by John Marsden
The big row of pine trees on the other side had been planted by my grandfather as a windbreak. They didn’t seem friendly any more. They seemed to be moving from right to left. In primary school I’d read an old legend about a field full of stones. Every hundred years they uprooted themselves and rolled down to the ocean for a drink, before returning to their homes to lie undisturbed for another century. I wondered if the trees were on the move tonight. As I got closer they stopped moving and instead towered over me, like dark grandfathers themselves, looking down sternly. It was as if they wanted to fall on me. They didn’t approve of me, roaming the country at night, lost, a feral creature, caught up in hunting and killing instead of caring for the earth. Under their shadow, nothing grew. I felt my skin prickle as I squeezed through the next fence, the barbed wire grabbing at my skin.
The mist was swirling across this paddock, more of it, moving quickly and lightly. It seemed to dance, but with no aim, like it had nowhere to go. I wondered if the helicopter would be able to land if the mist got thicker. Someone had ploughed the paddock recently but it was a heavy clay soil and they’d ploughed when it was wet, so now it was a series of corrugations, a speed hump every pace or two, real ankle-breaking stuff.
All the time I was looking and listening for the others, but there was not a trace of them. My mind threatened to get out of control again, telling me that I was the only one left, they’d all been captured or killed, or they’d simply disappeared, and for the rest of my life I’d be alone. Maybe they wouldn’t arrive at the landing site, and I’d have to explain to the helicopter crew why there was no pick-up. Maybe not even the helicopter would arrive.
In spite of the untrustworthy ground I started to jog, knowing I was getting close, and scared that there was still no sign of life, good or bad, friend or enemy.
I heard Breakfast Creek before I saw it. It was running strongly, the water churning along with plenty of energy. I had a quick drink, trying not to think of how many dead animals might be upstream. Then I backed away again, knowing I needed my ears for other things than listening to the water. I went downstream for nearly a kilometre before I saw the second creek coming in from my left. Standing there I did a full 360, hoping that from some direction or other I’d see my nine most wanted people, marching out of the darkness and mist.
There was nothing. And there was nothing I could do except wait. I sat on a damp fallen tree trunk, crossed my legs under me, and leaned back against the roots of the tree. Only then did I realise how tired I was. God, would I ever have a decent sleep again? All this high-action stuff at night. I couldn’t hack it much longer. Even when I did sleep, I’d wake up half-a-dozen times—half-a-dozen minimum—thinking something was happening or I’d heard something or I was meant to be on sentry. Not a very restful way to sleep. And after that terrible fight with the soldier, when I really thought he was going to smash me in the head: every time I got a flashback to that I felt sick right through my stomach and into my bowels. His blood was still damp on my shirt. I couldn’t bear to have it on me and I couldn’t bring myself to wipe it off.
I woke up when Homer gave me a punch in the arm. ‘Great lookout you are,’ he said. ‘Have you seen the others?’
There was an urgency in his voice that I hadn’t heard too often.
‘No,’ I said, as glad to see him as I’d ever been to see anyone. ‘Haven’t you got them with you?’
‘I’ve got Natalie and Jack and Fi,’ he said. ‘But I’m buggered if I know what happened to the others. One minute they were there and the next thing they were gone.’
I glanced over to the creek and saw the two girls and Jack. They had spread out and were gazing back across the paddock, trying to find the rest of our group.
I glanced at my new watch.
‘Twenty minutes before the helicopter,’ I said.
‘What are we going to do if it comes and they’re not here?’
‘I guess we give them Natalie and Jack, and then start worrying about the others.’
But I was worrying about them now.
‘I haven’t heard any shots.’
‘Me neither.’
I peered into the mist and darkness. A flurry of mist looked like a person, and I gasped and moved forward and started to point, then realised it was nothing.
The twenty minutes passed with painful slowness. I hoped the helicopter would be late, but eventually I heard a faint buzzing to the east.
‘It’s coming,’ I said.
Homer nodded. He’d already heard it.
By now we’d moved into a rough semicircle, facing out looking for the missing five people. I had some vague idea that if I stared hard enough I’d bring them into view. No such luck. Behind me the buzzing got louder, the fast thrashing of the helicopter blades sounding more and more urgent. The louder it sounded the worse I sweated.
Finally it got so loud I couldn’t ignore it any more. I had to turn around and check it out. Already it was lowering into the little clearing, spot on with its navigation: not so surprising I guess, because the intersection of the creeks made it easy to find. The two thin white lights were shining, but just as I turned around they switched off. The pilot must have decided he was close enough not to need them. The chopper came slowly down the last few metres, leaning to one side, like they always seemed to do. Just as he touched he straightened it up. As he did so I heard Homer’s excited yell: ‘Here they come!’
I looked back. And there they were. Dark shapes, big and small, running and stumbling towards us. Thank God for that. I sprinted to the chopper. The engine had been throttled back, so the noise was quite bearable. Already the hatch was open as Fi arrived with Jack and Natalie. The two kids were so shocked and overwhelmed that they just stood staring at the dark hole above their heads. A man in a flying suit was grinning down at us. ‘What have we got here?’ he asked.
‘Your first two passengers,’ I said, handing up Natalie. Poor Natalie looked terrified. Her big eyes stared back at me. I felt awful. ‘See you in New Zealand,’ I said optimistically, squeezing her hand as the man swung her into the cabin. I grabbed Jack. He was a lot heavier but I got him under the armpits and did the big lift. ‘Be good, little buddy,’ I said. Then he too disappeared. It seemed terrible that we couldn’t say proper goodbyes. Before I could even think about that though I got grabbed from behind, two little hands latching around me like ratchets. It gave me a hell of a shock actually. I thought I was being attacked. And in a way I was. At the last second Casey had decided she wasn’t going anywhere. I’d seen her running towards the helicopter just a minute before, so I hadn’t expected this. I guess she was just caught up in the flow of the moment until now, when she suddenly realised what it all meant. She was hysterical with grief and fear. It was no good reasoning with her: there was no time and it wouldn’t have worked anyway. I tried to prise her off but she had such a grip I couldn’t do it. Ryan pulled her away, a lot less gently than I would have done, and lifted her up through the hatch. There was a dim green light from the control panel, and it made her face look diseased. She was holding out her arms to me and screaming, ‘Ellie, Ellie, I want to stay with you’.
It was awful. She was tearing me apart. My heart was a pounding pain in my chest. For the first time I understood how those cows felt when we separated them from their calves. I didn’t cry, because I thought she would get even more hysterical. One of us had to keep some self-control. I called out: ‘I’ll come and find you, Casey’, but I don’t know if she heard me. And then she was gone.
I hardly noticed Ryan follow her. He said something to me but I didn’t hear it. Probably ‘Good luck’. As he hauled himself up through the hatch the chopper was already lifting. A second later it was out of my reach. Another few seconds and it was just a distant black dot.
Only then did I understand what the others were saying. They were talking to each other so urgently that I started to realise something was wrong. I heard Lee say, ‘I reckon he’s done it deliberately.’
&
nbsp; ‘Well, it doesn’t matter now whether he has or not,’ Homer said.
For a minute I still couldn’t work out exactly what the problem was. Then it suddenly hit me. We’d only put three kids into the helicopter.
‘We don’t have time to look for him,’ Kevin said.
‘We don’t have to look for him,’ Homer said. He pointed.
I squinted into the darkness where he was aiming. A dark little figure was marching straight across the paddock towards us. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. We waited in silence. I sneaked a glance at Homer. He looked furious. Then I caught Fi’s eye. She was trying not to laugh. That gave me the giggles then. But the boys looked so serious that I don’t think either of us dared to crack up in front of them.
Of course it wasn’t funny at all. Gavin had done it again. He’d put us in a terrible situation. I think my getting the giggles was more nervous relief after the desperate sadness, the grief, of having Casey ripped out of my arms. Anyway, I managed to control myself, for the second time in a couple of minutes, and look as serious as the boys.
Gavin arrived like a soldier reporting for duty. ‘I got lost,’ he said.
It was such a joke. There was nothing any of us could do except laugh. Fi and I didn’t hold back at all. Kevin rolled around like I hadn’t seen for six months. Lee laughed quietly, turning away like he’d noticed some private joke that no-one else had picked up on. Homer just shook his head. He grabbed Gavin’s hair and pulled it, enough to hurt. ‘You’re a liar,’ he said. Gavin had taught us a few signs that he used, that were like a shorthand. I don’t know whether he’d made them up or whether all deaf people used them, but one of them was a sign for lying, which was pulling your index finger across your lips. So now, when Homer said ‘You’re a liar’, he made that signal too, to emphasise the point.
Of course Gavin was really worried by that. We’d undermined Homer completely by laughing, so Gavin just grinned cheerfully at us and ignored Homer.
‘Let’s go get ’em,’ he said. Honestly, he was hopeless.
Chapter Five
We got to Stratton with our nerves jangling. I know mine were going like wind chimes in a thunderstorm. We would have been nervous enough already, but making it worse was the last piece of information Ryan gave us: ‘The starting signal should come in the next forty-eight hours. Be ready. Check with Headquarters twice a day, every day till you get the green. The moment the weather’s right, we go.’
His words snuck through my ears like little worms, parasites, then crawled into my brain, so that by the time we got to Stratton they were playing around freely in there, doing a lot of damage. I was so keyed up that if a convoy of tanks had come at me I would have charged into battle with a tennis racquet and a shaken-up bottle of Coke.
Luckily we had a bit more than tennis racquets and Coke. We’d travelled there via the wetlands, and we were loaded up.
We camped at Grandma’s house. I wasn’t happy about being there at all. As soon as I walked in the back door I hated it. It seemed too empty now, too much part of our past. A few of our bits and pieces were still there, but other people had visited too. A window was broken and a bottle of beer had been dropped on the kitchen floor and left to soak into the lino. Stuff had been chucked around, as though someone had searched the place.
I got less happy with every passing hour. It was like being on the high diving board, your toes over the edge, your muscles quivering as you prepare to dive, then the coach yells: ‘Oh, just hold it for a couple of hours thanks, I have to go make a phone call.’
You can’t put adrenalin on hold.
I wished we could go back, to those happy days in Hell. Stratton seemed suffocating. Unlike Hell it wasn’t safe to go into the streets. Not that Hell had a lot of streets. In fact it only had one, and that had stopped being safe in recent days. Stratton, on the other hand, had always been dangerous and was getting worse. The motorbike patrols were uglier and more frequent. Every twenty or thirty minutes they roared past the house. The only warning was a sudden blast of sound that hit your nerves and ears at about the same time. There were usually six riders in each group, and they were on big powerful bikes that I guess they’d scabbed from shops and houses. Judging by the fumes and smoke farting from the exhaust pipes I’d say they weren’t being looked after too well.
Quite often they were dinking someone. Maybe they ran a taxi service on the side, I don’t know.
I prowled around the house, feeling toey and itchy and restless. The others didn’t seem as bad as I was. Fi curled up in a tree to do sentry, but she took one of Grandma’s books called Tangara. Lee was in an upstairs bedroom, drawing. He didn’t often let anyone see his work, but this time he gave me a glimpse. Like everything Lee did, the standard was somewhere between breathtaking and fantastic, even if the picture was kind of dark. Some people would call it sick. Satanic figures, burning babies, aliens crawling out of people’s mouths, giant black beetles crushing houses as they rolled across the landscape. I wouldn’t call it sick, just brilliant. Anyway, what else would he draw, after the stuff we’d seen?
Kevin and Homer and Gavin were playing Hearts, with a pack of Grandma’s old cards. I was glad the two older boys were entertaining Gavin, as Gavin wasn’t much into reading or drawing, and he didn’t handle sitting around too well.
All these different activities looked so nice and harmless. But Lee had that dark look on his face, and Kevin jumped a metre when I dropped a glass, and the boys got into furious arguments every ten minutes about the card game. It wasn’t just me. The strain on our nerves from the stuff that had happened lately—the terrible encounter with the patrol in Hell, the mad scramble to get out of there, the frightening journey to the helicopter pick-up, the loss of the three kids, the waiting for action—was working away steadily on us. The atmosphere was so terrible that Gavin must have wished he’d caught the chopper after all.
Late in the morning I went out of the house for a while. I know I shouldn’t have but I couldn’t stand it any longer. I was going crazy. And no-one tried to talk me out of it. Maybe they thought it was one less person to snap at—or to have snap at them.
I figured if I walked across front lawns as much as possible, keeping out of the streets, I could avoid the motorbikes.
I planned to be half an hour, and in fact I told Fi that, but just as I turned to come back I realised I was only a block from the newsagent in West Stratton, the one near the big house where I’d seen Casey and her friends playing. I’d never had a proper look in there, but I thought I might find something to read or do. Anything to take my mind off what lay ahead. And as I zigzagged towards it, I thought I might be able to find some pens Lee could use in his drawing. I liked the idea of bringing him a present.
I pushed open the door and slipped inside, checking straightaway that no-one was following.
Quite a lot of the shop was intact. Everything around the counter, the sweets and cigarettes and pens, had gone, but the rest, where they kept the books and magazines, hadn’t been disturbed much. After all, when bombs are dropping, do you really want to read about a Hollywood marriage breaking up?
I collected a couple of novels, and half-a-dozen magazines, and a bit of other stuff, then found some Crayolas that I thought Lee would appreciate, before I headed back to Grandma’s.
I delivered my present, and got a grunt of thanks from Lee, and a ‘Where have you been?’ from Fi, then climbed a tree with Homer to do the radio check. At least my little walk had succeeded in one way. For a short time I’d been able to put off thinking about this moment, this critical moment. Climbing the pine tree though, with Homer’s big hairy legs above me, and the radio bumping against his hip, I had to face it: this might be the beginning of the end for us. We were about to become serious, like professional soldiers, in this horribly serious war.
I was panting when we got to a good possie, not from the effort of climbing, but from tension and fear. I tried to say something but my mouth was too dry, and I had to use
a trick Andrea had taught me, scratch the underneath of my chin with the tip of my finger, to get some saliva flowing and lubricate my throat. After a few moments of that I was able to croak: ‘There’s a patrol coming.’
We waited silently. Would have been silly to wait any other way. The motorbikes snarled past, sounding louder than ever. It was like they had a mind of their own, like they were alive, like one of them might come crawling up the tree and grab my legs and drag me down. I clutched the trunk tighter and closed my eyes and prayed.
When they’d gone Homer switched on the radio and in his familiar low rumbling voice began transmitting our call code.
‘Charlie Baker Foxtrot. Charlie Baker Foxtrot.’
Ryan had given us a list of the possible responses we might get from New Zealand. Each of them had a separate meaning. Within a minute and a half we got one.
‘Pineapples,’ repeated three times.
Pineapples meant: ‘D-day postponed twelve hours. Give us a call some time if you’re not doing anything, and we might be able to go out, catch a movie, whatever.’
Well, maybe I didn’t get that last bit quite right.
Anyway, like it or not, we’d got ourselves a twelve-hour reprieve.
And it was the last thing I wanted! My nerves were screaming for action. In some ways the best message would have been Wallaby, which meant D-Day postponed indefinitely: ‘Abandon all plans’. But that wouldn’t have been the best news in the long run. The tough reality of our situation was that the best message for us now was to go straight into action. Get it over and done with.
