by John Marsden
Then the car stopped.
For a split second I hoped it had stopped for some innocent reason. I started desperately trying to think of some nice possible reasons so I could feel better, comfort myself. But I only had a split second to enjoy that luxury. I heard the doors of the car being ripped open, and shouts and running feet. Fi’s trembling increased a hundred fold. I glanced down the footpath and saw the biggest mistake I’d made since this war started. An unbelievably stupid mistake. Something so horrifyingly stupid that I actually shut my eyes for a moment in horror.
Chapter Nineteen
I’d left the bloody door of Tozer’s open.
All that trouble about breaking the window so carefully. It had all been wasted.
I saw the soldiers go inside, rifles ready, covering each other. Because the door was in the part of Tozer’s that sticks out into the street the soldiers had their backs to us. That was the only break we got, and we didn’t even deserve that.
We had about half a minute, I guessed, before they would think to come out again. I felt a sick lurch in my stomach as I realised what our only option was. The park was so bare that we couldn’t go there now – not enough cover. But the four-wheel drive was sitting in the middle of the street, rumbling away quietly. It seemed empty. We’d have to hope to God it was. I started out for it, then made the crazy decision to take the sugar. I spun around, grabbed the barrow and, with Fi sticking to me like a shadow, ran madly to the car. I nearly capsized the barrow about six times in that short trip. We ran round to the back and threw open the door. I felt sick doing it, but there was no one in there. With Fi trying to help, but getting in the way more than anything, I started chucking the bags in the back. One burst and sugar went everywhere, but that didn’t bother me a lot. We got them in and Fi tried to shut the doors again. ‘No, wait,’ I said. I grabbed the barrow and lifted the whole thing. It was heavy but I was in no mood to let anything get in my way: soldiers, sugar, Fi, and definitely not a wheelbarrow. I swung it with all my strength and hoisted it in on top of the bags. Then I let Fi shut the doors while I raced around to the driver’s side.
One good thing about diesels is that people can always be relied on to leave them running. I jumped in, slipped it into gear and took off the handbrake.
Fi was watching the door of Tozer’s and just as we started forward she gasped, ‘Here they come!’
Our aim was to get to the end of the street as fast as possible. I dropped the clutch and we took off. I heard the screech of the tyres even from the driver’s seat, and you have to spin them pretty hard to do that. There would have been a nice smell of burning rubber and a good black skidmark on the road for the soldiers to enjoy, no worries. The car rocked from side to side with the reaction. I had my eyes fixed on the street corner, hoping it would take the soldiers a moment or two to lift their rifles and take aim and squeeze the triggers ...
We were maybe seventy or eighty metres from the corner when Fi, who was looking behind the whole time, said quite calmly, ‘They’re firing.’ I knew she was telling the truth when I heard a terrible clatter, as though someone was bashing the side of the four-wheel drive with a power-hammer. I think there was one round of that, then a pause, then it started again. I was trying to zigzag the vehicle, but it was dangerous with the corner coming so fast. And even with my zigzagging their aim was improving. All the windows along my side, the driver’s side, went. Fi and I cowered in our seats. We were practically down on the floor. I took the corner completely blind. If another car had been coming we would have had the greatest head-on of all time. As it was we had to cope with trees and footpaths and telegraph poles. There was a lurch as we went over the footpath and a thump as we swiped something on Fi’s side. I looked up just in time to see a tree coming. I hauled the wheel down hard to the right-hand side. We were still going really fast, so I knew it was a choice between rolling or smashing into the tree at ninety k’s.
Somehow we didn’t roll. I still don’t know what make of four-wheel drive it was. I wish I did know – it was a good one. Handled well. We went into a skid that took us halfway down the block but we ended up facing the right way, engine still running. I gunned it again.
As soon as we turned the next corner I slowed down, deliberately. My mind was still working. I knew that if we went hooning around town at these speeds, crashing into things, we’d wake every soldier in Wirrawee. They were used to patrols going past all night, at a nice quiet speed. So we had to make like a patrol.
I think Fi realised too, because she didn’t say anything, just sat there, eyes searching to the left and right while I concentrated on what was ahead. The last time I’d been in a situation like this was with Robyn. She’d been great and it felt weird not having her with me now, but I was fine about Fi. I’d actually raided the same fuel depot with her, a long time back.
And maybe Robyn was with us, anyway.
We went round another corner. I was still determined to do what we’d set out to do, to get to Currs, the fuel depot. I was thinking as quickly as I could of how we should handle it. I was driving more or less directly there. Our plan to synchronise with the boys’ bushfire had to be scrapped. We didn’t have the time to sit around waiting for them now. A lot depended on the quality of the communications systems that these people had. If they were well equipped Wirrawee could be swarming with soldiers in no time.
I parked a block and a half from the fuel depot. We both jumped out and ran round to the back of the car. I pulled the barrow out and we chucked in the bags of sugar. Fi went to shut the doors again, leaving the split bag in the back. But I took it out and added it to the barrow. I even did a quick sweep of the fallen sugar with my hands. I didn’t want it too obvious what we’d been doing because I knew these people weren’t stupid. They might guess why we wanted sugar and that could ruin the whole thing. Sure they might realise some sugar had gone from Tozer’s, but they might not realise, too. There were so many bags on those pallets and the ones I took weren’t obvious.
Then I said to Fi, ‘Can you drive the car a few blocks away?’
She looked horrified.
‘Why?’
‘Because the further away from here the better. I don’t want them connecting sugar with the fuel depot.’
‘Is it an automatic?’
‘No, this is a serious four-wheel drive.’
‘Well, I don’t think ... I don’t know ...’
‘Oh, come on, Fi, just do it.’ I grabbed the barrow and started off with it. I knew Fi wasn’t strong enough to wheel the barrow, so she’d have to drive the car. I couldn’t do everything.
But before I’d got a hundred metres I had to stop. Fi had stalled the four-wheel drive three times. I was scared the noise would wake anyone in the houses nearby. I ran back to her. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I whispered. ‘Leave it here. Let’s go.’
She was looking really stressed, almost crying I think. I realised I’d done the wrong thing, asking her to have her first go at driving in these conditions. As we ran back to the barrow I gave her arm a squeeze.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘It’s OK,’ she whispered back. ‘I’m OK.’
As worried as I was about her, I was more worried about getting to the fuel depot before we had ourselves a bigger mess. I was still cursing my stupidity in leaving the door of Tozer’s open. I couldn’t believe how badly things had gone so far. What a shambles.
There’s nothing like anger for fuelling you up though. Better than Premium Unleaded even. My rage at our mistake gave me new energy. I got hold of the barrow again and we moved pretty fast down the little lane that was a shortcut to the back of Curr’s. We didn’t need to be too stealthy there and we didn’t have time anyway.
As we got close to the depot I did slow down again, though. I didn’t want to commit suicide.
Fi whispered in my ear, ‘I’ll go ahead and check it out.’ I nodded and stopped the barrow and leant against someone’s back fence. I even closed my eyes. I
f Fi wanted to do something brave to make herself feel better, that was fine by me. My short burst of energy was giving out already.
I opened my eyes again and watched her. She was slipping through the shadows from the trees that lined the lane and was now at the rear corner of the depot. I tried to remember what the back part of the place looked like. There was grass, I thought, and a bunch of old abandoned stuff: fuel tanks and vehicles. Then there was the neat part, all gravel and shiny new tanks. Out the front was the little galvanized-iron building. There wasn’t anything very interesting in there: it was just a shed with a calendar on the wall, and a bulletin board with lists of phone numbers and notices about safety rules. The calendar always had photos of girls in the nick, which as a kid I thought was very rude. Half the time I looked the other way; the other half I sneaked fascinated looks at them, wondering if I’d ever look like that. I knew now I never would.
Fi gave me a little wave. I glanced around. The coast seemed clear, so I pushed the barrow up there. When I was ten metres from the corner I put it down again. Fi came to meet me. She put her mouth to my ear and whispered, ‘I don’t think we need to cut the wire. I think we can lift it from the bottom.’
I cheered up a lot at this news. If she was right, it reduced the danger quite a lot. Cutting wire might sound easy, but it’s not. It takes time, and it’s noisy.
‘Have the soldiers done a round of the fence yet?’
‘No.’
‘I think well have to wait till they do. It’s too dangerous otherwise.’
‘It’s dangerous either way.’
I knew that was true, but I didn’t see that we had much choice. We’d tried doing it the other way at Tozer’s, and look what a disaster that had been. On the other hand, although we’d put the four-wheel drive in a quiet corner, it wouldn’t stay hidden for long. I wished Fi had been able to move it.
We waited and waited. I kept looking behind me, expecting at any moment to see soldiers rushing into the lane with guns blazing. The lane stayed empty but there was action not far away. I could see occasional flashes of light in the sky, from spotlights I guessed. And after a while I thought I could hear vehicles, first one, then maybe two or three more.
‘Can you hear cars?’ I asked Fi.
She nodded.
I began to realise how precarious this situation was getting. Smuggling the bags under the fence and carrying them to the aviation fuel, pouring them in one by one, that was going to take quite some time. And while I was doing it, the searching soldiers would be getting closer and closer. I broke into a sweat thinking about it and in my imagination felt a cold and hostile hand clutching me by the back of the neck. Somehow that brought back the sneezes I’d had in the park with Fi, and I snapped out three quick ones, all in a row. Fi just about gave birth to a litter of kittens right there on the spot. She put her hand over my mouth, and kept it there. I don’t blame her. I would have done the same. I didn’t mean to sneeze, of course; it just happened too fast for me.
But I still didn’t realise how serious it was until Fi breathed in my ear: ‘The guards.’
I froze then, not the freezing that comes from being cold, but the freezing of an animal under threat. I’d seen it a million times when we were spotlighting at home: foxes, rabbits, roos, even sheep when we accidentally turned the spotlight on them. They all froze. It’s one of Nature’s great reflexes. Unfortunately it’s no defence against a hunter with a rifle and spotlight, and unfortunately it would be no defence for Fi and me against armed soldiers. But it was all we had. I remembered how so long ago when all this started I encouraged the others to think about using firearms. Very quickly I’d decided it wasn’t a good idea after all, mainly because I thought we’d be executed on the spot if we were caught with weapons. But at times like these a rifle or a shotgun might have helped. Or it might have made things a lot worse.
Fi was a little closer to the fuel depot than I was but soon enough I heard the men on their patrol. Men or women, you could never be sure in this war. They were doing what Lee said they would, going round the perimeter of the fence checking for problems. I hoped with every fibre of my being that they wouldn’t realise how big a problem was lurking just metres away. They were so close that I could see their shadows as they turned the corner and went along the back fence.
Then, just five metres along, they stopped. I watched the shadows anxiously. What on earth could they be doing? One put something to his mouth, and I suddenly realised. They were having a smoke!
I’d always been taught that smoking kills, and here was the proof. Their smoking was about to kill us. We were neatly trapped. Anyone coming along the lane now would see us and start shooting and our only escape route had just been perfectly cut off.
I cast an anxious look at the fences around us. Could we get up and over them in an emergency? Sure, if we had five minutes. None of them were easy. By the time we got to the top we would have been cut to shreds by bullets.
I could understand why these turkeys were having their smoke here. All around the depot were signs warning of the dangers of smoking, telling people not to smoke anywhere near the tanks. These guys were doing the right thing in every way. It just happened to be the wrong thing for us.
Fi and I were flat against the fence of the house next to the depot. That wouldn’t help us much either, because the barrow was out in the open, although a few metres further back along the lane. It was just another reflex, flattening ourselves like that. The way rabbits did when a bird of prey hovered over them. Sometimes it worked for them. Sometimes it didn’t.
Those cigarettes, I’ve never known people take so long over a smoke. I felt like marching up to them, grabbing the smokes out of their mouths and saying, ‘Come on, that’s enough, get back to work.’ The worst thing, the almost unbearable thing, was that the lights in the distance were getting closer all the time. I’d say they were maybe three blocks away. It was like they were conducting a very thorough search this time. I think they were probably getting a bit sick of us.
So much of war seemed to be this way: sick fear while you waited for people to do very ordinary things before you went in and risked your life.
I didn’t breathe any easier until first one glowing butt and then the other curved through the air, hit the ground and rolled away, little sparks falling off them. The shadows at last peeled themselves off the fence where they’d been leaning, and slowly resumed their monotonous walk. You could tell even from the way their shadows moved how bored they were by their job.
Well, speaking for myself, I hoped they stayed bored. I didn’t want them to get excited.
We edged closer to the fenceline and peeped around the corner. We could see the backs of the soldiers disappearing towards the hut. Behind us an engine sounded a little louder than the ones we’d heard before. I glanced around apprehensively. The lane was still clear but I felt the hunt was closing in. If only we’d hidden that four-wheel drive properly.
I looked down at the bottom of the fence. Fi was right. It could be lifted quite easily. It was the sloppiest bit of fencing I’d ever seen. Dad would have had a fit if any of the fencing contractors – or me – had done a job as bad as that.
The soldiers went into the hut. It was now or never. I brought the barrow up and lifted out the bags.
‘I’ll go in and you push the sugar through to me,’ I whispered to Fi. ‘Then you wait at the end of the lane.’ I pointed to the other end, the opposite end to where we’d left the four-wheel drive.
But Fi shook her head furiously. ‘No! I’m coming in with you. You’re always taking the risks.’
I was surprised, deeply surprised, but this was no time to argue. I was moved, too. Sometimes I thought that no one appreciated the risks I ran. It would have made more sense to leave someone on guard in the lane – I’m sure that’s what Iain and Ursula would have done – but I desperately wanted company in the yard of the depot, so I was grateful to Fi.
We brought the bags even closer
and Fi lifted the bottom of the fence. I squeezed under it without too much trouble. We were committed now. Fi lifted the first bag, with some difficulty, and slid it in. Again the sensible thing would have been to take it straight to the tank while Fi kept pushing other bags in, but now that Fi had made her offer, I suddenly felt incapable of going on my own. I really wanted her with me. So we got every bag into the depot, then Fi pushed the wheelbarrow back into the shadows. And in she came, under the fence.
I have to admit, she slipped through the gap more gracefully than I had.
We picked up a bag each. Fi staggered under the weight but got it on her shoulder. We needed both hands to hold and balance them. They were an awkward shape.
From somewhere not far away, maybe Nicholas Street, came a single shot, loud and terrifying. We waited a moment but there seemed to be no more, so we had to assume it wasn’t anything to do with us. Crouching as best we could, we made the little run across the grass to the tanks.
That first part wasn’t too bad. Just like I’d remembered, there was lots of old junk lying around. So we were able to use those for cover. It was the next part where we’d have problems. Noisy gravel on the ground, crunchy gravel, and nothing but space between us and the big underground tank. The tank was even marked ‘Aviation’, so Lee was right about that, too. Less than fifty metres from it was the glow of light from the little shed. ‘We’re running a hell of a risk here,’ I thought grimly. But we’d gone too far to back out. Simple human bloody-mindedness, the feeling that you’re pathetic if you give up. The marathon runner at the Olympics who risked death to finish the race when her whole body was in a state of collapse. The last wild sheep in Nellie’s paddock that defied every attempt to muster it, but you kept chasing it anyway. The guy who climbed Everest even though he knew his toes were freezing off. I’ve seen a photo of his toes in a book, and they weren’t pretty.