by John Marsden
‘Bloody Homer,’ Lee said. ‘He thinks it’s a game.’
‘Hope there’s not a fire in the Hospital tonight,’ I said. ‘It’ll take them half an hour to get out.’
‘I thought soldiers were meant to be tough, fully trained professionals.’
‘Remember what we heard? That they had professionals, but they also had a lot of draftees? Amateurs. Unwilling amateurs, too, by the look of it.’
‘We’d better get out.’
We withdrew, meeting the others twenty minutes later at the music teacher’s house. Homer looked a bit embarrassed, a bit defensive. He hadn’t become totally mature and responsible overnight. There was still a bit of the wild and crazy guy lurking inside.
‘OK, go on, everyone have a go at me,’ he said, before I could get out more than half a sentence. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time, that’s all. If he had come looking for us, Lee and Ellie could have gone straight in and you guys’d now be kissing me on both cheeks and buying me beers.’
‘We ought to be kicking you on both cheeks,’ Lee mumbled. ‘And you know which cheeks.’
‘It was pretty dumb,’ Chris said. ‘If he’d had a gun he could have shot you. If he didn’t have a gun there was no way he was going to charge off into the bush in the middle of the night to investigate. Either way it was pretty dumb.’
There didn’t seem to be much to add. We were all tired, and at our worst. We nominated Homer for first sentry duty and the rest of us bedded down on the first floor of the house. It was the safest house we knew, because there were so many exit points out of upstairs windows, along tree branches. And it gave such good views of the road. No one could approach without the sentry seeing them.
I got a real charge out of being in a bed, in a bedroom again. It was a beautiful, secure, comfortable luxury. I did sentry from six till eight, then slept again till lunchtime.
Chapter Three
We spent the afternoon lounging around trying to think of brilliant ways to get into the Hospital. I was on the floor most of the time, wrapped in a tartan rug. I remember laughing at Chris, who was pretending to watch television. He was reacting to the flat grey screen as though there were game shows and sitcoms and action movies on it. It was strange how TV had been such a major part of our lives, and now, without electricity, the TV had become about the most useless thing in the house.
Most of all I felt pretty happy that day. It was because we were starting to get on well again. It only showed in little ways, but those little ways were my food, my drink, my air, my life. The others thought I was tough and independent, but I needed those five people more than I’d ever needed anyone or anything in my entire existence.
For all that though, we still couldn’t think of a way to get into the Hospital. Night started to fall, then it fell, till it was lying all over the ground. And we still hadn’t thought of anything. But I’ll take a lot of the credit for the inspiration we finally had. I’d been idly thinking about Homer’s crazy distraction tactic. It seemed to me that there were possibilities in the idea. He just hadn’t done it right. Something was nibbling at my brain, like there was a tiny mouse trapped in there. If I could find the key I could let him out.
‘Lee,’ I said, when he was relieved by Fi from sentry duty.
‘Yes, my beautiful sexy caterpillar?’
‘Caterpillar?’
‘That’s what you look like, wrapped up in your rug.’
‘Thanks a lot. Listen, you remember that very quick conversation behind the shed, after Homer finished wailing?’
‘And frightened a poor innocent soldier out of his wits? Yes.’
‘What did we say? There’s something from that conversation that’s bugging me.’
‘Caterpillars are always bugged. That’s what makes them caterpillars.’
‘Very funny. But I’m serious.’
‘What did we say? I don’t know. We were talking about how it was probably Homer who was making the noise.’
‘Yes. And then?’
‘I can’t remember. Just watching the guy running in and shutting the door. Locking it so tight.’
‘Yes. Something about ... The way he was locking it.’
‘You said something ...’
‘Yes, I did.’
I sat there, frustrated.
‘Is this really important?’ Lee said presently.
‘I don’t know. I’m probably being stupid. I just think there’s something there, if I can remember it and let it out. It’s like watching a heifer calving. I can see the head of the damn thing but I don’t know what it’s going to look like.’
I got up and started walking around. We were in an upstairs sitting room, which Ms Lim must have used as a practice room. There was a beautiful black baby grand piano facing the window. Homer had written Heavy Metal across it in the dust with his fingers. But I had seen Lee with the lid raised, running his hands across the keys. His fingers were trembling and there was a look on his face even more passionate, more intense than when he looked at me. I’d been standing in the doorway watching. When he noticed me he lowered the lid quickly, almost guiltily, and said, ‘I ought to play the 1812. Get the soldiers to provide the cannons.’
I didn’t answer; just wondered why he tried to turn something that he felt so strongly about into a joke. There were times when I got sick of jokes.
But now I did a tour of the room, swatting the blind cord, spinning the piano stool, rubbing out Homer’s graffiti, straightening the books, opening the front of the grandfather clock, then closing it again.
‘Let’s have an instant replay,’ Lee said, watching me.
‘Not very instant,’ I said, sitting on the piano stool and facing him. ‘But OK, let’s.’
‘All right. I don’t think we said much till the guy was back through the door and closing it. We abused Homer a bit, that’s all.’
‘Then we talked about how tightly he was locking it.’
‘And how they must have professionals and amateurs, like we thought. And how this guy must be ...’
‘Wait.’ I sat there with my hands gripping my head. Suddenly it was there. I stood. I’ve got it. Let’s go find the others.’
That night, as Lee and I watched Homer from our hiding place, I thought again how there were advantages to being the wildest guy in the school. Homer knew some amazing stuff. While the rest of us had been studying product differentiation and price discrimination in Economics, Homer and his mates at the back of the room had been training in urban terrorism. I don’t know how they learnt some of the things they did.
Homer was creeping towards the Outpatients’ section again, this time with Robyn fifty metres behind, on the lookout. He got to the door at the end of the building that he and Robyn had tried before. This time he didn’t bother with it, but went instead to the little metre-high door under the building, about halfway along. He had to grope his way through the lavender bushes to reach it, but from the angle we were watching we had a good view. I saw him pull on the door but it must have been locked, as we’d expected. He used a chisel then, to try to lever it open, but that didn’t work, although the door seemed flimsy enough. It consisted only of four vertical white slats nailed to two crossbars.
Homer was undeterred, however, and he was well-prepared. His hand went to his bag of tools again and pulled out the screwdriver. He set to work on the hinges. It took five or six minutes, then at last he took a firm hold on the door and lifted it gently off. Without a backward glance he wriggled – he’s a big guy, Homer – through the opening.
We couldn’t see him any more but I knew exactly what he’d be doing. Lee and I both tensed, knowing that it was nearly time for us to go into action. I could picture Homer, undulating through the cold dark underworld like a big worm. He’d seemed so certain that his plan would work, once I’d given him the initial idea. But after all, he was just recreating one of his more outrageous school stunts. He’d had a dress rehearsal.
He had to find a pl
ace to make a hole in the floor. The building he was in, being rickety and old, seemed a good choice for that, and he had a keyhole saw and a brace and bit with him. We’d thought this through very carefully. We didn’t want to leave any evidence of our visit: that’s why we wanted to do it through a hole in the floor, rather than the easier method of breaking a window and throwing Homer’s bomb through. So we watched and waited and shivered, glancing at our watches, then at each other, then anxiously back at the Outpatients’ Department.
When the action did happen it happened with knobs on. We hadn’t wasted our evening, sneaking into house after house in Barrabool Avenue to find ping-pong balls. Homer had promised us a worthwhile result, as he wrapped the balls in foil. We’d watched, fascinated, not prepared to cast doubts as we thought back to the evacuation of the AC Heron High School just six months earlier. It had certainly worked then. And it worked now. Suddenly, sharp loud beeps started to emerge from Homer’s end of the building, and almost immediately, through the clear night air, came a series of announcements. These were in English and loud enough for us to hear. They seemed to come from all over the Hospital; I think they were pre-recorded and came on automatically. The first one was ‘Code two, code two, code two’, repeated every fifteen or twenty seconds. After a minute or so came the next message: ‘Zone four, zone four, zone four’. Then: ‘Level three. Level three’. By now the Hospital was stirring into life. Lights were coming on everywhere and we could hear people calling out. A second round of announcements began; the same as the first I think, but by then I’d stopped concentrating on them. Instead, Lee and I were creeping forward, looking for our chance. I couldn’t see any smoke actually emerging from the end of Outpatients’ but the people coming out of the wards were all heading in that direction. There were two soldiers, running, then a few men and women in ordinary clothes, then a woman in a nurse’s uniform, and three or four people in pyjamas. I couldn’t see their faces, so couldn’t tell which ones were friends, if any. But it was quite a party for two o’clock in the morning.
We didn’t want to do any harm to sick people. Homer’s smoke bomb was guaranteed not to start a fire, and we were hoping that the staff wouldn’t rush around evacuating patients. We had gambled that the Hospital would have a fire detection system that could be triggered by smoke, and that it would still be working. It wasn’t a very big gamble: pretty much a certainty. And the staff had reacted as we hoped they would. They hurried to the site of the alarm. And they left doors open everywhere.
We didn’t have much time. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Fi and Chris moving quickly to the door into the main wards. Lee and I had the old people’s wing as our target, in the long section of the T-shaped building. Only one person had come from there, a soldier, and he or she had flung the door shut, but so hard that it bounced open again.
I set off, half a stride ahead of Lee. I was hoping we could sneak across the car park, not being noticed, but once we entered that great bare black desert I realised our only chance was speed. I put my head down and sprinted, hoping the footsteps behind me were Lee’s. The night air was cold on my face, but colder was the chill down my neck and back; the fear of the ripping bullets. I got to the door puffing, gasping, and grateful to be alive.
Time was so short. All I could do was stick my head through the door and look to left and right. The old wooden corridor was empty of people so in I went, trusting to Lee to follow me. He did, so closely that I could feel his breath around my ears.
Although the corridor was empty you could sense that the building was full of people. I don’t know what it is: the little sounds maybe, the creaks, the shuffling noises. Or maybe it’s the smell of human bodies and breath, or the warmth that fills the place, the close humid warmth that heaters and fireplaces can never generate. So I knew right away that there were people everywhere, behind all the closed doors along the corridor. I made an instant decision to turn right, not for any reason in particular; I just did it, walking quickly along, trying to decide which door to go through, wishing for X-ray vision. We passed a small kitchen with an open door. It was empty and in darkness. The next room was labelled B7. No light showed under the door. I stopped, looked around at Lee, and indicated the door by raising my eyebrows and pointing to it. He shrugged and nodded. I took a deep breath, hunched my shoulders, squeezed the handle tight, turned it and opened the door.
Inside all was dark. Not only were the lights off but the curtains were drawn too. Yet again I knew it was full of people. It seemed such a small room, but so full of people. There was a lot of heavy breathing, some slow and deep, some quavery and long. I stood there, trying to get used to the darkness, not knowing whether to risk speaking or not. But Lee tapped me on the shoulder and I followed him back into the corridor.
‘This is bloody risky,’ he said. He was sweating heavily. We heard a noise down the corridor and turned quickly towards it. The door from the car park was being opened again. Suddenly we had no choice. We made a dash for the nearest door, which was B8. I tried to open the door as quietly as possible, but there wasn’t much time for subtlety. We fell into the room together, making a fair bit of noise. Lee shut the door quickly behind us as a voice asked aggressively, ‘Who is it?’
I felt such relief that she spoke in English. It was a woman’s voice, someone quite young, twenty-five or thirty maybe.
‘We’re looking for a friend,’ I said quickly.
This was the first conversation I’d had with an adult since the invasion.
‘Who are you?’ she asked again.
I hesitated, and finally answered honestly. ‘I don’t know if it’s safe to say.’
There was a pause, then in a voice quivering with astonishment she said, ‘Do you mean you aren’t prisoners?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well bloody hell. I didn’t think there was anyone left.’
‘Are we safe in here?’ Lee asked.
‘How many of you are there?’
‘Only two,’ I said.
‘Well, you’re probably safe till morning. Sorry I growled at you when you came in, but you never know round here. Sometimes attack’s the best method of defence. Look, old Mrs Simpson next to me, she’s in a proper bed – the only one who is – hop under there and you’ll be hidden if anyone turns the light on. Gawd, I can’t believe this.’
We groped our way to the bed and wriggled under it. Mrs Simpson smelt pretty bad, but we tried to ignore that.
‘What’s happening?’ I asked. ‘Who are you? Who else is in here?’
‘Well, I’m Nell Ford, used to work at the hairdressers. My husband’s Stewart, worked for Jack Culvenor. We were building that new brick place out on Sherlock Road, past the truck yard.’
‘Are you a patient?’
‘Gawd yeah. You’ve got to be pretty sick to get in here. But I’m out tomorrow or the next day. Back to the Showground.’
‘So are all the patients in here prisoners?’
‘In this building, yeah. They’ve shoved us in here like sardines and they’ve given themselves the good wards, over in the main section.’
‘Do you have nurses? And doctors?’
She laughed, but bitterly. ‘We get one nurse. Phyllis de Steiger. Do you know her? And the doctors are allowed to come over occasionally, when they’re not treating the soldiers. If we get them for half an hour every second day we’re lucky. We have to look after ourselves, basically. It’s pretty rough.’
‘How many people are in this room?’
‘Seven. It’s a bugger for infections. Anyway, what are you kids doing here? Did you say you were looking for somebody?’
Under the dusty bed, lying next to Lee, talking in whispers, I tensed myself, pressing my fingernails hard into my palms.
‘Do you know Corrie Mackenzie?’ I asked. ‘And Kevin Holmes?’
‘Oh, so you were with them, were you?’ she said. ‘Well, that all fits together. I know who you are now. You’re the ones who blew up the bridge.’<
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I was sweating furiously. I didn’t know we were so notorious. I didn’t answer, and Nell laughed. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m not a talker. Well, I suppose you want to know how your mates are.’
‘Yes please,’ I whispered.
‘Kevin’s all right now. He’s back at the Showground. Poor little Corrie ...’
She paused. I felt an awful, impossible weight inside my chest. My heart.
‘Well, love ...’
‘What? What?’
‘Look, she’s pretty crook, love.’
All I could think was that she was alive.
‘Where is she?’
‘Oh, she’s in here. Two doors down. But like I said, she’s pretty crook.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well love, she’s still out to it, you know what I mean? Unconscious. She’s been that way since she got here. She’s not too good.’
‘Can we go and see her?’
‘Course you can, love. But just wait a bit longer. The guards are due to come round soon. They only do one patrol a night, but there was a fire alarm before, so they might be late.’
‘That was us,’ Lee said. ‘It was the only way we could distract them, so we could get in here.’
‘Mmm. They say you kids have been pretty smart.’
‘Tell me more about Corrie,’ I begged. ‘Tell me everything.’
Nell sighed. ‘Oh dear. I wish I could think of some good news. But you know, they’ve been pretty rough with her. Young Kev drove her right into Casualty, and at first they let the doctor have a look at her, but when they found it was a bullet wound they turned nasty. They locked her in a room and wouldn’t let anyone see her, till the doctors jacked up. But even then it was ages before she got any proper treatment, and a lot longer before they moved her over here for us to take care of her. The soldiers kept saying she was a “bad girl, bad girl”. Maybe she was lucky, being unconscious. You know, better off. But the poor kid, she just lies there. They finally got a drip into her, but she doesn’t seem to be getting any better. We do everything we can. She’s the only one here in a room on her own, but someone always sits with her. It’s Mrs Slater tonight. You know her.’