have to lift my game." All these weeks without Mum had left me pretty slack about stuff like that.

  I slept again and woke at daylight. It was shivery cold outside but I got up anyway and dressed quickly, hoping to trap as much heat in my clothes as possible. As I dressed I kept glancing at the girl in the other sleeping bag. In the dim dawn light it was hard to pick out the details of her face. She had red hair, which immediately reminded me of Corrie, but they didn't have any other features in common. This girl looked about twenty-five and had a small, thin mouth, with her lips pressed together even in sleep. She had mascara on, or the remains of mascara—it could have been just the dark circles of tiredness, but I didn't think so. The idea of make-up still seemed amazing to me. First Mrs Hauff, now my tent-mate. It had been a long time since I'd seen anyone with it, or even thought of it. This place was a beauty parlour.

  I left her to her sleep and hopped outside to a cold damp log, to finish putting on my boots. It was always such a struggle to get them on but once they were on, they were comfortable. The morning wrestle was worth it. I did them up and went for a walk around the campsite, past the brush fence and along the tent lines. I could see Major Harvey's tent and as I caught further glimpses of it through the trees I saw him sitting at his desk in full uniform, head over a pile of papers, writing steadily. He didn't see me. I headed on down through the trees, where there seemed to be more light. I was curious to see what lay beyond this bush, to get another glimpse of the Holloway Valley perhaps. I went a hundred metres but although the bright light gave the impression that at any moment I would burst through into the open, that didn't happen. The trees continued, as thick as ever. After ten minutes I stopped and gazed around. Sometimes the bush seemed like an ocean, the same in every direction. Perhaps if I had a better sense of smell I could have noticed more differences. The earthy smell of soil rich with moisture and growth; the musty smell of mist; the faint eucalyptus tang from the gum leaves: I knew these varied from tree to tree, from place to place, but I never seemed to have the time or patience to explore them properly. Suddenly curious, I got down on all fours and snuffled at a heap of damp leaves. I felt like a wombat, and started wondering if I might turn into one. I scuttled across the slope for a few metres, trying to imitate the rhythmic trot of a wombat on a mission. I dug my snout into another pile of brown and black wet leaves.

  There was a cough behind me, unmistakably human.

  It was Lee.

  OK, I felt really stupid, but I'm sure people do stuff like that all the time when they're on their own. But maybe not pretending to be wombats. Maybe not sniffing at leaf litter either. OK, maybe they don't do anything like that.

  We sat on a log and he put his strong lean arm around me.

  "What were you looking for?" he asked, trying hard not to laugh.

  "Oh, the usual. Roots, shoots and leaves. Were you looking for me?"

  "No, you're a bonus. I wanted to get away for a few minutes, to think. It's good early in the morning, isn't it?"

  "Mmm, if you can talk yourself into getting up."

  We watched the light getting stronger and harder as the day got drier.

  "What do you make of this mob?" I asked.

  "Huh! Some of them are weird! They entertained me for two hours last night, telling me what heroes they are. Seems like their biggest thrill was setting fire to a truck that had broken down. They'd seen the soldiers leave it there and drive off in a ute, so the danger level was about two on a scale of nought to a hundred."

  "Did you tell them what we've done?"

  "Nuh, they just wanted to talk about themselves, so I sat there and listened. Homer was the smart one; he'd gone to bed. I don't know why I didn't. Didn't have the energy, I guess."

  "The women wear make-up."

  "Yeah, I noticed."

  "I guess living on this side of the mountains, it's not the same as Wirrawee, where everything's so tightly held. It's like Major Harvey said, this is not an important area, militarily. So Harvey's Heroes probably haven't had to be too heroic."

  "'Harvey's Heroes'! It's such a sterile name."

  "I reckon."

  "What does it make us? Homer's Heroes?"

  An hour later we wandered back to the camp, and found ourselves in trouble. We were greeted by my tent-mate, who came marching towards us as soon as we appeared out of the trees. She didn't look at Lee, just at me.

  "Where have you been?" she asked me. "And what are you doing with him?"

  "Him? You mean Lee?"

  "Look, you'd better get a few things straight. You don't go outside the boundaries without permission. You don't go into the men's camp. The only place you can mix with the men is at the campfire and in the cooking and eating area. There are jobs to be done here, and you're meant to be helping."

  "Sorry," I said stiffly. "Nobody told me any of that."

  I knew I was being a wimp, but I didn't have the strength to stand up to her. The fight had gone out of me. It had fled, the moment we found ourselves surrounded by adults. I'd gone back to being eight years old. It's not so surprising. For some time now we'd been running at higher revs than we were built for. At last I could turn my engine off. I just wanted to get into a hidey-hole and stay there. So I didn't mind making a few compromises to stay with these people, and I certainly didn't want to get on their bad side. I winked at Lee and followed the girl to the cooking area, where she thrust a tea towel at me. Seemed like I'd missed breakfast, and the sight of bits of food floating in the greasy grey washing-up water made me feel nauseous. But I did the drying-up without complaint, and hung the tea towels out on a line behind the tent. Then I went looking for the others.

  Nine

  Two days later we were at a meeting called by Major Harvey. I was sitting towards the back, separated from Fi by my tent-mate, Sharyn, and Fi's tent-mate, Davina. Robyn was two rows ahead of me and the boys were right up the front. All the males sat in the front section of the meeting area and the females at the back. Major Harvey stood on a stump, with Captain Killen at his right hand and Mrs Hauff at his left.

  For those two days my only conversations with the other four had been brief and unnatural. We were made to feel that we were doing something wrong by talking to each other. Sharyn seemed to hover around me all through every day. I felt like I was a skydiver and she was my parachute. In one way I hated it, but in another way it was addictive. I was starting to depend on her for even little decision. "Sharyn, do you think I should sleep with my head up this e
nd of the tent?" "Do these jeans need washing?" "Sharyn, will I put the potatoes in the blue dish?"

  She was a big girl, Sharyn, and always wore black jeans which were too tight for her. Like many of the women, she wore a lot of make-up. Although she tried to get me to put some on I couldn't bring myself to do it. It seemed too unnatural, wrong for our environment.

  The only decision Homer and I made, after a quick conversation with the other three on our second evening, was that the two of us would go back the next morning to get Chris. Only an hour after we'd made the decision I happened to see Major Harvey slipping through the trees towards his tent. I thought it would be a good idea to tell him what we were going to do, so I intercepted him.

  "Excuse me Major Harvey, could I see you please?"

  "I was under the impression that you already were."

  "I'm sorry?"

  "You're looking right at me, so I assume you're seeing me. Or perhaps it's darker here than I realised."

  I ground my teeth. His sharp eyes glanced at me, then looked away again.

  "Well could I speak to you for a minute please?"

  "Go ahead."

  "Well it's just that we've got one other friend, Chris, who we left back at our campsite, and so tomorrow morning Homer and I thought we'd go and get him. It shouldn't take long. We'll be back by tea time."

  There was a long silence. Suddenly it seemed like it had got much darker. I could hardly make out the major's features any more: his eves had become just little black sockets.

  At last he said something, but it wasn't much. All he said was "Follow me," as he turned on his heel and walked quickly away. I followed, all the way to his tent, then stood in front of his desk and waited as he seated himself and lit a candle. He didn't ask me to sit. The flickering light of the candle made shadows dance on his face. Occasionally, as he moved his head slightly. there'd be a glint from his eyes, but most of the time he didn't move at all.