by John Marsden
Ms Kawolski was my English teacher in Year 8 and in the whole year she didn’t say a single thing worth remembering. In fact, I don’t remember a single thing she did say, except one. Just out of the blue one morning she said, ‘Knowledge is power.’ I don’t know what she was talking about: I just remember sitting there thinking, ‘Wow, that’s pretty true actually.’
Sometimes it’s the mood you’re in, I think. One day a teacher tells you the meaning of life and you yawn and look at your watch and try to work out how many seconds to go before the bell. Another day a teacher says something pretty obvious, or something you’ve heard a million times before, and you think, ‘Oh my God, that is so true, she’s right, variety is the spice of life.’
Or whatever.
Being in the Hermit’s hut always put me in a deep, serious mood, where I thought about stuff I never normally thought about, although what I did next wasn’t too deep or serious. I got out my pen and wrote a message to Lee on a bit of smooth, well-sanded wood that was above the window frame. I wrote, ‘Dear Lee, I love you and I’m coming to look for you. Meet me in the bike shed.’
This was a bit of a joke, because at Wirrawee High the bike shed was where you went if you were serious. And I mean serious. The bike shed at lunchtime was X-rated. It led to a lot of jokes about riding bikes. Even with my last boyfriend Steve, I hadn’t got into the lunchtime scene in the bike shed. We were serious enough; it was just that the bike shed at lunchtime wasn’t a place to go if you were worried about your reputation, and I’ve never wanted to chuck away my reputation. Which, of course, is another reason for being disgusted with myself about Adam in New Zealand.
So anyway, to say to someone, ‘Meet me in the bike shed’ was like saying, ‘Take me, I’m yours’ or ‘Let’s do it’ in our language.
After I’d written the message I sat outside the hut, in the one patch of sunlight that could sneak through all the vegetation. The sunlight kept blinking as the branches above me moved slightly in the feeble breeze. I sat there and after a while I realised that I’d never felt more alone in my life. Fi and Homer and Kevin were only a few hundred metres away, in the clearing, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to be surrounded by all the people I’d ever known and cared about. I wanted to be held and rocked by them. I’m not sure if even that would have been enough, though. Deep down inside I realised there was a part of me that would always be alone: that from birth to death, and beyond, everyone had something that was theirs and theirs alone. It was scary to realise that I had this solitary little part of me, but I think it was something to do with growing up too: the knowledge that OK, I was part of a family, part of a network of friends, but that was not the whole story. I did exist independently of the people who loved me and surrounded me. It was a lonely thought, but not necessarily a bad one.
The Hermit’s hut was a strong place. I hadn’t quite realised that, the other times I’d been there. Strong because it survived physically, sure, but that’s not what I mean. Its strength came from the experiences of the man who had lived there. Somehow his isolation let him gradually lose his weaknesses, his softness. Just before the invasion I’d been using the back of an axe to hammer in star pickets for tree guards. Around our place the tree guards have to keep out not just rabbits, but sheep and kangaroos too. Those wimpy little tree guards made of cardboard or plastic are no good for us. We use wire netting that comes up to my armpits. So I’d been driving in the pickets for that when I mis-hit and broke the axe handle. The short part of the broken handle was stuck firmly in the head of the axe. No drama, it happens quite often and I did what I always do: chucked it in the Aga to burn away the broken wood, then fished out the steel axe-head the next morning before I fired the Aga up again.
And that was the memory that came back to me as I sat in my ragged little patch of warmth by the creek. The memory of the useless splintered wood burned away by the fire, until only the solid hard axe-head was left. I hoped that what had happened to me with the soldier in Wirrawee had burnt away the useless weak parts of me, and that what was left would be strong. Strong enough for whatever lay ahead.
Chapter Nine
We didn’t have any real plan. We just knew we couldn’t go back without Lee, let alone the New Zealanders. When they didn’t turn up on the fourth night we called Colonel Finley on the spare radio. It was Saturday morning 5.50 our time. Colonel Finley’s voice was as calm and level and controlled as ever. But I knew him well enough by now: I could hear the tension. He knew something had gone terribly wrong.
He said to wait till Wednesday and call him again. He was hoping the missing soldiers might still turn up. He said, ‘If they’re not back by then, we’ll bring you out.’
But I wondered if he might have had another thought in his mind. He did say, among all the interference and static, ‘Sit tight, don’t get involved’, but he didn’t say it too strongly. The soldiers were much more use to him than we were. I couldn’t help thinking that if we were able to do anything, to find out what had happened for instance, or even to help the Kiwis, the Colonel wouldn’t try too hard to stop us. And if something terrible happened to us in the process, well, he would be upset, of course, I don’t want to make him sound like a monster, but on his balance sheet the risk would seem worth it.
So, we started taking risks.
Our first risk was to go in daylight. We knew if these guys were in trouble we couldn’t wait around in Hell until there was a dark night or a nice evening or a long weekend. We were packed already – just light packs – and we moved fast along Tailor’s Stitch, keeping off the ridge so we couldn’t be seen against the skyline. And, by God, we did move fast. There was no time to think. Fi was leading for once, and she set a cracking pace. Kevin was next, then me, then Homer. We went at a run, the loose stones slipping and sliding under our feet. I got swiped in the face half-a-dozen times by branches that Kevin let fly as he pushed them away from him, until I lost patience and yelled at him. ‘Take a bit of care, will you!’
When we came to the four-wheel-drive track Fi didn’t hesitate. Going downhill fast with packs on your back is no fun: your ankles twist when you land on rocks because there’s no time to choose where you’re going to put your foot, your thighs ache because you use them for brakes all the time, and you feel every point on your back where the pack doesn’t exactly fit the curves of your body. We were panting and sweating and gasping for breath. We weren’t being as careful as Iain and the New Zealanders, but no matter how far the colonists had spread we knew they would not be up here yet. Not yet, and probably not ever. I didn’t blame Iain and Ursula for being so cautious, of course, but we knew the country and they didn’t.
Near the bottom of the track we stopped at last. Fi led us into a little clearing that we’d used a couple of times before. We threw ourselves on the ground, quick to grab what rest we could, and struggled to get our breath.
‘From here on we’ll have to go carefully,’ I said, stating the obvious.
‘You lead the next bit, Ellie,’ Fi said. ‘It’s your land.’
‘Used to be,’ I said. Privately I’d been wondering if they’d ever want me to lead again.
After ten minutes rest I took them across country, counting the dry cracked gullies as we traversed them, so I wouldn’t lose track of where we were. When I figured we were about to run out of scrub, near the Leonards’ place, I turned right and headed down to the road. It was a bit dangerous maybe, but we didn’t have a lot of choice. To stay in bush would have meant a huge detour. We were so worried about Lee and the Kiwis that we felt we didn’t have the time for detours. And we were rapidly getting tired. We’d had almost no sleep, and we were travelling at a fast pace through difficult country. I knew that this stretch of road was lined with trees, so I figured we could keep in among those and get enough cover if we were careful. Very careful.
There wasn’t much traffic. Three times we had to hide when we heard vehicles. One was a semi with a load of sheep, just like
in the old days. One was a car, a blue Falcon that I didn’t recognise. The third was a genuine army truck, a fair dinkum troop carrier, painted olive green and khaki, and driven by a soldier. There was a tarp over the back, so we couldn’t see what was in there.
The land didn’t look as neglected as it had in the autumn. For a while I’d thought it was deteriorating so badly that it might get out of control. But since then there’d been signs that it was looked after a little better. For instance, we passed one paddock with a mob of freshly shorn merino crosses, and another with a good crop of rape that was probably only a month or so off harvesting. There were a lot of weeds around, gorse and thistles and blackberry, and a big patch of St John’s Wort, but that wasn’t so unusual. Life’s a constant battle against weeds.
By lunchtime we were at one of the trickiest parts of the trip. The Shannons’ place is only five k’s from Wirrawee. There was no real cover on the road, so we had to go across paddocks again. A fringe of shade trees ran along the fenceline and we thought they would give us a bit of protection. They ended at the bottom of the hill, but the fence went on up the hill and over it, like a giant zipper. The hill still hadn’t been cleared much. It was pretty scrubby with more bush up the back of it, which is why we were attracted to it, of course. We figured if we could get up there it’d be easy to get another k or two closer to town.
The lower part of the hill was all rocky, a natural little fortress. To our right was the house, an untidy collection of buildings that Mr Shannon was never satisfied with. He’d moved at least three buildings in the last five years, but it hadn’t helped at all: just made a bigger mess. One of the sheds especially, he’d moved too close to the house, so it made the house look sort of insignificant.
A lot of people lived there now, judging by the cars parked in and around the machinery shed. That was something we’d noticed, the way these people settled in much larger numbers than we had. They seemed to have four or five families in places where we’d had one. Maybe that was fair enough, I don’t know. Maybe the land could cope with more people than we’d put on it. All the wasted land along the sides of roads, the long paddocks, I supposed they’d be farming those soon.
Could be a problem in a drought though, when that feed was pretty important.
We snuck along the line of shade trees very slowly and very cautiously. With every step we were watching for danger. We went one at a time, leaving a good gap between each person. I was first, weaving in among the trees and where there were no friendly trunks, staying in the shadows. All the time I was trying not to think of the last time I’d seen an enemy soldier, trying not to think whether I might fall apart again.
There didn’t seem to be anyone around, though. I waited for the others at the base of the little fortress of rocks, not watching them as they slipped silently along the thin ribbon of cover, but instead scanning the paddocks and the homestead, looking for the slightest movement of anything other than sheep or rabbits or magpies or hawks.
It seemed peaceful enough.
Kevin was the first to join me, then Homer, then Fi. And still, nothing out of the ordinary.
I stood, a little cramped after crouching behind a rock the size of my desk at home. I led the others up into the jumble of granite, while Kevin kept watch at the rear, to make sure nothing happened behind us.
I walked right into a little crater, like an open-air theatre: a bowl of green surrounded by boulders.
And I walked right into maybe the biggest surprise I’d had since the war began.
In the crater was a group of children. There were as many as a dozen: I didn’t have time to count. They were immersed in some game, I don’t know what that was either, but something involving guns, I think, because some of the kids had sticks that they were pointing at others and a couple had rope around them, like they were the prisoners. Quite a few wore sashes: ragged strips of green across their skinny bodies. Pretend uniforms, probably. Most wore baseball caps.
I would have backed out, but they saw me straightaway. Everything froze. Everyone froze. There was a long long pause. My heart seemed to beat extra hard, so hard that I felt it wanted to come out of my chest. I stared at the children and they stared at me. Behind me Homer swore softly.
‘Come away,’ he whispered. ‘Quick, before they realise.’
But they had already realised, I knew that. All sorts of possibilities raced crazily through my mind, a sort of kookaburra chorus of wild thoughts. What could we do? Grab them? Hardly. There were too many of them. Bluff them? Join in their game and try to be friendly, act really innocent? The children seemed too old, too knowing, for that. Already they were backing away from us, fear on their faces. Threaten them? I saw the face of one, a little girl, start to crumple. Her mouth opened like a black hole and she began to cry. And then it was too late. They suddenly scattered, all of them screaming, running in every direction at first, but with one aim in view: to get to the house. ‘Come back,’ I heard Fi call desperately, as though they were just naughty little kids at the beach.
It was like we didn’t quite realise that we were now in deadly peril because of a bunch of kids. I mean, we realised, of course, but we reacted more slowly than we would if they’d been a bunch of adults. We started running up the hill, in the opposite direction to the children, stumbling and gasping and tripping. I could hear Kevin making funny sobbing noises behind me. We ran, I don’t know, maybe sixty or eighty metres up there before I stopped and turned, looking back towards the farmhouse to see what was happening.
I hoped to see nothing. Maybe the adults wouldn’t believe the kids. Maybe they would be too busy. Maybe they were out working, no one even home. But I saw the worst possible sight, the exact thing that I dreaded. Some of the kids were already near the house, and they were screeching their little lungs out. As I watched, adults came teeming from the place like ants from a nest when you’ve dragged your toe across it. Even at this distance they looked angry, aggressive. I was pretty sure a couple of them were holding rifles. No doubt they kept rifles at the ready all the time in this hostile land. A moment later I knew for sure they had rifles when they saw us and a couple of them dropped to one knee and lifted the rifles to their shoulders.
‘Run,’ I screamed at the others.
Sure the adults were a long way away, but a lucky long shot could do as much damage as a close-up easy one.
We grunted and sweated our way up the hill. The pack on my back felt like I’d grown a hunchback and it was made of lead. As we approached the crest I thought of something and although it scared me to stop I knew I had to say it. I turned and faced them. I could only see the tops of their sweaty heads.
‘When we get to the top,’ I gasped, ‘keep low, don’t stand up, go over the top really fast.’
I was proud of myself for thinking of that. And proud that I’d taken the risk of stopping to say it. In wars people get medals for less. But Homer just grunted, ‘What do you think we are, stupid?’ and the three of them kept coming, like they were in some terrible cross-country race.
If I needed any incentive to keep going I got it then. An angry whistling noise, like a high-pitched turbo-charged cicada, whizzed past. And another, a little further away. It doesn’t matter how tired you are, being shot at is very motivating. I turned and kept on grinding my way up the last little bit of the hill, making my legs pump like they had batteries. Homer and I arrived at the top together. I flung myself over the skyline but immediately turned around and crawled back so I could get a look at what was happening.
Kevin and Fi, gasping, desperate, eyes staring, came over the top and went past me. At the bottom of the hill the first adults were arriving. Four of them were already starting up the slope, but just as I got a look at them they stopped, and all at the same time, like they’d rehearsed it, they turned and began shouting at the people behind. I guessed what had happened. At least one of the people with rifles had kept firing after their friends went past. It was no wonder they’d stopped, but I
was rapt. For once they’d got a taste of their own medicine.
I couldn’t stay there watching. Already Fi was calling me. I got up again and ran on after them. They were rushing towards the scrub. I followed as fast as I could. The bush up there was just light timber, clumps of trees in places, lots of single trees, and tussocky yellow grass. There was some good pasture as well though, big green patches watered by springs.
Homer was leading now and he was taking us towards the only patch of thick bush. I wasn’t sure that was such a good idea.
I yelled at them: ‘Stop! Wait!’
They weren’t very keen to stop, but they did pause and look back, to see what I wanted. I caught up with them, but I was panting so hard, was so terribly frightened, that I could hardly speak.
‘Wait,’ I said again. ‘If we go there, it’s so obvious, that’s where they’ll look first.’
I could see the doubt, the indecision, start to creep over their faces.
‘But there’s no cover anywhere else,’ Homer said.
‘If we go in there, we’re trapped.’
‘Well, where else then?’
‘Get as far away from here as we can. They won’t start a proper search straightaway. Before they do, let’s make all the ground possible.’
They didn’t argue. There wasn’t time for arguing. I took the lead again and ran through light bush, searching all the time for an idea, some hint of where to go or what to do. There was nothing obvious. It was such typical light scrub. Every hundred metres looked the same as every other hundred metres. I figured we had at least a minute, maybe two. But so what? Right now they’d be calling up helicopters and soldiers. With the airstrip so close they’d be here in no time. They could surround this whole area in half an hour, probably less. It was no good us finding somewhere that would be safe for a few minutes. We had to find somewhere that would be safe for however long the search lasted ... a full day maybe, or two, or three.
