While I live ec-1

by John Marsden

  It was difficult, because the four-wheeler, with its wide tyres, ploughed up the ground pretty badly. It was also difficult because everyone was so tired. Nick, poor bugger, couldn’t do a thing. I don’t know what he’d been through but it was worse than a birthday party. Lee got progressively more wrecked — this was his second long return trip on the bikes. Homer didn’t have much energy left after the stress of being locked up, thinking he was about to be executed at any moment. Gavin, despite his age, kept going pretty well. But to be honest I had to do most of the work.

  The last hour or so we reached new depths of tired-ness. None of us was any good by then. There were moments when the noise from the Yamaha seemed far far away, and more like the rumble of surf than the mumble of a motorbike. At those moments I had to make a huge effort to wake up. I remembered asking my father years ago if you could fall asleep on motorbikes. It seemed an amazing idea to me. It should be impossible, to sleep when you’re sitting on a motorbike that might be going at a hundred k’s an hour, and you’re getting the full blast of air in your face. It was against all the laws of sleep, surely? But my father said, ‘You can fall asleep anywhere,’ and told me a story about how he’d been harvesting day and night and then gone to play cricket for Wirrawee on Saturday and fallen asleep while he was fielding at fine deeper legside, or somewhere like that.

  Homer was definitely falling asleep against my back. I gave him the big elbow shove, nearly knocking him off the bike, and said, ‘Come on, wake up, you’re not allowed to go to sleep. You’ve got to keep me awake.’

  He retaliated by launching into his full repertoire of the songs that he knew irritated me the most. But there was nothing else for it. If I was going to stay awake I had to join in. There were even occasional bursts from the other bike too. This is the song that never ends,

  It just goes on and on my friends,

  Some people started singing it,

  Not knowing what it was,

  And now they keep on singing it,

  Forever just because

  This is the song that never ends… A million green bottles,

  Sitting on the wall.

  And if one green bottle

  Should accidentally fall,

  There’d be nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine green bottles,

  Sitting on the wall.

  This was not much good to Gavin. At one stage Lee had to stop and move Gavin to a position between Nick and him, because they were worried he would fall asleep and disappear off the back of the bike. He looked quite comfortable wedged between the two older guys though.

  We set off again, with another burst of awful music. The only other song Homer knew required a bit more imagination. You had to make up verses using people’s names. In the store, in the store:

  There was Ellie, Ellie, getting pretty smelly, in the Quartermaster’s store.

  My eyes are dim, I cannot see,

  I have not brought my specs with me,

  I have not brought my spectacles with me. There was Lee, Lee, he’d gone for a pee, in the Quartermaster’s store.

  My eyes are dim, I cannot see,

  I have not brought my specs with me,

  I have not brought my spectacles with me.

  Oh we were regular karaoke machines that evening. But I’d better not mention what we rhymed Homer with. It wasn’t a true rhyme anyway.

  It was really dark by the time we got home. The answering machine was full: mainly with worried messages from Homer’s mum and dad. He was meant to have been home after school and when they couldn’t get any answer at my place they started getting panicky. And there were a couple from Jeremy Finley and from Jess. I was sure one of them was the leader of Liberation and their carefully worded messages didn’t do anything to change my mind.

  Homer rang his parents straight away and told them I’d had a cow stuck in the lagoon and it had taken all that time to get her out, which was true enough, just a couple of weeks out of date. Then he rang Jeremy and told him in fairly guarded language what had happened. Nick was keen to get to a phone too, but I persuaded him to have something to eat first. I thought he was going to pass out at any moment and I didn’t want him fainting on the phone. We were all desperately hungry. We sat at the kitchen table hoeing into minestrone that I’d made at the weekend. The only way I’d been able to manage the food side of life was to get in the habit of making a whole lot of stuff at weekends and freezing it. As I took the minestrone out of the microwave I thought ruefully that this weekend’s work hadn’t lasted long. Thanks to Lee’s bad influence, the minestrone was all I’d done.

  I asked Nick, ‘Have you been a prisoner since the war ended?’

  He did seem a nice guy. He was very tall and serious looking, but why wouldn’t you be serious after what he’d been through?

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Just the last seven weeks.’

  He didn’t talk much at first but with each spoonful of minestrone he seemed to get strength back. Good advertisement for my soup. I hoped Gavin was paying close attention. He’d never been crazy about my mine-strone. But Gavin looked like he could hardly get the spoon to his mouth. He was a fair bet to fall asleep by the halfway mark.

  ‘So how’d it happen?’ I asked Nick.

  ‘I’m a member of Cross-Country.’

  ‘Oh, OK.’

  I could kind of guess the rest, although Nick told me anyway. Cross-Country was an organisation of people who believed that the best hope for the future lay in reconciliation, trying to build bridges between the two countries, trying to understand each other’s cultures, that sort of stuff. They had friends and enemies on both sides of the border. I knew quite a few people who thought they were disloyal, or to put it a bit stronger, traitors. To be honest, I wasn’t too keen on them myself.

  Nick’s particular group had gone over there, legally, to give advice on agriculture. Even though the peace settlement meant that ninety per cent of the best country was in enemy hands, they were making a mess of it, because they didn’t know anything about local conditions.

  ‘I’m an agricultural economist,’ Nick explained, ‘and I was going round the place giving advice on cereal crops. It seemed to go well at first. Then, I don’t know, I felt that they were getting more hostile. There was a different mood. My interpreter disappeared one night, just wasn’t there suddenly, and late the following morning these guys turned up at my hotel and said they were taking me to meet a group of farmers. The atmosphere wasn’t good, I’d have to say, but I didn’t feel I had much choice. Well, as you can imagine, I never got to meet the group of farmers. I got in the car, and no sooner were we out of town than they pulled guns on me and took me to this camp, not the one where you found me. Originally it was down by the river, in quite a nice open area, but then they moved into the bush. We’ve been there ever since.’

  ‘Why’d they kidnap you anyway?’ Lee asked.

  ‘They said I’d been preaching Christianity.’

  ‘And had you?’ I asked.

  He looked a bit disconcerted by that. I suppose I did ask it aggressively, but I’ve never been a big fan of the idea that you can go in and superimpose your idea of the true religion on top of other people’s idea of the true religion. After all, your idea of the true religion seems to depend entirely on which family and which country you’re born into.

  Robyn was heavily into Christianity but she’d never have done that kind of stuff.

  Nick went a bit red and tried to look straight at me.

  ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘If people asked me, I gave out some literature. That was all.’

  I wasn’t too sure that I believed him.

  ‘You want to make those phone calls now?’ I asked him, as Homer came back into the room.

  ‘Oh yes, thanks very much.’

  He was on the phone a long time. It was terrible of me but I couldn’t help thinking ruefully of my telephone bill. Now that I had to pay stuff like that myself, I’d taken a slightly better at
titude to wasting money. It still seemed to pour out the door and windows anyway. Even all the fuel we’d used on this raid — the four drums we’d exploded, along with the amount the bikes had used — it was all money, and I didn’t like my chances of Liberation or anyone else offering to reimburse me.

  Half an hour later I felt really guilty for thinking that. I was on the way back from putting Gavin to bed and I heard Nick crying on the phone. It made me sympathise a lot more with what he’d been through.

  Homer had gone home, borrowing my Yamaha. He was still trying to work out how to explain to his parents the complete loss of his motorbike. Lee was waiting to get to the phone, to check that his brothers and sisters were OK. My energy levels were like my bank statements, in the red. Feeling depressed I went to bed.

  I slept for eleven hours. Another missed school bus, another missed school day. I took another hour to get out of bed. I was still so exhausted I could hardly walk in a straight line. I don’t think it was physical tiredness so much as the aftershock of yesterday’s danger and excitement. At least I managed to reach the kitchen OK. I sat waiting for the electric jug to boil, thinking of the cattle and how hungry they’d be, trying to motivate myself to get out and deliver their hay.

  A scrunch of gravel outside did wake me up. It was the scrunch of car wheels.

  My first reaction was fear. Could this be a reprisal already? Who’d be visiting at this time on a school day? I peeped through the kitchen window, but there was only an old Falcon. A man and a woman were getting out. They were both tall and stringy. I realised then who they were.

  I went out, wincing as the cold air hit me. ‘Hi,’ the woman said, holding out her hand and giving me the chance to inspect every tooth in her mouth. ‘You must be Ellie.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Thank you. Thank you. We’re so grateful that you answered God’s call and brought Nick back to us.’

  ‘So you’re Nick’s parents?’

  The man had been busy locking the car but now, as she nodded, he came over too and shook my hand. ‘We owe you a lot,’ he said.

  I was deeply embarrassed. This kind of stuff had never happened during the war. In those days it was all survival. There wasn’t time for anything else.

  ‘Well,’ I said weakly, wondering why he’d locked his car, and still trying to function properly, ‘would you like a coffee? I don’t know whether Nick’s even up yet. We were all pretty flattened when we got back last night.’

  But Nick came into the kitchen at a half-run so I guess he’d seen them from his window. I figured this was an absolutely excellent time for me to feed the cattle so I did a quick change and headed out the door.

  It was good to get back to the natural rhythms of life. I don’t know what it is about cattle. They’re so different to sheep. The original beasts Dad bought had been in such poor condition and now they were fattening up nicely, putting on some serious kilos.

  I’d gotten to know them well. They were a motley crew. There were quite a few escapees among them, two especially. They were both on the small side but they kept pulling off escapes that would have made a World War II prisoner proud. They could have taught Nick a thing or two. It didn’t matter how many times I improved the fences, they kept getting out. Usually leaving their calves on the other side of course, which wasn’t very considerate of them. Sometimes they took one with them. I’d get rid of both cows in the first draft I sold, just as someone had gotten rid of them to us. They were too much trouble.

  Then there were the ones with poor forequarters or the ones whose back lines were out, or the ones who rejected their babies or were too aggressive towards Gavin or me. In my mind they all got pink slips. I had to build up some decent bloodlines again, as soon as possible. We used to have a reputation for that. I was a bit embarrassed that these beasts would be sold with our name on them.

  Still, for all their faults you always end up feeling affectionate towards them sooner or later. As with any mob there were characters. We’d given nicknames to a lot of them, and some of those were for obvious reasons: Dribbles, Patches, Fatso, Sticky-Beak, Big Tits. Big Tits was Gavin’s choice, needless to say.

  Some of them weren’t so obvious. Phar Lap got her name because she could out-gallop the others. If you turned up with hay at a time when they didn’t expect it she was the first one there. Casanova, because even though he was a steer he was always on the back of other steers. Winfield, because he blew great clouds of steam on cold mornings.

  OK, they were pretty dumb names, but you’ve got to do something to entertain yourself when you’re out in the paddocks on those same cold mornings.

  By the time I got back to the house everyone was up and about. Nick was waiting to say goodbye so I got that over and done with. He said some pretty sickly things, but he couldn’t help that — I’d probably have done the same if I’d been in the hands of guerillas all that time, not knowing whether I was going to live or die.

  To tell the truth I was proud of how we’d managed it. I mean, just over twenty-four hours ago I’d been getting ready for another boring week at school. But I was feeling a little inner glow at the fact that I could still do it, that I still had it. Whatever ‘it’ was. I even thought that if the farm failed — and there was every chance it would — I could look at a career in the military. Didn’t know what I’d do about Gavin in that situation.

  With Nick and his folks out of the way I could at least sit down in the kitchen, build up the fire, and relax with Lee and Gavin. Lee had negotiated by phone with the people looking after his brothers and sisters, and he was staying another two nights. Gavin was delighted about this. I was happy but wary.

  Homer turned up just before lunch. Trust him. He could smell food from ten k’s, and that was on a still day.

  I just chucked bread and marg and stuff at them and told them to make their own sangers, but it did give me the chance to hear what had happened to him.

  ‘Yeah, it was pretty embarrassing really,’ he said. ‘I was sneaking down the hill and the next thing there’s a rifle jabbed in my back and a voice telling me to drop my gun.’

  ‘How did that happen?’ I asked.

  He looked disgusted and embarrassed and amused, all at once.

  ‘He was taking a toilet stop in the darkness, in the bushes to my right, sitting there quiet as a mouse, as you do, when I came sneaking past, quiet as another mouse.’

  We all laughed. ‘You should have smelt him,’ Gavin said.

  ‘Yeah, well, I did a moment later. A moment too late.’

  ‘These guys have a bit of a toilet problem I think. They’re always doing it. Gavin and I almost got caught by one of them taking a leak.’

  Gavin held his nose. ‘Yeah, they stink,’ he said.

  ‘So what is it with Liberation?’ I asked. I hate not to be part of a secret or a mystery. Homer knew that, and it maddened me to have to ask him straight out, because it guaranteed he’d enjoy telling me as little as possible.

  ‘Hey, I told you, it’s all secret.’

  ‘Don’t we get automatic membership for saving your ass?’

  ‘Do you want to join?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I sat back and considered.

  Gavin piped up: ‘I want to join.’

  ‘Look,’ Homer said, ‘it’s not like the Secret Seven or the Famous Five. We’re not some club with passwords and secret handshakes.’

  ‘Oh. Well, in that case I don’t want to join,’ I said.

  ‘But seriously…?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll be totally honest with you,’ I said slowly. ‘Yesterday was frightening. Trying to get that hole to open up in the demountable, thinking that at any moment these guys would pop around the side and start shooting, yeah, on the terror scale that was right up there with the best of them.’

  ‘But…’ Homer said, staring at me, knowing there was more to come.

  ‘OK, yes, there is a but.’

  ‘And I bet I know what it is,’ Homer said.

  ‘It was bloody exciting,�
�� I said slowly.

  ‘Exactly,’ Homer said, leaning back in his chair.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Lee said. He leaned back too, and folded his arms.

  ‘So are we turning into thrill junkies?’ I asked. ‘Do we have to put our lives on the line every few days just to get a bit of satisfaction in life?’

  Homer shrugged. ‘Why are you acting so surprised? Didn’t you know that already?’

  ‘No, I didn’t as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Think back to before the war,’ he said. ‘If you can remember that far back. The way Sam Young jumped on the bull in the stockyard? Or Jamie Anlezark and Melissa Carpenter surfing on the cattle trucks as they came into the saleyard. Or you and me playing polo on the motorbikes? Without helmets? How many times did we come off? How come we didn’t kill ourselves sixteen times over? What about that time you knocked yourself out on the rock? I thought you were dead then.’

  I shuddered. ‘Don’t remind me. And we agreed not to tell my parents, because we thought we’d get in so much trouble.’

  Homer went on: ‘Why do you think people went canyoning before the war? Parachuting? Bungy jumping?’

  ‘OK, wise guy, you tell me why.’

  ‘It’s because the only real enemy humans have is death. Every other enemy, like a kid who slags you off at school, or a cop who pulls you over, you think they’re enemies, but they’re not really. They’re just, I don’t know, irritations. But death, that’s the serious one, because you know he’ll win eventually. And that makes you, like, you’ve got to try to beat him. The bigger the challenge, the harder you try. That’s true of anything. In a way our enemies aren’t these soldiers themselves, our enemy is death, and the soldiers are just his little local representatives.’