Tomorrow 1 - When The War Began

by John Marsden

  Then I woke up. It was early in the morning, very early. It was going to be a beautiful day. I lay in the sleeping bag looking at the sky and the trees. Why did the English language have so few words for green? Every leaf and every tree had its own shade of green. Another example of how far Nature was still ahead of humans. Something flitted from branch to branch in the top of one of the trees – a small dark-red and black bird with long wings, inspecting each strip of bark. Higher still a couple of white cockatoos floated across the sky. From the cries I could tell that there was a larger flock out of my sight, and the two birds were merely outriders, strays. I sat up to see if I could glimpse the rest of the flock by leaning forward, but they were still out of sight. So I shuffled out of the tent, clutching my sleeping bag to me like some kind of insect half-emerged from a chrysalis. The cockatoos were scattered across the heavens like raucous angels. They drifted on, too many to count, until they were out of sight, but I could still hear their friendly croaks.

  I shed the sleeping bag and walked down to the creek. Robyn was there, washing her hair. ‘Hello,’ she said.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Hungry?’

  ‘Yes, I am a bit.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. You haven’t had anything since teatime the day before yesterday.’

  ‘Oh. Haven’t I?’

  ‘Come on. I’ll fix you something. You like eggs?’ I had cold boiled eggs – we couldn’t have a fire during the day – with biscuits and jam, and a bowl of muesli with powdered milk. I don’t know if it was the cockatoos or Robyn or the muesli, but by the time I’d finished breakfast I felt I could maybe start to cope again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  One of the small rituals that developed each day was Corrie’s Testing the Trannie. This was a solemn ceremony that took place whenever Corrie got the urge. She’d get up, look at the tent, give a little murmur like ‘I think I might give the trannie another burl’, and walk over to the tent. A moment later she’d emerge with the precious object in her hands and go to the highest point in the clearing and, holding the transistor to her ear, carefully turn the dial She wouldn’t let anyone else touch it, because it was her father’s radio and no one but her could possibly be trusted with it. It was the only thing of his that she had. Although we laughed at her a little there was always some tension when she did it, but days passed with no result and Corrie reported that the batteries were gradually getting flatter.

  One evening I happened to be sitting near her when she went through another fruitless search of the dial. As usual there was nothing but static. She turned it off with a sigh. We were chatting about nothing in particular, when she casually said, ‘What are all these other things for?’

  ‘What other things?’

  ‘All these other settings.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  She embarked on a long explanation about how the few times her father had lent her the radio he’d said that her stations would be on PO or FM.

  ‘PO and FM? What are you talking about? Let’s have a look.’

  She handed it over a little reluctantly. I realised from the writing on it that it was a French one. I started translating for her. ‘“Recepteur Mondial a dix bandes”, that’s “world reception to ten bands”. FM’s FM, obviously. PO’s probably AM. “OC Etendue”, well, “etendue”, that’s extended or expanded or something.’ The implications of all this slowly began to dawn on me. ‘This is no ordinary transistor, Corrie. This is a short wave.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘It means you can pick up stations from all around the world. Corrie, do you mean you’ve only been trying the local stations?’

  ‘Well, yes, PO and FM. That’s what Dad told me. I didn’t know about all that other stuff, and I didn’t want to flatten the batteries, mucking around with it. They’re nearly dead now, and we don’t have any more.’

  I felt wildly excited and called to the others, ‘Come here you guys, quick!’

  They came quickly, drawn by the urgency in my voice.

  ‘Corrie’s radio can pick up short wave but she didn’t realise it. You want to listen in? The batteries have nearly had it, but you never know your luck.’ I selected ‘OC Etendue 1’ and handed the little black transistor back to Corrie. ‘Give it the gun, Corrie. Just spin the dial the same way you did before.’

  We crowded round as Corrie, tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth, slowly began to rotate the knob. And a moment later we heard the first rational adult voice most of us had heard in a long time. It was a female, speaking very fast among the static, but in a language we didn’t understand.

  ‘Keep going,’ Homer breathed.

  We heard some exotic music, an American voice saying ‘You welcome Him into your heart and only then can you know perfect love’, two more foreign language stations – ‘That’s Taiwanese,’ said Fi, surprisingly, of one of them – then, as the radio started to die, a faint voice speaking in English. It was a male voice, and all we could hear was this:

  ‘... warned America not to get involved. The General said that America would find herself in the longest, costliest and bloodiest war in her history if she tried to intervene. He said his forces have occupied several major coastal cities. Much of the inland has been taken already, and losses have been below expectations. Many civilian and military prisoners have been captured and are being held in humanitarian conditions. Red Cross teams will be permitted to inspect them when the situation stabilises.

  ‘The General repeated his claim that the invasion was aimed at “reducing imbalances within the region”. As international outrage continues to mount, FCA reports sporadic fighting in many country areas and at least two major land battles ...’

  And that was about it. The voice faded quickly. We heard a few scattered words, ‘United Nations’, ‘New Zealand’, ‘twenty to twenty-five aircraft’, then it was gone. We looked at each other.

  ‘Let’s everyone get pens and paper and write down what we think we heard,’ Homer said calmly. ‘Then we can compare notes.’

  We met again ten minutes later. It was amazing how different the versions were, but we agreed on the important details. What we could infer was as important as what the man had said. ‘For one thing,’ said Homer, sitting back on his heels, ‘we can tell it’s not World War Three. Not yet, anyway. It sounds like it’s just us.’

  ‘The part about the prisoners was good,’ Corrie said. Everyone nodded. It sounded genuine somehow. It had helped all of us, a little, though awful fears still kept leaping up and attacking our minds.

  ‘He’s trying to remind the Americans of Vietnam,’ Fi said. ‘It’s meant to have been their national nightmare or something.’

  ‘Bigger nightmare for the Vietnamese,’ Chris commented.

  I glanced at Lee, whose face was impassive.

  ‘The Americans don’t like getting involved with other countries.’ I remembered something we’d done in Twentieth Century History. ‘Woodrow Wilson and isolationism, isn’t that one of the topics we’re meant to be preparing, over the holidays?’

  ‘Mmm, remind me to do some work on it tonight.’ That was Kevin.

  ‘“International outrage” sounds promising,’ Robyn said.

  ‘That’s probably our biggest hope. But I can’t imagine too many other countries rushing in to spill their blood for us,’ I said.

  ‘But don’t we have treaties and stuff?’ Kevin asked. ‘I thought the politicians were meant to organise all this. Otherwise, why’ve we been paying their salaries all these years?’

  No one knew what to answer. Maybe they were thinking the same thing I was, that we should have taken an interest in all these things a long time ago, before it was too late.

  ‘What does it mean “reducing imbalances within the region”?’ Kevin asked.

  ‘I guess he’s talking about sharing things more equally,’ Robyn said. ‘We’ve got all this land and all these re
sources, and yet there’s countries a crow’s spit away that have people packed in like battery hens. You can’t blame them for resenting it, and we haven’t done much to reduce any imbalances, just sat on our fat backsides, enjoyed our money and felt smug.’

  ‘Well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles,’ Kevin said uncomfortably.

  ‘And now they’ve taken the cookie and crumbled it in a whole new way,’ Robyn said. ‘In fact it looks like they’re taking the whole packet.’

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ Kevin said. ‘You sound like you don’t mind. You think it’s fair enough, do you? Let them walk in and take everything they want, everything our parents have worked for. Help yourself guys, don’t mind us. Is that what you get out of the Bible? Do unto others, or whatever it is? Remind me not to go to your church.’

  ‘Not much chance of that,’ Corrie said, smiling and putting her hand on Kevin’s knee, trying to calm him down. But Robyn wasn’t put off.

  ‘Of course I mind,’ Robyn said. ‘If I was a saint maybe I wouldn’t mind, but I’m not a saint so I mind rather a lot. And its not as though they’re acting in a very religious way. I don’t know any religion that tells people to go in and steal and kill to get what they want. I can understand why they’re doing it but understanding isn’t the same as supporting. But if you’d lived your whole life in a slum, starving, unemployed, always ill, and you saw the people across the road sunbaking and eating ice cream every day, then after a while you’d convince yourself that taking their wealth and sharing it around your neighbours isn’t such a terrible thing to do. A few people would suffer, but a lot of people would be better off.’

  ‘It’s just not right,’ said Kevin stubbornly.

  ‘Maybe not. But neither’s your way of looking at it. There doesn’t have to be a right side and a wrong side. Both sides can be right, or both sides can be wrong. I think both countries are in the wrong this time.’

  ‘So does that mean you’re not going to fight them?’ Kevin asked, still looking for a fight himself.

  Robyn sighed. ‘I don’t know. I already have, haven’t I? I was right there with Ellie when we smashed our way through Wirrawee. I guess I’ll keep fighting them, for the sake of my family. But after the war, if there is such a time as after the war, I’ll work damn hard to change things. I don’t care if I spend the rest of my life doing it.’

  ‘You were the one who thought we were taking too big a risk going to look for Robyn and Lee,’ I said to Kevin. ‘You didn’t seem so fired up then.’

  He looked uncomfortable. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ was all he would say.

  Homer spoke up. ‘Maybe it’s time to decide what we’re all going to do. We’ve had a chance to rest up, get our breath back, think about things. Now we should decide if we’re going to stay here in hiding till the war sorts itself out, or if we should get out there and do something about it.’ He paused, and when no one spoke he continued. ‘I know we’re meant to be schoolkids, too young to do much more than clean a whiteboard for a teacher, but some of those soldiers I saw the other night weren’t any older than us.’

  ‘I saw two who looked a lot younger than us,’ said Robyn.

  Homer nodded. No one else spoke. The tension was heavy, like a humid night. Here in this secret basin we’d been insulated for a little while from the fear and sweat and bleeding of the outside world. People were keeping each other prisoner, hurting each other, killing each other, but we’d retreated to the paradise of Hell.

  It was a bit irrelevant to what Homer was saying, but I spoke anyway. ‘I can understand why the Hermit chose to live down here, away from it all.’

  ‘Away from the human race,’ Chris murmured.

  ‘It’s our own families,’ said Corrie. ‘That’s what everyone’s worried about, isn’t it? I guess I’d fight for my country but I’m going mad wondering what’s happened to my family. We don’t know if they’re alive or dead. We’re thinking and hoping that they’re at the Showground, and we’re thinking and hoping that they’re being well treated, but we don’t know any of that. We’ve only got Mr Clement’s word to go on.’

  ‘Seeing Mr Coles at the Showground helped,’ I said. ‘He looked healthy. He didn’t look too terrified or injured. That made a big difference to me.’

  Fi spoke up. ‘I think we should try to find out more about the Showground. If we know that everyone’s there, that they’re unhurt, that they’re being fed properly and all that sort of thing, it’d make such a difference.’ Homer was about to interrupt but she went on. ‘I’ve been thinking about what Robyn and Kevin were arguing about. If I could get my family and friends back, healthy, I’d let these people have the stupid houses and cars and things. I’d go and live with my parents in a cardboard box at the tip and be happy.’

  I tried to imagine Fi, with her beautiful skin and soft polished voice, living at the tip.

  ‘It sounds like we should try to find out more about the Showground then,’ Homer said. ‘But it won’t be easy.’ He added modestly, ‘Do you realise that every group that’s gone into town has been spotted, except Fi and me?’

  ‘Were you striped?’ I asked, and got the groan I deserved.

  Lee was lying on my left, against a rock that was still warm. It seemed to be his turn to speak. ‘I don’t think they’ll be into tortures and mass executions. The world’s changing, and any country that does that stuff knows there’s going to be a stink about it. I mean, I know it still happens, but not as much as it used to. Nowadays they seem to do things unobtrusively, over a long period of time. These guys are obviously trigger-happy, but there’s a big difference between shooting in hot blood and shooting in cold blood. We know that they’re firing off endless bullets in hot blood – they’re wild that way, and I’ve got the hole in my leg to prove it. But that’s sort of normal in a war, and a lot of it’s self-defence. It doesn’t mean they’re into concentration camps. The two things don’t automatically go together.’

  ‘I hate them,’ said Kevin. ‘I don’t know why you’re all being so understanding. I just hate them and I want to kill them all and if I had a nuclear bomb I’d drop it right down their throats.’

  He was really upset, and he’d stopped the conversation as though he had nuked it. But after a few moments of awkward silence Homer started in again.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘do we want to check out the Showground more thoroughly? Can we do it with the stealth and finesse that Fi and I showed, or are we going to march in like a heavy metal band at a bowling club?’

  ‘We could tunnel in,’ I suggested.

  ‘Yeah, or pole-vault over the fence. Anyone got a serious suggestion? And how badly do we want to do it anyway?’

  ‘Badly,’ I said.

  ‘I won’t pretend the thought doesn’t scare the skin off me,’ Corrie said softly. ‘But it’s what we have to do. We’ll never sleep again at nights if we don’t.’

  ‘We’ll never sleep again at nights if we’re dead.’ Chris said ‘Look, with my parents overseas, I’m not quite as involved as you guys. But I’ll have a go, I suppose.’

  ‘I know what our parents would say,’ Fi said. ‘They’d say that the most important thing to them is our safety. They wouldn’t want us dead in exchange for them living. In a way we’re what gives their lives their meaning. But we can’t be bound by that. We have to do what’s right for us. We have to find meanings for our own lives, and this might be one of the ways we do it. I’m with Corrie; scared out of my skin, but I’ll do it because I can’t imagine the rest of my life if I don’t.’

  ‘I agree,’ Robyn said.

  ‘All day and all night,’ said Lee, ‘I pray for my leg to get better so I can go and find my family.’

  ‘I’m with the majority,’ Kevin said.

  We looked at Homer. ‘I never thought I’d have to hurt other people just so I could live my own life,’ he said. ‘But my grandfather did it, in the Civil War. If I have to do it, I hope I’ll have the strength, like Ellie did. Whatever we do, I hope w
e can do it without hurting anyone. But if it happens ... well, it happens.’

  ‘You’re getting soft,’ Kevin said.

  Homer ignored him. He continued, briskly. ‘I keep thinking of that quote Corrie mentioned the other day, “Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted”,’ he said. ‘The stupidest thing for us to do would be to charge in like Rambos with our little .22’s popping away. Fi’s right, our families don’t want us stretched out cold on a slab in the morgue. If we take a few extra days, well, that’s the way it has to be. The only reason we should take big risks is if we found that something terrible was about to happen to them. Of course it could have already happened, and if it has, well, we can’t do anything about it.

  ‘So, what I’m thinking is, we need some kind of observation place, somewhere hidden and safe, where we can watch the Showground. The more we know, the better our decisions will be and the more effective we can be. Judging from the radio, the whole country hasn’t been a pushover, and there’s a lot of action still going on. We ought to talk to anyone we can find in town, like Mr Clement, and even try to link up with the Army, or whoever’s still fighting in other districts. We should set ourselves up as a real guerilla outfit, living off the land as much as possible, mobile and fast and tough. We might have to survive like this for months, years even.

  ‘For example – you mightn’t like this, so say so if you don’t – suppose we sent two or three people into Wirrawee for forty-eight hours. Their job would be to get information, nothing more. If they’re really careful they honestly shouldn’t get seen. They’ve just got to become totally nocturnal and triple-check every move they make. The rest of us can start organising things more efficiently here. We’ll never get a better base camp, but we should get more supplies in and make it a proper headquarters. It’s frightening how quickly we’re going through the food. We should start organising rations. And I’d like to set up other little hideaways through the mountains. Stock them with food and stuff, in case we get cut off from this place. Like I said, we’ve got to get more mobile.