by John Marsden
It’s stupid, but there’s a lot to admire in it, too. And there in the fuel depot, that’s the stage I’d reached.
I looked at Fi, she looked at me. I made a face at her, shrugged, and wrinkled my nose. That was meant to say, ‘Can you believe we’re doing something this mad?’
She grinned, so maybe she understood. We started across the gravel.
Crunch, crunch, crunch, I’ve never known anything as noisy as that gravel. It was like the noise your mouth makes when you’re eating celery. We went slowly, but that was the problem: we couldn’t go too slowly, because there were two more of these trips to be taken yet. If we’d gone as slowly as I wanted we’d have been on our second trip when the sun came up.
I hardly looked at where we were going because all my attention was focused on the shed. It’s a pity neither of us looked at the tank, because we might have saved ourselves some trouble. The first time I looked at the tank was when we were standing in front of it.
It was padlocked.
There was a dirty great padlock on it, about the size of my fist and made of hardened steel.
My skin burned. It was like on beach holidays: that first evening when you have sunburn and your skin prickles and burns all over. Then I felt angry, wildly angry. If Fi hadn’t been there I think I would have smashed my head into the tank, or tried to rip the padlock apart with my bare hands. I knew right away there was nothing we could do. I looked at Fi again. It was almost funny. She was standing gazing at it with her mouth open, blinking like she’d just been asked a question in Cantonese or Bulgarian or Pitjantjatjara. When she realised I was looking at her she whispered frantically: ‘The wirecutters?’
I shook my head. ‘You’d be better using your teeth.’
‘But there must be something ...’
‘There’s nothing. Let’s go.’
I thought it’d be better to take the sugar. I don’t know why, partly the feeling that it’d be good if we could deny that we were saboteurs or guerillas. Partly because I still hoped we could come back and try again later. I thought briefly of that sixteen-year-old in Western Australia, before the war. The one who’d set off to sail single-handedly around the world and had the guts to return after a week when his radio stopped working. I remembered seeing him on TV leaving for the second time.
Patience and persistence. The opposite of bloody-mindedness, and a lot smarter.
When I picked up my bag, Fi followed suit. We started to retreat.
We were just at the edge of the gravel when I felt it coming on. Again it came quickly, too quickly for me to drop the sugar and grab my nose. So the sneeze, only one this time, echoed across the quiet of the depot like a fart at a funeral.
A moment later the light in the hut went off.
Chapter Twenty
That was the end of my attempts to save the sugar. The whole night had been a complete failure from start to finish. The only thing left to save now was our own lives.
Here dead we lie because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young.
Millions, hundreds of millions of people, have died in wars. And some of them died in the stupidest ways. Another poem from World War One that the Dunedin teacher gave me was about a soldier who didn’t want to use the same toilet as everyone else. He stepped aside to take a leak away from his mates and he was seen and shot dead by a sniper. The guy who wrote the poem said this was nothing to laugh about: the soldier paid his price to live with himself according to his own standards.
How is this matter for mirth?
Let each man be judged by his deeds.
I have paid my price to live with myself on the terms that I willed.
Mind you, the teacher had to explain it to me. I didn’t get it at the time.
Sometimes I think there’s a poem for everything.
So, a lot of people had died in wars, and some of them over little things. Why should we be any different? If Fi and I were killed by a sneeze, or a couple of bags of sugar, would that be anything special? We’d just join the hundreds of millions of others.
We ran like hell. We’d already frozen like rabbits that night, and flattened ourselves like rabbits, now we ran the way rabbits do when they get a sniff of the warren and think maybe they can just make it. We put our ears back, kept close to the ground and went for it. We heard nothing behind us at first. That surprised me. I’d expected shouts, running feet. But then I thought, ‘They don’t know who or what’s out there. They won’t come rushing out into the dangerous darkness.’ I ran even harder.
The fence loomed up at me. I dived to go under it. Still like a rabbit. Beside me Fi did the same. As we went down, the first shot wailed above our heads. If I’ve timed one thing perfectly in my life, that was it.
As we wriggled under the fence the sharp ends of the wire scratched me painfully. I could feel the deep gouges in my back, but I didn’t care a damn. For a moment there were no more shots: I think they were unsighted by our being down so low, and by all the junk in their way.
Then we were through the wire and still alive. Which way to go? Either way there was a long stretch of lane with no protection. Fi went to go right, I suddenly decided left was better. It meant going back the way we’d come, which seems crazy, but with the search closing in we only had one real hope now, and that was the four-wheel drive. I’d never thought when we casually dumped it that it might figure in our lives again, but we had to get out of this area fast. Things were getting very hot. I could see lights everywhere. Not just the white lights of spots or torches but house lights too. Seemed like we were waking up half of Wirrawee.
Fi followed my lead, although she must have thought it was madness. We belted down the lane, our feet clattering on the rough surface. The sound was amplified by the high fences on both sides. It was a race between us and the soldiers back in the fuel depot. We had to get to the end of the lane before they got to the fence. But what might be waiting for us? Funny sort of race where the guy at the finish line shoots you. Normally it’s the starter who has the gun.
The end of the lane was fifty metres away, then forty, then thirty. I began to let myself think the impossible, that we might make it. It’s always dangerous to think that. Only a second later the unmistakeable fast ‘brrr’ of a bullet flashed past my ear. ‘We’re dead,’ I thought. ‘The end of this alley’ll be the last thing I see in this world.’
But not for the first time that night, instinct cut in. And for the final time that night it was rabbits who inspired me. I dropped to the ground and did a fast crawl towards the corner of the lane. I realised Fi, on my left, was doing the same. Suddenly we’d become a really difficult target. The final ten metres I zigzagged as well. Bullets were flying. The other soldiers looking for us would have no trouble now. The noise was terrible. It was like the air was full of insects; the most dangerous insects ever invented, fast, loud and deadly. They were hitting the cobbles of the lane, or the fences either side of us, or simply flying away into the distance. A sharp sting in my leg let me know one had hit me. Again I thought that I’d never reach the end of the alley.
Then suddenly we were there. Fi swerved to the left and I followed. I was content to let her lead now. The lane seemed to disappear behind us as though it had never been. I heard a few more shots, then silence. About a hundred and fifty metres ahead I could see the dark shadow of the four-wheel drive. I was limping a bit and my leg hurt, but worse than the pain was my fear: the fear that at last I’d been shot and maybe I’d bleed to death. Fi was five metres in front of me now.
‘The car!’ I gasped, in case she didn’t realise that’s where I was heading. She just nodded without looking round. I’d underestimated her again; I was always doing that.
But we didn’t even get close to the car. The shooting from the fuel depot had done exactly what I’d feared. Attracted soldier
s the way a dead lamb attracts crows. At the end of the street three or four soldiers suddenly appeared, spread out across the street and looking like they knew what they were doing. I turned fast, getting a sharp stab of pain in my leg as I did so. Down the street, in the other direction, was a line of soldiers running towards us, in single file. They were still a block away.
I had the same fear of Stratton Prison that Fi described in the tree outside Tozer’s. I had the same nightmares. I could never go back to a place like that. I was desperately – desperately – determined to do whatever was necessary to get away. Not that we had many options by this stage. Without any need to discuss it we both turned left and ran straight through the open gate of the house next to us. I just hoped the soldiers hadn’t seen us.
I don’t know who lived there before the invasion. Someone rich, though. It was a big enough place, one storey but very classy: a deep verandah that ran the whole way around it with lots of plants hanging from its roof, and a fountain in the garden. As far as I could tell the house was all dark colours but nice, probably dating back to the 1800s. Everything solid and conservative. There’d be no plastic outdoor furniture or aluminium window frames here.
We ran straight up onto the verandah. Fi hesitated. I sure didn’t. I grabbed the door handle and turned it and pushed. The door wasn’t locked. It opened quietly and smoothly. Now I did hesitate. We might be going into a trap. There might be no way out. But the soldiers were too close to give us any choice. I shrugged to myself and limped in, Fi following.
My senses were so alert that I seemed to notice everything. There were polished floors, an entrance hall, an umbrella stand, a coat stand, a tall cupboard, more pot plants. The hall was large, as big as our sitting room at home, and lit by a softly glowing lamp in the corner, probably only twenty-five watts. On the coat stand was a uniform tunic loaded with gold braid and shiny buttons. Someone rich had lived there before the war; someone important was living there now.
I’d looked around the room so quickly that I thought the black stick next to the umbrella stand was actually an umbrella. I’m sure glad I took a second look. When I did I realised it was a rifle. Near it, on a table that held a pot plant and an overflowing ashtray, was a small, black hand gun. I remembered Colonel Finley saying that officers got hand guns, as well as rifles. This house had been taken over by an officer. But I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about that. I took three quick steps to the table, picked up the gun, loaded a bullet into the chamber, flicked off the safety, and gave it to Fi. I grabbed the rifle for myself.
Fi’s eyes were popping. ‘I ... I can’t ...’ she started saying, then stopped.
Not because she’d run out of words but because, like me, she’d heard someone coming.
The door opened quite slowly and, as it did, I lifted the rifle. A man appeared. The whole thing reminded me of those games at Timezone where you shoot hundreds of baddies but every so often a good guy appears, with his hands above his head. As someone pops up you wait a split second to see: goodie or baddie? Shoot, or hold your fire?
This guy didn’t have his hands above his head though. I suppose the only reason I thought of Timezone was that the innocent guys on those games are dressed in light colours and the baddies are always in black. And here was this man, in white boxers and nothing else, yawning and scratching his chest.
I’ve got to say, though, he had dignity. Even in his boxers. When he saw us he didn’t fall apart or go into some wild reaction. He straightened up quite slowly and stopped scratching himself. He was a tall man, young, with black hair and a watchful expression, cautious, like he was thinking, ‘What’s going on here, how do I take control of this situation?’
To be that young and such a big-time hotshot officer he’d have to be pretty good.
I didn’t trust him one millimetre.
I’d flicked the safety off as I lifted the rifle, and now I pulled the bolt backwards and forwards, really fast, feeling the satisfying clunk of a round entering the chamber.
‘Get your hands up,’ I screamed. He gave a little smile and started lifting his hands, but slowly. I didn’t like the smile. I think he figured we were just teenagers, we weren’t going to be a big problem for him. Sure they had teenagers in their army but I guess by now they didn’t have much respect for our fighting abilities, compared to theirs. I knew I had to get his respect, fast. I was so scared that the rifle was shaking like crazy in my hands, but I swung it fractionally to the right and pulled the trigger.
Christ, the noise. It deafened all of us in that confined space. The damage to the wall wasn’t as severe as I’d thought it might be. A hole suddenly appeared in it, and a couple of cracks spread quickly from the hole, that was all. It was the noise that was dramatic. Fi gave a scream behind me; probably a loud scream, except I was so deafened it didn’t sound too loud to me. But the shot did have an effect on the man. He went very pale and staggered a little at the knees. I saw sweat appear suddenly on his face, above his eyebrows. I’m not surprised. The shot sure had an effect on me and I wasn’t the one facing the barrel of the rifle. I thought, ‘I’ve got to take advantage of this, keep him on the back foot.’ I already knew what we had to do. It would be our biggest gamble ever, our most dangerous throw of the dice, but we had to make it work or we were dead. Really dead this time; they wouldn’t let us get away from them again, especially after I’d just shot at one of their senior officers. I used the rifle to motion to the man: ‘Out the door.’ My ears were still ringing with the noise. It made my head hurt, badly, and my leg was still burning. I didn’t dare look down at that. I hadn’t even mentioned it to Fi.
The man paused for only a moment, then started walking to the door with his hands up.
‘Wait!’ I heard Fi call.
‘What?’ I asked, without looking around at her. I wasn’t taking my eyes off this guy.
‘Make him put his tunic on,’ she said.
I thought immediately, ‘Yes, yes, of course. Fi, you’re a genius.’ The soldiers out there mightn’t recognise him in his boxers, but they’d recognise his uniform.
I yelled at him, ‘Put your tunic on.’
I hoped he understood English. He stopped but he shrugged his shoulders and said, in perfect English, ‘Are you going to shoot me if I don’t?’
For once in my life I lost my temper completely. Without caring too much whether I shot him I pressed the trigger. If I’d had it on automatic I’d have emptied the magazine. As it was I fired either three or four rounds. From then on we were all deaf I think and this time the damage to the house was fairly serious. Half the front wall came down. There was plaster and dust and splintered wood and smoke and broken glass.
But he put his tunic on.
We marched out of the house. Straight down the front path. Fi and I both had our guns trained on him and we kept as close to him as we safely could. Fi wouldn’t have had much chance of hitting him, even at this range, and even assuming she knew where the trigger was, but I was hoping no one would realise that. By now he had his hands on his head instead of up in the air but I didn’t mind him changing the script that much. The important part of my script for him was yet to come.
As we came down the path, half-a-dozen torches were trained on us but we used the man as cover. We got into the street. I checked the other way, to the right. No one was there. All the torches were coming from the left. So the two groups of soldiers had met at the four-wheel drive and were, as far as I could tell, bunched there now. That was good. It meant we could keep using the officer as a shield.
But I felt we had to move really quickly, before they had time to think of a strategy. It wouldn’t take them long to put two snipers in positions where they could shoot us both. We had to be gone before they did it. We had to hustle.
I yelled at the officer, ‘Left.’
Still walking at the same pace he turned and we went towards the four-wheel drive. We walked ten metres then I yelled, ‘Stop!’
> I took my biggest risk of all, then. I made Fi move a little more behind the officer, so they knew her gun was pointing right at his head. Then I came out in the open. It was necessary. I had to move them all away from the vehicle. I stood there completely exposed in the hot night air and I screamed at them, ‘Five seconds to get away from the car!’ Again I didn’t know if they spoke English, but I figured they’d know a few numbers. At the top of my voice I started counting, ‘Five, four, three ...’
I pointed my rifle more firmly at the bunch of them as I counted and I could have smiled as they scattered. I didn’t smile, though. I had to convince them I was super-tough, super-ruthless. But I’d created a new problem for us. With them quickly moving away in both directions I had no control over where they might go. We had to get to the car before they used the darkness to get around behind us. ‘Hurry,’ I said to Fi. I jabbed the officer with the rifle. In twenty rushed steps we were at the vehicle. Some torches followed us all the way, and I heard a man shouting, but still no one seemed to be doing anything.
There was a big problem, though, when we got to the car. Fi couldn’t drive, and I was scared the officer would realise how hopeless she was with a gun. I couldn’t expect her to control him while I drove. You only had to watch her for a minute to realise that. There was only one solution. I yelled at the man, as loudly as I could, knowing his ears were probably still ringing as much as mine. ‘Get in the front.’