Chapter Nineteen
It was dark, probably around midnight. We were lying in a culvert, looking out over the edge at the dry black highway. We'd just come within seconds of making a very big, very fatal mistake. The way Robyn and the others had described it, they'd bowled up to the road, sat there watching for an hour or so, then shoved off again. So we'd taken much the same approach. We were about fifty metres from the gravel edge. I was leading, then came Lee limping along, then Fi, and Homer bringing up the rear. It was just the slightest unnatural sound that caught my ear. I was going to ignore it and go on, but my instincts took over, and I stopped and looked to the right. And there they were, a dark solid mass coming slowly down the road.
Now my instincts betrayed me: they told me to freeze; they stopped me from going anywhere. I had to get rational again, and fast. I had to activate that determined voice in my brain: 'If you do nothing, you'll die. Move, but move slowly. Be controlled. Don't panic.' I started fading back, like a movie played backwards, and nearly stepped straight into Lee. Luckily he didn't say anything; I felt his surprised hesitation, then he too started stepping backwards. By then the patrol was so close that it became dangerous to move any further. We stood still and pretended we were trees.
There were about ten soldiers and they were in double file, dark shapes against the skyline, higher than us because we were in the scrub off the shoulder of the highway. I didn't know where Fi and Homer were but I hoped they wouldn't suddenly come blundering out of the bushes. Then my heart seemed to stop at a sound away to the left, a startled rattle of movement. The soldiers reacted as though someone had pressed a button in their backs. They leapt around, spread out in a wide line and threw themselves to the ground. They came shuffling forward on their elbows, facing Lee and me, but with the nearest one just metres to our left. The whole thing was frighteningly efficient. It seemed like these were the professional soldiers Mr Clement had told us about.
A moment later a giant torch, its light burning a path through the night, began to search the bush. We followed its traverse as though we were already caught in its beam. Then the light hesitated, stopped, focused, and I saw what actually was caught in its beam. A rabbit, very young, crouched low to the ground, its little head searching to the left and right, sniffing at the white shining around him. There was laughter from the road. I could feel the relaxation. Men started standing. I heard a rifle being cocked, a few comments, then a violently loud explosion. The rabbit suddenly became little fragments of rabbit, spread over the ground and rocks, a bit of fur splattered on the trunk of a tree. No one came down the embankment. They were just bored soldiers, enjoying themselves. The light switched off, the patrol got back into its formation, and continued down the road like a dark crocodile.
Only when they were out of sight and hearing, and Fi and Homer had come forward, did I allow myself to get the shakes.
When we did go on into the culvert we travelled like snails rather than crocodiles or soldiers, crawling silently along. I don't know about the others but I could easily have left a glistening trail behind me, a trail of sweat.
We stayed there about an hour, and in that time we saw only one small convoy. There were two armoured cars in the lead, followed by half a dozen jeeps, half a dozen trucks, then two more armoured cars. We also saw a second patrol; a truck with a spotlight mounted on the roof of the cabin and a machine gun in the back. It wasn't a very smart arrangement, because we could see it from a long way off, the light combing the bush, backwards and forwards. We had time to slide back into the scrub and watch from behind trees. I wouldn't like to have been a soldier in that truck, because guerillas could have picked them off easily. Perhaps it showed that guerillas weren't so active around here. But as I waited behind the tree for the truck to pass I was surprised and a little alarmed to realise how much I was starting to think like a soldier. 'If we were up a tree with rifles,' I thought, 'and one person shot out the spotlight and the others went for the machine gunner ... Better still have one person out the front shooting through the windscreen to get the people in the cabin...'
Satisfied with our 'time spent in reconnaissance' we withdrew further into the bush to talk. We agreed that it was dangerous and probably pointless to stay there any longer. We looked at Homer, for ideas on what to do next.
'Can we just go up to the Heron?' he asked. 'I want to have a look at something.'
The Heron was the local river, not named after the birds but after Arthur Chesterfield Heron, who'd been the first person to settle in the district. Half of Wirrawee, including the High School, was named after him. The river flooded occasionally, so that the bed was wide and sandy, and the water itself meandered across its bed in a pretty casual way. A long old wooden bridge—almost a kilometre long—crossed the Heron just outside Wirrawee. The bridge was too narrow and rickety for the highway, and about every twelve months there'd be a big ruckus about the need for a new one, but nothing ever seemed to get done. To close it for any time would have been a big inconvenience, as the detour into town was a long and awkward one. In the meantime the bridge was quite a tourist attraction—there wasn't a big demand for postcards in Wirrawee but the few that you could buy showed either the bridge or the War Memorial or the new Sports Centre.
Under the bridge, along the banks of the river, were the picnic grounds and the scenic drive. 'Scenic' was a joke; it was just a road that went past the rotunda and the barbecues and the swimming pool, and on into the flower gardens. But that's where Homer wanted to take us, and that's where we went. Three of us, anyway. Lee had done enough. His leg was hurting and he was sweating. I realised how exhausted he was when we parked him under a tree and told him to wait, and he hardly complained at all. He just closed his eyes and sat there. I kissed him on the forehead and left him, hoping we'd be able to find the tree again on the way back.
We got very cautious once we were close to the bridge, as we figured it might be heavily guarded. It was obviously the weakest link of the highway, which I guessed was why Homer was so anxious to see it. We came at it from a sideways direction, across country, through the Kristicevics' market gardens. I wondered how my mate Natalie Kristicevic was doing, as I munched on her snowpeas. It was good to have some fresh greens, even if Fi got nervous at the noise I made crunching them.
From among the sweet corn we had a good view of the bridge and the picnic grounds. We could see the dark silhouettes of soldiers walking along the bridge. There seemed to be six of them, four standing at one end while the other two prowled around on a regular beat. Another convoy came through, and the sentries gathered at the end of the bridge, watching it. One held a clipboard and made notes, checking the number of vehicles maybe. One talked to the drivers; the others seemed to search under the trucks. It took quite a while. The bigger trucks then crawled across the bridge with wide gaps between them. They obviously didn't have a lot of faith in Wirrawee's mighty bridge.
At about 4 am we picked Lee up and retreated to our hide-out, which was a tourist cabin on the Fleets' property; a little place that they rented to people from the city. It was quite isolated and unobtrusive, so we figured it was safe. Fi volunteered to be first sentry; the rest of us fell gratefully into the beds and slept and slept.
It was midafternoon before we had the energy to talk tactics. It was obvious that Homer had spent a good bit of time thinking about the bridge, because he went straight to the point.
'Let's blow it up,' he said, his eyes shining.
The last time I'd seen his eyes shine like that was at school, when he told me he'd taken all the screws out of the Principal's lectern in the Assembly Hall. If blowing up the bridge was going to be as big a disaster as that day turned out to be, I didn't want to be a part of it.
'OK,' I said, humouring him. 'How are we going to do that?'
With his eyes going to high beam, he told us.
'What Ellie did with the ride-on mower gave me the idea,' he said. 'Petrol's our easiest and best way of making explosions. So I tried
to think of how we could repeat what Ellie did, but on a bigger scale. And of course the biggest version of a ride-on mower is a petrol tanker. What we've got to do is get a petrol tanker, park it under the bridge, on the scenic drive, then blow it up. Should be quite a bang.'
There was a deadly silence. I wanted to ask a lot of questions, but couldn't get enough breath to do it. For a start, I knew who'd be driving the petrol tanker.
'Where would we get the tanker?' Fi asked.
Curr's.
Curr's was the local distributor for Blue Star petrol. They came round to our place once a month to fill our tank. It was a big business and he had quite a fleet of tankers. That part was certainly possible. In fact it might be the easiest part of the whole insane scheme.
Homer was asking me something, interrupting my thoughts.
'What?'
'I was asking, can you drive an articulated vehicle?'
'Well, I guess. I think it'd be the same as driving the truck at home when we've got the trailer on. The question is, how the hell am I going to drive it under a bridge, get out and blow it up while the soldiers on the bridge just watch, wave and take photographs?'
'No problems.'
'No problems?'
'None.'
'Oh good,' I said. 'Now that's settled I'll just relax.'
'Listen,' said Homer, 'while you guys were walking towards Wirrawee last night with your eyes shut, I was noticing a few things. For example, what's around the corner from the bridge, going towards Cobbler's Bay?'
Homer was fast becoming like the teachers he'd always despised.
'I don't know sir, you tell us,' I said helpfully.
'Kristicevics' place,' said Fi, a little more helpfully.
'And on the other side?'
'Just paddocks,' said Fi. We were all looking at Homer, waiting for him to pull the rabbit out of the hat.
'Not just paddocks,' said Homer, offended. 'That's the trouble with you townies. One of the most famous studs in the district, and you call it "just paddocks".'
'Mmm,' I said, remembering. 'That's Roxburghs' place. Gowan Brae Poll Hereford Stud.'
'Yes,' said Homer, emphatically. I was still struggling to make connections.
'So what do we do? Train the cattle to tow the tanker into position? Or use methane for the explosion? If we find a cow that's been dead long enough to bloat, we can put a hole in his side and light the gas. I've seen that done.'
'Listen,' Homer said. 'I'll tell you what I noticed. That paddock right on the highway, Mr Roxburgh's got a lot of cattle in there, all in good nick too. It's heavily stocked, but it's a good paddock and it can take it. Now suppose you're a young soldier in a foreign country and you're guarding a long narrow bridge and it's late at night and you're struggling to stay awake and alert. And suddenly you hear a noise and you turn around and there's a hundred or so prime head of Hereford charging towards you, flat chat. About fifty tonnes of beef travelling at 60 or 70 k's, looming out of the darkness straight at you. What do you do?'
'You run,' said Lee promptly.
'No you don't,' Homer said.
'No you don't,' I agreed, thoughtfully. 'There's too many of them, and they're coming too fast for that.'
'So what do you do?' Homer asked again.
'You run to the sides. And then you probably climb up the sides. Which happens to be pretty easy on that old wooden thing.'
'And which way do you look?' Homer asked.
'At the cattle,' I said, more slowly still.
'Exactly,' Homer said. 'I rest my case.' He sat back and folded his arms.
We gazed at him, three people thinking three different collections of thoughts.
'How do you make the cattle do what you want?' Fi asked.
'How do you get away afterwards?' Lee asked. 'I can't run far on this.' He gestured at his bandaged leg.
I didn't have any questions. I knew the details could be worked out. It was a high risk plan, but it was a brilliant one.
Homer answered Lee's question first though. 'Motorbikes,' he said. 'I've been thinking for some time that if we wanted to be effective guerillas we'd get ourselves ag bikes and use cross-country travel instead of roads. We could become very mobile and very slippery. Now, I'll get the cattle going by using my superior mustering skills to get them into the road. I've mustered before at night. It works well—in fact it's better in some ways. They're not so suspicious then. If it's a bright enough night, which it should be, you don't even use lights, cos it stirs them up too much. So I'll get them out and then Lee and I'll fire them up, if Lee's fit enough. We can use an electric prod, for example, and maybe an aerosol can and a box of matches. I got into so much trouble for making a flamethrower from them at school, but I knew it would come in handy one day. A blast of that on their backsides and they'll keep running till dawn. Once we've got them blitzing down the road we'll fade off into the darkness to the motorbikes and make our getaway.'
He turned to Fi and me. 'I always seem to get out of things with the least dangerous jobs,' he apologised. 'But it has to be this way, I think. Ellie's our best driver, so we need her for the tanker. And Lee's too lame to run, which is hopeless for the passenger, because they'll both have to be quick on their feet. And I'm the one who's had the most experience with cattle.'
Homer was being modest. He was a natural with stock. But he was still talking, 'So, that's how it seems to work out. What I thought was, if you steal a tanker and bring it down to the bridge by slow degrees, with Fi walking to each corner, checking the coast is clear, then signalling you on. You hide it round that corner near the bowling greens, nice and close to the bridge. We'll wait for a convoy to go through, which seems to get the soldiers up to the right end of the bridge, and also gives us a good chance of a clear interval before the next convoy. Then we'll move the cattle out into the road and stampede them. As the cattle hit the bridge at one end you bring the tanker down under it at the other—you might even be able to coast down with the engine off. There's a good slope there. Jump out, run a trail of petrol away to a safe distance—one of you do it, so if she gets any on her clothes she can get clear before the other one lights it. Then light it and go like stink to a couple of motorbikes that we'll hide around the next corner. And you're out of there. How's that? Simple, eh? Just call me Genius.'
We talked and talked for hours, trying to find the flaws, trying to improve the arrangements. There were endless ways it could go wrong of course. The cattle mightn't move, another vehicle might come along the road at the wrong moment, the tankers might be guarded or empty—they mightn't even be there. I thought the most dangerous part might be when Fi and I were getting from the tanker to the motorbikes. We'd be quite exposed then, for thirty seconds or so. If the sentries saw us we'd be in real trouble. But Homer was confident that they'd be occupied by the cattle.
Yes, it was a good plan. It was very clever. And maybe the thing I liked most about it was the effect it had on Lee. He was determined to do it. He lifted his head more and more as we talked; he became outspoken, he started smiling and laughing. He'd been depressed a lot of the time since he copped the bullet, but now he actually said to me, 'If we do this, if we succeed, I'll be able to feel pride again'.
I hadn't realised how ashamed he'd been of not being able to help his family.
We made a list of all the things we needed, just a little list: four motorbikes, two walkie-talkies, two pairs of wirecutters, bolt cutters, torches, aerosol cans, matches, cattle-prods, rope, and a petrol tanker. Just a few odds and ends like that. We started our search on the Fleets' place, and then moved onto the neighbouring farm, collecting as we went. The motorbikes were the biggest problem. Most rurals don't take much care of their bikes. Half the ones we found were held together with fencing wire and masking tape. We had to have fast, reliable bikes, that would start first time. Then they had to be fuelled up, have their oil and headlights and brakes checked, and brought together in a central spot, which happened to be Fleets' garage. We worked pretty h
ard that afternoon.
Chapter Twenty
Curr's Blue Star Fuel and Oil Distributors was in Back Street, about six blocks from the bridge. Fi and I found it with no trouble but with much relief. We'd agreed between the two of us that we could have a rest when we got there, and we sure needed one. We'd wheeled those bloody great bikes about four k's, stopping and hiding a dozen times when one or both of us imagined we'd heard a noise or seen a movement. We were pretty twitchy just doing that; I hated to think what we'd be like when the real action started.
I was a bit nervous being paired with Fi, I must admit. There was no way I was ever going to be a hero, but at least I was used to doing outdoors, practical things, and I suppose that gives you a bit of confidence. I mean just the little things at home that I took for granted, chopping wood, using a chain saw, driving, riding the horses (Dad still liked using horses for stockwork), being a rouseabout, marking lambs and drenching sheep—these were the commonplace routines of my life, that I'd never valued a lot. But without my noticing it they'd given me the habit of doing things without looking over my shoulder every sixty seconds to see if an adult was nodding or shaking his head. Fi had improved heaps in that respect, but she was still kind of hesitant. I admired her courage in taking on the job Homer had given her, because I guess true courage is when you're really scared but you still do it. I was really scared, but Fi was really really scared. I did just hope that when the chips were down she wouldn't stand there frozen with fear. We didn't want frozen chips. Ha ha.
Once we'd hidden the bikes we set off for Curr's. I tried to put into practice the lessons I'd learned from computer games. My favourite game was Catacomb and I'd found the only way I could get to level ten was to keep my head. When I got angry or overconfident or adventurous I got wiped out, even by the most simple and obvious little monsters. To get the best scores I had to stay smart, think, be alert and go cautiously. So we crept along, block by block, checking round every corner as we came to it. The only time we spoke was when I said to Fi, 'This is the way we'll have to do it on the way back with the tanker'. She just nodded. The only time my concentration wavered was when I caught myself wondering if I'd ever get to play computer games again.