by John Marsden
He looked at me curiously. ‘Judy is quite puzzled by you. Calls you the mystery girl.’
‘Nothing mysterious about me.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that. You’ve been in this place nearly a week, and still no-one knows anything about you. I’d call that pretty mysterious, the way the grapevine works around here.’
He made me even more nervous, saying that. I glanced at Issa, who was sitting in the entrance to the tent, her back to me. I didn’t know if she could hear or not. The last thing I wanted was for people to be talking about me. That was terribly dangerous, in a place that thrived on gossip.
Issa and Monique had gone through a stage of being really curious, asking a heap of questions. When I survived that, they pretty much gave up, like they realised I didn’t want to talk and wasn’t about to start. That would have been all right, except it put a wall between us: I felt left out, like I couldn’t be admitted to their friendship full-on. They were great to me, and I tried hard in every other way, like doing most of the work to keep the tent clean, but they were a bit reserved with me.
A week later I was sweeping the area around the back of the dining hall. It was a nice day and sweeping was quite a good job. For the previous six days we’d been loading bricks onto trucks. My hands were blistered and raw and bruised. The skin had been rubbed off them in a dozen different places. Every half an hour or so one of my fingers got crushed or pinched or scraped, until they were twice their normal size, looking like colourful pork sausages.
Maybe the biggest problem was that the bricks were ideal for the guards to use as weapons. A girl working right next to me had been hit so hard on the side of the head with a brick that her eye had been pushed out of its socket. She was still in the camp hospital. If the guards didn’t like what you were doing, they’d chuck bricks at you from ten metres away. You had to watch them the whole time.
I’d volunteered to do the sweeping. It was Judy’s policy for everyone to do some work on Sundays to keep the camp neat and tidy. I didn’t mind, except holding the broom hurt my hands. Judy said a clean camp was good for morale, and it probably was. At least this was one of those mindless jobs where you could think about other stuff. For once I was thinking more about the future than the past. I was dreaming of being back on the farm with my parents, after the war, when everything would be back to normal. I’d be on the motorbike, accelerating through wet cowpats to splatter my father as he followed on his bike, I’d be creosoting the new posts for the cattle race and ignoring the warnings on the drum about how carcinogenic it was, I’d be winching the Land Rover out of the river as fast as I could, before Dad found I’d taken it ‘where I should have known better’.
Of course in dreaming about the future I was really dreaming about the past. Sometimes it’s impossible to separate the two. I guess it’s always impossible. It’s like the future is a building you put up on the foundations of the past.
I’d been sweeping for half an hour or so, and had worked my way around to the front of the dining hall, where already a few dozen people were waiting for lunch. Although the food was so utterly disgusting, meals were still a big deal in the camp. Partly because they broke the monotony, partly because you got to see the men.
Suddenly my past caught up with me. A woman’s voice screamed: ‘Oh my God! Ellie!’
My head whipped up like a Jack Russell that’s seen a rabbit. I felt my eyes almost pop, the hair on my head stand up like a willy-willy had hit it. I stood holding the broom and gazing at the woman as she advanced on me. I didn’t even recognise her. That was the biggest joke.
‘Ellie,’ she kept saying, as if once wasn’t enough. ‘Ellie Linton! Oh I don’t believe it! Ellie! Oh, everyone’s been talking about you! And you’re actually here!’
She had been a big woman once, you could see that, and it hit me then who she was. Mrs Samuels, who’d done the mail run out past our place for years. The trouble was, you rarely saw the person behind the wheel of the little station wagon delivering the letters, so it was no wonder I hadn’t recognised her. Plus she’d lost weight of course, like everyone else in this war.
I dropped the broom and held out my hands to stop her. But it was too late. Already curious people were moving in on us, including Issa and Monique. I heard someone say: ‘Her name’s Amber.’ Mrs Samuels rounded on her with all the pride of someone who’s just bought the most expensive heifer at the annual sales. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Don’t you know who this is? You know the young people who blew up the ships in Cobbler’s Bay? And the ammunition factory at Point Nelson. You’ve got a very famous person here.’
She turned to me. ‘How long have you been here, Ellie? How did you get caught? I’ve been sick for a few weeks, and in the camp hospital . . .’
I fled. It was all too much. I could no more have stopped her than I could have stopped a stampeding bull. Now that she was wound up I knew she’d go on for an hour and a half. And what on earth was all that about an ammunition factory? I’d never seen an ammunition factory in my life, let alone blown one up.
The trouble with being in prison is that there’s nowhere to run. I went back to the tent, not because I felt safe there, but because I had no choice. And of course it wasn’t at all safe. Three or four minutes later Issa and Monique arrived. They were absolutely goggle-eyed.
‘Why didn’t you tell us?’
‘We knew there was something funny about you.’
‘Oh my God, this is so amazing.’
‘We heard all about you guys, on the pirate radios.’
‘That’s why you never said anything about yourself.’
‘I tell you what, girl, if I’d done half of what you’ve done, I’d have been blabbing it all over the camp. You couldn’t have shut me up.’
‘I don’t know what to call you now, Amber or Ellie. I still think of you as Amber.’
‘How could you have done all that stuff? Weren’t you shitting yourself from start to finish?’
The only good thing I heard among all the babble was Issa saying: ‘We told everyone to leave you alone. They’ve gone into lunch.’
A minute later they got sent away. Judy had arrived.
Chapter Fourteen
My first instinct when we got back to Judy’s office was to collapse in a blubbering heap on the floor. Unfortunately that was a luxury I couldn’t afford. Things were too desperate.
‘I wish you’d told me,’ she said crossly.
‘I couldn’t take the risk.’
‘Well, it’s no good crying over spilt milk. We’ve got to decide what to do about this.’ She paused, and I guess she decided she was being a bit ungracious, because, getting quite pink, she added: ‘It is wonderful what you and your friends achieved. I suppose you did blow up the train after all?’
I nodded.
‘Yes, I knew you had. That was just one of the confusing things about you. What happened to your friends? Are they all right, do you know?’
‘They got killed, the same day I was caught.’
I felt my face break up as I said it, and had to fight to get it back under control.
‘I’m very sorry.’
She stood and said: ‘Look, I’m going to go and see Joachim, my counterpart in the male section. We have a real problem now. Everyone in the camp will know about you already and in my opinion a number of prisoners are far too friendly with the guards. So our challenge is to keep your identity secret. In the meantime you’d better stay here, and I’ll make sure none of the other prisoners are allowed in.’
‘How can you keep my identity secret?’ I asked. I felt she had no hope. My future was looking disastrous.
‘I don’t know. It may well prove to be impossible.’
I appreciated her honesty, even as I felt sick at the implications of what she said.
Then she really shocked me by adding: ‘There is another option. We can try to get you out of here, before the authorities discover who you are.’
‘How could you do that?’
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‘With great difficulty. There have been four escapes from the camp, in twelve months, but only two of them succeeded. The other two were caught before they’d gone half a kilometre.’
She was about to leave, then she stopped and looked at me and said: ‘Is that what you’d like? Would you be willing to take the risk, if we come up with a plan that looks possible?’
‘Do I have a choice?’ I asked bitterly.
Strangely enough at that moment, I wasn’t thinking so much of the risks, but of how awful it would be to leave the security of the girls in my tent, the comfort of having my own people around me. The outside looked lonely and dangerous from where I was sitting. But of course I knew the inside was now even more dangerous. It looked safe enough, but that had always been an illusion. Now it was an illusion that threatened my life.
Judy was gone nearly two hours. Someone brought me lunch, rice that must have been cooked two or three days ago. The grains were like hard little seeds. I never felt less like eating, but remembering what Issa had said I forced the food down. When Judy returned I was half-asleep, hanging over the back of the chair, but I woke up fast enough when she walked in.
‘We have an idea,’ she said, ‘but I have to ask you again: is this what you want? Do you think escaping is better than staying here?’
‘What do you think?’
‘The truth is that if you stay here the authorities will know your identity within twenty-four hours, and after that your life won’t be worth . . .’ She snapped her fingers.
She was only confirming what I already knew. I just needed to have her spell it out. It was time to get out, and the sooner the better.
I didn’t have to answer. She worked it out, from the expression on my face.
‘All right,’ she said briskly. ‘This is what’s been suggested, by Dr Muir actually, whom you’ve met. Now you may or may not know that at the other end of the camp are a few tents we are allowed to use as a little hospital.’
I nodded. I did know that.
‘Most of the patients are people with relatively minor illnesses, or injuries caused by the guards. We usually persuade the authorities to admit more serious illnesses, cancer and the like, to their hospitals.’
I nodded again. I was very anxious to hear her plan. My life depended on this.
‘The exceptions are four men who have AIDS. They’ve been here all along, although two of them were very ill indeed. They should have been hospitalised long ago, but we’re forced to keep them, because the authorities are so paranoid about AIDS. I suppose in some ways they’re better off here.
‘Anyway, I’m sorry to say that one of the men died in the early hours of this morning. That’s a very sad thing for those of us who got to know him well, and who came to admire his courage, but something good may yet come out of it, and I know he would be delighted by the plan I’m about to suggest. Three days ago he told me he wished he could have donated his organs for transplants. Well, obviously he couldn’t do that, but in a different sense I think his death may give you a chance at a new lease of life.
‘What Dr Muir has suggested is that we take advantage of the soldiers’ irrational fear of AIDS. If you agree, he will go to the prison authorities and tell them that everything Aaron owned or used will need to be incinerated, to prevent the spread of the virus. That’s not medically accurate, but we’re sure the guards will believe it. He is the first AIDS death we’ve had in the camp, so we can make up our own rules. The doctor will offer to oversee the burning. There’s an old truck that they employ for trips to the tip, and I assume they’ll use that. And as you’ve probably guessed, we plan for you to be aboard that truck.’
‘How?’
‘We’re not sure yet. Dr Muir has gone to talk to a few other people who we’re hoping will have some ideas.’
‘So it all depends on them not searching the truck too carefully . . .’
‘Which we’re fairly optimistic about because of the AIDS thing.’
‘. . . and me finding a way to escape when we get to wherever they do the burn-off.’
‘Yes. We can’t plan that part of it. You’d have to take whatever opportunity suggested itself.’
When I didn’t say anything she added: ‘It’s a question of the balance of risks. Which is more dangerous, to stay here or to attempt an escape?’
I knew there wasn’t a choice, as I’d known from the moment Mrs Samuels busted me. The only reason I hadn’t committed myself straightaway was that I didn’t want to say the actual words, to condemn myself to this huge risk. But now, before I could stop myself, I said: ‘I’ll do it, of course.’
I know the words sounded confident. I only wish I’d felt a fraction of that confidence.
Before I had any second thoughts Judy nodded and was gone. I guess it was better that way. If I didn’t have a chance to reconsider I couldn’t reconsider.
During the afternoon Judy came and went. I only got glimpses of what was going on. But it seemed that there was plenty of action outside. Prisoners had been banned from talking to guards unless another prisoner was there. They couldn’t ban them altogether, because it would make the guards suspicious, but this was the best compromise they could come up with. I was touched that they were going to all this trouble for me.
Late in the afternoon Judy told me that the authorities had agreed to Dr Muir taking the dead man’s possessions to the tip, and burning them.
I’d been doing some thinking and I asked Judy: ‘There might be someone in the camp who’d have news about my father and mother. I couldn’t ask before, because it was too dangerous, but would you be able to spread the word? You mentioned that tent where they help people trace relatives.’
‘I’ll do what I can,’ she said crisply, and was gone before I could go into any more detail.
I dozed a little at her desk, my head on my arms. It was Judy who woke me when she burst in, at about 6.30.
‘We’re going with it tonight, now,’ she said.
‘Now?’
I struggled to my feet, trying to wake up.
‘Yes. It’s worked all too well. They’re so nervous about the virus that they want everything associated with Aaron burnt immediately. I think Stuart’s managed to convince them that the virus escapes from the body when someone dies.’
I realised Stuart was Dr Muir.
As we headed out the door Judy said: ‘I’ve arranged for Mrs Samuels to meet us. I believe she has some information about your parents.’
I felt giddy, and had to grab the doorframe for support. ‘She does?’
‘Apparently.’ She glanced sideways at me. ‘Don’t get your hopes up. This war’s such a mess, a lot of information doesn’t check out too well. You can’t rely on much.’
When we got to the hospital tent Mrs Samuels was waiting. She was very emotional. She blamed herself for blowing my cover. She didn’t know I was going to try a break-out, but she knew she’d put me in a heap of danger.
I wasn’t interested in a big discussion about that. I wanted as much information as I could get, in as short a time as possible. Ever since Judy had told me Mrs Samuels might know something, I was in a fever of excitement. Even in the middle of all the fear about escaping, I was distracted, wondering what I was going to hear, and when.
So I stopped Mrs Samuels’ apologies short. Judy was hovering in the background and I knew time was running out.
‘Mrs Samuels, I’m sorry to cut you off, but I think the doctor’s waiting for me. What I want to know is, have you seen my parents?’
At once she dropped her eyes. I felt my stomach sag, like I’d swallowed half a tonne of cement.
‘What?’ I begged, grabbing her arm.
‘No, no, I think they’re all right,’ she said. ‘As far as I know they’re all right.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ she said, but again I felt there was something she wasn’t telling me. ‘Well, at least I’ve seen your mum quite recently, but I haven’t seen your dad for age
s.’
‘Where are they?’
‘They were separated quite early in the war. So I’m not altogether sure where your dad is. But I can tell you where your mum is.’
‘Where? Where?’
A tiny hesitation, then she said: ‘She’s at Simmons’ Reef. There’s a whole lot of them there from Wirrawee, and other places too of course. They’re kept in the big blocks of flats, and they work in different shops and factories and places like that. I must say, it’s a shame to see a lady like your mum, been on the land all these years, and now having to live in one of those awful flats. They’re crowded in like sardines. It’s terrible.’
‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’
‘Well, not really . . .’
‘Come on,’ Judy said.
There wasn’t time for anything else. Judy ushered me away, at the same time pushing Mrs Samuels in the opposite direction.
You had to hand it to her. She was the right person to have in charge of prisoners. She had a knack for organising people.
Inside the tent Dr Muir was waiting. To me he said: ‘We’ll have to be quick. The truck should be here at any second.’ To Judy he said: ‘Have you told her?’
‘No.’
‘There’s only one way we can do this,’ he said to me. ‘It won’t be very pleasant I’m afraid.’
‘What?’
‘I’m going to sew you into a mattress. We’ve already opened it up and pulled out enough of the stuffing. You’ll have to get in there, then I’ll stitch it up again.’
I started to feel claustrophobic, just thinking about it. ‘Is it the mattress of the guy who died?’
‘No,’ he said. But just like Mrs Samuels, he seemed to hesitate. Everyone was hesitating tonight. It made me very nervous. With Dr Muir it was incredibly obvious that he was lying. With Mrs Samuels I didn’t have a clue.
I followed him and Judy into the next tent. The mattress was waiting, like he said. There was a pile of horsehair stuffing pulled out of it, and a big slit for me.
