John Marsden - Tomorrow 1

by When The War Began

  We got very cautious once we were close to the bridge, as we figured it might be heavily guarded. It was obviously the weakest link of the highway, which I guessed was why Homer was so anxious to see it. We came at it from a sideways direction, across country, through the Kristicevics’ market gardens. I wondered how my mate Natalie Kristicevic was doing, as I munched on her snowpeas. It was good to have some fresh greens, even if Fi got nervous at the noise I made crunching them.

  From among the sweet corn we had a good view of the bridge and the picnic grounds. We could see the dark silhouettes of soldiers walking along the bridge. There seemed to be six of them, four standing at one end while the other two prowled around on a regular beat. Another convoy came through, and the sentries gathered at the end of the bridge, watching it. One held a clipboard and made notes, checking the number of vehicles maybe. One talked to the drivers; the others seemed to search under the trucks. It took quite a while. The bigger trucks then crawled across the bridge with wide gaps between them. They obviously didn’t have a lot of faith in Wirrawee’s mighty bridge.

  At about 4 am we picked Lee up and retreated to our hide-out, which was a tourist cabin on the Fleets’ property; a little place that they rented to people from the city. It was quite isolated and unobtrusive, so we figured it was safe. Fi volunteered to be first sentry; the rest of us fell gratefully into the beds and slept and slept.

  It was midafternoon before we had the energy to talk tactics. It was obvious that Homer had spent a good bit of time thinking about the bridge, because he went straight to the point.

  ‘Let’s blow it up,’ he said, his eyes shining.

  The last time I’d seen his eyes shine like that was at school, when he told me he’d taken all the screws out of the Principal’s lectern in the Assembly Hall. If blowing up the bridge was going to be as big a disaster as that day turned out to be, I didn’t want to be a part of it.

  ‘OK,’ I said, humouring him. ‘How are we going to do that?’

  With his eyes going to high beam, he told us.

  ‘What Ellie did with the ride-on mower gave me the idea,’ he said. ‘Petrol’s our easiest and best way of making explosions. So I tried to think of how we could repeat what Ellie did, but on a bigger scale. And of course the biggest version of a ride-on mower is a petrol tanker. What we’ve got to do is get a petrol tanker, park it under the bridge, on the scenic drive, then blow it up. Should be quite a bang.’

  There was a deadly silence. I wanted to ask a lot of questions, but couldn’t get enough breath to do it. For a start, I knew who’d be driving the petrol tanker.

  ‘Where would we get the tanker?’ Fi asked.

  ‘Curr’s.’

  Curr’s was the local distributor for Blue Star petrol They came round to our place once a month to fill our tank It was a big business and he had quite a fleet of tankers. That part was certainly possible. In fact it might be the easiest part of the whole insane scheme.

  Homer was asking me something, interrupting my thoughts.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was asking, can you drive an articulated vehicle?’

  ‘Well, I guess. I think it’d be the same as driving the truck at home when we’ve got the trailer on. The question is, how the hell am I going to drive it under a bridge, get out and blow it up while the soldiers on the bridge just watch, wave and take photographs?’

  ‘No problems.’

  ‘No problems?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Oh good,’ I said. ‘Now that’s settled I’ll just relax.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Homer, ‘while you guys were walking towards Wirrawee last night with your eyes shut, I was noticing a few things. For example, what’s around the corner from the bridge, going towards Cobbler’s Bay?’

  Homer was fast becoming like the teachers he’d always despised.

  ‘I don’t know sir, you tell us,’ I said helpfully.

  ‘Kristicevics’ place,’ said Fi, a little more helpfully.

  ‘And on the other side?’

  ‘Just paddocks,’ said Fi. We were all looking at Homer, waiting for him to pull the rabbit out of the hat.

  ‘Not just paddocks,’ said Homer, offended. ‘That’s the trouble with you townies. One of the most famous studs in the district, and you call it “just paddocks”.’

  ‘Mmm,’ I said, remembering. ‘That’s Roxburghs’ place. Gowan Brae Poll Hereford Stud.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Homer, emphatically. I was still struggling to make connections.

  ‘So what do we do? Train the cattle to tow the tanker into position? Or use methane for the explosion? If we find a cow that’s been dead long enough to bloat, we can put a hole in his side and light the gas. I’ve seen that done.’

  ‘Listen,’ Homer said. ‘I’ll tell you what I noticed. That paddock right on the highway, Mr Roxburgh’s got a lot of cattle in there, all in good nick too. It’s heavily stocked, but it’s a good paddock and it can take it. Now suppose you’re a young soldier in a foreign country and you’re guarding a long narrow bridge and it’s late at night and you’re struggling to stay awake and alert. And suddenly you hear a noise and you turn around and there’s a hundred or so prime head of Hereford charging towards you, flat chat. About fifty tonnes of beef travelling at 60 or 70 k’s, looming out of the darkness straight at you. What do you do?’

  ‘You run,’ said Lee promptly.

  ‘No you don’t,’ Homer said.

  ‘No you don’t,’ I agreed, thoughtfully. ‘There’s too many of them, and they’re coming too fast for that.’

  ‘So what do you do?’ Homer asked again.

  ‘You run to the sides. And then you probably climb up the sides. Which happens to be pretty easy on that old wooden thing.’

  ‘And which way do you look?’ Homer asked.

  ‘At the cattle,’ I said, more slowly still.

  ‘Exactly,’ Homer said. ‘I rest my case.’ He sat back and folded his arms.

  We gazed at him, three people thinking three different collections of thoughts.

  ‘How do you make the cattle do what you want?’ Fi asked.

  ‘How do you get away afterwards?’ Lee asked. ‘I can’t run far on this.’ He gestured at his bandaged leg.

  I didn’t have any questions. I knew the details could be worked out. It was a high risk plan, but it was a brilliant one.

  Homer answered Lee’s question first though ‘Motorbikes,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking for some time that if we wanted to be effective guerillas we’d get ourselves ag bikes and use cross-country travel instead of roads. We could become very mobile and very slippery. Now, I’ll get the cattle going by using my superior mustering skills to get them into the road. I’ve mustered before at night. It works well – in fact it’s better in some ways. They’re not so suspicious then. If it’s a bright enough night, which it should be, you don’t even use lights, cos it stirs them up too much. So I’ll get them out and then Lee and I’ll fire them up, if Lee’s fit enough. We can use an electric prod, for example, and maybe an aerosol can and a box of matches. I got into so much trouble for making a flamethrower from them at school, but I knew it would come in handy one day. A blast of that on their backsides and they’ll keep running till dawn. Once we’ve got them blitzing down the road we’ll fade off into the darkness to the motorbikes and make our getaway.’

  He turned to Fi and me. ‘I always seem to get out of things with the least dangerous jobs,’ he apologised. ‘But it has to be this way, I think. Ellie’s our best driver, so we need her for the tanker. And Lee’s too lame to run, which is hopeless for the passenger, because they’ll both have to be quick on their feet. And I’m the one who’s had the most experience with cattle.’

  Homer was being modest. He was a natural with stock. But he was still talking, ‘So, that’s how it seems to work out. What I thought was, if you steal a tanker and bring it down to the bridge by slow degrees, with Fi walking to each corner, checking the coast is clear, then signalling you
on. You hide it round that corner near the bowling greens, nice and close to the bridge. We’ll wait for a convoy to go through, which seems to get the soldiers up to the right end of the bridge, and also gives us a good chance of a clear interval before the next convoy. Then we’ll move the cattle out into the road and stampede them. As the cattle hit the bridge at one end you bring the tanker down under it at the other – you might even be able to coast down with the engine off. There’s a good slope there. Jump out, run a trail of petrol away to a safe distance – one of you do it, so if she gets any on her clothes she can get clear before the other one lights it. Then light it and go like stink to a couple of motorbikes that we’ll hide around the next corner. And you’re out of there. How’s that? Simple, eh? Just call me Genius.’

  We talked and talked for hours, trying to find the flaws, trying to improve the arrangements. There were endless ways it could go wrong of course. The cattle mightn’t move, another vehicle might come along the road at the wrong moment, the tankers might be guarded or empty – they mightn’t even be there. I thought the most dangerous part might be when Fi and I were getting from the tanker to the motorbikes. We’d be quite exposed then, for thirty seconds or so. If the sentries saw us we’d be in real trouble. But Homer was confident that they’d be occupied by the cattle.

  Yes, it was a good plan. It was very clever. And maybe the thing I liked most about it was the effect it had on Lee. He was determined to do it. He lifted his head more and more as we talked; he became outspoken, he started smiling and laughing. He’d been depressed a lot of the time since he copped the bullet, but now he actually said to me, ‘If we do this, if we succeed, I’ll be able to feel pride again’.

  I hadn’t realised how ashamed he’d been of not being able to help his family.

  We made a list of all the things we needed, just a little list: four motorbikes, two walkie-talkies, two pairs of wirecutters, bolt cutters, torches, aerosol cans, matches, cattle-prods, rope, and a petrol tanker. Just a few odds and ends like that. We started our search on the Fleets’ place, and then moved onto the neighbouring farm, collecting as we went. The motorbikes were the biggest problem. Most rurals don’t take much care of their bikes. Half the ones we found were held together with fencing wire and masking tape. We had to have fast, reliable bikes, that would start first time. Then they had to be fuelled up, have their oil and headlights and brakes checked, and brought together in a central spot, which happened to be Fleets’ garage. We worked pretty hard that afternoon.

  Chapter Twenty

  Curr’s Blue Star Fuel and Oil Distributors was in Back Street, about six blocks from the bridge. Fi and I found it with no trouble but with much relief. We’d agreed between the two of us that we could have a rest when we got there, and we sure needed one. We’d wheeled those bloody great bikes about four k’s, stopping and hiding a dozen times when one or both of us imagined we’d heard a noise or seen a movement. We were pretty twitchy just doing that; I hated to think what we’d be like when the real action started.

  I was a bit nervous being paired with Fi, I must admit. There was no way I was ever going to be a hero, but at least I was used to doing outdoors, practical things, and I suppose that gives you a bit of confidence. I mean just the little things at home that I took for granted, chopping wood, using a chain saw, driving, riding the horses (Dad still liked using horses for stockwork), being a rouseabout, marking lambs and drenching sheep – these were the commonplace routines of my life, that I’d never valued a lot. But without my noticing it they’d given me the habit of doing things without looking over my shoulder every sixty seconds to see if an adult was nodding or shaking his head. Fi had improved heaps in that respect, but she was still kind of hesitant. I admired her courage in taking on the job Homer had given her, because I guess true courage is when you’re really scared but you still do it. I was really scared, but Fi was really really scared. I did just hope that when the chips were down she wouldn’t stand there frozen with fear. We didn’t want frozen chips. Ha ha.

  Once we’d hidden the bikes we set off for Curr’s. I tried to put into practice the lessons I’d learned from computer games. My favourite game was Catacomb and I’d found the only way I could get to level ten was to keep my head. When I got angry or overconfident or adventurous I got wiped out, even by the most simple and obvious little monsters. To get the best scores I had to stay smart, think, be alert and go cautiously. So we crept along, block by block, checking round every corner as we came to it. The only time we spoke was when I said to Fi, ‘This is the way we’ll have to do it on the way back with the tanker’. She just nodded. The only time my concentration wavered was when I caught myself wondering if I’d ever get to play computer games again.

  As far as we could see it was all quiet on the Curr’s front. There were big wire gates, locked with a chain and padlock, and a high wire fence all the way around the depot, but we were prepared for that with the wirecutters. We’d brought bolt cutters as well but they were no match for the gate: the chain was just too big. Plan B was to use the truck to break through the gate.

  We took a smoko for twenty minutes. We sat behind a tree opposite the depot, getting our breath back, while Fi tried to call up Homer and Lee on the walkie-talkie. Just as we were about to abandon the attempt and go for the tanker we heard Homer’s hoarse whisper coming from the receiver.

  ‘Yes, we can hear you Fi. Over.’

  It was somehow vastly exciting, and a wild relief, to hear his voice. Fi’s eyes glistened.

  ‘How’s Lee?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Where are you? Over.’

  ‘Where we said we’d be. How about you? Over.’

  ‘Yes, the same. We’re about to try to get in. It looks OK. They’ve got plenty of what we want. Over.’

  ‘OK, good. Call us back when you’re in business. Over.’

  ‘Bye,’ Fi whispered. ‘Love you.’

  There was a pause, then the answer. ‘Yeah, I love you too Fi.’

  For Homer to say that to anyone was pretty good; for him to say it with Lee and me listening was amazing. We switched the walkie-talkie off and moved cautiously over to the fence of the depot. There were big security lights along the wire fence, but the power seemed to be switched off to this part of town. I hoped that meant that any burglar alarms would be inoperative too. I took a deep breath and made the first cut. No bells rang, no lights flashed, no sirens howled. I cut again, and kept cutting until I’d made a hole about big enough for a hare.

  ‘We’ll never get through that,’ Fi muttered. As she was the size of a rabbit and I’m the size of a Shetland, it was obvious who she meant by ‘we’.

  ‘We’ll have to,’ I said. ‘It makes me nervous standing here. It’s too exposed. Come on.’

  Fi put one leg through, then gracefully twisted her body after it and followed with her other leg. All those ballet lessons were good for something, I thought enviously. It was obvious that the hole had to be bigger, so I cut some more, but even when I did get through I ripped my T-shirt and scratched my leg.

  We scurried across the yard to where the trucks were parked. I tried the doors of a couple but they were locked. We went over to the office and peered through the grimy window. On the opposite wall was a board hung with keys.

  ‘That’s our target,’ I said. I turned and found a rock, picked it up and came back to the window.

  ‘Wait,’ Fi said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can I do it? I’ve always wanted to break a window.’

  ‘You should have joined Homer’s Greek Roulette gang,’ I said, but I handed over the rock. She giggled and drew back her arm and smashed the rock hard into the window, then jumped back as glass showered over us both. It took us a few moments to shake it out of our clothes and hair. Then I leaned in and opened the door from the inside.

  The keys were neatly marked with the registration numbers of the trucks, so we took a handful and went back to the yard. I chose the oldest, dirtiest semitrai
ler, because the newer smarter ones seemed to shine too much in the moonlight. It was a flat-fronted International Acco. The first thing we did was to go to the back of the trailer and climb up the thin steel ladder to the top, walking along the curved surface to inspect the storage compartments. It turned out that there were four lids, spaced at equal intervals along the top. I twisted one of the lids and took it off. It was much like the lids of the milk cans that we still had in our old dairy. It came away easily, even though it was quite heavy. I tried to see if there was any petrol inside but it was impossible to tell. I searched my memory. When the truck came to our place each month, what was it the driver did? ‘Hold this,’ I whispered urgently to Fi, giving her the lid, then shinnying down the ladder. Sure enough I found what I was looking for – the dipstick on a bracket on the base of the trailer. I pulled it off, and hurried back up the ladder. I dipped the tank that we’d opened. It was too dark to get a reading but the glint of wetness in the moonlight showed there was plenty of fuel in it.

  We replaced the lid and checked the other three. Two of them were full; we didn’t need to dip them. The last one was nearly empty, but it didn’t matter. We had enough to cause a bigger explosion than Krakatoa. We screwed the lids back on and hurried down the ladder.

  I went round to the driver’s door, unlocked it, got in, and opened the passenger door for Fi, then began inspecting the controls. It looked OK but when I switched on the ignition a continuous beep began sounding, and a red warning brake light started flashing. I waited for it to go off, but it didn’t.

  ‘There’s something wrong with the brakes,’ I said to Fi. ‘We’d better try another one.’

  We spent ten minutes going along the row of trucks, trying each one, but always with the same result. I began to regret the time spent on our rest break. We might end up getting to the bridge too late.

  It’s no good,’ I said at last. ‘We’ll just have to take the first one and risk it with no brakes. I’ll use the gears as much as I can.’