by John Marsden
I nearly lost the track and had to swing sharply left hoping that the faint line I’d seen out of the corner of my eye was a road. Those bush tracks are so deceptive. They’ll run along like a regular road while you listen to the music and enjoy the view, and then for no obvious reason they start to degenerate, and before you know it there’s not much more than a choice of paths, decorated with kangaroo droppings and rabbit holes, and you can’t be sure they’ve got anything to do with humans even. They look more like animal routes to the tastier patches of grass. And then you can’t pick up any radio stations and you think, ‘OK, what happened to civilisation?’
Still, I thought I was on a man-made track. It seemed to be heading back towards a highway I could see in the distance, with regular traffic. We started going across the crest of a hill, but then the path turned again and went down the back of the hill. That’s when Lee called out, ‘Are those rocks up there?’
‘Yeah I think so.’
‘Hit the brakes when we get there. And stay ready. Don’t get out.’
He and Homer had been talking in the back seat from time to time, but I hadn’t heard what they were saying and I hadn’t tried. Too busy keeping us alive. But I knew from our experience in the war that when someone like Lee tells you to do something, if it’s a time of real danger, you’d better do what he says. Every other time you can ignore him, and you’re probably better off if you do.
As soon as we reached the rocks I stopped with a lurch. I knew now why he wanted to stop. It was because the motorbikes were out of sight for a minute. The three boys piled out. The vehicle rocked as someone got up on the tray. I heard the scraping of a drum across the metal floor.
‘What are they doing?’ Jess asked nervously.
I glanced back at her but didn’t answer. At least she’d stopped trembling, more or less. How should I know what they were doing? It involved the spare drums of fuel, that’s all I knew. The ute lurched again as the boys jumped off the back. It felt lighter now, somehow.
Lee’s face appeared at the window. ‘Get going,’ he said. ‘Stop up there somewhere after we’ve set it off
Set what off? Lee turned to the other two boys and said, ‘You two spread it and I’ll light it. That way I won’t get any on my clothes.’ By the end of his sentence we were gone.
We rocked and bumped on, going up a rise now. It was tough stuff. Smart of Lee to think of that detail. Otherwise he could have become a human torch. We turned right, still following a track. The motorbikes appeared again, coming pretty fast, making up the time and space they’d lost. I couldn’t see the boys. From one of the bikes came a familiar flash of flame. It was the mark of a gunshot. So they were still keen to kill us. And of course there could be no other outcome really. They couldn’t take us prisoner. They’d be too scared to try that in the middle of the night when we’d already proved how dangerous we were.
I didn’t really understand how Lee would stop them with a small petrol fire. After all, the bikes could be manoeuvred around that. No big deal really. The three boys hadn’t even taken their guns, so it wasn’t like they were going to shoot the riders while they were distracted by the flames. Then I realised and I cried out.
‘What?’ Jess asked, looking scared.
I stopped the ute and looked back down the hill. I wasn’t sure how good a view Jess had. Mine was pretty good. Of course Lee had volunteered to be the one who’d light the match. He was the only one who could do this. I couldn’t have done it.
Like a pack, the bikes came on. There were three, not two. I saw at least one pillion passanger. Maybe they’d paused when they did to pick up reinforcements. Now they probably had time to register that the car had stopped, up on the rise. They were in a bunch bunched together. Lee had chosen the spot well, considering he’d had so little time. The gradient on either side of the track meant they were forced together and the rocks caused them to slow down.
I wondered if they smelt the petrol and had time to think about it for a moment. They lit up slowly, or that’s what it seemed like. Of course it must have all happened in a second. When I replay it in my head it seems like slow motion. I didn’t see the match. The first thing I saw was a glow that was almost phosphorescent. It rose like a dancer who was getting to her feet to start the performance. Funny how something so terrible can be so beautiful. It spread across some grass and almost instantly came to the first motorbike. It paused there. Everything seemed to hang. This bike, and one of the others, had a rider and a passenger. The rider threw up his hands as though he suddenly didn’t care about the bike; he was just going to let it fall, let him and his passenger be thrown into the flames. Suddenly all three bikes, all five men, became blazing statues. Lee’s timing had been as perfect as his choice of location.
I turned away, sickened, unable to watch any more. Even above the engine of the ute I could hear screams. ‘Revenge for Shannon,’ I thought, trying to give it meaning, make it bearable. I put the car into reverse to get the three boys. I only had to back up about thirty metres before they arrived. This time they had the sense to use different doors, Jeremy and Homer on one side, Lee on the other. They reeked of petrol. I think the horror and enormity of what they’d done had sent them into supershock. But they had given us a chance to get out of here. I put my foot to the floor. We went on to the top of the rise. The track now took on a more definite direction again. In the distance I could see the highway again, with quite a few cars going along it. How strange, that normal life was going on over there, while behind us men were staggering around trying to put themselves out. Well, maybe sometimes we all had to be foxes and feel nothing for our victims. For some minutes my main concern was the petrol fumes in the car. It was terrible, even with the windows down and me driving as fast as I dared. I even used the word ‘terrible’ when I was yelling at Jeremy to wind down the window, which says something about me or about language or about both, because there was only one thing that was terrible during that time.
We got to the highway through a couple of gates. Jess got out and opened them. I thought it was a good sign when she did that but a bad sign when she started closing the first one again. God, what a waste of time, although maybe she thought she’d slow down anyone else who was following. I think we all screamed simultaneously at her. We’d be on the highway before any more chasers appeared. ‘Always leave gates as you find them,’ yes, and it went against the grain to leave these open, but what did we care about their stock? They’d probably stolen them from us anyway.
Getting away always seems lighter somehow. Of course it’s logical it would feel that way, but almost every time we’d had to escape during the war it worked out to be easier and quicker. Maybe the relief gave wings to our feet, a richer mixture to the fuel in our carburettors. When there were no cars in sight I slipped onto the highway – it wasn’t really a highway, just a busy main road – then took the first turn to the left. It was a long straight road, heading vaguely in the direction we wanted. I pulled over to the side, opened the door and got out, saying to them as I did so, ‘Well, have a nice ride home, people. I’m going back to find Gavin.’
CHAPTER 9
THE THING I most don’t like about Jess is that she wants life to be a huge drama with her as the star and so she kind of organises people that way. Not to an extreme, like I’ve seen worse, but at the end of the day it’s always about her. Steve can be a bit like that too, which is one reason we broke up, but Jess is worse than Steve.
The reason I can say that about her is that sometimes I do it too, which may explain why there are times when Jess really irritates me.
I have to admit that the way I got out of the car that night was a good example. I knew I had to find Gavin, so it wasn’t a bullshit situation, but to do it that way, OK, yeah, I knew there would be a certain impact on the others. To be honest, it was more like a scene out of a movie than real life. I guess the others knew that. Lee covered his face with one hand and groaned, Jeremy said, ‘You must be joking,’ and Homer ju
st looked straight at me and said, ‘Here’s a suggestion – why don’t you tell us what’s going on.’ To my surprise, Jess opened her door and came around to where I was standing. I’m not sure what she had in mind, I don’t think she was planning on coming with me, but she sure wasn’t running away.
I realised I hadn’t been fair to them. I made a bit of a face, and said, ‘Sorry.’ It took me a minute to think of how to explain it all. So much had happened that I could hardly remember Gavin, let alone what he had done. In forcing my mind to go back a few hours I felt like I was taking a thousand-kilometre journey. It was actually tiring, and I didn’t need it, on top of the exhaustion that was leaving me limp and feeble. But somehow I got back the full thousand kilometres and remembered, and said, ‘Before you went Gavin had already left. He hijacked a motorbike, waited somewhere down the paddock and followed you. I lost his tracks near the border. But he took a shotgun.’
‘You don’t think he went shooting rabbits or something?’ Jess asked.
I shook my head.
‘He could be home again,’ said Jeremy.
‘If you knew Gavin,’ Homer said to him, ‘well, put it this way, you remember that Japanese soldier they found in the jungle forty years after the Second World War? Still fighting on?’
I didn’t, but I got the general drift. Nobody said anything else for a few moments. But the trouble with the kind of situation we were in is that you can’t sit around having a group discussion. Finally I did something which I don’t remember doing too often. I said to Lee: What do you think I should do?’
He raised his eyebrows slightly, which for Lee was the equivalent of laughing hysterically. It was probably the first time I’d asked him directly for advice about something personal. And this felt personal to me.
‘I don’t see what you can do,’ he said. ‘He could be anywhere. I mean, we’re talking about an area of maybe a thousand square kilometres. It’s like looking for one particular grain of sand on the beach. Like Jeremy said, he could be back home. I think you’ll have to start again from there. If he’s still missing, we can try to get information through the Scarlet Pimple or Liberation.’
He was clever, Lee. He’d thought of a reason to get me back home. Two reasons even. Gavin could be there, and if he wasn’t, I might have a better chance of finding him from my place than by zigzagging aimlessly about the countryside.
I got back in the ute. Jess got in too.
Somehow, as we took off again, I felt quite fearless. Considering all we had been through, and the danger we were still in, that seems a bit ridiculous, but my mind was on Gavin, and that stopped me getting too scared. I think also that after surviving the Battle of the Coconut Tree I felt a bit invincible. By getting ourselves out of that almost impossible situation it seemed like God wouldn’t be so cruel as to have us caught by an off-duty gardener with a whipper-snipper.
We had a bit more to contend with than off-duty gardeners though. We’d been stupid to stop for so long and have a conversation. Well, I’d been stupid, but the others were nice enough not to point that out. To be honest, I was probably underestimating the opposition too. Just like those netball games when Robyn was captain. Wirrawee was quite a netball powerhouse, and it wasn’t unusual for us to win games by forty points. One season, when we were in Year 5, we won every game by a minimum twenty-five points. But by Years 6 and 7 we drifted into bad habits. In particular, in almost every game, we would lead by a big margin at half-time and either lose the second half or play really scratchily. It cost us a few games. It nearly cost Robyn her sanity. Oh, those half-time speeches! Oh, those full-time accusations!
We could have done with Robyn in the car that night. We could have done with Robyn any time. But in particular that night, because it would have helped to be reminded of the netball games and the importance of not getting too casual, of maintaining the intensity.
About a kilometre down the road we started to climb a bit and Homer, looking back, said, ‘You know, it’s really buzzing over there.’
‘My God,’ said Jeremy, ‘you’re not wrong.’
‘What’s happening?’ I asked, thinking that I had better keep my eyes on the road.
‘Helicopters,’ Homer said.
I had been driving with headlights on, thinking that we would look like any other car on the road, but now Lee said, ‘I think you better turn the lights off.’ I did so, straight away, and almost straight away Homer said quietly, ‘That might have been a mistake.’
I didn’t trust Homer when he spoke so quietly. I was slowing down as fast as I could without using the brakes, because I knew how bright brake lights are. I’d been pulling over to the left, but I jumped when he said that, and applied a bit of handbrake and got even further left, looking for shelter in the few straggly trees that lined the road. Suddenly Homer yelled from the back seat, so loudly that I jumped like a firecracker had gone off in my ass. ‘Get going!’
I hit the accelerator. We took off with gravel and dust flying and the tail of the ute swinging madly from side to side. During the war I’d quite often had to drive at night without headlights, in fact without any lights. It was terrifying, but luckily I’d often had good moon. The moon had been medium strength this night, but now it was pretty much obliterated by cloud, and of course I’d had no time to let my eyes adjust. If you’ve got plenty of time to get used to it, there’s a chance you can do it and not kill yourself in the first hundred metres. But here I was in severe darkness, with my eyes still thinking ‘headlights’, not even knowing what I was escaping from, but with the dreaded word ‘helicopter’ echoing in my ears.
Jess started to scream, thought better of it, gurgled instead, and said, ‘Oh my God.’ Then she did scream.
With a rush and a roar the helicopter was on us.
There’s nothing more savage than a helicopter on the hunt. This seemed like a small one but that just made it more agile. It swooped low over us like a magpie and more dust swirled and more gravel flew. I was on the bitumen but with no idea of where the bitumen went, and the lights of the helicopter blinded me all over again. Then he switched on a spotlight, which for a moment lit the road ahead, and I saw we were heading for the trees. The road seemed to go left, and it looked like a long curve. I spun the wheel and we angled left, but almost too late, we were on gravel again and a low branch whipped the windscreen. The spotlight came onto us and settled on us for a moment. As far as my seeing where I was going, I didn’t know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, because although it gave me some light it was way too blinding. As far as our safety went it was definitely a bad thing.
A voice yelled at us through some kind of speaker from the helicopter.
‘Oh my God it’s God,’ Homer yelled from the back seat. He actually sounded quite cheerful but I don’t think even Homer’s that stupid.
‘How come he doesn’t speak English?’ Jeremy asked.
They were doing a comedy routine! If they thought they were helping they were wrong but there wasn’t time to tell them that. The spotlight was bobbing and weaving because whoever was holding it had to match up with both the pilot and me, so there were times when I had a glimpse of the road ahead and times when I didn’t. When it shone right on us it was like a physical creature, not just a light but something real, a blinding white dragon that attacked from out of the dark. I was driving fast when I could see a straight patch of road and then clamping on the brakes when I got to the end of the bit that I’d seen – or where I thought the end was. It was a rough ride for the passengers. Lucky Marmie wasn’t on the tray, like she would be if we were going around the paddocks at home. She’d have been thrown off in the first fifty metres.
The voice was shouting a whole string of stuff but we didn’t understand a word of it except ‘Stop’, which the person repeated about six times as we were taking a sharp bend. Then the spotlight went out. My God that was a moment. My stomach lurched so hard I nearly threw up. I had to hit the brakes: there was nothing else to do. I hit them
pretty hard too because I had no idea of where we were in relation to the road. If we’d had time to take a vote I think the seatbelts would have come in for a unanimous big thankyou. I flicked on our headlights. We were facing a solid row of gum trees. I reversed, spun the wheel and got a look at the road. It was tricky, looked like more curves ahead, but maybe those and the trees were forcing the chopper up away from us a bit. I wondered why they’d turned off the spotlight. Had they figured it was helping us too much?
We raced up through the next two corners, me driving pretty much solely from memory, Jess giving a sharp cry as a branch hit her side of the car with a hard bang. I turned the lights back on. A straight stretch. Good. Put the foot down. Racing insanely along in darkness, the wind rushing through the car, a sense of complete madness as though we were driving straight at the edge of a cliff at a hundred k’s an hour. Not that we were really doing a hundred. Maybe eighty. Maybe even ninety.
I’ve seen a rabbit bolting across a flat, bare bit of land when it realises a hawk is after it. It comes down to a simple contest of speed. Can the rabbit get to the edge of the bush before the hawk reaches it? The rabbit flat to the ground, ears pinned back, the hawk pouring on the power as it drives hard across the open paddock. It’s a right-angled triangle and the hawk follows the hypotenuse.
A helicopter has an advantage though. It doesn’t need to reach you and grab you in its sharp, cruel beak. It has bullets that fly through the space between you. As it roared in behind us it started to fire almost straight away. I saw its lights in my mirrors, not the spotlight, just its navigation lights, and I saw the spit of light and colour and flame. ‘They’re shooting,’ I yelled. Not that anyone could do anything about it.
I held my line. I knew from the war, if not from shooting rabbits, that we were safe enough for the first moments. It is too hard to hit a target like us from a helicopter that’s rocking and rolling and trying to find its target. But maybe this guy had new equipment or maybe he was a brilliant shot or maybe he was just plain lucky. Bullet holes tore through the ute like a huge metal-punch was suddenly and roughly slamming a simultaneous line of them from our rear to our front. The ironic thing was the guy was such a perfect shot that he missed everyone. The line was straight down the middle, and Lee and Jess were squashed together on one side, Jess trying to support Lee’s rifle so he could get a few shots in, and Homer hanging out the other side hoping to get a shot away himself. The holes were like a row of stitches. If he’d been off his line by about half a metre he would have scored at least two hits. How unlucky is that? For him I mean. We were lucky twice over because not only did he miss us all but he must have missed everything vital in the engine. It didn’t even hiccup.