‘Are they treating people well?’
‘Mostly. For example, the people who were in hospital the day of the invasion have been kept there, and looked after. The people we’ve talked to say the soldiers are anxious to keep their noses clean. They know that sooner or later the United Nations and the Red Cross’ll be wandering around, and they don’t want to attract a lot of heat from them. They keep talking about a “clean” invasion. They figure that if there’s no talk of concentration camps and torture and rape and stuff, there’s less chance of countries like America getting involved.’
‘That’s pretty smart,’ Homer said.
‘Yes. But for all that, there’s been about forty deaths just around Wirrawee alone. Mr Althaus, for one. The whole Francis family. Mr Underhill. Mrs Nasser. John Leung. And some people have been bashed for not obeying orders.’
There was a shocked silence. Mr Underhill was the only one of those I knew well. He was the jeweller in town. He was such a mild man that I couldn’t imagine how he might have aggravated the soldiers. Perhaps he’d tried to stop them looting his store.
‘So who have you been talking to?’ Lee asked at last.
‘Oh yes, I was getting to that. I’m telling this all out of order. OK, so this is what happened. We cruised into town the first night, no problems. We got to my music teacher’s house about 1.30 am. The key was where she always left it. It is a good place to hide out, like I said, because there’s so many doors and windows you can get out of. There’s a good escape route out of an upstairs window, for example, where you can go across the roof, onto a big branch, and be next door in a couple of seconds. Also, the sentry has a great view of the street and the front drive, and there’s no way anyone could get over the back fence without a tank. So that was cool. The first thing we did after we sussed out the house was to get some gear together and go and set up the fake camp under the Masonic Hall. That was quite fun – we put in a few magazines and photos and teddy bears to make it look authentic. Then Kevin took the first sentry duty and the rest of us went to bed.
‘At about eleven in the morning I was on sentry duty and suddenly I saw some people in the street. There was a soldier and two of our people. One of them was Mr Keogh, who used to work at the Post Office.’
‘You mean the old guy with no hair?’
‘Yes. He retired last year I think. Well, I woke the others fast, as you can imagine, and we watched them working their way along the street. There were three soldiers altogether, and six people from town. They had a ute and a truck, and it seemed like they were clearing stuff out of each house. Two of them would go into a house while the soldiers lounged around outside. The people spent about ten minutes in each house, then they’d come out with green garbage bags full of stuff. They’d chuck some bags straight into the truck, but other bags were checked by the soldiers and put in the ute.
‘So what we did was, when they got close to us we hid in different parts of the house and waited for them. I was in the kitchen, in a broom cupboard. I’d been there about twenty minutes when Mr Keogh came in. He opened the fridge door and starting clearing out all this smelly, foul stuff. It was the job we hadn’t been able to bring ourselves to do on an empty stomach when we’d got there at 1.30.
‘“Mr Keogh!” I whispered. “This is Robyn Mathers.” You know, he didn’t even blink. I thought, this guy is cool. Then I remembered that he’s quite deaf. He hadn’t even heard me. So I opened the door of the broom cupboard and snuck up behind him and tapped his shoulder. Well! I know Chris said a few minutes ago that war’s not like the movies, but this sure was. He jumped like he’d touched a live wire in the fridge. I had to hold him down. I thought “Help, I hope he doesn’t have a heart attack”. But he calmed down. We talked pretty fast then. He had to keep working while we talked – he said if he took too long the soldiers would get suspicious and come in. He said his job was to make the houses habitable again, by cleaning out mouldy food, and dead pets, and to pick up valuables, like jewellery. He told me about our families, and all that other stuff. He said the work parties would be going out to the country too, starting any day now, to look after the stock and get the farms going again. He said they’re going to colonise the whole country with their own people, and all the farms will be split up between them, and we’ll just be allowed to do menial jobs, like cleaning lavatories I suppose. Then he had to go, but he told me they were doing West Street after Barrabool Avenue, and if I got into a house there we could talk some more. And off he went.
‘Well, when the house was empty again we had a quick conference. Kevin had talked to a lady called Mrs Lee, who’d come into the bedroom where he was hiding and he’d got more information from her. So we agreed to go to West Street and try again. We got there fairly easily, by going through people’s gardens, and we tried a few different houses. The first two were locked still but the third one was open, so we spread ourselves around it. I got under the bed in the main bedroom. Chris kept watch and told us when they were getting close, which wasn’t for nearly two hours. It was pretty boring. If you want to know how many cross-wires the people at 28 West Street have got on the underside of their bed, I can tell you. But finally someone came in. It was a lady I didn’t know, but she had a green bag and she went to the dressing table and started scooping stuff out. I whispered “Excuse me, my name’s Robyn Mathers”, and without looking round she whispered “Oh good, Mr Keogh told me to watch out for you young ones”. We talked for a few minutes, with me still under the bed, but sticking my head out. She said she hated having to do this work, but the soldiers occasionally checked a house after they came out, and they got punished if they’d left anything valuable behind. “Sometimes I’ll hide something in the room if it looks like a family heirloom,” she said, “but I don’t know if it’ll make any difference in the long run.” She also told me that they were picking the least dangerous people for the work parties – old people and kids mainly – and they knew that if they tried to escape or do anything wrong their families back at the Showgrounds would be punished. “So I don’t want to talk to you for long dearie,” she said. She was a nice old duck. The other thing she told me was that the highway from Cobbler’s Bay is the key to everything. That’s why they hit this district so hard and so early. They bring their supplies in to Cobbler’s by ship and send it down the highway by truck.’
‘Just like I said,’ I interjected. I’d never thought of myself as a military genius, but I was pleased to find I’d got this right.
Robyn went on. ‘Anyway there we were, chatting away like old mates. She even told me how she used to work as a cleaner at the chemist, part-time, and how many grandchildren she had, and their names. She seemed to have forgotten what she’d said about having a short conversation. Another couple of minutes and I think she would have taken me into the kitchen and made a cup of tea, but I suddenly realised there were these soft little footsteps coming along the hall I pulled my head back in like a turtle, but I tell you, I moved quicker than any turtle. And the next thing, there were these boots right next to the bed. Black boots, but very dirty and scuffed. It was a soldier, and he’d come sneaking along the corridor to try to catch her out. I thought “What am I going to do?” I tried to remember all the martial arts stuff that I’d ever heard of, but all I could think of was to go for the groin.’
‘That’s all she thinks of with any guy,’ Kevin said.
Robyn ignored him. ‘I was so scared, because I didn’t want to cause any trouble for this nice old lady. I didn’t even know her name. Still don’t. And I didn’t want to get myself killed either. I’m funny like that. But I was so paralysed I couldn’t move. I heard the guy say, very suspiciously, something like “You talking”. I knew I was in trouble then. I rolled across the floor to the other side of the bed and crawled out from under the bedspread. I was in this little gap between the bed and the wall, about a metre wide I guess. I heard the old lady laugh nervously and say “To myself. In the mirror.” It sounded weak to me and I guess it
did to him too. All I had going for me was my hearing, and my guesses. I knew he was going to search the room and I guessed he’d start by lifting the bedspread and looking under the bed. Then he’d come round the base of the bed and either go to the built-in, or look in the little gap where I was lying. There were no other places in the room where anyone could hide. It was a bare room, not very nice at all. So I listened for the little swish of his lifting the bedspread, and sure enough the room was so quiet I heard it. In fact the room was so quiet I thought I could hear the old lady’s heart beating. I knew I could hear my own heart beating. I could hardly believe that the soldier couldn’t hear it. Anyway, the trouble was I couldn’t hear the second little swish that he should have made when he dropped the bedspread back down. I was in agony, wondering if he was still staring under the bed or if he was coming around to where I was lying. God, I was listening so hard I could feel my ears grow. I felt like I had two satellite dishes on the sides of my head.’
‘You look like you do,’ said Kevin, who never missed an opportunity.
‘And I did hear something – the tiniest creak of what I thought was his boot, and it seemed to be coming round the base of the bed. I couldn’t hear my heart any more – it had stopped. So I thought “Well, I can’t lie here and wait to be shot. I’ve got to take the risk.” And so I rolled back under the bed. And sure enough, about a second later I saw his boots in the gap that I’d just left. The fronds on the edge of the bedspread were just moving slightly from where I’d hit them, and I had this terrible time, lying there wondering if he’d notice them, thinking that he must notice them. They seemed so obvious to me, so conspicuous. He seemed to stand there forever. I don’t know what he was looking at – there wasn’t much to see, just a picture of a long bridge across a ravine, in Switzerland or somewhere I think. Then the boots turned and I could hear him more distinctly, going over to the cupboards and opening them and searching through them. Then he said to the lady “Come on, next house”, and out they went. I lay there for so long – I thought it might have been a trap – but at last Kevin came and got me and told me they’d gone. I’d had a pretty bad time though – well, I don’t need to tell you guys what it was like.
‘Corrie talked to someone too, in the kitchen, didn’t you?’ she said, looking at Corrie, who gave a little nod. ‘That’s when you were told about the casualties from our two fights with them?’
‘Yes,’ Corrie said. ‘I think they caused a bit of a sensation. I talked to a funny little man who looked about fifty. I don’t know his name either. He didn’t want to talk to me much. He was just so scared that we’d be caught. But he told me there was a bit of guerilla activity going on. He was the one who had this theory of the “clean” invasion, too.’
‘So,’ said Robyn, ‘that was the end of our secret chats with the work parties. We made our way back to our hideout and stayed there till dark.’ She looked at Homer while she said the next bit. It was like they felt a bit guilty, but they were defiant too about the way they’d done things. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I know we had all these carefully worked out plans about Kev and Corrie spying on the Showground and so on, but it’s different when you get there. The whole time we were in Wirrawee we didn’t want to lose sight of each other.’
‘Young love,’ I said. ‘It’s beautiful.’
Robyn continued without missing a beat. ‘So that night we stayed together again. For a start we walked out to the highway, to see what was going on. And it is being heavily used. We stayed an hour and there were two convoys just in that time. One had forty vehicles and the other had twenty-nine. So it’s doing big business, for a little old rural road. It hasn’t seen that much excitement since the surf carnival. After that we came back into town and went over to the Showground. That was bloody scary too, I suppose because of what happened to you guys on your visit there. In fact I thought it was pretty gutsy of Corrie and Kev to go there again. And believe me, it is a dangerous place. See, they’ve got their headquarters and their barracks there, as well as our folks, so I guess that’s why they guard it so heavily. They’ve cut down most of the trees in the carpark, so we couldn’t find any approach to it that would provide any cover – I suppose that’s why they cut them down. And they’ve put rolls of wire all the way around it, about fifty metres from the main fence. I didn’t know there was that much wire in Wirrawee. And they’ve rigged up new lights, floodlights, which have got the entire surrounding area lit up like it’s daytime. There’s a lot of very confused birds flying round there. All we could do was peek from Racecourse Road, which we did for an hour or so. I guess we were too scared to go any closer, but honestly, I don’t think there’s much to see, just a lot of sentries and patrols wandering round. If anyone has any ideas of rolling up there in combat uniform and shooting their way in and rescuing everybody, I think they can go back to sleep. Fantasyland is for TV. This is real life.’
To be honest, which I swore I’d be, we’d all had those delusions at times. They were only daydreams, but they were powerful daydreams, to liberate our families, to fix everything, to be heroes. But in a secret, guilty way, of which I was ashamed, I felt relieved to have the daydream so firmly squashed. In reality the prospect of doing something like that was so horrifying and frightening that it made me ill to think of it. We would surely die if we tried it, die with our guts blown out and spread across the dirt of the Showground carpark, to have flies feed on us as we turned rotten in the sunlight. It was an image I couldn’t get out of my head, probably born from all the dead sheep I’d seen over the years.
‘We were quite glad to get out of there,’ Robyn went on. ‘We moved back into town and just flitted around like little bats, trying to make contact with dentists or anyone else. Which reminds me,’ she said, smiling sweetly at Lee, ‘it’s time I took your stitches out.’ Lee looked nervous. I was trying to imagine Kevin flitting. It was hard to picture. ‘We didn’t find anyone though,’ Robyn said. ‘Not a soul. There’s probably still a few people around, but they’re lying very low.’ She grinned, and relaxed. ‘And that concludes our report to the nation. Thank you and good night.’
‘Hey, we could end up being the nation,’ Kevin said. ‘We could be the only ones left free, so we’d be the government and everything, wouldn’t we? Bags being Prime Minister.’
‘I’ll be the Police Commissioner,’ Chris said. We all chose jobs, or got given them. Homer was Minister for Defence, and Chief of the General Staff. Lee was Pensioner of the Year, because of his leg. Robyn wanted to be Minister for Health but got Archbishop instead. Corrie said, ‘I’ll be Minister for Kevin’. She really could be sickening at times. Fi was Attorney General, because of her parents. I got named as Poet Laureate, which I was quite pleased about.
Maybe it was that which first planted in Robyn’s head the idea of my writing all this down.
‘So anyway,’ Chris said eventually, ‘your turn. What have you guys been doing back here, apart from working on your tans?’
They’d already admired the chook yard, and they’d sampled the eggs. But we told them the rest, especially about the Hermit’s hut, which we figured would make a great back-up base for us.
‘I want to find a way out of the back of Hell, to the Holloway River,’ I said. ‘I’m sure that’s where this creek must go. And if we had a back way out of here we’d be in an even safer position. Once we’re in the Holloway we can get to that whole Risdon area.’
Lee and I didn’t tell them about the metal box with the Hermit’s papers. There was no particular reason. We hadn’t even discussed not telling them. It just seemed too private.
‘Listen, you know these chooks,’ Kevin said, ‘I’ve been thinking about other livestock we could have. I’m no vegetarian, and I want my meat. And I mink I’ve got the answer.’
We all waited expectantly. He leaned forward and said one word, in a solemn, almost reverent tone.
‘Ferrets.’
‘Oh no,’ Corrie squealed. ‘Yuk! They’re disgusting! I hate them.’
Kevin looked wounded at this disloyalty from the one person he could normally count on. ‘They’re not disgusting,’ he said, sounding hurt. ‘They’re clean and they’re intelligent and they’re very friendly.’
‘Yeah, so friendly they’ll run up your trouser leg,’ Homer said.
‘What are they?’ Fi asked. ‘Do you eat them?’
‘Yeah, between two slices of bread. And you don’t kill them first. You eat them alive, as they squirm and squeal in the sandwich. They’re the world’s freshest food.’ That was Kevin, being funny. He proceeded to give Fi a lesson on ferrets, during which it became obvious that he didn’t know much about them either.
Homer said, ‘It’s true that some of those old blokes around Wirrawee, the retired miners, keep a few ferrets and live on the rabbits. They haven’t got a quid to rub between them, so that’s how they keep themselves in meat.’
There, you see?’ said Kevin, sitting back on his heels.
It was quite a smart idea. I didn’t know much about them either, except that you needed nets which you put over all the holes and the rabbits ran into them and were caught. And although there wouldn’t be many rabbits up here in the mountains, there was never any shortage of them around the district.
Then Chris threw a fly into the ointment. ‘Wouldn’t they all be dead?’ he asked. ‘The ferrets? If their owners are prisoners, or dead, there’d be no one to look after the ferrets and keep them alive.’
Kevin looked smug. ‘Ordinarily, yes,’ he said. ‘But my uncle, the one out past the Stratton turn-off, lets them run free. He’s got heaps of them and he’s trained them to come in when he whistles. They’re like dogs. They know they’ll get food when they hear that signal. He loses a few of them that go feral, but he’s got so many he doesn’t care.’
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