by John Marsden
Later I realised it could have been someone else entirely, a looter, deserter or squatter, or someone on the run from the soldiers. Luckily it wasn’t, but I don’t know what I would have done if I’d thought of that at the time.
‘Ellie,’ Robyn said, and fainted. She’d always been a bit prone to fainting. I remember when the School Medical Service came around and in Home Room Mr Kassar had announced the girls would be having rubella injections. As soon as he’d mentioned the word injections, Robyn had been on the floor. And in Geography, while we were watching a film on face carving in the Solomon Islands, we’d lost her again that time.
Homer had a torch and we got some water from the bathroom and splashed it in her face till she came around. We seemed to be giving a few facewashes that day. I was interested to see that the town water supply was still working. There was no electricity at Robyn’s, even though we’d seen the power on in other parts of Wirrawee.
I was still pretty calm through all this but one of our worst moments was about to come. When Robyn sat up, the first thing I asked her was ‘Where’s Lee?’
‘He’s been shot,’ she said, and I felt as though I’d been shot and everything in the world had died.
Homer gave a terrible deep groan; in the torchlight I saw his face distort, and he suddenly looked old and awful. He grabbed Robyn; at first I thought it was to get more information from her, but I think it was just that he needed to hold on to someone. He was desperate.
‘He’s not dead,’ Robyn said. ‘It’s a clean wound, but it was quite big. In the calf.’
Robyn looked ghastly too; the torchlight didn’t help, but her face was more like a skull than a face, high cheekbones and gaunt cheeks and sunken eyes. And we all smelt so bad. It seemed a long time since our swim in the river, and we’d sweated a lot in the meantime.
‘How do we find him?’ Homer asked urgently. ‘Is he free? Where is he?’
‘Take it easy,’ Robyn said. ‘He’s in the restaurant. But it’s too early to go back there. Barker Street’s like rush hour in the city. I took the worst risks to get here.’
She told us what had happened. They’d had trouble at every street corner, nearly running into a patrol, having to hide from a truck, hearing footsteps behind them. Lee’s parents’ restaurant was in the middle of the shopping centre, and their house was above the restaurant. As Homer and Fi had found, Barker Street
, the main shopping drag, was a mess. Robyn and Lee had come in from the opposite end to Homer and Fiona, but their problems were the same. They’d taken an hour to travel one block, because there were two groups of soldiers looting; one group in the chemists and one in Ernie’s Milk Bar.
As they waited, hiding in the staircase of City and Country Insurance, they’d heard a noise at the top of the stairs. They’d turned around and found themselves looking at Mr Clement, the dentist, crouching there furtively, peering down at them.
Lee and Robyn had been wildly excited to see him, just as Homer and I were to hear about it. But he hadn’t been so excited to see them. It turned out that he’d been there the whole time, watching them without saying anything. It was only when he got a cramp that he made a noise. When they asked why, he just said something about least said, soonest mended’.
He did give them some valuable information, however grudgingly and impatiently. He said everyone who’d been caught was held at the Showground. He said that there were two types of soldiers: professionals and the ones who were just there to make up the numbers. Conscripts probably. The professionals were super efficient but the conscripts were badly trained and poorly equipped, and some of them were really vicious. Oddly enough, it was the professionals who treated people better.
He said that the soldiers hadn’t got the numbers to search the town thoroughly, house by house. Their policy was to preserve their own lives at any cost. If they suspected danger in a house they’d set up a rocket launcher and destroy the house, rather than go in to a possible ambush. He said he thought there were a few dozen people like himself hiding out, but after they’d seen what happened to people who, in his words, ‘tried to be heroes’, they were all keeping well out of sight. Robyn got the impression that Mr Clement had his family hidden somewhere close by but he wouldn’t answer any personal questions, so they gave up asking. Then a patrol went past the building, and Mr Clement got really agitated and told them to go.
They crept along the street, but there was little cover and not enough darkness, as the lights were on in several shops. They were dodging towards the door of the newsagency when shots started pouring down the street. Robyn said they sounded so loud it was like they were from ten metres behind, but in reality they didn’t know who was firing or where the shots were coming from. But Robyn and Lee were definitely the targets.
‘We were two steps from the glassed-in bit that takes you to the door of the newsagents,’ Robyn explained. ‘That was the only thing that saved us. It was like we already had the momentum up to go those two steps. Even if we’d been hit by a dozen bullets we’d still have gone the two steps.’
They got into that little bit of cover and went straight on, through the smashed door of the news-agency itself. Robyn took the lead, not realising that Lee had been shot. The newsagency was dark but there was enough light from the street for them to see their way. The trouble was there was enough light to make them good targets, too.
Both of them knew of course that the newsagency goes right through to the carpark and Glover Street
. Their idea was to get out the back and then go in whatever direction seemed better at the time. But when Robyn was nearly at the back door she realised two things: that the door was locked, and that Lee was a long way behind her. ‘I thought he’d stopped to look at the pornos,’ she said. But when she turned around she could see by the paleness of his face that he was hurt. He was limping heavily, staring at her but biting his lip, determined not to cry out. She hoped he’d just pulled a muscle but she said ‘Were you hit?’ and he nodded.
Robyn skipped over the next bit pretty quickly but it’s one of the reasons for writing all this down, because I want people to know about stuff like this, how brave Robyn was that night. I don’t want medals for her, and neither would she – well I don’t know, I haven’t asked her, she’d probably love it – but I think she was a bloody hero. She picked up the photocopier that sits on a stand near the lottery desk and chucked the whole thing through the door. Then she ran to Lee, heaved him onto her back, across her shoulders, and carried him through the shattered door, kicking out bits of glass as she went. Now I know Robyn’s fit, and strong, but she’s not that strong. Don’t ask me to explain it. I reckon it’s like those stories of mothers lifting cars to get trapped babies out from underneath, then you ask them the next day to do it again and they can’t even move it, because the urgency’s gone. Robyn, being religious, has got a different explanation, and who knows? I’m not stupid enough to say she’s wrong.
Well, carrying Lee, she staggered along the five buildings to get to the restaurant. The old door at the back, facing the carpark, had been broken open, so she got in there OK. She dropped Lee onto the loading dock and pulled up the roller door and dragged him into the darkness. Then she raced out to the front to have a look into Barker Street
. There were three soldiers looking into the newsagency. After a couple of minutes two more came out and joined the other three, then the five of them came walking past the restaurant, lighting cigarettes and talking and laughing. They seemed to just walk off into the distance without showing much interest, so she figured there wouldn’t be any more problems from them for a while.
‘They probably thought you were looters,’ Homer said. ‘Like Mr Clement said, there must be a few around, so the patrols’d see them quite often. They wouldn’t bother mounting a big operation just for that. And they wouldn’t want to blow up Barker Street
unnecessarily.’
‘But they blew up Corrie’s,’ I said.
‘Mmm,’ Ho
mer agreed. ‘But the shops in Barker Street
are still full of stuff. And maybe they found some way of connecting Corrie’s with the lawn-mower bomb. Or maybe it was just an easy low-risk target for them. Maybe they’re wiping out all the farm houses.’
Robyn looked horrified and we had to explain what had happened at Corrie’s. Eventually, though, she finished her story. She’d cut Lee’s trousers off while he lay there making rude jokes, but he was cold and pale and she thought he was in shock. She’d stopped the bleeding with a pressure bandage, wrapped him up warmly, then somehow found the courage to go back to City and Country Insurance and wait there nearly an hour, for Mr Clement. When he arrived, with a couple of bags of food, she bullied him into coming to look at Lee.
‘He wasn’t keen,’ she admitted, ‘but in the end he was good. He went into his surgery and came back with all kinds of bits and pieces, including painkiller injections. He gave Lee a needle, then inspected the wound. He said it was clean, and the bullet had gone right through, and if we kept it clean he’d probably be OK, but it’d take a while to heal. He stitched it up, then he taught me how to give injections, and on condition I didn’t bother him again he left some stuff with me – painkillers and disinfectant and a syringe and needles. I’ve given him two injections today. It was cool fun.’
‘Robyn!’ I nearly passed out myself, in amazement. ‘You faint when people even mention injections!’
‘Yes, I know,’ she said, with her head on one side as though she were a botanist studying herself. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it?’
‘What’s he like now?’ Homer asked. ‘Can he walk?’
‘Not too much. Mr Clement said he’s got to rest it till the stitches come out, in a week minimum. He showed me how to take them out.’
I just rolled my eyes. Robyn taking out stitches! There was no point even commenting.
‘Was there any sign of Lee’s family?’
‘No. And the place was a mess. Windows broken, tables and chairs smashed. And the flat upstairs had been ransacked. It’s hard to know whether there’d been a fight, or whether the soldiers did it for fun.’
‘How’s Lee reacting to all this?’
‘He couldn’t get upstairs, because of his leg, so I had to describe it to him. Then he’d think of something else that he wanted to know about, and I’d have to run up the stairs to look for it. I went up and down those stairs a lot of times. He was pretty upset though, about everything: his family, the flat, the restaurant, his leg. But he was a bit better tonight. Getting some colour in his face. That was about three hours ago. I’ve been sitting here a long time, waiting for you guys. I was getting slightly worried.’
‘You were meant to wait on the hill behind the house,’ I said.
‘No I wasn’t! It was here! That’s what we said!’
‘No! It was the hill!’
‘Listen, we agreed we’d ...’
It was crazy. We were having an argument. Homer said, in a tired voice, ‘Belt up. We’ll just have to make better arrangements next time. Anyway Ellie, when we were talking about it before, you couldn’t remember whether it was the house or the hill.’
There was a pause. Then Homer continued. ‘We’re going to have to get him out. They’ll find him pretty quickly there. The more settled these people get, the more they’ll organise themselves, and the more they’ll start getting tighter control of everything. They might be tolerating guys like Mr Clement for now, but he won’t last long. These people showed at Corrie’s how serious they are.’
We sat there, in silent agreement, three minds working on one topic: how to get Lee away from Barker Street despite his wounded leg.
‘One of the biggest problems is that Barker Street seems to crawl with soldiers, compared to the rest of town, anyway,’ Homer added.
‘We need a vehicle,’ Robyn said helpfully.
‘Well whoopiedoo,’ I said, unhelpfully.
‘What about a silent vehicle?’ said Homer. ‘It’d be hard to drive a car in there without us all getting shot up.’
‘Let’s brainstorm,’ Robyn said.
‘Great,’ I said. ‘I’ll get the textas and butcher’s paper.’
‘Ellie!’ Robyn said.
‘Strike two,’ Homer said to me. ‘Three strikes and you’re out.’
I don’t know what was wrong with me. Just tired I guess. And I tend to get a bit sarcastic when I’m tired.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ll get serious. What was the last nomination? Silent vehicles. OK. Golf carts. Shopping trollies. Wheelbarrows.’
I was quite impressed with myself, and the others were definitely impressed.
‘Ellie!’ Robyn said again, but in quite a different tone to the last time.
‘Prams. Pushers,’ said Homer.
The ideas started flying.
‘Furniture on wheels.’
‘Pedicabs.’
‘Horse-drawn vehicles.’
‘Toboggans. Skis. Sleighs. Forklift trucks.’
‘Those things, what are they called, on wheels, that people served afternoon tea from in the old days.’
‘Yeah, I know what you mean.’
‘Billy carts.’
‘Beds on wheels. Hospital beds.’
‘Stretchers.’
‘Wheelchairs.’
Like with the cap of the petrol tank on the ride-on mower we’d been ignoring the obvious all this time. Homer and I looked at Robyn. ‘Could he ride in a wheelchair?’
She considered. ‘I guess so. I think it’d hurt him, but if we could elevate his leg and make certain we didn’t bump it ... And,’ she added with eyes gleaming, ‘I could give him another shot.’
‘Robyn! You’re dangerous!’
‘What else was possible, from the things we said?’
‘A wheelbarrow’s possible, but again it’d have to hurt him. From our point of view it’s easier than a lot of things. A stretcher would be good for Lee, but we’re all pretty tired. I don’t know how far we could carry him.’
‘A forklift would be the most fun. I think they’re easy to drive. And the bullets would just bounce off it.’
Something in Homer’s last sentence flicked a switch in my brain.
‘Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, we’re thinking of little quiet sneaky things. We could go to the other extreme. Rock up in something so indestructible that we didn’t give a damn who saw or heard us.’
Robyn sat up. ‘Such as?’
‘I don’t know, a bulldozer.’
‘Oh!’ Robyn said. ‘One of those trucks with the shovel in front. We could use the shovel as a shield.’
Suddenly the three of us got very excited.
‘All right,’ said Homer. ‘Let’s look at this carefully. Problem one, driver. Ellie?’
‘Yes, I think so. We’ve got the old Dodge at home, for taking hay round the paddocks and stuff. Driving that’s just like driving a big car. It’s got a two-speed diff but that’s cool. I couldn’t say for certain until I saw it, but it should be OK.’
‘Problem two then. Where would we get it?’
Robyn interrupted. I’d forgotten she hadn’t seen Homer in action at Corrie’s.
‘Homer, are you on something?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You keep going like this, you’ll lose your reputation. Aren’t you meant to be just a wild and crazy guy?’
He laughed, but then went straight back to being serious. Robyn made a face at me and I winked back. ‘So, problem two?’
‘Well, the Council Depot’s the obvious place. It’s what, three blocks from the restaurant. It’s probably been broken open, but we should take bolt cutters in case. The keys to the vehicles would be in an office there somewhere, again assuming they haven’t been looted.’
‘All right. Sounds logical. Problem three. Suppose we pick Lee up. We can’t drive to Ellie’s in the truck, obviously. And Lee can’t use a bike. How do we get him to Ellie�
�s?’
This was the toughest one. No one had any easy answers. We sat staring at each other, turning ideas over in our minds. Finally Homer spoke up.
‘OK, let’s come back to that one. Let’s look at other details. The plan’s basically a good one. It’s got the big advantage of surprise, plus it puts us in a position of strength. If we had Lee in a wheelchair or a wheelbarrow and we were pushing him down the street and a patrol appeared, what could we do? Push harder? Dump Lee? We’d be in such a weak position. But if Robyn goes back to the restaurant, gets Lee ready, gets him close to the street, gives him acupuncture and whips his appendix out and anything else she feels like to fill in time, Ellie and I could get the truck, burn down the street, stop, throw you guys in, accelerate and go like hell. If we do it between three and four am, that should be when they’re at their weakest.’
‘That’s when humans are always at their weakest,’ I contributed. ‘We did that in Human Dev. Three to four am, that’s when most deaths occur in hospitals.’
‘Well, thanks for that comforting thought,’ Robyn said.
‘We’ll have to be at our strongest,’ Homer said.
‘Where do we actually put Lee?’ I asked ‘It’ll need to be such a quick pick-up. There won’t be room in the cab, so we’ll have to get him into the tray part somehow.’
Homer looked at me, eyes shining with joy. I realised the wild and crazy guy wasn’t so far away. ‘We pick him up in the shovel,’ he said, and waited for our reactions.
Our first reactions didn’t disappoint him, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. It all depended on us being able to operate the shovel part quickly and accurately. If we could do that, it was the best solution. If we couldn’t, we had a disaster.
After we tossed the options around Robyn suggested some more of the plan. ‘If we have a car waiting,’ she said, ‘in a place where it’d be hard for them to follow, or hard for them to use their guns, then we transfer to that ... And either head out to Ellie’s, or hole up in town another night ...’