The Other Side of Dawn

by John Marsden

  We both started hurrying back to the Post Office.

  ‘Yes, he’s really been quite demanding. Quite impatient. I’ve never talked to a General before. I hope they’re not all as rude as that.’

  ‘He’s not a General, only a Colonel.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure he said he was a General.’

  Turned out I was wrong, because when I finally got through I learnt that Colonel Finley had scored a promotion. I congratulated him, but as usual he wasn’t interested in small talk. However he certainly wasn’t rude to me.

  ‘Now, Ellie, I’ll only say this to you once, but if there’s anything you want, you just have to ask. What you’ve done will be recognised more officially in due course, I think I can say, but in the meantime you can make outrageous demands and I’ll guarantee that they’re met.’

  He sounded so genuinely delighted that I’d made it through the war that I was touched. I hadn’t blamed him for sending us back from New Zealand, or for pushing us into action. That was his job. But never thought he was interested in us as people, just as fighting units he could allocate wherever he wanted.

  ‘Oh Colonel, I mean General, I’ve got two big questions. The first is, what happened to those kids we sent back with Ryan?’

  ‘Why, they’re fine. They’ve been fostered here for the time being, but in the long term we’re hoping to reunite them with their parents. If their parents can’t be found, well, you might like to think about adopting one yourself.’

  ‘Good God,’ I thought. ‘I’m a bit young for that.’

  But it was another sign of how much things had changed, that someone my age could seriously be considered for adopting a kid.

  ‘What’s your second question?’

  ‘Have you got any news on Iain and Ursula and the rest of the group?’

  ‘Ah well, that’s very interesting. The short answer is “No”, but the other side are playing some complicated games at the moment. As you know, the peace settlement allowed for a full exchange of prisoners of war, but it’s not happening at the speed it should. They won’t even give us lists of names. So some people we know about, some people we don’t. We know that your friends are held in one of the prisons, we don’t know where, but Iain and the others are such tough cookies that . . .’

  And we got cut off with no warning. It was typical, but infuriating when I’d had such a clear line to the Colonel—I still thought of him as that. Try as we might, and as Heather did, we couldn’t get the line back. The biggest frustration was that we hadn’t even mentioned Homer and the others. I wanted so much to tell him about our last attack, and how it had ended.

  The call put me in a much better mood though. On the way home Dad commented that it was the happiest he’d seen me since he got back. I was pretty rapt. To hear that the ferals were all right, and on top of that to hear Colonel Finley saying that Iain and Ursula and their team were probably prisoners—it was more than I’d dared hope for.

  And I still hadn’t forgotten my promise to Casey.

  While I was in such a good mood I decided to do something I’d been putting off since I got back. I wanted to take a walk—or go on a pilgrimage, whatever—up to Tailor’s Stitch, so I could look into Hell again. I know I didn’t want to go right down in there. I just wanted to stand on top, say a prayer maybe, chuck a flower in, something like that. It was my first time since we’d left so long ago with Ryan and the ferals, apart from a quick trip with Dad to get the Land Rover. At least the whole area was still designated as crown land, which was lucky, seeing every spare scrap of country was being swarmed over by human rabbits.

  I suppose I was a bit stupid to go up into the mountains, considering the warnings that had been broadcast about what the army called ‘hot’ areas—areas not cleared properly of enemy soldiers. Of course nearly all the enemy troops and colonists had gone voluntarily—well, sort of voluntarily; most of them were furious—but we’d all heard stories of the ones who wouldn’t go, and the trouble they gave. Some were fanatics, determined to defend their new homes to the last breath, some were stupid, and hadn’t realised the war was over, and some were simply off their skulls.

  Because everyone was so busy clearing and building and planting and repairing I knew I’d have the whole of Tailor’s Stitch to myself. As far as I knew no-one except Dad and me had been up there since the war ended.

  God it was a beautiful morning. There was a little mist, but as soon as it lifted you knew it would stay perfect all day. The sulphur-crested cockies screamed at me, the kookaburras laughed like machine guns, the rosellas flew like red arrows through the trees.

  I had to walk, because there was so little petrol, but I’d underestimated how much I’d lost since the war ended: how much energy, how much strength, how much stamina. Halfway up I was struggling, and it was only willpower that got me to the top.

  On Tailor’s Stitch I could take it easy at last. It was the first time since the war ended that I felt a little real peace again. I lay in the sun, thinking that as long as the bush survived there had to be some hope for the world. The prison at Stratton, the hospital in Cavendish, the internment camp, the block of apartments in Simmons’ Reef were at last starting to fade into the distance. I could feel the smell of them being baked out of me by the sun, a last reminder of the summer gone.

  I got up again after a while and headed to the right, towards Hell, picking my way along the little track for a couple of k’s. It felt weird to be walking it in broad daylight, not worrying about being seen or attacked. It looked so different under these circumstances.

  When I got directly above our old clearing—as far as I could tell anyway—I stepped down further, below the ridgeline, wondering if I could pick the campsite from here. Our camouflage should protect it well enough, but I thought I’d be able to work out where it was, even if I couldn’t confirm it.

  I guess I was there ten minutes. Eventually I thought I’d got the right spot, just from picking up the contours of the land, especially where the creek would be flowing.

  Wiping the hair out of my eyes I turned and went slowly up the rise. I walked over to the right, to the edge of the steepest cliff, the part of Satan’s Steps where Kevin cut the rope and sent the soldier falling to her death. Prompted by some ghoulish feeling I peeped over, hoping there’d be nothing to see, but somehow compelled to look anyway.

  There was nothing. Just a tree with a broken top, a white branch sticking up like a human bone. A eucalypt with a compound fracture.

  I turned away, wondering why I’d looked in the first place. Just as I turned I heard a loud rattling noise behind. It took a moment to realise it was the sound of footsteps. Running footsteps.

  I whirled around. A soldier was coming straight at me, an enemy soldier. I knew straightaway that she was the soldier we’d captured that morning on the top of the cliff. She was young, twenty or twenty-one maybe, but I knew she was mad. I could see it in her emaciated body, her quivering arms, her bared teeth. Most of all I saw it in her eyes. They simply weren’t human, had stopped being human quite a while ago. They were lit like they were radioactive. That lurid green light you get in some city streets late at night, when everyone’s gone home.

  She’d looked pretty crazy that morning when we’d killed her friends. If she’d been roaming around on her own up here ever since, then I could understand her being completely out of her tree. And she knew I was one of the people who’d shot her buddies. She recognised me. I saw that in her eyes too.

  It seemed that the Hermit had returned. Another crazed person, sent mad by the death of people close to her, was running around in these mountains.

  I didn’t have much time to decide what to do. She was five or six paces away, running straight at me, running hard, taking giant strides. My fear of heights had gotten worse during this war, mainly after my fall down the cliffs into the Holloway Valley. As she charged I felt myself lock up, felt the strength leave my limbs, leeched away by fear. I knew that would be fatal for me and I tried, a
s fiercely as I could, to get my strength back. I thought briefly of Robyn. She had discovered the courage when she needed it.

  With the woman three metres away I found some energy flowing into my limbs. I don’t know where it came from. The second I’d taken to recover might just have cost me my life. The woman was about to crash into me so hard I’d go flying backwards. Over the cliff.

  There wasn’t time to get right away from her, to run. Instead I dropped low and tried to dive at her feet, keeping as low as possible, hoping that if I kept low enough she would go over the edge but I wouldn’t.

  It kind of worked. It certainly took her by surprise. She went down, but sideways, almost landing on my head. I grabbed her around the knees, and I clung onto her legs, like a rugby tackier, but she kicked me off. I got a knee in the chin as I rolled free.

  Then I was up again and at her, hoping I’d be quicker to get to my feet than she was, hoping again to get the advantage. In fact we were both up at about the same time. She had her back to the cliff, and I tried to ram into her hard enough to send her over, but she locked her arms around me, and I knew if she went over I’d go too, held in an embrace that would take us all the way down to death together. I twisted free and tried to get lower, to tip her up from underneath. But instead she got me around the waist and started to turn me, to get me into a position where she could push me backwards.

  I felt her strength then. The strength of a maniac fighting for her life. I’d read Great Expectations. I knew how strong mad people can be. She got me around and started forcing me backwards. I was still quite bent over and I could see my boots gouging tracks in the dry soil as she forced me along, inch by inch.

  The tracks got deeper, the momentum slower, as I dug my heels in, harder and harder. But no matter what I did, I still kept going, closer and closer to that edge. I didn’t know how close I was, but it could only be the length of my shoe away.

  I had to risk everything on getting my knee up, and into her groin. It was the hardest decision of my life, because I knew that by lifting one foot off the ground I’d lose half my traction, and in that instant, if she was quick enough, she’d have me over the edge and gone. But as I went back another inch, as I felt the void below me, I drove up with my right knee.

  She gave a yelp, like a fox, and for a moment her grip eased. For that one awful moment I hung over the cliff, about to drop. I think my point of balance was already over: it was sheer mindpower that brought me back up, lifting me away from the fall I should have begun. I staggered forward, pushing the woman away, then headbutted her in the stomach. But not hard enough: I didn’t have enough momentum; she was able to grab me easily around the waist again, and again start to turn me towards the cliff.

  At least this time her grip wasn’t quite as good. Now I was grateful for all those wrestling lessons from Homer. I twisted and shoved at the same time and sent her sprawling back. But she was up and at me again with that terrible speed she had shown before. I stepped to the side, only half a step, and caught her and tried to push her to the edge while she was slightly off-balance. She brought up an elbow and hit me in the cheekbone. I let go, just as a reflex reaction, and she used both hands to try to throw me over, gripping my right shoulder. I recovered by spinning around and getting under her and driving up towards her face. That took her by surprise and for a moment I had her, driving her backwards, as powerfully as I could. I got her right to the edge. For a moment I thought she was going over and I guess I hesitated, weakened, held back.

  I think she sensed that. She took me by surprise then, dropping suddenly very low, even lower than I’d done when she first ran at me. She was going to get me somewhere round the knees and just flip me straight over her head and into space. She could do it too, because her centre of gravity would be so low and mine would be off the ground.

  At that moment the ground under her feet crumbled. I saw her stagger and start to fall. I nearly reached out a hand to help her, but knew if I did we would both go. Instead I pulled away. She was still staggering backwards, windmilling her arms to try to get her balance. I kept reversing, flinging myself as far from the edge as I could, not sure how much of it was going to collapse. But the whole time I was staring into her eyes. I saw the knowledge come into those mad eyes, the knowledge that she was dead. She reached out her right arm, as if to plead with me. She opened her mouth. A sob came out of it. She started to fall. I could still see her eyes. My God, those eyes, I’ll see them every day and every night until I die. Green eyes, staring at the horror of the thousand-foot fall that she was beginning. Staring into the horror of her death. Seeing the rocks in her mind, knowing she would be falling onto them, her body smashing into the unforgiving ground.

  As she disappeared from my view she started to scream. She screamed all the way to the bottom.

  I knew then the answer to my question; the question I’d asked myself many times during this war, and many more times since it ended. When would I be able to put the war behind me? When would I be able to forget it? And I knew now that the answer was simple.

  Never. I never would. Some things end. But war never does.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Our telephone still hadn’t been reconnected when one of our new neighbours called in a few days later with a message from Heather at the Post Office. Apparently it was the General again. And apparently it was even more urgent than last time.

  I sighed. I wasn’t at all sure I wanted another urgent message from the General. I still associated most of his messages with danger and unpleasantness.

  But it was like Judy in Camp 23. You didn’t ignore messages from General Finley. Even me, who wasn’t an enlisted soldier, who wasn’t under his command in any sense of the word, didn’t dare ignore him. I guess it was the strength of his personality.

  The nearest phone that was working was all the way in at Shannons’. There wasn’t enough fuel to take the Land Rover but I didn’t mind walking. I told Mum where I was going, and set off.

  To pass the time I started trying to guess why he might be calling. I’d gone less than a kilometre when a funny little thought wandered into my head. I was remembering the last time I’d spoken to General Finley; the last time I was in Wirrawee in fact. And something struck me. Maybe it should have struck me before. When I’d been talking to him about Ursula and Iain he virtually said that he didn’t know. It was like he had no idea whether Iain and Ursula and the Kiwis were alive. But then he’d said something along the lines of we know your friends are prisoners’, when in fact he didn’t know about Ursula and Iain.

  And would he have called the Kiwi commandoes my friends? He might have. Sometimes people used expressions like that kind of loosely. But on the other hand he might have been referring to some other people.

  I couldn’t allow myself to feel any hope. Just couldn’t. But I realised my feet had started moving faster. Suppose General Finley knew that someone out of our group was still alive? Someone out of Homer and Fi and Lee and Kevin. And suppose he just assumed that I knew that too. That might explain the way he’d spoken on the phone.

  Another thing; contact with him had been pretty much impossible, true, but how come he hadn’t asked me anything about Homer and the others? I’d been a bit disappointed with him, that he hadn’t. But if he knew they were prisoners, and assumed that I knew, too . . .

  Suddenly I was running. I had to: it was all I could do with the excitement and adrenalin and fear pumping through my system. I knew it was only the faintest of chances, and I knew if I was wrong it would be devastating, but I also knew that if any of them had by some miracle survived, then I could too: I could cope with all the confusion and depression and tension of this post-war world. And what about Gavin? Oh how I wanted to see him again. He was so young and his life had been hard, and he was such a feisty character. He deserved a second chance at life.

  But then I remembered it was no good asking General Finley about Gavin, because it wouldn’t have meant anything to him: General Finley would n
ever have heard of Gavin.

  I was pretty rude when I got to Shannons’, just burst in, said, ‘Can I use the phone?’ and grabbed it. Then I went through the usual infuriating and frustrating business, calling over and over again, getting every possible recorded message, from ‘All overseas lines are currently in use, please try again later’, to ‘The number you are calling is no longer connected’. I ignored them all and just kept hitting that redial button.

  Every ten minutes one of the Shannons poked their head in the door, took a look at my red, frustrated face, and retreated again. I’d say it was three-quarters of an hour before I at last heard the ringing tone. I’d become so used to hanging up on every call that I almost hung up again, automatically. Luckily I didn’t. I waited, sweating, thinking, ‘If only I still had our radio, to call up New Zealand any time we wanted.’

  A man answered, and when I told him my name he said: ‘Wait on please; I’ll find him for you.’

  Almost immediately General Finley’s voice was in my ear, as usual getting straight to business.

  ‘Well, Ellie, we’ve tracked them down for you.’

  My heart stopped as I said: ‘Who, exactly?’

  I actually had my fingers in my mouth.

  ‘Well, everybody really.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ I screamed at him, the infuriating tears starting in my eyes. ‘Who?’

  Unlike just about every adult I know, General Finley didn’t launch into a little speech about how you get on far better in life if you show some basic courtesy, and how when you scream at people you don’t achieve anything.

  He started reading a list of names beginning with Homer, Lee, Kevin, Fi, Iain, Ursula, Bui-Tersa, Kay and then half-a-dozen others whom I didn’t know or didn’t remember, but whom I guessed were the other New Zealand commandoes.

  I wasn’t listening too hard after the first six.

  At the end he added: ‘There’re three of our people who have now been confirmed killed or died of wounds. There’s also a little boy with a hearing disability, who apparently was caught with your friends. I can’t work out from this list which one he is. There’s a hundred and forty-three names. But Fiona said you’d want to know about him.’