‘Let’s get cracking,’ he said. ‘We’ve been lucky. We can’t afford to make that many mistakes again. He herded us all into the sitting room and out the front door. ‘We’ll have this conference out here, where we can see the road,’ he said. ‘Now look, I’ll tell you what I think. If there’s any major holes in it, tell me. Otherwise, let’s just do it, OK? We haven’t got time for long debates.
‘All right. Starting with the dogs. Flip and the other one, at my place, whatsitsname.’
‘Millie,’ I offered.
‘Yes,’ said Homer. ‘Millie. Guys, we have to abandon them. Leave out all the dry dog food you want for them, but that’s all you can do. Second, the milkers. I’ve had a look at yours Corrie. She’s not only got mastitis, it’s gone gangrenous as well. We’re going to have to shoot her. It’d be too cruel to leave her here to suffer.’ I glanced at Corrie. She was absorbing this dry-eyed. Homer continued. ‘Third, the Toyota. We can’t take it now. They will have seen it from the air, so if it goes missing they might notice that. The three people packing the vehicles will have to take everything they can on bikes, and ride to Kev’s and pick up another four-wheel drive there, to go with the Landie.’ He glanced at Kevin, to check if that were possible.
Kevin nodded. ‘The Ford’s still there.’
‘Good. One thing I was hoping we could get from here is lots of vegetables from Corrie’s mum’s garden. But I don’t think there’ll be time, unless it’s done in darkness. For now, I think we should go bush till tonight. Take the bikes and anything else that’s absolutely vital, and get going, in case they send troops out from town. I’m sure they won’t come out after dark, but till then there’s a risk.
‘Finally, about tonight.’ He was talking very fast, but we weren’t missing a word. ‘I think Ellie and I should go into town. We need a driver to stay here, and Kevin and Ellie are our best drivers. And it wouldn’t be fair to have an all girls group and an all guys group. Then if you three aim to get to Ellie’s by dawn, we’ll meet you there. If we’re not there tomorrow, give us till midnight tomorrow night, then leave for Hell. Leave one car hidden at Ellie’s and hide the other one at the top somewhere, near Tailor’s Stitch, and go down to the campsite. We’ll find our own way there when we can.’
As he talked, Homer had been nervously scanning the road. Now he stood. ‘I’m really spooked about that helicopter. Let’s get out right now, and save the looting till tonight. I’ll meet you at the shearing shed. We’ll have to take all the bikes. We need them.’
He picked up the rifle and glanced at Corrie, raising his thick brown eyebrows. She hesitated, then murmured ‘You do it’. She came with us as Homer went off alone, to the trees at the end of the house paddock, where the cow was standing restlessly. The shot came a few minutes later, as we jogged up to the shearers’ quarters. Corrie wiped her eyes with her left hand. The other one was holding Kevin’s hand. I patted her back, feeling inadequate. I knew how she felt. You do get attached to your milkers. I’d seen Dad shoot working dogs that were too old, kangaroos that were trapped in fences and too weak to get up, sheep that were a glut on the market. I knew Millie’s days were numbered. But we’d never shot a milker.
‘I hope Mum and Dad don’t mind us doing these things,’ Corrie sniffed.
‘They’d have minded if you’d broken that statue,’ I said, trying to cheer her up.
‘Lucky I play first base,’ Kevin said.
We got to the shearers’ quarters, where Homer joined us a couple of minutes later. He was just in time. It was maybe ninety seconds after that when a black jet, fast and lethal, came in low from the west. It sounded like every dentist’s drill I’d ever heard, magnified a thousand times. We watched from the little windows of a shearer’s bedroom, too fascinated and afraid to move. There was something sinister about it, something diabolical. It flew with a sense of purpose, deliberate and cold-blooded. As it crossed the road it seemed to pause a little, give a slight shudder. From under each wing flew two little darts, two horrible black things that grew as they approached us. They were coming terribly fast. Corrie gave a cry that I’ll never forget, like a wounded bird. One rocket hit the house, and one was all it took. The house came apart in slow motion. It seemed to hang there in the air, as though it were the kit of a house, a Lego set, about to be assembled. Then a huge orange flower began to bloom within the house. It grew very quickly, until there was no more room for it and it had to push the pieces of house out of the way, to give it room to flower. And suddenly everything exploded. Bricks, wood, galvanised iron, glass, furniture, the sharp orange petals of the flower, all erupting in every direction, till the house was spread all over the paddock, hanging from trees, clinging to fences, lying on the ground. Where the house had stood was now black: no flames, just smoke rising slowly from the foundations. The noise of it rolled across the paddocks like thunder, echoing away into the hills. Bits of debris rattled on the shearers’ roof like hail. I couldn’t believe how long they kept falling, and after that, after the rattling of the heavy fragments was starting to fade, how long the soft snowflakes took to float down: the pieces of paper, the bits of material, the fragments of fibro, gently and peacefully scattering across the countryside.
The second rocket slammed into the hillside behind the house. I’m not sure if it was meant for the shearing sheds or not. It didn’t miss us by much. It hit the hill so hard the whole range seemed to quiver; there was a pause, then the explosion, and a moment later a whole section of the hill just fell away.
The jet turned steeply and did a circuit above the river paddock, so they could watch and enjoy the show I suppose. Then it turned again and accelerated into the distance, back to its foul lair.
Corrie was on the floor, hiccupping, and thrashing around like a fish on a line. Her pupils had rolled back so far into her head that you couldn’t see them any more. Nothing would calm her. We became frightened. Homer ran and got a bucket of water. We splashed some in her face. It seemed to calm her a bit. I picked up the whole bucket and tipped the water over her head. She stopped hiccupping and just sobbed, her head on her knees, her hands clasped around her ankles, water dripping off her. We dried her and hugged her, but it was hours before she calmed enough even to look at us. We just had to stay there and wait, hoping the planes would not come back, hoping they would not send soldiers in trucks. Corrie would not move, and we could not move until she did.
Chapter Ten
With the coming of night Corrie seemed to regather some reason, to be able to understand and to whisper back to us. Her voice was lifeless though, and when we got her up and walking she moved like an old lady. We had her wrapped in blankets from the shearers’ beds and we knew that we would never get her on a bike. So at dusk Homer and Kevin took the Toyota and drove to Kevin’s, bringing back the Ford and the Toyota. Homer still thought it important to leave the Toyota at Corrie’s, to make it look as though we hadn’t used it. He was hoping that they’d think we were blown up in the house. ‘After all, they may not even be sure that anyone was here,’ he argued. ‘They may have just seen a movement in the house, or Flip might have made them suspicious.’
Homer had an ability to put himself into the minds of the soldiers, to think their thoughts and to see through their eyes. Imagination, I suppose it’s called.
I went looking for Flip, but there was no trace of her. If she’d survived the explosion she was probably still running. ‘Be at Stratton by now,’ I thought. Still I’d promised Kevin I’d look, while he was getting the Ford.
The two boys came back at about ten. We’d been nervous while they were away; we’d come to depend on each other so much already. But at last the cars came lurching slowly up the driveway, dodging around pieces of wreckage. It was easy to tell that Homer was driving the Toyota. He wasn’t much of a driver.
We had another argument then though, when Homer said that we had to go through with the original plans, including separating into two groups. Corrie had been bad enough when the boys had g
one to get the cars. But now, at the thought of Homer and me going into Wirrawee, into what she feared was dangerous territory, she sobbed and clung to me and pleaded with Homer. But he wouldn’t back down.
‘We can’t just crawl under the bed and stay there till this is over,’ he said to her. ‘We’ve made a lot of mistakes today, and we’ve paid a hell of a price. But we’ll learn. And we’ve got to get Lee and Robyn back. You want them back, don’t you?’
That was the only argument that seemed to work, a little. While she was thinking about it, Kevin got her into the Ford. Then he and Fi hopped in either side of her; we said quick goodbyes and mounted our bikes, for the ride to Wirrawee.
I can’t pretend I was keen to go. But I knew we were the right ones to do it. And I wanted to spend more time with this new Homer, this interesting and clever boy whom I’d known but not known for so many years. Since our trip to Hell I’d been getting quite interested in Lee, but a few hours away from him, and in Homer’s company instead, were making a difference.
I remember going to the meatworks once with Dad for some reason, and while he talked business with the manager I watched the animals being driven up the ramp to the killing floor. What I’d never forgotten was the sight of two steers half way up the ramp, just a couple of minutes away from death, but one still trying to mount the other. I know it’s a crude comparison, but that’s a bit the way we were. ‘In the midst of death we are in life.’ We were in the middle of a desperate struggle to stay alive, but here was I, still thinking about boys and love.
After we’d been riding silently for a few minutes Homer came up beside me to ride two abreast. ‘Hold my hand Ellie,’ he said. ‘Can you ride one-handed?’
‘Sure.’
We went like that for a k or two, nearly colliding half a dozen times, then had to let go so we could make more speed. But we talked a bit, not about bombs and death and destruction, but about stupid little things. Then we played Categories, to pass the time.
‘Name four countries starting with B, by the time we get to the turn-off.’
‘Oh help. Brazil, Belgium. Britain, I suppose. Um. Bali? Oh! Bolivia! OK, your turn, five green vegetables, before we pass that telegraph pole.’
‘Cabbage, broccoli, spinach. Slow down. Oh, peas and beans of course. Now, five breeds of dog, by the signpost.’
‘Easy. Corgis, Labradors, German shepherds, border collies, heelers. Right, here’s a Greek one. Name three types of olives.’
‘Olives! I wouldn’t know one type!’
‘Well there are three. You can get green ones, you can get black ones, or you can get stuffed.’ He laughed so much he nearly ran off the road.
At the five k sign we started getting serious again, keeping to the edge, staying quiet, Homer riding two hundred metres behind me. I like taking charge – that’s no secret – and I think Homer had had enough for a while. Approaching each curve I’d get off and walk to it, then wave Homer up if the road was clear. We passed the ‘Welcome’ sign, then the old church, and were into what Homer called the suburbs of Wirrawee. As the population of Wirrawee would barely fill a block of flats in the city, the idea of suburbs was another Homer joke. The closer we got to Robyn’s, the more tense I became. I was so worried about her and Lee, had been missing them so much, was so scared at the prospect of any more confrontations with soldiers. So much had happened during the day that there’d hardly been time to think of Robyn and Lee, except to say to myself the trite and obvious things, ‘I wonder where they are. I hope they’re there tonight. I hope they’re OK.’
They were true thoughts though, for all that they were trite and obvious.
The last k to Robyn’s we moved very very carefully, walking the bikes and ready to jump at anything, the movement of a branch in the breeze, the clatter of a falling strip of bark from a gum, the cry of a night bird. We got to the front gate and looked up the drive. The house was silent and dark.
‘I can’t remember,’ Homer whispered. ‘Did we say we’d meet at the house or on the hill at the back?’
‘On the hill, I think.’
‘I think so too. Let’s check there first.’
We left the bikes hidden behind a berry bush near the front gate, and detoured around the house, through the long grass. I was still in front, moving as quietly as I could, except for a couple of surprises – like bumping into a wheelbarrow and falling painfully over a tall sprinkler. After the ride-on mower at Mrs Alexander’s that had got Corrie I began to wonder if anyone ever put anything away. But I couldn’t see any hope of converting the wheelbarrow or the sprinkler into weapons. Maybe we could turn the sprinkler on and wet the enemy? I giggled at the idea, and got a startled look from Homer.
‘Enjoying this are you?’ he whispered.
I shook my head, but truth to tell I was feeling more confident and relaxed. I always prefer action; I’m happier when I’m doing things. I’ve always found TV boring for instance; I prefer stock work or cooking, or even fencing.
At the top of the hill nothing had changed. The view over Wirrawee was the same, the lights were still on at the Showground, and in a few other places. One of those places, as Homer pointed out, was the Hospital. It looked like they had it functioning. But there was no sign of Robyn or Lee. We waited about twenty minutes; then, as we were both yawning and getting cold, we decided to try Plan B, the house.
We stood, and started down the hill. We were fifty metres from the house when Homer grabbed my arm. ‘There’s someone in there,’ he said.
‘How do you know?’
‘I saw a movement in one of the windows.’
We kept watching for quite a time, but saw nothing.
‘Could have been a cat?’ I suggested.
‘Could have been a platypus but I don’t think so.’
I began to inch forward, not for any particular reason, just because I felt we couldn’t stand there forever. Homer followed. I didn’t stop till I was almost at the back door, so close I could have reached out and touched it. I still wasn’t sure why we were doing this. My biggest fear was that we were about to be ambushed. But there was a chance Robyn and Lee were in the house, and we could hardly walk away while there was that possibility. I wanted to open the door, but couldn’t figure out how to do it without making a sound. I tried to recall some scenes in movies where the heroes had been in this situation, but couldn’t think of any. In the movies they always seemed to kick the door down and burst through with guns drawn. There were at least two reasons we couldn’t do that. One, it was noisy; two, we didn’t have guns.
I sidled closer to the door and stood in an awkward position, pressed backwards against the wall and trying to open the door with my left hand. I couldn’t get enough leverage however, so instead turned and crouched, reaching up with my right hand to grip the knob. It turned silently and smoothly but my nerve failed me for a moment and I paused, holding the knob in that cocked position. Then I pulled it towards me, a little too hard, because I had half expected it to be locked. It came about thirty centimetres, with the screech of a tortured soul. Homer was behind me, so I could no longer see him, but I heard, and could feel, his breath hang in the air and his body rise a little. How I wished for an oilcan. I waited, then decided there was no point in waiting, so pulled the door open another metre. It rasped every centimetre of the way. I was feeling sick but I stood and took three slow careful steps into the darkness. I waited there, hoping my eyes would adjust and I’d be able to make some sense of the dull shapes I could see in front of me. There was a movement of air behind me as Homer came in too: at least, I hoped it was Homer. At the thought that it might be anyone else I felt such a violent moment of panic that I had to give myself a serious talk about self-control. But my nerves sent me forward another couple of steps, till my knee bumped into some kind of soft chair. At that moment I heard a scrape from the next room, as though someone had pushed back a wooden chair on a wooden floor. I tried desperately to think what was in the next room and what it looked like, but m
y mind was too tired for that kind of work. So instead I tried to tell myself that it hadn’t been the scrape of a chair, that no one was there, that I was imagining things. But then came the dreadful confirmation, the sound of a creaking board and the soft tread of a foot.
I instinctively went for the floor, quietly slipping down to the right, then wriggling around the soft chair that I’d just been touching. Behind me I felt Homer doing the same. I lay on the carpet. It smelt like straw, clean dry straw. I could hear Homer shuffling around, sounding like an old dog trying to get comfortable. I was shocked at how much noise he was making. Didn’t he realise? But in front of me came another noise: the unmistakable sound of a bolt being drawn back in a breech, then slid forward to cock the rifle.
‘Robyn!’ I screamed.
Afterwards Homer said I was mad. And even when I explained, he said it wasn’t possible I could have worked all that out in a split second. But I could and I did. I knew that the soldiers who’d chased us had modern automatic weapons. And the weapon I’d heard being cocked was just a typical single-shot rifle. Also, I remembered that Mr Mathers had gone hunting with Dad quite often, and he did have his own rifle, a .243. So I knew it had to be Robyn or Lee, and I thought I’d better say something before the bullets started flying.
Later I realised it could have been someone else entirely, a looter, deserter or squatter, or someone on the run from the soldiers. Luckily it wasn’t, but I don’t know what I would have done if I’d thought of that at the time.
‘Ellie,’ Robyn said, and fainted. She’d always been a bit prone to fainting. I remember when the School Medical Service came around and in Home Room Mr Kassar had announced the girls would be having rubella injections. As soon as he’d mentioned the word injections, Robyn had been on the floor. And in Geography, while we were watching a film on face carving in the Solomon Islands, we’d lost her again that time.
Homer had a torch and we got some water from the bathroom and splashed it in her face till she came around. We seemed to be giving a few facewashes that day. I was interested to see that the town water supply was still working. There was no electricity at Robyn’s, even though we’d seen the power on in other parts of Wirrawee.
John Marsden - Tomorrow 1 Page 11