"What?" she said. "What?" She hadn't been looking very hard and already it was too late to see the man.
"Oh God, I don't believe it. Oh my God."
"What?" Fi asked again, getting impatient, and maybe a bit scared too.
"That was Major Harvey!"
"Oh Ellie, don't be ridiculous."
"Fi, I swear. I swear to you, that was Major Harvey."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Well are you sure or do you just think so?"
"I'm ninety per cent sure. No, I'm ninety-five per cent sure. Fi, honestly, it was him. Didn't you even get a glimpse?"
"Well, just a glimpse. It could have been him, I suppose. He was about the right size."
I leaned against the wall, trembling.
"Fi, if it is him, what do you think it means?"
"I don't know. Oh gosh Ellie." Fi started to realise the implications. "Do you think...? Oh no! Maybe ... maybe he's just pretending to be with them so he can spy on them."
I shook my head. Why did I know instinctively that there was something in Major Harvey that would make him incapable of that kind of courage? How did I know that he had some fatal weakness that would always find him out, like water found the weakest spot in a tank, and sheep the one hole in the fence?
I knew though; as surely as I knew that we had unfinished business with Major Harvey.
We kept watching on into the evening, but the man did not come out again. From five to six o'clock, people seemed to finish work and drift back to the other houses. At eight o'clock we saw our fourth sentry change and at ten o'clock we withdrew, slipping out through the vestry door and tiptoeing through the graveyard. I couldn't wait to tell the others what we'd seen. Lee and Homer were asleep but we woke them straightaway. And the five of us spent hours discussing the possibilities. We agreed though: the first thing we had to do was confirm that the man I'd glimpsed really was the ex-commander of Harvey's Heroes.
Sixteen
We didn't see anyone who looked like Harvey for two days. As far as we could tell the man didn't leave the house for that time, but on the third day, when Robyn and I were in the tower, we saw him quite clearly. The Range Rover pulled up about ten metres short of the gate, so when Harvey stepped into the street he had to walk that distance to the car. As he emerged through the gateway, we got a perfect view: a small tubby man in a dark suit; the only person we'd seen in Turner Street who wasn't in military uniform.
Robyn gazed at me in amazement. "It really is him," she breathed.
I'd been starting to doubt my own eyesight and my own memory, and it was exciting to be proved right. I was so pleased with myself that I just stood there gazing triumphantly at Robyn. The Range Rover U-turned and began to accelerate slowly away, still in first gear. I glanced out the window again. Major Harvey, sitting on the left side of the rear seat, as before, was chatting to the driver, an ingratiating smile on his face.
As the car turned out of Turner Street I leaned against the wall of the tower and stared at Robyn.
"That bastard," I said. "That..."
"Don't swear, Ellie," she said, looking uncomfortable. "Not in a church."
"All right," I said, with a big effort. "All right. But wait till we get out of here. I'll swear like you've never heard. I'll swear like a bullock driver with a team of camels. I tell you what, we're in the right place being in a church, because Judas Iscariot is in the Bible, isn't he, and this guy is a fair dinkum honest-to-goodness Judas Iscariot."
"But surely he couldn't have ... he wouldn't have betrayed Harvey's Heroes ... would he?" Robyn asked.
"I don't know." I tried to think, but I was too tired. "I just don't know. I don't think he would have set that ambush up at the tank, 'cos if he had, he wouldn't have allowed the spectators. I mean the soldiers obviously had no idea we were above them in the bush. All I'm sure is that if he was on our side before, he isn't now."
It wasn't till next morning that I figured out the vital clue. I suddenly remembered the conversation with the man in Kevin's machinery shed, when I'd had my reunion with Mrs Macca. In the middle of breakfast, fruit juice dribbling down my chin as I choked on my cereal, I excitedly asked Robyn, "Listen, what's a chalkie?"
"A chalkie? I don't know."
"Where's a dictionary?"
"I don't know."
"Thanks for your help." I rushed off to the sitting room, where I found an Oxford dictionary and a Mac-quarie dictionary. But they were no more help than Robyn had been. All they said was that chalky meant having the consistency of chalk. I had a strong suspicion of what it really meant but I needed confirmation. Homer supplied it that night when he got back from sentry go. We were sitting on our own, in the bow window.
"A chalkie? It's a teacher of course; everyone knows that."
"Is it? Is it really? Well there you go then. The man in Kevin's machinery shed said there was a bloke who used to be a chalkie putting the finger on people at the Showground. He said people were being taken away on his say-so." I got more excited as I remembered something else. "Plus, whoever it was, he knew all the people in the Army Reserve. That's a perfect fit for Harvey. A perfect fit!"'
When we told the others they all reacted in different ways. Fi sat there white with shock, unable to speak. It was like she'd never dreamt that people could do such terrible things. Lee jumped to his feet, equally pale-faced, his eyes burning. He slammed his fist into the wall. "He's dead," he said. "That's it. He's dead." He walked across the room and stood with his hands tucked into his armpits, staring out the window, his whole body trembling.
Homer'd had a while to get used to the idea. He seemed almost gentle about it. "It does all fit," he said. "It makes a lot of things clear."
"Where do we go from here?" I asked. "If we're going to attack these houses in some way, then what do we want? Do we want to destroy the houses and all the stuff they've got in them? Do we want to destroy Fi's house? Do we want to kill people? Do we want to kill Major Harvey?"
"Yes," said Lee, without turning round. "All of the above." He'd plunged straight back into his psycho state, like when he'd stabbed the soldier. He scared me when he was like that.
"I hate them living in our house," Fi said. "I feel like we'll need it disinfected when they leave. But I don't want to wreck the house. Mum and Dad would kill me."
"Your neighbours wouldn't be too impressed if we burnt down all the houses except yours," Homer said. "It'd be a bit unfair."
Fi looked even more miserable. "I saw Corrie's house get blown up," she said. "I saw what it did to her."
"Let's worry about that side of it later," Homer said. "Let's see whether we can attack these places first. If we can't figure out any way to do it, then there's no point Fi getting upset."
"You mentioned burning," I said. "I don't know if there's any easy way to do that."
"It's just the first thing that came to my mind," Homer said.
"Are we going to kill people?" Robyn asked.
"Yes," Lee said again.
"Lee!" Robyn said. "Stop talking like that! I hate it when you talk like that. It scares me."
"You didn't see what they did at Harvey's Heroes' campsite," Lee said.
"Come back and sit down Lee," I said. After a moment he did at least do that, sitting next to me on the sofa.
"I think there's a difference between setting fire to the houses, knowing people might die, and deliberately setting out to kill people," Homer said. "But the fact is, if we kill Harvey and some of their senior officers, we'll help our side a lot in the war. We could be saving other people's lives. That's a fact, and there's no point even arguing about that. The real question is, do we have the stomach to do it?"
We disappeared into our own thoughts for a minute. I imagine the others were doing what I was doing: searching inside myself to see if I had the guts to kill in cold blood. To my surprise I decided I probably did. Although I hated how this war was brutalising me so quickly, I also felt that it was expect
ed of me, that all the people held prisoner at the Showground—my parents, our friends, our neighbours—would expect it. All the poor harmless nice people who'd belonged to Harvey's Heroes would expect it. Throughout the country people would expect it. Somehow I would just have to do it, and worry about the effects on me afterwards. Strangely, for once I didn't think about the danger to me, about my own safety.
"I'll do what I have to do," I said.
"And if that means deliberately killing people?" Homer said.
"Yes."
"Could you put a gun to one of them and pull the trigger?" Homer asked. "I'm talking in cold blood now. We know what you can do in hot blood."
Robyn started to protest but Homer cut in quickly. "We have to ask these questions," he said. "We have to know. It's no good going in there and finding at the critical moment that someone can't do what we planned for them to do. That way we'll all end up dead."
"God, sometimes I wish we'd been taken prisoner like everyone else," I said. "Why do we have to be the ones who have to do all this? I don't know what I can do until I'm in a particular situation. But I think I could shoot one of them."
"OK," Homer said. "Lee?"
"I won't let anyone down," Lee said.
"What does that mean?" Robyn lost her temper. "Does that mean that anyone who won't kill people is letting the side down? Get real Lee. Sometimes it takes more guts not to do something than to do it."
Lee didn't say anything, just sat there brooding, ignoring my hand rubbing his leg. Homer watched him for a minute, then sighed and turned to Fi.
"Fi?"
"I'll do everything I can," she said. "Even if it means wrecking our house, I suppose. But honestly, I don't see why we need to. They only seem to be using it as accommodation for the peasants. None of the VIPs seem to be using it."
"Could you shoot someone?" Homer asked.
"No. You know I've never fired a gun in my life. I've practised loading them and aiming them and everything, but I don't want to have to fire one."
"Well OK," Homer said. "But could you push one of them off a roof, or could you stab one, or could you throw a radiator in their bath to electrocute them?"'
"I think I could do the last one, maybe."
"So you could kill someone if it didn't involve you having to come into physical contact with them?"
"Yes, I suppose that makes the difference. I could probably even shoot them if I was used to guns."
"Robyn?"
"What Ellie said made me think," Robyn said, unexpectedly. "When she asked why we were the ones in this position, why we hadn't been taken prisoner like everyone else. Maybe this is a kind of trial for us, a test, to see what we're made of." She stood and walked to the window and turned to face us. "At the end of it, maybe we'll be judged to see how we've handled ourselves. And I think we'll only pass that test if we've acted with honour, if we've tried our best to do the right thing. If we don't do things out of greed or ambition or hatred or a lust for blood, if we keep testing all our decisions against our own beliefs, if we try to be brave and honest and fair ... well, I think that's all that's expected of us. We don't have to be perfect, as long as we keep trying to be perfect."
"So, what are you prepared to do?" Homer asked.
"I can't answer that in advance. Let's work out a plan and then I'll do all I can to make it work. For the time being, you'll have to be satisfied with that."
"What about you, Homer?" I asked.
His voice was as steady as his gaze, and he answered: "I'll fight. I won't back off from anything. Killing women soldiers, well, that'd be hard for me to do in cold blood, that'd be the hardest thing for me. It's not very logical but that's the way it is. But I think I could do it if the need was there."
We'd each made our statement. We knew now, roughly, where each of us stood. The next stage was to make some plans. We talked and talked. Fi hadn't done the maps she was meant to have, so instead we asked her a thousand questions. Where are the back doors in these houses? Where are the staircases? Do they have verandahs at the back? How many bedrooms are there? Where are the fuse-boxes? What kind of heating do they have? Fi answered all the questions she could but after a while she got muddled and couldn't remember which house had a wine cellar and which had a coolroom.
By then it was time for the next pair to go to the church, to do a day's watching. We agreed that we had to keep up our surveillance, that we needed more information, as much as we could get.
We maintained the same routine for another three long days, and in the end luck, rather than some grand plan we'd spent the time carefully putting together, seemed to give us the break we wanted. One morning Lee and I sat and watched as a furniture van pulled up in Turner Street. It came from Stratton Removals—Wirrawee was too small to have its own removal business. It drove up the hill and turned around, and parked outside the house at the top end of the street. The soldier-driver left it and wandered off to another house. The truck sat there for a few hours without anything happening. But towards lunchtime an officer came out of the house that we now called the headquarters, and ordered the sentries to him. They obeyed, but they didn't look too excited. He gave them a little talk, then marched them into the end house. Within a few minutes I realised that some serious looting was going on. They started by carrying out a beautiful old dark dining table, that shone in the lukewarm autumn sunlight. Next came six chairs of the same dark timber, with burgundy coloured cushions. After that was a series of paintings in big heavy golden frames, each needing two people to Carry it. The officer fussed around, supervising but never doing actual work. It took a long time, because he was anxious for everything to be handled with the greatest care, but when they'd loaded the paintings he let them go to lunch. No one touched the truck for the rest of the day.
When Lee and I took ourselves off duty and trudged wearily back to our house, I put a plan to the other four. Sitting there all day watching that truck perched at the top of the hill had given me the idea.
"Listen," I said, "suppose one of us gets in the truck, lets the brake off, puts it in neutral and jumps out again. The truck's pointing down the hill. It should roll straight down Turner Street and hit that house at the end. Now at that point every man and his dog, and every woman too, comes running. We take advantage of the distraction to sneak into the houses and start our fires. We can take one house each. We should be able to do a bit of damage. And when the fires start, that's another distraction, and we get away in the confusion."
It was a high-risk approach, but we'd all reached a state of such boredom and frustration that we decided to try it. The biggest advantage was that if it seemed too dangerous in the early stages we could sneak away into the darkness with no harm done. Once the houses started burning it wouldn't be so easy.
We set to work. We grabbed all the inflammables that we could find that would fit into our pockets. Turps, kero, metho and firelighters, and of course matches. We packed all our possessions and hid them in the garden where we could pick them up easily. Our getaway plan was to head right across town and meet in Mrs Alexander's, near the Showground. Last time we'd been there I'd seen two cars in her garage, both with keys in the ignition. I assumed they'd still be there, which would be useful if we decided that a car was our best means of escape.
We synchronised watches. Fi had the job of unleashing the removal truck. The rest of us took one house each, and worked out different routes to get into the back gardens. I chose Fi's neighbours'—the house where Major Harvey seemed to live. Fi's place was spared, only because it wasn't one of the four busiest houses, and we only had four people for the attacks. We left ourselves plenty of time so we wouldn't be under too much pressure: almost an hour and a half for a 3 am attack. Then, with a quick exchange of hugs, we left.
It wasn't until I was getting over the back fence of Fi's neighbours that I really felt fear. Before that, everything had been chaotic, disorganised. But out here, in the cold darkness, knowing that a soldier with a gun was standing somewhe
re between me and the building, the chill that I felt in the ground seemed to run up my legs and through my body. I got the shivers or the shakes, I'm not sure which, and spent a few minutes trying to will them out of my system. When that didn't work I knew that I'd just have to go ahead anyway. I got over the fence easily enough—it was an old brick wall about a metre and a half tall—and found myself on a mound of compost in a pit in the rear corner of the block. The owner was a very efficient gardener—there was a row of pits, each containing different soils and compost. I'd sunk up to my knees in my pile, so I pulled myself out, shook the stuff off my legs, and started moving cautiously towards the house. There was a dim light inside somewhere; just a night light, I thought. I had about an hour to make a journey of forty metres and that suited me fine. I trained myself to take one step every few minutes and then wait. It was incredibly difficult even with the fear of a bullet ripping through me. The temptation was to say "what the hell," and take half a dozen quick steps. But I kept a tight control on myself, and continued to inch along. It was scary, but it was also very boring.
I finished up outside a room that had a laundry look about it. I don't know why laundries always say laundry, but they do. Maybe it's a smell that you notice unconsciously. I huddled there, trying to read my watch face in the darkness. It took ages to work it out,'but eventually I was satisfied that it said 2.45. Once I was sure of the time, I spent five more minutes studying the object beside my left shin. It was, I decided, a gas meter and gas tap. Ten minutes to go. I checked out the vegetation beside my right foot. Forget-me-nots. Not very interesting.