'Not much chance of that,' Corrie said, smiling and putting her hand on Kevin's knee, trying to calm him down. But Robyn wasn't put off.
'Of course I mind,' Robyn said. 'If I was a saint maybe I wouldn't mind, but I'm not a saint so I mind rather a lot. And it's as not as though they're acting in a very religious way. I don't know any religion that tells people to go in and steal and kill to get what they want. I can understand why they're doing it but understanding isn't the same as supporting. But if you'd lived your whole life in a slum, starving, unemployed, always ill, and you saw the people across the road sunbaking and eating ice cream every day, then after a while you'd convince yourself that taking their wealth and sharing it around your neighbours isn't such a terrible thing to do. A few people would suffer, but a lot of people would be better off.'
'It's just not right,' said Kevin stubbornly.
'Maybe not. But neither's your way of looking at it. There doesn't have to be a right side and a wrong side. Both sides can be right, or both sides can be wrong. I think both countries are in the wrong this time.'
'So does that mean you're not going to fight them?' Kevin asked, still looking for a fight himself.
Robyn sighed. 'I don't know. I already have, haven't I? I was right there with Ellie when we smashed our way through Wirrawee. I guess I'll keep fighting them, for the sake of my family. But after the war, if there is such a time as after the war, I'll work damn hard to change things. I don't care if I spend the rest of my life doing it.'
'You were the one who thought we were taking too big a risk going to look for Robyn and Lee,' I said to Kevin. 'You didn't seem so fired up then.'
He looked uncomfortable. 'I didn't mean that,' was all he would say.
Homer spoke up. 'Maybe it's time to decide what we're all going to do. We've had a chance to rest up, get our breath back, think about things. Now we should decide if we're going to stay here in hiding till the war sorts itself out, or if we should get out there and do something about it.' He paused, and when no one spoke he continued. 'I know we're meant to be schoolkids, too young to do much more than clean a whiteboard for a teacher, but some of those soldiers I saw the other night weren't any older than us.'
'I saw two who looked a lot younger than us,' said Robyn.
Homer nodded. No one else spoke. The tension was heavy, like a humid night. Here in this secret basin we'd been insulated for a little while from the fear and sweat and bleeding of the outside world. People were keeping each other prisoner, hurting each other, killing each other, but we'd retreated to the paradise of Hell.
It was a bit irrelevant to what Homer was saying, but I spoke anyway. 'I can understand why the Hermit chose to live down here, away from it all.'
'Away from the human race,' Chris murmured.
'It's our own families,' said Corrie. 'That's what everyone's worried about, isn't it? I guess I'd fight for my country but I'm going mad wondering what's happened to my family. We don't know if they're alive or dead. We're thinking and hoping that they're at the Showground, and we're thinking and hoping that they're being well treated, but we don't know any of that. We've only got Mr Clement's word to go on.'
'Seeing Mr Coles at the Showground helped,' I said. 'He looked healthy. He didn't look too terrified or injured. That made a big difference to me.'
Fi spoke up. 'I think we should try to find out more about the Showground. If we know that everyone's there, that they're unhurt, that they're being fed properly and all that sort of thing, it'd make such a difference.' Homer was about to interrupt but she went on. 'I've been thinking about what Robyn and Kevin were arguing about. If I could get my family and friends back, healthy, I'd let these people have the stupid houses and cars and things. I'd go and live with my parents in a cardboard box at the tip and be happy.'
I tried to imagine Fi, with her beautiful skin and soft polished voice, living at the tip.
'It sounds like we should try to find out more about the Showground then,' Homer said. 'But it won't be easy.' He added modestly, 'Do you realise that every group that's gone into town has been spotted, except Fi and me?'
'Were you striped?' I asked, and got the groan I deserved.
Lee was lying on my left, against a rock that was still warm. It seemed to be his turn to speak. 'I don't think they'll be into tortures and mass executions. The world's changing, and any country that does that stuff knows there's going to be a stink about it. I mean, I know it still happens, but not as much as it used to. Nowadays they seem to do things unobtrusively, over a long period of time. These guys are obviously trigger-happy, but there's a big difference between shooting in hot blood and shooting in cold blood. We know that they're firing off endless bullets in hot blood—they're wild that way, and I've got the hole in my leg to prove it. But that's sort of normal in a war, and a lot of it's self-defence. It doesn't mean they're into concentration camps. The two things don't automatically go together.'
'I hate them,' said Kevin. 'I don't know why you're all being so understanding. I just hate them and I want to kill them all and if I had a nuclear bomb I'd drop it right down their throats.'
He was really upset, and he'd stopped the conversation as though he had nuked it. But after a few moments of awkward silence Homer started in again.
'Well,' he said, 'do we want to check out the Showground more thoroughly? Can we do it with the stealth and finesse that Fi and I showed, or are we going to march in like a heavy metal band at a bowling club?'
'We could tunnel in,' I suggested.
'Yeah, or pole-vault over the fence. Anyone got a serious suggestion? And how badly do we want to do it anyway?'
'Badly,' I said.
'I won't pretend the thought doesn't scare the skin off me,' Corrie said softly. 'But it's what we have to do. We'll never sleep again at nights if we don't.'
'Well never sleep again at nights if we're dead,' Chris said. 'Look, with my parents overseas, I'm not quite as involved as you guys. But I'll have a go, I suppose.'
'I know what our parents would say,' Fi said. 'They'd say that the most important thing to them is our safety. They wouldn't want us dead in exchange for them living. In a way we're what gives their lives their meaning. But we can't be bound by that. We have to do what's right for us. We have to find meanings for our own lives, and this might be one of the ways we do it. I'm with Corrie; scared out of my skin, but I'll do it because I can't imagine the rest of my life if I don't.'
'I agree,' Robyn said.
'All day and all night,' said Lee, 'I pray for my leg to get better so I can go and find my family.'
'I'm with the majority,' Kevin said.
We looked at Homer. 'I never thought I'd have to hurt other people just so I could live my own life,' he said. 'But my grandfather did it, in the Civil War. If I have to do it, I hope I'll have the strength, like Ellie did. Whatever we do, I hope we can do it without hurting anyone. But if it happens ... well, it happens.'
'You're getting soft,' Kevin said.
Homer ignored him. He continued, briskly. 'I keep thinking of that quote Corrie mentioned the other day, "Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted",' he said. 'The stupidest thing for us to do would be to charge in like Rambos with our little. 22's popping away. Fi's right, our families don't want us stretched out cold on a slab in the morgue. If we take a few extra days, well, that's the way it has to be. The only reason we should take big risks is if we found that something terrible was about to happen to them. Of course it could have already happened, and if it has, well, we can't do anything about it.
'So, what I'm thinking is, we need some kind of observation place, somewhere hidden and safe, where we can watch the Showground. The more we know, the better our decisions will be and the more effective we can be. Judging from the radio, the whole country hasn't been a pushover, and there's a lot of action still going on. We ought to talk to anyone we can find in town, like Mr Clement, and even try to link up with the Army, or whoever's still fighting in other districts. We sho
uld set ourselves up as a real guerilla outfit, living off the land as much as possible, mobile and fast and tough. We might have to survive like this for months, years even.
'For example—you mightn't like this, so say so if you don't—suppose we sent two or three people into Wirrawee for forty-eight hours. Their job would be to get information, nothing more. If they're really careful they honestly shouldn't get seen. They've just got to become totally nocturnal and triple-check every move they make. The rest of us can start organising things more efficiently here. We'll never get a better base camp, but we should get more supplies in and make it a proper headquarters. It's frightening how quickly we're going through the food. We should start organising rations. And I'd like to set up other little hideaways through the mountains. Stock them with food and stuff, in case we get cut off from this place. Like I said, we've got to get more mobile.
'And living off the land, we've got to get serious about that. So the people back here should figure out some possibilities. Where are all the springs in these mountains? Can we trap rabbits or roos, or even possums? Ellie and I, our families have always killed our own meat, so we can do a bit of rough butchering.'
'Same for me,' Kevin said.
'I can do a nice sweet and sour possum,' Lee said. 'Or catch me a feral cat and I'll make dim sims.'
There was a groan of disgust. Lee leaned back and grinned at me.
'We could bring animals in here,' Corrie said. 'Chooks, a few lambs maybe. Goats.'
'Good,' said Homer. 'That's the kind of thing we need to look at, and think about.'
Kevin looked gloomy at the mention of goats. I knew what he was thinking. We'd been brought up as sheep cockies, and the first thing we learned was to despise goats. Sheep good, goats bad. It didn't mean anything, just went with the territory. But we'd have to unlearn a lot of the old ways.
'You're thinking in the long term,' I said to Homer.
'Yes,' he agreed. 'The really long term.'
We talked on for a couple of hours. Corrie's radio had had the last laugh. It spurred us out of our shock, our misery. By the time we stopped, exhausted, we'd come to a few decisions. Two pairs would go into town the next evening, Robyn and Chris, and Kevin and Corrie. They would operate independently, but stay in close contact. They'd stay there the next full night, most of the night after, and return by dawn the following day. So they'd be away about sixty hours. Kevin and Corrie would concentrate on the Showground. Robyn and Chris would cruise around town, looking for people in hiding, for useful information, for equipment even. 'We'll start to reclaim Wirrawee,' as Robyn put it. We worked out a lot of complicated details, like where they'd have their base (Robyn's music teacher's house), where they'd leave notes for each other (under the dog kennel), how long they'd wait on Wednesday morning if the other pair was missing (no time), and their cover story to protect us and Hell if they got caught ('Since the invasion we've been hiding under the Masonic Lodge and only coming out at nights'). We figured that was a place that wouldn't incriminate anyone else, and a place that the patrols wouldn't have checked. Robyn and Chris agreed to set up a fake camp in there, to give the cover story credibility.
The rest of us, back in Hell, would do pretty much what Homer had suggested—smuggle in more supplies, establish Hell as a proper base, organise food rationing, and suss out new hiding places.
Strangely enough I was quite elated at the thought of the next couple of days. It was partly that I was scared of going back into town, so it was a relief to get a reprieve from that. It was partly too that Kevin would be away for a few days, as he was getting on my nerves a bit. But mainly it was the interesting combinations that were possible among the people who were left. There were Homer and Lee, both of whom I had strong and strange feelings for, but made more complicated by Homer's obvious attraction to Fi. It was an attraction he still seemed too shy to do much about, although he was more confident with her now. There was Fi, who lately had lost her cool and become nervous and tongue-tied when she was near Homer, despite the fact that it was still hard to believe she could like him—well, like him in that kind of way. There was Lee, who kept looking at me with his possum eyes, as though his wounded leg was the only thing stopping him from leaping up and grabbing me. I was a little afraid of the depth of feeling in those beautiful eyes.
I felt guilty even thinking about love while our world was in such chaos, and especially when my parents were going through this terrible thing. It was the steers at the abattoirs all over again. But my heart was making its own rules and refusing to be controlled by my conscience. I let it run wild, thinking of all the fascinating possibilities.
Chapter Fourteen
Monday morning a dark river of aircraft flowed overhead for an hour or more. Not ours unfortunately. I'd never seen so many aircraft. They looked like big fat transport planes and they weren't being molested by anyone, though a half-hour later six of our Air Force jets whistled past on the same route. We waved to them, optimistically.
We'd been back to my place, very early, and brought up another load: more food, tools, clothing, toiletries, bedding, and a few odds and ends that we'd forgotten before, like barbecue tools, Tupperware, a clock and, I'm embarrassed to say, hot-water bottles. Robyn had asked for a Bible. I knew we had one somewhere and I found it eventually, dusted it off and added it to the collection.
It was tricky, because we couldn't take so much stuff that it would be obvious to patrols that someone was on the loose. So we went on to the Grubers, about a k away, and helped ourselves to a lot more food. I also picked up a collection of seeds and seedlings from Mr Gruber's potting shed. I was starting to think like Homer and plan for the long term.
The last things we got were half a dozen chooks—our best layers—some pellets, fencing wire and star pickets. As dawn broke we rattled on up the track, the chooks murmuring curiously to each other in the back. I'd let Homer drive this time, figuring he needed the practice. To amuse Fi I closed my eyes, picked up the Bible, opened it at random, pointed to a spot, opened my eyes and read the verse, saying at the same time, 'Through my psychic finger I will find a sentence that applies to us'. The one I'd picked was this: 'I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.'
'Golly,' said Fi. 'I thought the Bible was meant to be full of love and forgiveness and all that stuff.'
I kept reading. '"Deliver me, O Lord, from evil men; preserve me from violent men, who plan evil things in their heart, and stir up wars continually".'
The others were really impressed. So was I, but I wasn't going to let on to them. 'See, I told you,' I said. 'I do have a psychic finger.'
'Try another one,' Homer said. But I wasn't going to throw my reputation away that easily.
'No, you've heard the words of wisdom,' I said. 'That's all for today.'
Fi grabbed the Bible and tried the same ritual. The first time she got a blank section of page at the end of one of the chapters. The second time she read,' "Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the province of Babylon".'
'It's no good,' I said. 'You've got to have the psychic finger.'
'Maybe the one you read would make Robyn feel better about gunning soldiers down,' Homer said to me.
'Mmm, I've marked the page. I'll show her when they get back.' No one mentioned the possibility that they might not get back. That's the way people always are I think. They figure if they say something bad they might magically make it happen. I don't think words are that powerful.
We reached the top, hid the Landie, and took the chooks and whatever else we could carry into Hell. We'd have to wait until dark to get the other stuff. It was too dangerous being up on Tailor's Stitch with daylight coming on, and so many aircraft around. And it was shaping up to be a scorcher. Even down in Hell, where it was normally cool, the air was getting furnace hot. But to my surprise we found Lee leaning against a tree at the opposite end of the clearing to where we'd left him. 'Hooley dooley!' I said. 'You've risen from the dead.'
'
I should have chosen a cooler morning,' he said, grinning. 'But I got sick of sitting there. Thought it was time for some exercise, now that I've recovered from that truck ride.' He was grinning, very pleased with himself, but sweating. I rinsed a towel in the creek and wiped his face.
'Are you sure you should be doing this?' I asked.
He shrugged. 'It felt right.'
I remembered how quite often when our animals got sick or injured they'd get themselves into a hole somewhere—under the shearing shed was a popular place for the dogs—and they'd stay there for days and days, until they either died or came out fresh and cured and wagging their tails. Maybe Lee was the same. He'd kept pretty still since he'd been shot, lying among the rocks, thinking his quiet thoughts. He wasn't yet wagging his tail, but the energy was returning to his face.
'The day you can sprint from one end of this clearing to the other,' I said, 'we'll chop off a chook's head and have a chicken dinner.'
'Robyn can cut the stitches out when she gets back from Wirrawee,' he said. 'They've been in long enough.' I helped him to a shady place near the creek, where we could sit together in a damp dark basin of rock, probably the coolest spot in Hell that day.
'Ellie,' he said. He cleared his throat nervously. 'There's something I've been meaning to ask you. That day back at your place, in the haystack, when you came over to where I was lying, and you laid down and we...'
'All right, all right,' I interrupted. 'I know what we did.'
'I thought you might have forgotten.'
'What, do you think I do that kind of stuff so often I can't remember? It wasn't exactly an everyday event for me you know.'
'Well you haven't looked at me once since then. You've hardly even spoken to me.'
'I was pretty out of it for a few days. I just slept and slept.'
'Yes, but since then.'
'Since then?' I sighed. 'Since then I've been confused. I don't know what I think.'
'Will you ever know what you think?'
If I could answer that I'd probably know everything.'