Darkness Be My Friend (6 page)

Just the bush.

Iain wouldn't move over Tailor's Stitch until it was completely dark. He was right, of course: even in the dimmest light we risked our silhouettes being seen by anyone who happened to be looking in the right direction. But it was frustrating, sitting there waiting, every minute thinking, "OK, it's dark enough now, let's go," then thinking, "Oh no, there's still a streak of grey in the sky, right across the ranges, better wait a few more minutes."

Then suddenly we were all on our feet, hoisting packs, stuffing pockets, shaking hair out of our eyes. Iain called me over and told me to lead again, which pleased me a lot, although Homer pretended he didn't even notice.

And so, when everyone was ready, we began the trek, back up the steep side of the ridge, over Wombegonoo, and into my sanctuary of Hell.

Getting in and out of Hell was never easy because of the steepness and narrowness of the track. Also, it was very slippery in places where the creek flowed along it for a few metres, so that the creek and the track became the same thing. Doing it in complete darkness was really annoying. All that slipping and sliding and, just as you recovered, getting hit in the face by a branch. Then Iain, behind me, would lose his footing and crash into
my back. It was like babysitting Kevin's brothers. You felt you were in a wrestling match half the time. There was no doubt about those Kiwis, though—Colonel Finley told us they'd been handpicked for their initiative and guts, and they did handle it well. Lots of jokes and stuff.

I handled it OK, I guess, but I was pretty tired. I didn't have much to say.

It was just before ten o'clock—2200 hours—that we "landed safe and sound, at the bottom of that terrible descent."

Or, to put it another way, we found ourselves home again, in the depths of Hell.

I don't know what the others did that first night. I think they all went to bed. I know Fi and I did. We put up our tent—pretty roughly—crawled into it and stayed there.

One good thing about having professional soldiers around was that we didn't have to do sentry duty. That was such a bonus. In the past we'd dragged ourselves out of warm beds and sleeping bags at all hours of the day and night, in wet weather and dry, moaning and whingeing and swearing and hating it. So far though no one had mentioned that we should do anything so uncomfortable and unpleasant. Fi and I were giggling about it that first night. We agreed that volunteering
would be silly: after all, these guys were paid to do it. And they were so gung-ho, so fired up. Half of them had never been on active service before, and the rest of them hadn't done much. It would be a pity to cut them out of their fun.

"What do you think Iain wants to do in Wirrawee?" Fi whispered.

We hadn't been allowed to know any details of their actual mission. Colonel Finley explained it was for everyone's protection: if we were caught, the less we knew the better. The four words "if we were caught" had me shaking and shivering when he said them. In my sessions with Andrea the main things I'd talked about, over and over, were the time in Stratton Prison and what happened to Robyn. Talking about them helped, but gradually I'd come to accept that these terrible things were part of me forever; all I could do was find ways to cope with them. At least Colonel Finley had given us some guarantees that we should be OK. Iain had strict instructions. We were only to be used as guides we were not allowed battles or "war- like activities" (Colonel Finley had shown me the first part of Iain's written orders) and we should only have to make one trip to Wirrawee to show them the way around.

It was obvious though that they would be aiming for the airfield. Nothing else in Wirrawee was worth attacking, or nothing that we knew of anyway. Murray's Eats, the caravan that sold hot dogs in the supermarket carpark on Saturday nights, wasn't much of a target, and I think we'd made such a mess of Turner Street that it would be cactus for a long time yet.

We discussed all this. But we also knew that none of it would get us close to our families. The New Zealanders' plans wouldn't include a visit to the Showgrounds, where we believed most of the prisoners were still kept. Showbags and dolls on long cane sticks weren't on the Kiwi shopping lists. The last information Colonel Finley had given us, two weeks earlier, before we even knew about this trip, was that people were still being released on work parties as the countryside became more secure, and as the system of hostages improved.

I was just drifting off to sleep when Fi said something that had me feeling like spiders were crawling all over me. I sat up in my bag.

"What did you say?"

"I said we could sneak out of here and look for them if the Kiwis go off on their own."

"Fi! We can't! Oh my God, do you think we should?"

"Well, it's the only way we'll get to see them. There's no way Iain's going to let us look for them."

"But you were telling me back in New Zealand that Colonel Finley was going to arrange everything."

"Hmm, yes," Fi said. "But you know, I'm starting to think you might be right about Colonel Finley."

"Fi!" I was sort of laughing because it sounded funny for her to be cynical about anyone. She was normally so trusting. "I thought you liked him."

"Oh, I don't mind him," Fi agreed. "But it's true, he is only good to us when it suits him. He didn't care about us when we were hiding in that car wrecking yard. Once he found we didn't have any information, and we wouldn't go back into Cobbler's Bay, he lost interest in us pretty quickly."

"But he's got a war to win," I argued. "That takes priority."

I was really only sticking up for the Colonel because I was enjoying the argument, not because I believed much in what I was saying.

"Oh, of course. I don't expect him to bring us breakfast in bed, or lend us M16's. But if we want to do something and it doesn't get in anyone's way, I think we should do it, and not worry about what Colonel Finley thinks."

"Ask forgiveness, not permission," I said, remembering something someone said to me once.

It took Fi a second or two to work out what I meant, then she laughed.

"Yes," she said, "exactly. Gosh, Ellie, you're getting back to your old self."

"It's being here," I said, "in our own backyard again. It makes a difference. I'd forgotten."

"I missed it when we were in New Zealand," Fi said. "I even missed Hell, and all the hiking. I even missed demolishing half my own street."

"I missed everything," I said. "We have more blowies than New Zealand. I missed our blowies."

But my mind was still on what Fi had said. "Do you really think we should go looking for them? What if we got in the way of the Kiwis? We can't do anything that might wreck their plans."

"No, of course not. That's the biggest thing. But we could go out along the Wirrawee-Holloway Road for instance, and see if we can find a work group. That's in the opposite direction to Wirrawee. Even if we were
caught they wouldn't know we were here with New Zealand soldiers."

"Yes, and Kevin said they send the work parties away from their own areas, so there's more chance our families'll be out there than in Wirrawee."

"Except for the people they kept back as hostages."

"When do you think Iain would want us to take him into Wirrawee?"

"Pretty soon. Maybe even tomorrow night."

"You're joking. As soon as that?"

"Sure. Why not?"

It did make sense, I thought. Why hang around here, using up food? On the other hand they'd brought heaps with them, so maybe they were planning a long stay.

"I wish they'd tell us more about their plans," I complained. "I mean I know they have to be secretive, but sometimes I feel like it's Major Harvey all over again, treating us like little kids."

"I know one thing," Fi said.

"What?"

"Who they want to take them into Wirrawee."

"Who?" But I felt my stomach go liquid again as I asked it. I didn't want it to be me, because I didn't want to get caught or hurt or killed. But I did want it to be me because it would have been such an insult to be left behind.

"You sure you can handle it?" Fi asked.

"Yes, of course! Just tell me!"

"You and Lee."

I felt such a confusion of feelings that I didn't know where to start.

"But ... but I don't know if I want to go. And what about Homer? He'll go sick. How do you know, anyway?"

"I heard Iain and Ursula talking, this afternoon."

"But I didn't think they'd want me to go. I mean I'm the one who didn't want to leave New Zealand in the first place."

"Yes, that's what they were talking about. About whether you'd be, you know..."

"Whether I'd curl up in a little ball and cry when we got close to enemy soldiers."

"Well, not quite in those words, but I guess that was the general idea."

"So why do they want me to go?" I was fishing for compliments, of course.

"I suppose, your reputation. We turned you into a bit of a legend, didn't we? Plus you seemed to do OK last night, and tonight. I think that was a little test, when Iain got you to lead the way into Hell."

I was furious.

"Test? Test? Where do these turkeys get off, giving me tests? We've passed more tests than they've wiped their bums. Leading the way into Hell, whoopie-doo, big test, wow, how'd I go? Did I pass? Gee, I hope I passed. Iain and his bloody tests, what a cheek."

"Well, Ellie," said Fi, who never let me get away with much, "you must admit you were pretty difficult to get on with when they asked us to come back."

"They didn't ask us, they told us," I complained. "It's a bit different."

"I don't think they'll tell you to take them into Wirrawee," Fi said. She sure was choosing her words
carefully. Did she see me as that unstable? "But I think they're hoping you will."

"What about Homer? Why don't they want to ask him?"

Again Fi paused, searching for the right words.

"I think they got the idea back in New Zealand that he was a bit irresponsible. Too much partying."

Adults often made that mistake about Homer. He had been pretty crazy when we were at school, but that was more a reaction to the way he was treated than anything else. It sounds terrible comparing people with animals, but the way teachers hassled Homer reminded me of something that Dad said about stockwork, that the quieter the drover the calmer the sheep. He had this theory that you shouldn't swear at sheep, because then they could tell that you didn't like them. He sacked a worker once because he swore too much at the sheep. I mean, he didn't tell the guy that was the reason, but it was.

"God, Homer'll totally blow his stack."

That was the end of sleep for me. Just when I needed some, too. I wriggled around for hours. I'd get comfortable for a minute or two, then decide it was too hard on my hip, or there was too much pressure on my shoulder blade, or my arm was getting pins and needles. Of course the long sleep I'd had that morning made it hard for me to sleep now. But the real problem was that I was already making the trip into Wirrawee. In my mind I was walking those dark streets, trembling at every shadow, leaping around in panic at the slightest sound.

It made me wonder if I still had the nerve for this kind of stuff.

I got up as soon as it was half-light. I'd probably slept a few hours, on and off, but I didn't feel like I had. Fi was asleep, so I dressed quietly and slipped out of the little tent to reacquaint myself with Hell.

There's nothing like the very early morning. It's the sweetness of the air, the sweet coolness; it's the bubbling of the creek which, for some strange reason, always sounds more energetic than it does later on; it's the gargling of the magpies. The first thing I did was go and look at the chook pen, even though I knew I wouldn't find any live chooks there. I was right about that. I won't go into the gruesome details, but those pathetic little feather dusters had become victims of the war themselves. I guess they starved to death. We'd rebuilt their pen so that the creek flowed through it, so they had plenty of water, but they'd eaten everything in there except the dirt and the wire.

Then I went and looked at another victim of the war.

Chris' grave was pretty much the way we'd left it. Getting a bit overgrown with weeds, though. I pulled out one, was about to pull out another, then stopped. Chris had been quite into weeds, in his own unique way. And he'd certainly been into doing things differently. I grinned and left the other weeds alone.

Walking away I started remembering again that awful trip down into Hell, carrying Chris' body, but I shook my head quickly, not wanting to think about it. At least he'd had friends to bury him. There were times when I wondered if I'd be even that lucky.

I wandered along the creek. I thought of heading to the Hermit's hut, but didn't like the idea of going through the darkness of the undergrowth. Instead I
stayed out in the brightening warming sunlight and found a rock that I liked. I curled up on that, my knees to my chest, and hugged myself for a while. I couldn't believe I was back here. Watching trashy TV in New Zealand, going to disgusting parties with a disgusting person, eating too many hamburgers and chips: it all seemed a long way away suddenly. I seriously began to wonder if I should go back to New Zealand when the others went. The Kiwis had a radio—two radios in fact _so they could call up the chopper when it was time to go. Maybe when they made their call I should take a raincheck. I smiled to myself as I thought how they would react.

"But you didn't want to come in the first place!" they'd cry.

"Oh, well," I'd say, "it's good to keep changing your mind. It shows you're thinking. I'll only stop changing my mind when I'm dead. And maybe not even then."

I heard the crunch of a footstep on the rock behind me and looked around to see Ursula. I liked Ursula. She had quite long reddish hair and reddish cheeks, and a nice big mouth that smiled a lot. She'd been an aerobics instructor before she joined the army, and Iain told me she'd represented New Zealand in hurdles at a Commonwealth Games. She'd only been in the army six years, and I think it was a bit of a meteoric rise to be a Captain that quickly.