by James Roy
When she said that, Harry looked at Frank, who was gazing into Greta's eyes as applause swelled around the marquee. But then, after another kiss, they hugged, and as they did, Frank and Harry's eyes met. And in that moment, Harry saw him flinch, like a suspect who has been caught lying, or someone who has just blinked in a staring contest.
Every person in the marquee jumped as another thunderclap struck close by, part deep rumbling bass, part crackling high notes, as loud as an explosion. Then, as if someone had just turned on a tap, the rain began in earnest. It was such a sudden and dramatic deluge, drumming hard on the tightly stretched canvas roof, so loud that nothing else could be heard, except more thunder. Through the open door at the end of the marquee Harry saw the sky brighten for an instant, flickering like a camera flash going off, and as that happened, the PA speakers popped and crackled.
Frank was at Harry's side in a moment. 'Turn it off, Harry! Quickly, turn it off at the front, and Trent, you unplug the main power cable. Another strike like that'll fry the lot! Quick, Trent!'
There was a minute or two of frantic activity while Harry and Trent worked out what plugged in where, and Frank shouted orders over the noise of rain pounding into the roof and pouring in wide sheets off the edges.
Within seconds, all the guests had taken shelter inside the marquee. The waiters were making fewer trips now that the rain was dumping down. In fact, they were making none. Harry bent his neck to look out one of the plastic windows and saw why. Anyone crossing the twenty or so metres from the house to the marquee would be soaked to the skin before they'd even gone halfway.
Then, less than ten minutes after it started, the rain began to clear. It was gradual at first, getting lighter and lighter until finally it stopped.
'Whoa! That was a wicked storm!' Trent said.
'I know,' Harry replied. 'Do you get them like that very often?'
Trent shook his head. 'Nup, not for ages. Pop'll be happy – the dam was getting a bit low again.'
The front lawn wasn't level. That much became very clear to Harry, and everyone else, a few moments after the rain stopped, as the water began its march across the neatly mown grass that was the floor of the marquee. But there was so much water trying to get from the high side of the lawn to the low side that it simply flowed, practically unseen, under the canvas wall and across the floor, deep down among the thick grass blades and stems, until a woman who had removed her shoes sat back on one of the white plastic chairs and lifted her damp, stockinged feet off the ground. 'We're being flooded!' she squealed, which had everyone turning in confused circles for a moment or two.
Frank immediately climbed up onto another of the chairs, balancing with one hand on the back, and shouted, 'OK, everyone, I don't know how we're all going to fit, but I think we'll have to move this party inside. You can stay out here and get washed away, or you can head into the house. That's where the food and drinks are anyway.'
It didn't take any more convincing than that.
Harry recovered the CDs and his hopeful request list from the table and took them inside, repositioning himself by the stereo. He'd been given a job which helped him avoid having to make small talk with virtual strangers, and there was no way he was going to relinquish that.
'How many people do you reckon are in here, Harold?' Dad asked, sidling up to Harry's spot in the corner.
'Too many.'
It was ridiculously crowded in that house, even with a number of people gathered out on the verandah. A couple of the men had gone to the marquee and come back with some of the chairs, along with the news that the lawn was still too soggy to return to.
Then, almost in an apology for ruining the party, the sun came out, leaving the guests standing around shaking their heads and frowning at the sky, as if the weather was playing games with them.
'It'd be a nasty day to run a racecar,' Dad said. 'You'd be changing tyres like mad – slicks, then wets, then back to slicks.'
'Ayrton Senna wouldn't mind.'
'No, that's true. He'd love it. Love it.'
'Joel would have liked it, too. The more pitstops the better, remember?'
'I do remember.'
'I'm sorry to bother you.' Luke's mother was standing in front of them, and something about her appearance made Harry and Dad give her their full and immediate attention. Perhaps it was the desperation in her eyes.
'Hi, Denise,' said Dad. 'Have you met my son Harry?'
'Yes, we met last night.' Her fleeting smile was gone so fast that Harry wondered if it had been a mistake. 'Hi. Look, I'm really sorry to disturb you, but have you seen Luke?'
'Sorry, who's Luke?' Dad asked.
'He's my son. He's six years old. I saw him and Daniel talking to you earlier,' she said to Harry.
'I haven't seen him since then,' Harry replied. 'But that was ages ago.'
'Oh. OK, thanks.' Denise turned to go, but Dad grabbed her elbow.
'Is everything all right? When did you last see him?'
'Just before the storm. He and Daniel were in the tent, and everything got crazy, and now I can't find either of them.'
Another woman came over to join them. She had a similar look in her eyes – desperate, fearful, and when Denise turned to her, she shook her head. 'I can't find them.'
'How far have you looked?' Dad asked. 'I mean, there's a fair bit of bush out there. But I'm sure they're not in any trouble, even if they have gone exploring,' he quickly added, seeing how anxious the women were. 'It's not like it's full of mine shafts or anything like that.'
Oh, nice one, Dad, thought Harry. Nice going, putting those images in the minds of two near-hysterical mothers.
A man shouldered his way through the crowd. It was Luke's father. 'They're nowhere in the house. Do you know?' he asked Harry. 'I saw them talking to you earlier.'
'No, he hasn't seen them either,' said Denise.
'Well, let's not panic. Nigel's outside looking as well.'
Dad's voice was low and calm. 'Hey, I'm sure they're fine.'
'How can you be sure?' asked the second mother, glaring at him.
'I can't be, Jane, but I think Joe's right. We'll achieve nothing by panicking. We need to work out a plan, and just start looking for them in a systematic way.'
A shout from the front door of the house sent the room deathly silent. 'We've found them! Where's Frank? Tell him we need a rope and a torch.'
'A rope?' Denise asked. 'Why do we need a rope?'
'Because one of them is stuck down a drain!'
For a moment it was as if someone had hit the pause button, while every person in the room turned that statement over in their minds, wondered exactly what it meant, tried to establish the possibilities it held.
'Which one?' someone asked at last.
'The new stormwater drain, down by the gate.'
'No, which boy?'
'It's Luke. Daniel's fine.'
The pause button was released. If Harry had thought the mothers of the boys had seemed anxious before, they were doubly so now. Denise's hands flew up to her mouth in fear, Jane's in relief.
'Oh God,' Denise breathed. 'Is he all right?'
'He's fine, but we can't get him out.'
'Come on, let's get down there,' Dad said. 'You with me, Harry?' Without waiting for an answer, he pushed through the crowd to the door, with Harry close behind.
A couple of men were already down at the construction site. Luke's father Joe had raced down there and was now standing in the newly dug trench that led into the culvert. He'd kicked off his shoes, and the water in the bottom of the drain came to just above his ankles as he bent over double to peer into the dark opening. 'Are you OK, Lukey?' he called, and a tiny, echoey wail came back to meet him, barely audible over the sound of rushing water.
'It must have been a bit of a squeeze, even for him,' Dad said, frowning at the concrete pipe. 'How wide is that pipe – forty, fifty centimetres? And why can't he just crawl back out the way he went in?'
'It feeds into this k
ind of chamber thing,' Harry said. 'Frank was telling me about it. There are some other pipes that go in there as well. Then it all heads off in that direction, towards the river, I think.'
Frank was jogging down the driveway, still wearing his wildly coloured vest, and carrying a long black torch and a coil of rope. 'What's going on?' he asked, trying to catch his breath. 'Someone said there's a kid in there.'
Joe struggled to keep his voice under control. 'Yes, it's Luke,' he said, barely glancing up. 'I'm trying to get him to crawl back out.'
'He probably can't,' Frank said. 'There's another level down there, like a pit.'
'Yes, Harry told us already,' said Dad.
'He won't be able to climb out if he's fallen in there.'
'Torch,' Joe said, gesturing impatiently. He flicked it on and shone it into the pipe. 'No, I can't see him.'
'Has anyone called the emergency people?' asked someone in the gathering crowd.
'Good idea – someone go and do that,' Frank ordered, his brow furrowed with thought. 'We need to think of something in the meantime.'
Luke's mother had turned up, and she scattered the onlookers like a leafblower as she pushed her way through. 'Where is he?' she asked, fighting back tears. 'Where's my boy?'
'Denise, I'm on it, OK?' Joe said.
'Can you see him?'
'No, but I can hear him. He's all right.'
She wasn't going to take anyone else's word for it, not even her husband's. She jumped down into the drain at the mouth of the pipe, barely noticing when the skirt of her fancy dress dragged in the muddy water. 'Give me the torch,' she snapped, taking it and shining the beam down the pipe. 'Are you OK, Lukey?'
The faint wailing continued over the sound of the storm water.
'Lukey, listen to me! You've got to stop crying so we can help you. Oh God, he's beside himself!'
Frank took her arm and gently guided her out of the water. 'Denise, we'll get him out as quickly as we can.'
'Please hurry, Uncle Frank.'
'Yes, we're hurrying.'
Her red eyes still fixed on the drain, Denise stepped to one side, while Jane stood beside her. The way Denise's fingers were digging into Jane's arm reminded Harry of that night in Cairns, and the way his mother had gripped the strap of her bag so tightly.
'Would someone be able to climb up from the other end?' one of the men asked.
Frank shook his head. 'It empties out miles away, I'm not even sure where.'
'How about the other pipe that leads into it?'
'It's the same width as this one. It's longer, too.'
'Can we lift the top off the pit? It must have a lid or something, like a manhole.'
'It does, but we can't get in,' said one of the men. 'The backhoe's parked over it.'
'What? Those council idiots,' said Frank. 'Then we need another idea.'
Suddenly, like popcorn in a microwave, all sorts of suggestions were being made. Harry heard someone mention a big drill, someone else thought knocking the pipe in with a sledgehammer might work, or hotwiring the backhoe so they could move it, or using it to dig up the road and the pipe. At one point he even heard someone use the word 'dynamite'.
'We could float the rope down to him with the water,' suggested one man, but Joe shook his head.
'He won't listen to instructions when he's freaking out like this. Besides, he wouldn't be able to tie it around himself.'
In the midst of all this, Greta arrived with bad news. 'I got onto the emergency people,' she said. 'They're all out on the other side of Hansonvale. Some kind of flash flood situation.'
'They'll be hours,' Frank muttered.
'One at least, even if they leave now,' said one of the other locals.
Frank wrung his hands together. 'All right, it looks like we're going to have to work out how to do this ourselves.'
The last part of his sentence was overlapped by a deep rumble from the sky, and like everyone else, Harry looked up and saw heavy clouds gathering once more.
'Frank, can I talk to you?' Dad said. He led him aside with one arm, and Harry went with them to listen.
'What is it?' Frank asked.
Dad kept his voice low. 'Greta just mentioned a flash flood. How long until all the water that just fell across this area gets here? Here?' he added, pointing at the ground.
'I don't know – it's been a while since it's rained, and this drain setup is all new. But the runoff is starting to build up already.'
He was right. The ditch running along the fenceline was already flowing with dirty water, all accumulated from further upstream and combining to form a quickly rising stream. It wasn't exactly rushing yet, but Harry felt sure that it wouldn't be long.
'And if it rains again? Do you get what I'm talking about, Frank?' Dad pointed towards the sky with his eyes. 'If we get another dump like the one we had earlier, we'll need to be quick. Plus the kid's got to be getting cold.'
'I get you.' Frank rubbed the back of his head and grimaced. 'I'll ask some of the guys to start diverting this ditch, so at least this pipe has less flow going through it. They can chuck some rocks in there, dam it up so it runs onto the road, maybe.' He turned and called Greg and Trent across. Side by side, with each of them wearing that intent, serious, practical expression, they looked so alike. 'Greg, there are tools up in the shed. Can you and Trent grab a few blokes and start damming that ditch? We need to shift the flow of water out of here.'
'Got it,' Greg replied. 'Come on, Trent.' And they jogged away up the hill, recruiting a couple of other men along the way.
But Dad was shaking his head. 'That's all fine, Frank, but you're forgetting that there's at least one other drain that leads straight into that space where Luke is. You can hear it pouring in. You can dam up that ditch all you like, but the fact is that someone needs to climb in there to rescue that kid. Someone small. They can get down there and help Luke get up into this pipe so he can crawl out. But we need to do it soon.' He lowered his voice even further. 'We don't know if he's standing in ankle-deep water, or if it's waist-deep. He could be clinging on by his fingernails. But we can't afford to guess which. We have to move, Frank, and fast.'
'And how will we make sure the rescuer doesn't get stuck in there himself?'
'I don't know, we ... we tie a rope to them before they go in. Then we can pull them out if they can't crawl out on their own.'
In his mind, Harry saw a sudden, horrible picture of the remains of dead soldiers being pulled out of tunnels with ropes. But it made sense. There were no booby-traps or grenades down there, and it seemed like a good idea. An unproven good idea.
Frank wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Harry saw the stump of his pinky, and remembered the gearbox.
'I think you're right,' Frank said. 'Someone's got to go in there.'
'Someone small,' Dad replied. 'Someone who knows tunnels.'
Frank's eyes narrowed. 'You're talking about me, aren't you, David?'
'Frank, you've done this before.'
'Yes, I know, but ...'
Dad placed his hands on his stomach. 'I'd go myself, but I'd never fit. None of these guys would.'
Several emotions were colliding on Frank's face, none of them good. 'I don't think I can,' he said at last.
Dad drew in a deep breath. 'Frank, I know it's hard to go back there, but there's not a lot of choice. It's raining now!'
Frank's eyes were very shiny as he leaned closer to Dad. 'David, I honestly can't. I can't do it. It's not possible. I'd lose it, mate.'
Dad lowered his eyes and bit his lip, before turning slightly away in frustration. Then he nodded slowly. 'I'm sorry, Frank. I understand.'
'You know I would, but –'
'It's fine, Frank. I'm sorry I brought it up.'
'What's happening?' Joe called from the mouth of the drain. 'Have we got a plan yet?'
'We're hatching a new one,' Dad replied. 'Just give us a minute, all right?'
'We might not have a minute.'
Ha
rry was watching Frank's face closely. The tangle of emotions was still there, and for the second time that day, their eyes met. And once again, it was Frank who broke contact.
'I'll go,' Harry said. The offer came from nowhere, surprising even himself. But there it was, out there, and once he'd said it, he knew he couldn't take it back. 'I'm small enough. And I'm pretty strong. I can go.'
Dad was shaking his head. 'No, Harry.'
'I want to. It's OK – I won't get stuck. But someone has to go in there and help him. I want to do it.'
'No, Harry.'
'I can do it, Dad! And, look, it's starting to rain properly again. What if it dumps down like it did before, and all that water starts building up? He could drown!'
'Keep your voice down! No, Harry, someone else should go.'
'Like who? No one else will fit! It's got to be me or Frank, and he can't do it.'
Dad thought for a moment. It was his turn to squeeze confusion, concern, anxiety onto his face all at once. Then he leaned close to Harry's ear. 'Are you sure about this?'
'Yeah, I ... I think so.'
'You've got to be sure. Because if you're not sure, I don't want you to –'
'Dad, I'm sure. I'm going to do it,' he said, hoping somewhere deep down that his father would forbid him. Because if he did, he knew he wouldn't go.
'All right, Harry, but don't you dare tell your mother that I said it was OK.'
'Deal.'
'And be careful.'
'I will be.'
All right, we've got a plan,' Frank announced. 'Harry's going in.'
That grabbed everyone's attention, and got the small crowd murmuring. Was it safe, was it the only alternative, wasn't there an adult who could do it? Harry saw Denise glance in his direction, then quickly turn her eyes away. He could read her thoughts. She wanted to tell him he didn't have to go. But she wanted her son back as well, so in the end she simply went back to staring at the pipe, with the water running into it and pounding down into the pit where her son was trapped.
'You'll need to get out of your good clothes, Harry,' Dad said.
'They're already getting wet,' Harry replied, glancing skywards at the black and grey clouds. More heavy drops were beginning to pock the gravel and mud around them. 'I'll just take them off.'