Tomorrow 3 - The Third Day, The Frost

by John Marsden

  Friday the weather was better and we had an hour outside, but again we weren’t allowed near each other. Saturday we were back in the gym. It was another terrible hour. Fi was hysterical the whole time. The rest of us seemed like zombies, barely func­tioning at all.

  Saturday night was the worst time, I think. I’d written letters to a few people, cramming as much as I could on the few sheets of paper I was allowed, even writing down the sides of the pages. When I asked for more paper I was refused. There seemed nothing else to do. All I could think of was that tomorrow would be my last full day of life. I lay on the bed, trying to find some strength to cope, to get me through the next thirty-five hours. I lay there with my mind run­ning amuck, on the brink of madness. And somehow, gradually, early Sunday morning, I became calm. I can’t think of any other word for it. I was thinking about the beach poem again, and I started to feel that I was being looked after, that everything was OK. It was strange: if there was ever a time in my life when I had the right to feel alone this was it. But I lost that sense of loneliness. I felt like there was a force in the room with me, not a person, but I had a sense that there was another world, another dimension, and it would be looking after me. I’m not talking about some place I’d be going to; it wasn’t like that. It was like, ‘This isn’t the only world, this is just one aspect of the whole thing, don’t imagine this is all there is.’

  That’s about all I can say really; I can’t give it a name or paint a picture. It existed in a different form to the things we give names to, or try to illustrate. But I do know that I reached some sort of acceptance of what was to happen.

  I had been dreading the last exercise hour, the last meeting with my friends. But I was quite settled as I moved slowly along the walkway. It was very overcast and must have been raining heavily during the morn­ing: there was so much water on the ground. Most of the debris from the bombs had been cleaned up. I was hardly aware of the guards; they were the weekend shift, who seemed sloppier, more amateur­ish, than the highly drilled and professional ones I had during the week. But they still had the weapons and they still kept them pointed at me, so it didn’t really matter if they weren’t so neat and polished. I remembered how I’d thought I would throw myself at their guns rather than die tamely, but I knew now that I would never have the strength to rush at death quite as recklessly as that.

  We got to the gym and I was ushered in. The others were already there, standing around waiting for me, looking like actors in a weird play.

  The security system in the gym was different from the exercise yard, of course. My team of three guards always stayed, whether we were inside or out. But in the gym one of Homer’s squad always stayed as well, to make up the numbers, to compensate for the fact that we couldn’t be seen by the sentries on the out­side wall. They spread themselves around the space, one at each wall, and sat there watching us, rifles at the ready. From the moment we’d arrived in the prison they’d never stopped treating us like violent and dangerous people.

  I don’t know how many other prisoners there were in the place. I’d seen a couple from a distance, and our four in minimum security said there were dozens in their section, but that was all I knew. Lee had found out that the whitegoods factory in Strat­ton, quite close to the jail, was working non-stop producing aircraft parts, and that work parties from the jail were going there nearly every day. So maybe that’s why I never saw anyone.

  Stratton had been a big industrial centre for a long time. Being near a harbour, being close to the Marran coalfields, having a big rail yard, meant that even when the rest of the country went into recession the factories of Stratton still worked hard.

  So, that was why the city had been bombed heav­ily. And when days and nights of heavy bombing didn’t get the results they wanted, they came back.

  They came back on that Sunday afternoon.

  When the sirens went off, our guards jumped to their feet and started shouting to each other and ges­ticulating wildly. It was the first time I’d heard the sirens outside my cell, and I couldn’t believe how loud they were. For a moment I was frightened, but suddenly I realised that it hardly made any difference if a bomb dropped on me. And I did feel a sudden kick of hope in my chest. I suppose anything outside the normal routine, the routine that was dragging me towards death, was cause for hope.

  Then a bomb fell quite close to the prison. There was a tremendous blast, and the whole building shook. A dozen more windows lost their glass: I saw the sheets fall and smash on the floor but I didn’t hear them. My ears were numbed by the explosion. The guards didn’t hesitate: they raced for the door. One of them yelled something at us, probably ‘Stay there,’ or ‘Get down,’ but I couldn’t hear him. It mightn’t have been in English. But even with the guards gone our situation hadn’t improved. There were still bars on the windows and the guards had enough sense to lock the big gym door as they fled for their shelters.

  I ran to the door in a mad sprint, and shook it. I knew this was the only chance I’d ever have. But the door was solid. I looked desperately at the windows: if we could somehow get up to them, maybe the bars might have been loosened by the blast. I shouted something at Homer, can’t even remember what, but his ears must have been as deafened as mine, because he shook his head to show he couldn’t hear. The six of us were racing around crazily, like mice in the bottom of a grain bin when you take the top off and they realise they can’t get up the smooth sides.

  Then came a blast so huge that it threw me through the air. It was like a giant had blown at us, with a breath so hot and big and dry that it sent me flying, then spinning and rolling when I hit the ground again. Now I was surrounded by noise. It seemed like it would never end. Debris was flying around me and something hit me in the back so hard I was scared it might have snapped my spinal cord. But I clung to one certain fact: that I had to get to my feet. Everything depended on my being able to get to my feet. I stum­bled up and looked in shock and astonishment at the sight before me. The prison had been half demolished. The gym looked like it had been demolished fifty years ago. The ground was so covered in rubble I couldn’t even tell where the gym had been. I could see Fi, amaz­ingly, only two metres from me, but huddled on the ground, not moving. Kevin was wandering around on my right, looking dazed. Robyn was bending over something, something lying at her feet. I couldn’t see Homer or Lee. I ran to Fi and touched her cheek. It was warm and I saw her eyelids move. There was blood oozing out of a great gash on her cheek. I couldn’t wait: I squatted, got my arms under her and, with a grunt, lifted her and slung her over my shoulders, praying that I wasn’t making her injuries worse.

  I took a few staggering steps, trying to get my bal­ance, but couldn’t get it properly, so continued to stagger.

  I could see what Robyn was doing now: she was pulling weapons from a body on the ground. It was one of the guards who patrolled the top of the outside walls all day. He must have been blown off the wall before he could get to a shelter. Somehow his ammu­nition and grenades hadn’t exploded. I left Robyn and blundered towards the main entrance, where both sets of gates were down and there was a twenty-metre gap in the wall. It seemed to offer the quickest exit. I tried to yell to Kevin but I didn’t have the breath for it: he wouldn’t have heard anyway. Robyn saw me though, and came after me. She was holding the guard’s rifle and I think she had the hand grenades in her shirt, because she was bulging around the stomach. ‘Better you than me,’ I thought, but I had time to be amused that Robyn, the great pacifist, was now so heavily armed.

  Then Lee and Homer came rushing across from my left, jumping over piles of stone and timber. They were both covered with dust and blood but there was no time to ask if they were all right. Lee grabbed Fi and carried her. I still couldn’t get my breath to say anything, but I pointed to Kevin, and Homer ran across to get him. My back was hurting like hell, and now my leg was too, but I didn’t dare look at it. Lee and Fi were already ahead of me; I saw Fi suddenly come to life and start struggling to get do
wn. Robyn was through the gate. I checked for Homer and saw him leading Kevin by the hand: they were heading in the right direction so I left them to it and followed Robyn.

  I ran out into the prison driveway. It was free air I was breathing now, but I wasn’t thinking of that. I was just trying to make my mind work, hoping I wouldn’t get shot, wondering what I’d find out there. The driveway was relatively clear but to the right was an enormous crater, only a hundred metres from the prison wall. I seemed to remember that there’d been a little park, quite a few trees, around Stratton Prison, but they were all gone. Not a leaf was left.

  At the bottom of the driveway was a blue Mer­cedes, slewed sideways with the driver’s door open as though it had been abandoned in a hurry. In the mid­dle of the driveway was Major Harvey, holding a gun at Robyn’s face. Robyn had thrown her rifle on the ground and was standing there with her arms folded across her stomach. I stopped dead, feeling a terrible tightness in my chest. Major Harvey looked across at me. I realised at that moment how much he hated me. ‘All right, boys and girls,’ he shouted. ‘The party’s over. Everyone lie down on the ground.’ I heard him clearly, so my ears must have come unblocked again. When no one moved he screamed: ‘Quickly, or I shoot this one.’ I began to kneel. The other four did the same. Only Robyn remained standing. She was a metre from Harvey but he was not watching her, con­fident now that he had the situation under control. I saw her hand slip inside her shirt. I screamed, but no sound came out. I tried again and this time made a hoarse hacking noise. I knew it was already too late. Major Harvey looked across at me, triumphant. I screamed again and at last said her name. It was the last present I could give her: the knowledge that I knew. She looked across at me and gave a scared lit­tle smile as if she didn’t know what she had done, or whether she should have done it. Harvey glanced at her and at the last instant realised: he must have seen the pin of the hand grenade. He opened his mouth, dropped his gun and took a step towards her. He reached out a hand, like he was begging. Then they both disappeared. That was all. They disappeared. There was a bang of course but it seemed slight, com­pared to the bombs; so did the shock wave that hit me an instant later. But they had disappeared, that was the thing. Robyn was there, she was alive, she was real, she was a person and then she disappeared; she had ceased to exist.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  After that we had some luck. God knows we deserved it. But it didn’t mean much to any of us. We took Harvey’s car and drove a couple of k’s, but sud­denly found ourselves getting shot at from the air, so we abandoned that pretty fast. We were in the middle of the biggest air mission that the Kiwis had launched for the whole of the war, although we didn’t know that at the time, of course. They were using planes supplied by the Americans but piloted by New Zealanders and our guys, and they did a lot of damage. There wasn’t much left of the Stratton factories by the time they’d finished.

  Anyway, where we got lucky was that we saw a plane go down on the highway. There was smoke pouring out of it and the pilot dropped it on the road fast. He braked it so hard that it almost stood on its nose, then he came scrambling out of the cockpit onto the wing and jumped to the ground. We were less than a k away. There were still bombs falling on the other side of town, grey smoke everywhere and terrible toxic fumes that made breathing horrible. We ran towards the pilot – don’t know why, just instinct, I suppose. It was the obvious thing to do. Maybe we thought he was an angel dropped out of the sky to save us. He was, too, in a way. He was running like crazy to get away from the plane, scared it’d blow up. We met in a paddock beside the highway.

  ‘Where’d you come from?’ he asked, gasping and puffing and sweating. ‘God, this is a madhouse.’

  He was red-haired, about twenty-four, tall and skinny, with ginger eyebrows and lots of freckles. But he had nice eyes and he was grinning, like it was all a big party.

  Another roll of thunder spread across the sky and there was a flash of fire on the horizon.

  ‘Big hit,’ he said.

  ‘How are you getting out of here?’ Fi screamed at him.

  ‘Stick around and you’ll see. I’ll be gone in three minutes.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, grabbing his sleeve.

  He pulled a little grey gadget, no bigger than a remote control, out of his pocket. A red light on it was flashing furiously. ‘This is my mayday button,’ he said. ‘It’s activated already. They’ll be here in a couple of shakes.’

  ‘Take us with you,’ Fi screamed. She seemed unable to talk normally; everything was a scream. The pilot was looking at us like we were crazy.

  ‘I can’t,’ he said.

  ‘We’re all injured,’ I said.

  ‘I can see that. You look like you’ve been through hell. But I’m sorry, I can’t take you.’

  The sound of a helicopter, a giant throbbing noise, penetrated the smoke and the grey. The pilot turned away from us and started looking up, trying to see the aircraft. I could tell he was losing interest in us; worse, he was starting to see us as nuisances, people who were going to try to make things complicated for him.

  ‘Wait,’ Homer said. Since we left the prison he hadn’t spoken. Tears had been running down his face continuously, just a constant flow from his eyes that he made no attempt to brush or lick away. ‘Wait. Did you hear about Cobbler’s Bay being blown up, couple of months back? And everything was wrecked?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, course I did. A mate of mine took photos of it. It was in all the papers.’

  ‘That was us,’ Kevin said.

  The pilot looked at us again, this time for several long moments. Homer, still crying endlessly, Kevin with snot hanging out of his nose, Fi with her face twisted in a terrible expression of pain and her shirt saturated with blood, Lee his face blackened and bleeding. Behind him a huge helicopter, looking like a pregnant heifer, lowered its belly onto the road. The wind from its rotor blew hard across us. It was tough to stand up, to hear, to see.

  ‘Hurry up,’ he said, turning abruptly and running for the chopper.

  We followed as best we could, a limping, sobbing group of five. I held Fi, and Homer helped Kevin. Only Lee got there alone. The pilot was already half in the chopper and I could see him gesturing to the people in there. Then he turned to help us in.

  If the crew hadn’t wanted to take us they didn’t show it. As soon as we were in they took off, fast. Even as we were rising they were wrapping blankets around us and laying us on stretchers that were strapped to the floor. I couldn’t believe how big the aircraft was, how much room there was inside. I’d never been in a helicopter before. A water bottle was at my lips: for a minute I tried to push it away with my mouth but then I gave in and let them force the stuff into me. Fi and I were side by side, gripping hands so tightly. We stayed that way all across the Tasman, never once letting go. Even now I get terri­fied if she leaves the room for a few seconds and I don’t know where she’s gone.

  Epilogue

  When we’d arrived at Stratton Prison people had crowded around the truck wanting to see us. When we arrived at Wellington, coming in low across the water, through the choppy air to the beautiful hilly city, there was a crowd there, too. I don’t know that there was much difference between the two crowds. Both were drawn by curiosity.

  We’d been scrubbed up by the time we arrived at Wellington, of course. We’d spent two weeks in an Air Force medical centre at Astin Base, where we’d first landed. We each had a long list of injuries. Mine read: shock, cracked vertebrae, fractured patella, malnutri­tion, cuts and abrasions, acute anxiety state, head lice ... I think that was all. I’m still on crutches. Fi was probably the worst, with concussion, shock, a cracked collar bone, a ruptured ear drum, and a long scar on her face that she’ll remember every time she looks in a mirror.

  The things we’d done did get a lot of publicity. The war had been going badly for a long time and only recently had there been any good news. They were anxious for heroes, I guess. So there were a lot of people at
Wellington Airport, and we went to a special press room to talk to reporters and get our photos taken. Every second question from the reporters seemed to start with, ‘How did you feel when ...?’ We didn’t do very well on those ones.

  I don’t know what to think about it all. I suppose we did the right thing. Everyone here seems to think we did. The Army Intelligence guy, Lieutenant-Colonel Finley, explained the effect of some of the stuff we’d done, and although none of us said any­thing at the time, we were pleased about that. The ship we sank was meant to have been the pride of their fleet or something. I guess that was a score.

  So, there it is. Sometimes, as we lie around here – we’re in a sort of convalescent place outside Welling­ton – I wish we could wind the clock back a year or two. It all seems so idyllic when I look back. I only remember the good things: the smell of scones in the Aga, the sycamore seeds whirring through the air, the worms writhing in the rich compost, the walks across the paddocks with Dad, and the cups of tea with Mum. I don’t remember the dog with its stomach ripped open by a kangaroo, or the possum with blood on its snout that died in front of me after eating rat bait, or the flyblown body of a mouse that I found behind the kitchen dresser. I don’t remember Dad yelling at Mum when she drove the car five k’s on a flat tyre or Mum yelling at Dad when he criticised some of her friends.

  It seems like a lost world that I keep reaching out for.

  Meanwhile, our parents and families are still pris­oners and we can’t do a thing to help them. We just have to wait.

  And so we sit around, lie around, or hobble around, in my case. Nothing happens here, nothing at all. We’ve been living on adrenalin for so long that it’s strange when it’s suddenly cut off. Other people are doing the fighting now. They’re making some progress, too. Colonel Finley thinks the peace talks are getting pretty serious: the more territory the Kiwis recapture the more serious the peace talks get. Maybe one day I’ll be able to think about the future again. At the moment all I think about is the past. I don’t even notice the present. When I first started writing about what happened to us it was because we all wanted our stories to be known, wanted to be remembered. None of that matters to us now. What I want is for Robyn to be remembered, for what she did to be known. I never stop thinking about her. I used to think heroes were tough and brave. But that last look on Robyn’s face: it wasn’t tough or brave. It was scared and uncertain.