by John Marsden
‘How are all our families?’
‘Not bad, the last time I saw them. I’ve been out with these work parties quite a while, but everyone was looking OK a few weeks back. I mean, it’s all relative, isn’t it? You guys look a lot healthier than anyone at the Showground, but now that people are getting out and working again they’re starting to pick up.’
Kevin seemed older and more mature somehow; more intelligent even. He’d never have said ‘it’s all relative,’ or ‘people think what they want to think,’ when he’d been camping with us in Hell. This war had changed us all, and not always for the worse.
‘What’s it been like?’ Homer asked.
Suddenly, at this simple question, Kevin seemed to fall apart. His face crumpled and for a minute he couldn’t get his words out. Fi gripped his hand tighter and I patted his back. He hardly needed to say anything; he’d already answered the question.
‘Sorry,’ he stammered. ‘Sorry.’
‘Has it been terrible?’ Robyn asked gently.
Kevin just nodded. ‘They’re OK as long as you do what they say. But the moment you do something they don’t like ...’
I was thinking again of how badly Kevin had been beaten up when he arrived at Wirrawee Hospital with Corrie. I didn’t know any details, but my imagination made up for that.
‘I’ll have to go back in a sec,’ Kevin said.
‘Can’t you escape?’ Homer asked urgently. ‘What’s stopping you?’
Kevin shook his head. ‘They keep hostages. Members of your family. If you escape they execute them. They’ve got us by the balls. The only reason they guard us is to stop us sabotaging or stealing things, and to make us work hard. There’s no way anyone can escape.’
He turned to go back. I felt desperately sorry for him. He looked so lonely and miserable at having to return to such a rotten life.
‘If it could be managed, would you want to escape?’ I asked. ‘Would you want to join up with us again?’
He looked shocked. ‘Of course. But if you can think of a way to do it I’ll say you’re a genius, Ellie. I’ll even put that in writing.’
I grinned. Privately I was thinking, ‘Get your pen out.’ I didn’t say it, because I didn’t want to raise his hopes too much. But I already had the glimmerings of an idea.
Chapter Five
‘So, am I a genius?’ I asked the others. We were back in the hayshed, sheltering from more rain. It was very dark – probably about ten o’clock – on the night of our conversation with Kevin. I couldn’t see anyone’s face except Fi’s; but I could sense their excitement. I was excited too; I thought it was a good plan.
‘I don’t know about genius,’ Homer grumbled. ‘But it’s not a bad idea.’
‘How would we get word to Kevin?’ Robyn asked.
‘I’m not sure. Just have to wait for a chance. It shouldn’t be too hard.’
‘We could write it down,’ Fi said, ‘and if we get half a minute alone with him we could slip it to him then.’
Privately I thought that was a bit risky, in case it got into the wrong hands, but I agreed to do it. I wrote it early the next morning, with the others adding more suggestions every few minutes. Some of their suggestions were pretty smart, so I chucked them in. Writing it out made me nervous, though. It was like we were going into action again, for the first time in a long while. It was a different kind of action to the other battles we’d fought – this was more a battle of wits – but a lot hinged on it. If it went wrong, things would turn ugly for Kevin’s family, back at the Showground. They were the ones actually running the biggest risk and they didn’t even know it.
In the end, after we’d waited a day and a half without any contact with Kevin, we delivered the letter in a different way. When the work parties were in the paddocks with their guards, Fi and I slipped out of the bush and, again using the old houses as cover from the colonists in the main homestead, stole into the prisoners’ quarters. We found Kevin’s bed easily enough: it was the messiest. We got one of his socks and put the paper in it, then made the bed roughly and hid the sock in there. We figured the sentries wouldn’t notice if the bed had been made in the morning, but Kevin certainly would. He’d realise there must be something special going on.
The other thing I had to do was check the old well set in the ground in the little courtyard. It was one of the biggest I’d seen but, like a lot of those old wells, was in a dangerous condition. The stonework was crumbling and collapsing around its edges. There was a cover over it: a big steel cap that could be opened in the middle by pulling two handles in opposite directions. While Fi held me by the back of my shirt, I wrestled with the two handles until the cover slowly ground open. A rush of stale, damp air exhaled into my face. The gases were all I hoped they would be; I felt instant nausea at just a sniff of them. I held my breath and leaned forward, peering down the shaft. It was beautifully dark and deep: I couldn’t see the bottom. I dropped a pebble and waited nearly six seconds before I heard it hit water, which was perfect. I scrambled backwards. The air had made me so dizzy that I had to get Fi to pull the cover back in place. I didn’t want to go near it again.
Nothing happened then until the next morning when Kevin gave the signal we’d suggested in our letter. We’d asked him to wear something green for yes, red for no, yellow if he wanted to meet us and talk it over. I’d been betting that Kevin, who was a cautious guy, would be dressed all in yellow. But he surprised us. He came out with a green cap, a lurid green shirt and an olive pair of trousers. The outfit looked terrible but I realised then, if I hadn’t realised it before, just how desperate he was to get away and rejoin us.
We were watching from the scrub and when we saw all the green we looked at each other in a mixture of fear and excitement. For once we wouldn’t have much to do. Mostly, we’d have to sit and watch. The only way we’d have a lot to do was if the guards realised that something was wrong and came looking for us. In a way I would have preferred more action. Sitting and watching has never been my style.
We did have one job though: to go get a sheep. Or a pig or roo or calf. But a sheep seemed the easiest. We waited until the work parties set out for the day, then we went in the opposite direction. Out in a distant paddock we found a small mob of two-tooths. We hung around till midafternoon, then Homer and I, helped and hindered by the others, cut out a sheep and got it in a corner. We decided not to kill it there and then because it would leave evidence in the paddock. So we tied its legs and Homer, with a bit of a struggle, got it up across his shoulders and staggered off into the bush with it. There are advantages in having a strong male around sometimes. When we were well into the trees, Homer dropped the sheep and he and I killed it. I cut its throat and he broke its neck, while Fi stood there making little whimpering noises of disgust, as though someone had spat on the floor of her parents’ beautiful drawing room.
‘Sorry Fi,’ I said, grinning.
We left the blood for the flies. Homer shouldered the carcass and led the way back to the farmhouses. The tension was killing me. It’s much worse when it’s your own plan; the responsibility is too much, too much. I resolved that I’d never suggest anything again, knowing even as I made the resolution that I wouldn’t be able to keep it. I talked to Robyn as we walked along though, and that was interesting. She had this great religious theory about how the sheep was a sacrificial lamb, sacrificed to save Kevin’s life. I didn’t know about that.
Once we were in sight of the farmhouse we had to take a lot of care. It was no easy matter for Homer to carry the sheep all the way to the well. Lee went to a tree which gave him a good view of the main homestead and he waved to us when it was all clear. It took twenty minutes before he signalled, which meant time was starting to get tight. It was 4.25 already. Flies were driving Homer crazy. It’s amazing how quickly they sniff out the bleeding and the dead, even in winter. But at last, with a short rush, he was able to hoist the carcass and take it to the well. Robyn and I got the top open
and Homer, with a sigh of relief, tossed it in, head first, so it would fall all the way. We slammed the top shut again and raced back to shelter. From now on we were reduced to being an audience.
At 5.19 the men returned. They all went straight into their quarters: apparently this was not a bath night. Was it my imagination or did they look nervous? Wasn’t Kevin walking kind of stiffly, grimly? I could hardly breathe. My chest felt tight. But nothing happened till 5.35. Then Kevin began his run for the Academy Award.
First he sauntered out past the galvanised-iron shed and had a bit of a poke around it, as though he’d never seen a galvanised-iron shed before. He looked at the corner post nearest us – and nearest the sentry – then checked the guttering. The sentry called out, obviously asking what he was doing, and Kevin muttered something before dawdling away. He was meant to look like a bored teenager who was going to get into trouble, but he seemed a bit self-conscious about it to me.
After that we lost sight of him for ten minutes, but we knew what was meant to happen. Kevin would wander over to the well, force the cover open, and take a look down it. The crumbling stonework would give way, and Kevin would fall to his death. Either the fall or the fumes would kill him; it didn’t matter to us, as long as he was definitely dead. We waited nervously.
Sure enough after five minutes came a sharp cry. It only lasted the briefest moment, seemingly cut off in mid-voice, but it was unusual enough to catch the attention of the sentry. He stood more alertly and turned in the direction of the cry, then did a full circle and looked carefully all around him. He was no fool. In the ‘How to Invade Other Countries’ textbook he’d obviously read the section on ‘Decoys’ twice. But a few seconds later a man, one of the prisoners, came running out past the shed and called desperately to the sentry. Without even looking to see if the sentry was following, he ran straight back again. It was nicely done, and seemed to finally convince the soldier. He only hesitated a moment, then quickly followed the prisoner.
We waited in a state of high tension. We could hear a lot of shouting and we caught glimpses of people running to and fro. It lasted about thirty minutes, then seemed to calm down a bit. But it was more than an hour before the sentry came back and took up his position again. And that was the end of the night’s excitement. Everything went very quiet and stayed that way. We presumed it had worked, but we didn’t know. It was another great night for insomniacs.
Next morning the work parties were late to leave. When they did go they looked subdued and dejected. There was no sign of Kevin, of course. But suddenly I had an awful thought. ‘My God,’ I said to Homer, ‘I hope he didn’t really fall down it.’
Another slow hour passed. Then I saw a movement by the corner of the shed. I called out, softy, to the others but there was no need. They had already seen it. We all craned forward. It was an agonising moment. Kevin or not Kevin? Success or failure? Life or death?
He sprinted towards us, grinning from ear to ear. It was as though he were unloading months of misery with this one short run to freedom. I wanted to cheer but it wouldn’t have been a good idea. We were still in deadly peril, hanging around there and, more importantly, Kevin’s family were in deadly peril. I took a step forward to greet him.
The soldier seemed to come from nowhere. He didn’t, of course. There was an old rainwater tank, open to the sky, that had been dumped between the buildings and the bush. It had been there so long that weeds had started to grow through it and over it. It had become part of the landscape and so we hadn’t even noticed it. But the soldier must have concealed himself in it sometime before dawn. He was one smart cookie.
He stood with his back to us. Kevin had stopped in an instant and stood there, mouth open, the colour draining from his face. The soldier had a rifle pointing at Kevin, and the rifle was cocked. The only thing we had going for us was that he obviously didn’t know we were behind him.
I didn’t know what to do, couldn’t think of a single thing that might help. All I knew was that I had completely screwed up and people were going to die. I heard the soldier say, ‘You think I stupid. They think I stupid. But I no stupid. You stupid.’
I still couldn’t think of anything to say or do. Behind me there was a slight movement, a stealthy sound. I turned my head enough to see, not moving my body in case the soldier sensed it. Homer had opened the top of his pack and was in the process of withdrawing his shotgun. He had it half out of the pack already. Further across I saw Lee fishing in his pack for something. I made frantic signals at Homer with my face, widening my eyes and wiggling my eyebrows. I didn’t know what the solution was, but it wasn’t the shotgun. There were a dozen or more colonists up at the main house; they were sure to be better armed than us. I heard the soldier say to Kevin: ‘You walk to house.’ At that moment Lee began to move forward. Sick with knowledge, I made myself look at his hands to see what he held. I expected to see a knife, like the one he had used to kill the young soldier back in the Holloway Valley. But he held no knife. He had not found what he’d been looking for in his pack, and now his hands were at his waist. What he was quickly pulling off was worse than a knife. It was his leather-plaited belt.
Lee’s eyes were wide open, like spotlights. He moved with the stealth of a feral cat – so quietly that I only heard the slightest crunch as he took each footstep. I somehow found time to be jealous of his grace and lightness of tread. But then I realised I was going to have to do more than watch.
In some ways what Lee had was the perfect weapon. The belt ran through two small rings of steel, and came back between them to get its tension. It was the kind of belt that we all wore: most of us had made our own in Leatherwork. It took Lee, though, to think of using one as a weapon. I had a horrible sick awareness that it was probably going to be perfect. But there was one big problem: Lee was going to try to strangle this guy with a belt while the guy stood there holding a gun. It was probably the bravest, stupidest thing I’d ever seen anyone try to do. I knew I had to help.
The soldier was losing his temper fast. ‘Turn round!’ he shouted at Kevin. ‘You bad boy! You turn round!’
Kevin looked terrified. He had seen Lee moving up behind the soldier and I don’t know who he was more scared of: Lee or the soldier. But at least the man was sure he was the one who’d caused Kevin’s loss of colour, and shaking lips. He hadn’t yet thought that there might be anyone behind him; hadn’t yet thought to turn around. I began moving forward with Lee. I knew what I had to do: get the man’s gun arm. I tried desperately to move as quietly as Lee. Kevin was turning round as ordered; slowly, but he was turning. ‘Hand up, hand up,’ the soldier yelled. Lee and I were only a couple of steps away now, and I thought that we should strike while the man was yelling; he would be less likely to hear us while his own voice was filling his ears. I had an awful moment of hesitation when I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it; I wanted to freeze but knew I simply couldn’t. The only way I could make myself act was to count: I went, ‘One, two, three,’ very quickly to myself, and dived.
Lee launched himself a split second later. Kevin fell sideways, desperate to avoid the aim of the gun. But the man didn’t shoot Kevin by reflex, which is what I’d most feared. He didn’t shoot anyone. He didn’t even pull the trigger. He did what I suppose most people would do in that situation: he started spinning round to see what was going on behind him. That was the way his reflexes worked. I rabbit-chopped his arm as hard as I could hit, then grabbed the gun and swung it upwards. I’d been hoping he’d drop the gun with the shock of my hit; he didn’t, but he lost his grip on it and had to snatch at it to try to get it back. At that moment, Lee knocked the man’s cap off and dropped the belt over his head. Now, fighting two battles at once, the man got confused; he tried to push me away and at the same time turned to attack Lee. Then Homer arrived with a rush and, between us, we prised the gun out of the man’s grasping fingers. He knew he was in trouble then. Lee was tightening the belt fast. The man tried to get his hand
s onto the belt but Homer and I grabbed an arm each and dragged them down again. Lee started to put all his weight on the belt. The soldier tried to call for help. Too late. I started getting hysterical myself but some force within me made me hold on. The soldier was pitching to the right, staggering. I lost my grip on his arm and he brought it up to his throat but it did him no good; Lee was implacable. The man’s face was mottled now, dark red with patches of white, getting darker by the moment. A horrible gurgling noise came from his mouth, like someone trying to gargle but doing it in the mouth instead of the throat. I didn’t, couldn’t watch any longer, but looked away, towards the beautiful bush, the bush that I loved. Did these things happen in the bush? Did animals and birds kill each other in cold blood because of fights over territory? You bet your life they did.
I had hold of the soldier’s arm again, feeling the strength in it: its desperate struggle as it flailed and writhed and fought. The fight was lasting much longer than I’d expected. I could feel the veins swell in the tortured arm. Then, suddenly, it was over. The arm went limp. A terrible smell filled the air and I realised the man had fouled his trousers. I stole a look at his face and quickly looked away again. It was the most revolting sight I’d ever seen. His tongue hung out like a giant fat bullboar sausage. His skin was purplish black. And his eyes ... those eyes will follow me to my grave and beyond. They were the eyes of a staring devil; a man sent mad in the last minute of his life by the knowledge that he was dying, and by the manner of his death. Every time I close my eyes, his open in my mind.
Chapter Six
