While I Live

by John Marsden

  Oh yes, I was in a bloodthirsty mood that afternoon. A couple of times I smashed poor innocent sticks against tree trunks and broke them into matchsticks, just to express my frustration.

  By the end of the day I could have throttled Gavin too, as he was in a really aggravating mood. I think having both Lee and Homer there stirred him up. He wouldn’t lift a finger to help, and I had bitter thoughts about the promises he’d made: all the work he was going to do to keep the property in our hands.

  Then I got home and found no-one had even started cooking dinner. By then I’d had enough: more than enough. I’d had enough with strawberries and whipped cream on top. I stood in the middle of the kitchen and screeched at Homer and Lee like I was a white cockatoo separated from the flock at sunset. Neither of them looked too bothered. When I’d finished, Homer said, ‘But no-one’s hungry, Ellie. We thought we’d have dinner in an hour or two.’

  He was probably doing it to stir me and I was so tired that it actually worked. I stormed down the corridor to my bedroom, then had a shower, which cooled me off a bit. By the time I got back to the kitchen they’d put together a spinach and ricotta tortellini, and I’ve got to admit I’ve had worse.

  We watched TV for a while. About the only thing we’d agreed on all day was that the stuff on TV since the war was absolute crap.

  I went to bed about nine thirty and slept solidly.

  The next morning Homer and Lee weren’t there. It took me a while to realise. Half an hour before we had to leave I said to Gavin, ‘You’d better go and wake Homer and Lee before they miss the bus.’

  He came back and said, ‘They’re not there.’

  I thought they must be in the bathroom.

  With fifteen minutes to go I started to think it was a bit odd that I hadn’t seen or heard anything of them.

  I said to Gavin, ‘Do the boys want any breakfast?’

  Gavin was looking worried. He said anxiously, ‘They’re not there.’

  I put down the knife I was using for the sandwiches and, feeling a little sick, went down the corridor to their room. Their beds had been slept in, but not for a while. They were cold.

  ‘Where are they?’ Gavin, behind me, asked.

  I was fighting with panic, and a choking, slippery wrestle it was. Had they been abducted in the middle of the night by soldiers? Abducted and killed? I had a memory of my parents and the Websters and the McGills sitting around the barbecue one summer Sunday afternoon and Mr Webster telling the story of the Gurkhas in World War I. ‘Gherkins’, I thought he had said. I was only nine or ten. But the Gurkhas were from Nepal and they were the world’s fiercest soldiers. With shining eyes Mr Webster described how one night the Gurkhas crept across no-man’s-land into a tent filled with German troops, where they cut the throat of every second soldier. And they did it without waking the others.

  That story had haunted me. What went through the minds of the men who’d died, as they died? But almost worse than that, what went through the minds of the others when they woke in the morning? Did they have minds left after that? Did they ever sleep again?

  Sometimes the brain has to cope with events and thoughts so awful that it feels like it must explode: there is no other possibility. Like a balloon, like bubble gum, like a bloated cow.

  I actually gripped both sides of my head with my hands as I stared at the empty beds. It seemed like the only way to keep a massive blast from happening, deep in my brain. Through the window everything looked cold and grey, and the light was poor: it was not as though they would have set off for a run, or gone to check the cattle.

  My head no longer felt like it might explode but my mind was completely out of synch. I had to try to get the bits back together, into the right pattern. To line them up again. I fought to do it. Homer and Lee could not have been abducted. I locked up every night. I was obsessed with doing it since the killing of my parents and Mrs Mac. The windows were secure. No-one had got in. The two boys had let themselves out, closing the door behind them . . . and taking the spare key from the hook in the pantry.

  There had to be a reason. It wasn’t to visit anyone. They wouldn’t do that to me. And it sure as hell wasn’t to check out the Wirrawee nightclubs. Think, Ellie, think. But in the back of my mind, and already forcing its way to the front, came the reason. It was just that I didn’t want to recognise it. Those bloody Liberation people. It had to be that. I knew Homer was mixed up with them and now he’d taken Lee as well. And whatever they were doing, wherever they were, something had gone wrong. They had planned to be back by the time I woke up. That’s why they took the key. They’d made it clear they would be on the school bus. They wouldn’t have willingly left me in a situation of ignorance and raw terror.

  Gavin watched me closely. He studied my face like he did when he was anxious, as though I were a map and he a geographer with a magnifying glass. He was trying to read every contour line, every creek and river, every hill and gully. He said to me, ‘Where are they?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Yes you do.’

  He said it so clearly, like he knew it for a fact. I was completely taken aback. But I couldn’t lie to him, and right from the start, when we first met in Stratton, there’d been no point treating him like a little kid. So I said, pointing into the distance then putting my fists up, ‘I think they might have gone across the border, to fight.’

  He nodded, like he’d suspected that.

  I went back to the kitchen, trying to think. Still trying to force my brain into logical patterns. My brain was resisting that strongly. It was telling me: ‘Throw your hands in the air. Run crazily around the kitchen table. Smash all the plates on the dresser. Scream.’

  I said to Gavin, ‘Can you check the vehicles? See if they took any? I’ll try to ring someone who might know where they are.’

  I believed Jeremy Finley to be the leader of Liberation, the Scarlet Pimpernel himself in fact. But I didn’t know how to contact him. Sure the phone system was working fairly well these days. But it wasn’t working very well. In particular, Directory Enquiries was putting in a shocker. I’d almost given up ringing them. They sounded like they were staffed by a bunch of semi-literate alcoholics who saw telephones as Satanic devices.

  But this time I had no choice. I dialled the number, and waited. And waited. At least before the war you got recorded music. I’d never appreciated it enough.

  Gavin came back. ‘The Yamaha and Homer’s Honda are gone,’ he said.

  ‘The Yamaha?’ I thought. ‘Well thanks, Lee, thanks for asking me. Just feel free to help yourself.’

  ‘Who are you ringing?’ Gavin asked.

  ‘Jeremy Finley.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You remember, he came here that Sunday night with Homer and two girls.’

  ‘Why would he know where they were going?’

  We could have had a three-hour conversation but suddenly an operator came on line. I was so not expecting a human voice that it took me a moment to realise. ‘Uh, I’m wanting a number in Stratton.’

  ‘What name?’

  ‘Uh, Finley.’

  ‘What initial?’

  ‘Um, I don’t know.’ Damn. If Jeremy’s mum had remarried, or gone back to using her maiden name, I was sunk.

  ‘What address?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure actually.’

  ‘I’ve got six Finleys in Stratton. I’d need more information.’

  Click. The sound of a truck reversing. Beep, beep, beep.

  I slammed the phone down.

  I had a feeling Jess was involved in this too, like I’d said to Homer the night before, but there were two problems ringing her. One was that she had a common surname –Lewis – and it would mean another battle with Directory Enquiries, a battle I was most likely to lose.

  The other was that I wasn’t sure enough that she was involved. I could cause more problems than I solved by calling her.

  In the middle of that I had a sudden image of Homer or Lee lying dead.
I clutched my stomach and turned away from the phone. Gavin, looking frightened, took a couple of steps towards me. I realised that I couldn’t give in to thoughts like that. Not yet anyway. I had to stay strong.

  We’d missed the school bus. I briefly thought of going into school and finding Jess and sussing out what she knew, but it would take half the morning. Reluctantly I came to admit the obvious: that I would have to wait here and see what happened. I was in the role I hated most: helpless, ignorant, passive.

  Furious with Homer, with Lee, with wars, with life, I went for a quick run round the cattle, to check on them and distribute a bit of hay. To be honest, if half the cattle had been down with bloat I don’t think I would have noticed. But while I was doing that I did at least decide on a timetable. I would wait till lunchtime. If they didn’t turn up I’d go into school and see if I could find out anything there. If that failed I’d have to go all the way to Stratton and track down Jeremy. At the very least Jess should be able to tell me how to get in touch with him. I was halfway certain that those two had something going between them.

  Back at the house I literally walked around in circles. Well, in rectangles. I did laps around the house. After a while I thought there was a good chance Gavin and I would send each other crazy. I had to do something. But I couldn’t think of a single thing that would not cause awful complications for the two boys if I guessed wrong. All I could do was curse them for not being more open with me the night before.

  It was just after ten when I heard a low buzzing sound like a very big and aggressive mosquito. It could have been a low-flying aircraft but I knew straight away it was a motorbike, our motorbike, the Yamaha. Except it was being ridden harder than I’d ever heard it ridden before. Dad would have chucked a fit.

  I ran outside. Gavin bolted after me.

  ‘What?’ he said as we panted up the slope, where we’d get the first view of it. ‘What? What?’

  ‘The Yamaha.’

  We saw it just a moment later. ‘Lee,’ Gavin said. He’s got astonishingly sharp eyes, Gavin. We hurried down to the track, where we could cut him off. I couldn’t tell whether he’d seen us or not, as he gave no sign, but at the last moment he hung out the back wheel and skidded to a halt.

  The first thing I noticed was the rifle slung across his back. He switched off the ignition and sat there, slumped over the handlebars. It was as if switching off the ignition took all the energy he had. He glanced at me and I was shocked at how thin his face looked, at the way his eyes had become dark sockets. All in not much more than twelve hours. I was frightened to see him. It was as though he was about to tell me very bad news.

  ‘They’ve got Homer,’ he said quietly.

  I was expecting the worst news, just from the look on his face, but I still wasn’t sure when he said ‘got’. What did ‘got’ mean? Dead? Was Homer dead? Or was it something else?

  I couldn’t speak, just watched him fearfully, waiting.

  ‘They caught him. We were coming down opposite sides of a hill. They didn’t even know I was there. But he was a bit further down than me. I think he might have walked right into a sentry. The first I realised was when

  I heard a lot of yelling and a minute later there were torches everywhere and I saw two guys marching him into their camp.’

  ‘Did they shoot him?’ I asked, trembling, holding my stomach.

  ‘Not while I was there. I couldn’t figure out what to do. I couldn’t attack the camp on my own. I waited quite a while, looking for a chance to get in, but the place was swarming. Then soldiers started coming out and searching the bush, to see if there were any more Homers I guess. At that point I thought the best I could do was come here and get help.’

  I shook my head and ran my fingers through my hair. ‘You better tell me what the hell this is all about,’ I said. ‘In fact you better come back to the house and get something to eat.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘There isn’t time. We’ve got to get back there.’

  ‘If you pass out through hunger and exhaustion it’s going to get us nowhere at all,’ I said.

  Gavin and I both jammed ourselves onto the back of the bike and got a lift to the house. In the kitchen I gave him my lunch, and then threw a couple more sandwiches together – the fastest, sloppiest sandwiches in the history of catering. I didn’t know if Lee would be too upset to eat, but he wolfed them down, at the same time trying to tell us the story.

  ‘It’s what you’d expect, one of these terrorist camps. The kind of place the people who killed your mum and dad would have come from. Homer and his Liberation are sure they’re holding a prisoner there, a man named Nick Greene, who got kidnapped a month or so ago.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘I don’t know a can of beans about him.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, we had some pretty good information. We had a map showing the hut where Nick Greene’s kept, supposedly. Liberation had worked out a plan. Very low-key. Pairs work best, according to them. They gave us stun-guns for the sentries. We were going to come in at 5 am, on either side of the hut, and try to get him out through one of the windows. But of course at the end of the day you’ve got to make your decisions according to what you find. Anyway, we didn’t get very far, and I left my stun-gun in the bush somewhere.’

  ‘So what are we going to do?’

  ‘I’m sure they put him in the same hut we thought Nick Greene was in.’ He shook his head. ‘We’ve got to get back there.’

  I was as anxious as he was to get going. But at the same time it seemed like we were heading into a frightening situation, in broad daylight, with no plans at all. I was trying to stay calm but it was hard when I was torn between wanting to rush in to save Homer and the feeling that if we didn’t think it through we’d all get killed.

  ‘So they never knew you were there?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m sure they didn’t.’

  ‘That’s one thing we’ve got going for us then.’

  He stuffed the last bit of sandwich in his mouth and stood up. ‘Come on, Ellie, we’ve got to go.’

  ‘Wait. Wait.’ I tried so hard to think. ‘What about the other members of Liberation? Would they help?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s time to get them. And I only know a couple of them. Homer’s the one who’s right into it. I’m not officially a member yet. This is the first time I’ve been on one of these raids.’

  ‘So who is the boss? Maybe we should at least contact him?’

  ‘Can you believe Homer wouldn’t tell me? I was a bit annoyed actually. Like he couldn’t trust me. But he said there was a good reason. I thought for a while that it might be him, like you said last night.’

  ‘It’s still possible I guess. How many people do you reckon are in the camp?’

  ‘Liberation thought it was around twenty.’

  ‘Could we get the four wheel drive close to the camp?’

  Lee wiped a tired hand across his forehead. He was having trouble thinking.

  ‘Not really. No, no. It’s rough country, just over the border. Not all that far from here, a bit over an hour. Maybe I should have come back earlier.’

  ‘What about the four wheel motorbike? Could we take that?’

  ‘Yeah, probably be OK.’

  ‘All right.’

  I’d thought of something. It wasn’t much of a plan; in fact it was barely half a plan, a quarter of a plan, but it might help a bit.

  ‘We’re going to have to take Gavin.’

  ‘What? Are you crazy?’

  ‘We’ll need him.’

  I ran out to the machinery shed, Gavin so hot on my heels that he really was like a shadow. I filled four drums with petrol, spilling litres of the stuff in my rush, then loaded them on the Polaris and tied them down. Then I went back into the house and got our .222, its sling, and the ammo.

  We ran to the motorbikes. Gavin didn’t even ask if he was coming, just jumped on behind me. Lee shook his head at the sight. I didn’t blame him. But apart fr
om the fact that we were going to need Gavin I couldn’t help thinking that there was a case for taking him anyway. How cruel would it have been to leave him behind? At the farm on his own, going utterly mad with fear, not knowing if he was ever going to see me or Homer or Lee again? After all, as far as I knew, he had no-one else in the world. It might almost be kinder to let him die with us than to leave him alive in a world of loneliness.

  CHAPTER 12

  IT WAS PAST ten thirty when we got away. God, how could a week start this badly? A few hours ago I’d been thinking about catching the bus, fattening the calves, why the pressure pump was coming on more often than it should, how much of the Legal Studies assignment I could get done at lunchtime, whether I was still in love with Lee, if we were going to run out of milk for breakfast . . . Now we raced across paddocks, past the lagoon, heading for the bush and on into the hills, towards the border, not knowing whether Homer was alive or dead, not knowing whether we’d still be alive at the end of the day.

  Lee didn’t spare the horses. He seemed to remember the way pretty clearly. Good going, since the first time he’d come up here was at night. At least the trip home had been in daylight.

  Once we got off my place we started climbing. I didn’t know this area nearly as well as I knew the Razor’s Edge, and Mount Wombegonoo, which were in the opposite direction. It just wasn’t as nice, wasn’t as interesting, so I hadn’t been here often. Scrub that was green with the winter rain, quite a few patches that had been logged, a mob of about twenty kangaroos thumping away at three-quarter speed, a fox pawing at something in the grass then bolting when he realised two motorbikes were upon him.

  We were on an old logging track that I had a feeling would peter out eventually. The problem was that it hadn’t been maintained in a long time and there were fallen trees across it every few hundred metres.

  For the two-wheeler this wasn’t so bad, as Lee could usually detour round them through the scrub, even if it meant walking the bike at times, half lifting it at other times. For the four-wheeler it was a different matter. To detour into the bush I had to get a clear path, and sometimes that meant long, difficult treks. The grass was so high in many places that I couldn’t tell whether it was clear or not. I’d charge through the undergrowth, hit another fallen tree (usually part of the one blocking the road) and have to reverse and try another route. One of the cans of fuel was leaking I think, so there were constant petrol fumes that gave me a bit of a headache.