by John Marsden
I left Fi to round up the others, and I went on, as fast as I could.
There was no path, but I could see where I thought they’d be heading. An old black stump stood like a lighthouse in the distance. It was on the crest of the ridge, away from other vegetation, and beyond it was clear sky. I thought it would attract the kids. So I went towards the stump, and the others caught me as I came up to it.
The stump was a deceiver though. Clear sky was a long way away. Instead we were looking at a series of gullies, full of bracken and fallen timber. They seemed to go on forever, like waves at a beach. Beside me Kevin swore.
‘Are we meant to follow them through that?’
‘Might be time for a team meeting,’ Homer said. ‘I don’t think we’re going to catch them tonight. Do we want to keep going after dark?’
‘No,’ Lee and Kevin said simultaneously. ‘I’m getting hungry,’ Kevin added.
Homer looked at me. ‘What do you reckon?’
I realised his question had really been addressed to me in the first place. It was pretty much irrelevant what the others thought, or wanted to do.
‘They’ll probably stop when it gets dark,’ I said. ‘Which is all the more reason we should keep going. The problem is to make sure we’re on the right track.’
The others didn’t say anything now.
I looked up and down the first gully. There was such a tangle of vegetation that I couldn’t see any easy way through it. Yet these kids, tired and unsure, would look for an easy path. I had to second guess them. Halfway across the first gully was a fallen tree, lying parallel to the gully. Maybe that would attract them, as a place where they could pause and get their breath. While the others watched I ploughed my way down into the gully and across to the tree. The bracken was so high in places that I felt I was swimming in a sea of it. The kids would have disappeared completely. They could have been hiding in it, ten metres away. They’d only have to crouch low and wait for us to go away again. Of course now I accepted that they were deliberately running from us. I didn’t know why they would, but there was no other way to explain their behaviour.
I got to the log and stood up on it. Almost at my feet was a fresh white scar, where something had knocked off a large splinter, about the size of a comb. It wasn’t much to go on but it was something. I scanned the rest of the trunk carefully. Further to my left was a scuffed-up patch that also looked fresh. It could have been made by a foot. I walked down to the end of the tree and checked all around there. Nothing. Still not confident enough to call the others, yet conscious of all the time we were losing, I went to the other end, almost losing my balance in my hurry. I peered down there. And almost smiled, at the same time as I felt a little sick. On the ground under the big base of the trunk was definite proof that humans had been here very recently. A little brown pile that was already bringing in the flies. Yuck. We had our own rules about going to the toilet in the bush: the main one was that everything had to be covered, and preferably buried. In some places that was easy but in others, where the ground was hard or rocky, it was a real nuisance. This kid, whoever it was, hadn’t even tried.
‘They’ve been here,’ I called to the others.
‘How can you tell?’ Fi called back as they started through the bracken.
‘You wouldn’t want to know.’
They fought their way over to join me.
‘Fancy them going to all this trouble,’ Fi said, panting a little.
‘The question is, where did they go from here?’ Homer said.
‘I think they’ve probably kept pushing across these gullies,’ I said. ‘Once they started they wouldn’t want to go back. But the more tired they get, the more they’ll drift downhill. They won’t even know they’re doing it. I’ll bet anyone a Mars Bar they drop height fast from here.’
No-one argued with that. What it meant in practical terms was that we might be able to make up some time by cutting straight to the bottom of the first gully and traversing on the easier ground.
We bush-bashed our way down pretty quickly and made good speed for about fifteen minutes. But we were losing the light too fast now. Again it crossed my mind that the kids could be hiding from us. The old hollow tree trick again, or the log on the ground. We might have passed them a long way back.
Homer called another halt. It was now so dim that I could see only the trunks of the trees: several times I almost had an eye put out by sharp twigs invisible in the dark.
‘What now?’ Homer asked me again.
I had an answer ready this time. I’d been thinking about it for the last twenty minutes. ‘You and Lee go back to Tailor’s Stitch and get a couple of packs. Once we’ve got them we should have enough gear for an overnight camp. Kevin can stay here and start a small fire. Fi and I’ll go on a bit and try to pick up more signs. We could even call out their names maybe? If they’re tired enough and scared enough and hungry enough they might answer. Casey’ll be hurting heaps. Natalie’ll be crying.’
‘I don’t think we should call out their names,’ Fi said. ‘Our best chance is if they don’t know we’re following them. Don’t forget they’ve been hiding from the enemy in Stratton for nearly a year. They’ll be pretty good at this stuff.’
‘This is all Gavin’s fault,’ I said angrily. ‘I’ll bet it was his idea.’
No-one commented and for once no-one objected to my plan. It was a fair hike to the other packs but Homer and Lee went off without grumbling. In the dark, over rough ground, they’d be quite a while, especially as the moon hadn’t come out yet.
I said to Fi, ‘Well, are you up for it?’
‘I guess. I don’t think we’ll find anything, but we might as well give it our best shot. Have a go.’
‘You little Aussie battler you,’ I said.
I don’t think Fi heard me. We picked up some kindling for Kevin, but left within a couple of minutes. I had no clear plan in mind, just a hope that we’d find another trace of them, and a feeling that we shouldn’t give up. A night can be a long time in the bush.
We moved slowly and carefully along the run-off from the gullies. There weren’t many trees through this section, so my eyes were safer from branches. But the ground was getting rougher and the general direction was downhill. Increasingly what we were walking in resembled a creek bed. ‘We have to go all the way back up this hill,’ Fi grumbled. I didn’t answer. There was nothing to say, and besides, I was too busy scrutinising the ground, trying to find a clue in the dark.
It was nearly midnight when we got back to the boys. We’d kept searching as far as we could, but as time went past with no sign of the kids, nothing to encourage us, we gradually lost heart. The last half hour was pretty meaningless. We just stumbled along, hoping I suppose that a ray of light would beam down from Heaven and there they’d be.
I was losing my confidence that there was no real danger in the bush. It seemed incredible that in these modern times people could still get badly, seriously, lost. But the kids, undernourished and bruised and a bit off their heads, were the last ones to be wandering around on their own in an environment they didn’t know. You had to be seriously worried about them.
The boys were still awake, huddled over Kevin’s little fire, waiting patiently for us. I appreciated that they’d stayed up. We were all so dog-tired. We didn’t have much of a conversation, because there was nothing worth saying; just curled up under a rough bark shelter Homer had made to keep off the dew.
At dawn we were away again, all five of us this time. We thought there was every chance the kids wouldn’t get moving this early. It was a freezing morning and I hugged myself as we hurried along. Being hungry didn’t help: we’d learned in this war that if you wanted to leave a campsite early, the only sure way was to skip breakfast. Even the quickest of breakfasts seemed to hold us up at least half an hour.
Skipping breakfast this particular morning wasn’t such a problem because we didn’t have much food anyway, just the remnants of the stuff Fi and I had brought
from Hell: a packet of prunes, and half a packet of survival biscuits that could break your teeth but were meant to be full of nutrition. Fi said prunes were good for the bowels. Maybe that’s why no-one had eaten them yesterday.
We tried to walk fast and look for signs of the kids at the same time. We knew clues would be difficult, because Fi and I had followed the same route last night, so any human tracks might be ours. But that didn’t stop me scrutinising soft earth, leaf litter, water soaks. I found some squashed kangaroo poo, that might have been trodden on by a human foot, and which was higher up in the scrub than where Fi and I had walked. More importantly, nearby was a piece of bark that had been dragged along for a hundred metres. It was a long way from its home on the trunk of a stringybark tree. You could see the little trail it made in the dust. Maybe, just maybe, some unhappy kid had picked it up and dragged it along behind her for a while.
They were the only clues. The good news though, was that there were no obvious detours they could have made. The gully, or creek bed, followed a pretty definite path, and to leave it would take a tough climb up the sides. I was sure they wouldn’t have enough energy left for that. Still, we’d underestimated them on everything else. I hoped I wasn’t underestimating them on this.
By eleven o’clock I was ravenous. We had a break, sitting on the edge of the gully, talking quickly and urgently about our options. We were now seriously worried. At first we’d been half anxious, half furious with them for being so stupid and annoying. But the time for being angry was long past. In their weakened state they were at real risk. With hundreds of square kilometres for them to wander in and no-one but us to search, they were in a lot of danger. ‘The only good thing about it,’ I said, ‘is that when we do find them they should at least be grateful. They mightn’t kick up such a fuss about coming with us this time.’
‘If we find them,’ was all Fi said.
‘Do you have the slightest clue where we are?’ Lee asked me.
‘I’ve got a rough idea,’ I said, a little annoyed that he didn’t give me more credit. I’d been carefully noting landmarks the whole time. ‘If we kept going this way for long enough we’d come out close to Wirrawee. Our property’s back there, over the hills and far away.’
‘And ours is over there,’ Homer said, pointing. I reckoned he was out by about twenty degrees.
Fi amazed me then by saying, ‘I think it’s more that way,’ pointing almost exactly to where I thought. For once in my life I had enough smarts to shut up. Instead of saying, ‘Yes, you’re right Fi, Homer doesn’t know what he’s talking about,’ I said precisely nothing. Homer looked like he’d been hit by a koala dropping from a great height. I don’t think Fi had ever disagreed with him before, especially on bush stuff.
Luckily Kevin suddenly said, ‘What are we going to do about food?’ and that changed the subject.
We made a lot of decisions in a short time. The main one was that we’d continue for an hour, following the gully to see if it opened up, offering different routes. At the end of that time, if it was still going on indefinitely, two of us would return for food. And that meant trekking all the way into Hell, a horrible idea that appealed to no-one.
Ten minutes later however, completely unexpectedly, we did come to the end of the gully. But it didn’t open up. The first I realised the trouble we were in was when I saw Homer, ahead of me, drop to his hands and knees and crawl forward.
I came up behind him. Then I realised. He was peering over the edge of a cliff. A trickle of water from the gully, the best it could do in this dry summer, even with the recent rain, was gurgling over the side. Fi and I stared anxiously at each other. If the kids had come upon this, suddenly, in the middle of the night, as they staggered along tired and lost and upset ... I wondered if I looked as pale and scared as Fi.
‘There’s no sign of anything on the edge here,’ Lee said to me, meaning, no scratches or torn moss or disturbed rocks. I was grateful that in spite of what had happened between us he was still trying to be friendly, to do the right thing. But I wasn’t reassured about the fate of the kids. I felt cold and clammy when I remembered the cliff into the Holloway Valley: how I’d lost my grip with no warning and slid down, losing my fingertips on the way. And that cliff had been a garden wall compared to this monster. This was sudden and sheer and very very high.
‘Come away,’ Fi said to Homer. ‘It doesn’t look safe.’
True, the edge did seem crumbly. As if to prove it, a little shower of soil and rocks disappeared over the side when Homer stepped back.
‘Could you see anything?’ Lee asked Homer.
‘No, nothing.’
‘So what do we do now?’ Fi asked.
‘Spread out along the sides,’ I suggested. ‘It’s going to be a hell of a job to get down there. We shouldn’t even try until we’re certain they’re not up here.’
It was the best news I’d had for a long time when Kevin called us to a spot about four hundred metres from the waterfall and showed us where lots of scrapes and muddied grass marked the spot where the kids had climbed over the edge. They’d picked quite a good place. There was a cleft in the cliff, as though God had hacked into it with a giant axe. From where we stood it looked like the cleft ran right to the bottom.
‘How long do you think since they went over?’ I asked Homer.
‘Some time this morning,’ he said. ‘I don’t think this grass would look so freshly crushed if it was last night.’
‘Must have been horrible for Casey,’ I said.
The time had come to split our forces. Homer and I somehow got elected to go down the cliff. The other three convinced us they could find their way back to Tailor’s Stitch OK. Despite Lee’s question earlier I thought they shouldn’t have any real trouble. Our path had been pretty clearly defined all the way down, and I told them a few landmarks to watch for.
It left us with only two people searching, which was hopeless considering how serious things had become. But what else could we do? We needed a lot of new supplies from Hell. We’d be no use to anyone if we lost any more energy or strength. We were low enough already. All morning I’d forced myself along the gully, driven by fear and determination. I hadn’t allowed myself to feel the tiredness and despair which were damming up inside. The wall holding those feelings back was Glad Wrap-thin, bulging in all the weak places, threatening to break the barrier and flood through my insides. When it did, it would be like the Great Flood of 1991, when the Herron River burst its banks and half the country between our place and Wirrawee was under water.
I had to stop that tidal wave of exhaustion washing away my defences.
So I gritted my teeth and pressed my lips together and I think I got a terrible scowl on my face, because Fi asked, ‘Do you want to go back to Tailor’s Stitch instead of me, Ellie?’ But I didn’t want that, I was just trying to round up any last little bits of determination I could find skittering around inside.
I went first down the funnel, not because I especially wanted to, but because I happened to be closer than Homer when the time came to get started. I went pretty damn gingerly too. I’d lost some confidence on cliffs after my fall in the Holloway Valley.
I used both arms and both legs, like a crab. Above, Homer’s heavy bulk overshadowed me in a way that made me even more nervous and I had to ask him, ‘Don’t get so close. Give me some room.’
Even so he didn’t stay back much; well, he did for a bit, but within a few minutes he was almost on top of me again.
The only good thing was that I could see traces of the kids in plenty of places. Stones dislodged, finger-lines in the dust, scrape marks from shoes.
Halfway down, just as things were getting trickier, Homer dislodged a heap of small rocks and dirt. He gave a warning yell but not fast enough: I couldn’t get my hands up in time, so I had a sudden shower of debris.
I yelled back at him. I was really furious. ‘I told you to stay further back.’
‘Sorry. Are you OK?’
�
�Yes.’ Then, after a minute, and thinking of the conversation with Fi, ‘Sorry I yelled at you.’
I started again, testing each foothold. The cleft was narrowing fast, and glancing down, which I tried not to do too often, I saw that it seemed to run out completely a bit further on. A few more loose rocks from Homer’s feet rattled past either side of me but before I could say anything I dislodged a few myself. At this rate we’d start an avalanche. I had to reluctantly admire the guts of the kids to take on such a dangerous climb. God knows what was waiting at the end of it. I hoped and prayed, as devoutly as I knew how, that we wouldn’t find anything horrible down the bottom.
But then I concentrated on my own position again. Just as I feared, the funnel was coming to an end. I’d been fairly successful with my four-limbed tactics, pushing into the sides of the cleft to give enough grip. That wasn’t going to work any more.
I paused, looking at my feet, to see where I could put them, when Homer called down, ‘How’s it going?’
‘Not very well. The funnel’s running out.’
‘Yeah, I was afraid of that.’
I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the kids in a little huddle somewhere around this point, helplessly waiting for us to come along and rescue them. The fact that they were nowhere to be seen increased my respect for them further. I’m not sure when I first started to respect them but somewhere along the line I’d begun to appreciate the strength they showed, the guts that brought them this far, the guts that had apparently got them off this cliff. I glanced down again, hoping they hadn’t got off the cliff in the worst possible way. But still there was no trace of them.
Meanwhile I came to a complete halt. The funnel ended on a little platform. By putting one foot on top of the other I was able to stand there, safe but not comfortable. I glanced up at Homer. He was perched ten metres above me, not looking at me but looking all around for a path I could take.