I still felt light-headed when Kevin, then Corrie, joined me, moments later. We looked at each other and grinned, proud and excited and a little disbelieving. ‘OK, what’s next?’ Kevin asked. Suddenly he was looking to me for directions. Maybe he recognised how I’d been changed in those few seconds. But then surely he had been too?
‘Keep heading left, from tree to tree. We need to get to that big gum. That’ll put us opposite the wood-chop area. We’ll get a bit of a view from there.’
I took off as soon as I’d finished speaking, so psyched up that I didn’t realise I was doing to Kevin what I’d objected to his doing to me, moments earlier. From my new vantage point I could see human movement three men in uniforms emerged slowly from the shadows behind the grandstand and walked steadily around the perimeter of the wire fence. They carried weapons of some kind, big rifles maybe, but it was too far to see them clearly. Despite all the evidence that we’d had already, this was the first confirmation that an enemy army was in our country, and in control It was unbelievable, horrible. I felt my body fill with fear and anger. I wanted to yell at them to get out, and I wanted to run away and hide. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.
After they’d faded out of sight again, behind the trotters’ stables, I heard the quick rush of light feet as Kevin and Corrie reached me.
‘Did you see the men?’ I asked.
‘Well, yes and no,’ Corrie whispered. ‘They weren’t all men. At least one was a woman.’
‘Really? Are you sure?’
She shrugged. ‘You want to know the colour of their buttons?’
I took her point. Corrie does have good eyesight.
We kept going, making our little dashes from tree to tree, until at last we were gathered, panting, behind the big river gum. From there we peered out cautiously: Corrie, kneeling, looking around the base from the right; Kevin, crouching, looking through a low fork; and me, standing on the other side, peeping around the trunk. We were in quite a good spot, about sixty metres from the fence and able to see a third of the Showground. The first thing I noticed was a number of big tents on the oval. They were all different shapes and colours, but they were all big. The second thing was another couple of soldiers, with weapons, standing on the trotting track. They weren’t doing anything, just standing, one facing the tents and one facing the pavilions. It was obvious that they were sentries, guarding whatever was in the tents probably. One was a woman, too; Corrie had been right.
The Showground was still set up for the Show, even though it should have been packed away four days ago. But the Ferris wheels and sideshows, the tractor displays and caravans, the logs for the wood-chop and the trailers selling fast foods, all were still in position. Away to our left was a silent ocean of parked cars, most sitting like dark still animals, a few glinting in the artificial light. Our car would be in among them somewhere. Some cars would have had dogs in them too. I tried not to think about their horrible deaths, like the dogs back at our place. Maybe the soldiers had compassion and had rescued them when the fighting was over. Maybe there would have been time for that.
We watched for eight minutes – I was timing it – before anything happened. Just as Kevin leaned around the trunk and whispered to me, ‘We’ll have to go’, and I nodded, a man came out of one of the tents. He walked out with his hands on his head and stood there. Immediately the sentries came to life, one of them going quickly to the man, the other straightening up and turning to look at him. The sentry and the man talked for a few moments, then the man, still with his hands on his head, walked to the toilet block and disappeared inside. It was only at the last second, as the light above the lavatory door shone on his face, that I recognised him. It was Mr Coles, my Year 4 teacher at Wirrawee Primary.
So, at last we knew. A coldness crept through me. I felt the goose bumps prickle on my skin. This was the new reality of our lives. I got the shakes a bit, but there was no time for that. We had to go. We slid backwards through the grass and began to retrace our tracks, from tree to tree. I remembered from a couple of years ago a big controversy when the Council had wanted to cut these trees down to make a bigger carpark. There’d been such an outcry that they’d had to give up on the idea. I grinned to myself in the darkness, but without humour. Thank God the good guys had won. But no one could ever have imagined how useful those trees were going to be to us.
I got to the last tree and patted its trunk gently. I felt a great affection for it. Corrie was right behind me, then Kevin snuck in. ‘Nearly home free,’ I said, and set off again. I should have touched wood once more before I did. The moment I showed my nose, a clatter of gunfire started up behind me. Bullets zinged past, chopping huge chunks of wood out of a tree to my left. I heard a gasp from Corrie and a cry from Kevin. It was as though I left the ground, with sheer fear. For a moment I lost contact with the earth. It was a strange feeling, like I had ceased to be. Then I was diving at the corner of the road, rolling through the grass and wriggling like an earwig into cover. At once I turned to yell to Kevin and Corrie, but as I did they landed on top of me, knocking the wind out of me.
‘Go like stink,’ Kevin said, pulling me up. ‘They’re coming.’
Somehow, with no air in my lungs, I started to run. For a hundred metres the only sounds I could hear were the rasping of my own lungs and the soft thuds of my feet on the roadway. Although we’d agreed, so logically, to split up if we were chased, I knew now I wasn’t going to do that. At that moment only a bullet could have separated me from those two people. Suddenly they’d become my family.
Kevin was looking back all the time. ‘Let’s get off the road,’ he gasped, just as I was starting to get some wind back. We turned into someone’s driveway. As we did I heard a shout. A burst of bullets chopped through the branches with tremendous force, like a sudden short gale. I realised that it was Mrs Alexander’s driveway we were sprinting along. ‘I know this place,’ I said to the others. ‘Follow me.’ It was not that I had any plan; I just didn’t want to follow someone through the darkness if they didn’t know where they were going. I was still operating on sheer panic. I led them across the tennis court, trying desperately to think. It wasn’t enough just to run. These people were armed, they would be fast, they could summon help easily. The only thing we had going for us was that they couldn’t be sure if we were armed or not. They might even think we were leading them into an ambush. I hoped they’d think that. I wished we were leading them into an ambush.
We got round to the back of the house, where it was darker. It was only then that I realised that while thinking about ambushes I’d actually led Kevin and Corrie into a trap. There was no back fence or back gate, just a row of old buildings. Last century they’d been the servants’ quarters, and a kitchen and laundry. Now they were used as garages, gardening sheds, store rooms. I stopped the other two. I was horrified by how utterly terror-stricken they looked; horrified because I knew I must look the same way. Their teeth and eyes gleamed at me and their uncontrolled panting seemed to fill the night, like a demonic wind. My mind was falling apart. All I could think of was how my arrogance in taking the lead, in being so sure I knew my way, might cost us our lives. I wasn’t yet sure if the others realised how ignorant I’d been. I forced myself to speak, through rattling teeth. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to say, and my fury at myself seemed to come out as anger directed at them. I’m not very proud of how I was that night. ‘Shut up! Shut up and listen,’ I said. ‘For Christ’s sake. We’ve got a couple of minutes. This is a big garden. They won’t go rushing around in it, in the darkness. They’ll be a bit unsure of us.’
‘I’ve hurt my leg,’ Corrie moaned.
‘What, you didn’t get shot?’
‘No, I ran into something, just back there.’
It’s a ride-on mower,’ Kevin said. ‘I nearly hit it too.’
A volley of gunfire interrupted us. It was frighteningly loud. We could see the flashes of fire from the guns. As we watched, trembling, we began to recognise th
eir tactics. They were keeping together, moving through the garden, firing into anything that could have concealed a person: a bush, a barbecue pit, a compost heap. They’d probably seen enough of us to have an idea that we were empty handed, but they were still moving cautiously.
I was struggling to get some air, to breathe. At last I was starting to think. But my brain was operating like my lungs, in great gasping bursts. ‘Yes, petrol ... we could roll it ... no, that’d give them time ... but if it sat there ... matches ... and a chisel or something ...’
‘Ellie, what the hell are you on about?’
‘Find some matches, or a cigarette lighter. And a chisel. And a hammer. Quick. Very quick. Try these sheds.’
We spread out, rushing to the dark buildings, Corrie limping. I found myself in a garage. I felt around with my hands, locating the smooth cold lines of a car, then quickly going to its passenger door. The door was unlocked; like most of us who lived around Wirrawee, Mrs Alexander didn’t bother to lock her cars. Everyone trusted people. That was one thing that was going to change forever. When the door opened, the interior light, to my horror, came on. I found the switch and turned it off, then stood there trembling waiting for the bullets to come tearing through the walls of the building. Nothing happened. I opened the glove box, which had its own light, but it was small, and anyway I needed it. And there it was, a blessed box of matches. Thank God Mrs Alexander was a chain smoker. I grabbed the matches, slammed the glove box shut and ran from the garage, forgetting in my excitement that the soldiers could be out there. But they weren’t, just Kevin.
‘Did you get them?’
‘I got the hammer and chisel.’
‘Oh Kevin, I love you.’
‘I heard that,’ came Corrie’s whisper from the darkness.
‘Take me to the ride-on,’ I said.
Before, two people had found it when they didn’t want to. Now, when three of us wanted to find it, none of us could. Two agonising minutes passed. I felt my skin go colder and colder. It was like icy insects were crawling over it. At last I thought, ‘This is hopeless. We’ll have to give up.’
But stubbornly, like an idiot, I kept looking.
Then another whisper from Corrie: ‘Over here’.
Kevin and I converged on it at the same time. Just as we did I saw a torch flash for a moment, somewhere near the front verandah. ‘They’re coming,’ I said. ‘Quick. Help me push it. But quietly.’
We got it on one side of the driveway, near the brick wall of Mrs Alexander’s studio.
‘What are the hammer and chisel for?’ Kevin whispered urgently.
‘To make a hole in the petrol tank,’ I said. ‘But now I think it’ll make too much noise, doing it.’
‘Why do you need a hole?’ he asked. ‘Why not just unscrew the lid?’
I just kept right on feeling stupid. Later I realised I was even more stupid again, because a hammer and chisel would have caused a spark that would have blown us all up.
Kevin had worked out what I wanted and he unscrewed the cap.
‘We’ll need to be behind the wall,’ I whispered. ‘And we need a trail of petrol to it.’ He nodded and pulled off his T-shirt, pushing it into the tank to soak it. Then he sat the cap back on the tank and used his shirt to lay the trail of liquid to the wall. We only had seconds left. We could hear the crunch of gravel under soft menacing feet, and an occasional muttered comment. I heard one male voice and one female. The torch flashed again, right at the corner of the drive.
Kevin’s voice breathed in my ear. ‘We need to make sure they’re all together.’
I nodded. I’d just realised the same problem. I could see two dark figures but I assumed we were being hunted by the three patrolling sentries we’d seen before. Kevin confirmed it, breathing in my ear again, ‘I saw three of them in the road’.
I nodded again, then took a deep breath and let out a short weak moan of pain. The effect on the two soldiers was dramatic. They turned towards us like they had antennae. I gave a little gasp and a sob. One of the soldiers, the male, called out, urgently, in a language I didn’t recognise, and a moment later the third soldier came through the line of trees and joined the first two. They talked for a moment, gesturing in our direction. They must have known by then that we weren’t armed: we would have surely let off a few shots by now if we had been. They spread out a little though, and came walking slowly towards us. I waited and waited, till they were about three metres from the mower. The small squat dark shape sat there, as if demanding that they notice it. For the first time I saw their faces; then I struck the match.
It didn’t light.
My hand, which had been very steady till then, got the shakes. I thought, ‘We’re about to die, just because I couldn’t light a match’. It seemed unfair, almost ridiculous. I tried again, but was shaking too much. The soldiers were almost past the mower. Kevin grabbed my wrist. ‘Do it.’ he mouthed fiercely in my ear. The soldiers seemed to have heard Kevin, from the way their eager faces turned in our direction again. I struck the match for the third time, almost sure that there wouldn’t be enough sulphur left to ignite. But it lit, making a harsh little noise, and I threw it to the ground. I threw it too fast; I don’t know how it didn’t go out. It should have, and it almost did For a moment it died to a small dot of light and again I thought ‘We’re dead, and it’s all my fault’. Then the petrol caught, with a quiet quick whoosh.
The flames ran along the line of petrol in fits and starts, like a stuttering snake, but very fast. The soldiers saw it, of course. They turned, looked, seemed to flinch. But in their surprise they were too slow to move, just as I would have been. One lifted an arm, as if to point. Another leaned backwards, almost in slow motion. That’s the last image I have of them, because then Kevin pulled me back, behind the brick wall, and an instant later the mower became an exploding bomb. The night seemed to erupt. The wall swayed and shook, and then settled again. A small orange fireball ripped up into the darkness, with little tracer bullets of fire shooting away from it. The noise was shrill and loud and frightening. It hurt my ears. I could see bits of shrapnel hurtling into the trees and I heard and felt a number of bits thud into the wall behind which we were hiding. Then Kevin was tugging at me, saying, ‘Run, run’.
At the same time the screams began from the other side of the wall.
We ran through the fruit trees and down the slope at an angle, past the chook shed, reaching Mrs Alexander’s front fence at the corner where it met the next property. The screams behind us were ripping the night apart. I hoped that the faster and further we ran the quicker the screams would fade, but that didn’t seem to be happening. I didn’t know if I was hearing them only with my ears or in my mind as well.
‘There’s just time,’ Corrie panted, from behind me. It took me a minute to realise what she meant: time to meet the others.
‘We can go straight there,’ Kevin called.
‘How’s your leg Corrie?’ I asked, trying unsuccessfully to return to the normal world.
‘OK,’ she answered.
We saw headlights coming and ducked into a garden as a truck went past at high speed. It was a tray truck from Wirrawee Hardware, but with soldiers in the back instead of garden tools. Only two soldiers though.
We ran on, reaching Warrigle Street, then racing up the Mathers’ steep drive, taking no precautions at all. We were struggling for breath now. My legs felt old and slow. They were really hurting. I stopped and waited for Corrie, then we walked on together, holding hands. We couldn’t do any more, go any faster, or fight anyone else.
Homer and Fi were there, surrounded by bikes, a full set of seven now. Our dinking days were over, but ironically, just when we had enough bikes, there were only five of us to ride them. There was no sign of Lee and Robyn. It was 3.35, and from the hill we could see other vehicles leaving the Showground, all heading for Racecourse Road. One of them was the Wirrawee ambulance. We couldn’t wait any longer. With only a few tired mumbled words between us –
mainly to find out that Fi’s house too had been empty – we mounted the cold bikes and pedalled down the hill. I don’t know about the others but I felt as though I was going round and round on the spot. I stood and made my legs go harder and faster. As we warmed up we all started to accelerate. It seemed incredible that we could find any more energy but for me the simple need to keep up with the others, not to be left behind, forced me to increase my rate. By the time we passed the ‘Welcome to Wirrawee’ sign we were going like bats out of Hell.
Chapter Eight
We arrived at Corrie’s place a few minutes before dawn. The sky was just starting to lighten. It had been a horrible ride. At every tree I promised myself that we were nearly at the turnoff, but I doubt if we were even half way there when I started promising that. I had pain in every part of me, first in the legs, but then in the chest, then the back, the arms, the throat, the mouth. I burned, I felt sick, I ached. My head got lower and lower, until I was following the back wheel of whoever was in front of me, Corrie I think. My mind was singing a tired chorus of a meaningless song:
‘I look at your picture and what do I see?
The face of an angel looking back at me ...’
I must have sung that a thousand times. It went round and round in my head like the wheels of the bicycle until I could have screamed in frustration, but nothing would make it go away. I didn’t want to think about what had happened at Mrs Alexander’s, or the fate of the three soldiers who had chased us, or what might have happened to Lee and Robyn, so it seemed I had no choice but to sing to myself:
‘The face of an angel, come from Heaven above,
John Marsden - Tomorrow 1 Page 8