The Dead of Night (21 page)

The rain stopped and Lee went for a walk. He wanted me to come but I couldn't be bothered. I was halfway through a romance called
Send Me White Flowers.

I was three-quarters of the way through it, with Fi watching from her mattress to see if I was going to cry or not, when Lee slipped quietly back in through the door. Shutting it softly behind him, he said, "There are soldiers coming."

I jumped up, dropping the book, and ran to the window. I stood behind it and tried to peer out, but it was too dangerous. So I did what the others were doing and found a crack in the wall, and stood with my eye pressed against it. We watched anxiously. There were two trucks grinding their way up the drive, one an Army one with a tarp over the back, the other a small traytop
from Wirrawee Hardware. They pulled up to the west of the house, near the machinery shed, parking neatly side by side. Soldiers started to get out, two from the cab of each truck.

"Oh God," Fi moaned. "They must know we're here."

I hadn't noticed Homer leave his position, but suddenly he was beside me, handing me a rifle, the one I'd taken from the dead soldier at the foot of the cliffs. He gave Fi the .410 shotgun, Robyn a sawn-off .22, and Lee the sawn-off 12 gauge. He kept the other automatic rifle for himself. Robyn accepted the .22 but I saw her look at it for a moment and then lay it carefully on the floor beside her. I didn't know what to think of that. Could we rely on her if it came to a shoot-out? If she did refuse to shoot, was she right or wrong? If she was right, that made me wrong. Sweat was prickling my skin, as though I'd rubbed against a stinging nettle. I wiped the moisture from my face and looked again through the long vertical crack.

People were getting out of the covered truck. The soldiers were lounging around, watching. Although they had rifles they hadn't bothered to unsling them. They were quite casual, quite confident. The people were obviously prisoners, ten of them, five men and five women. I couldn't recognise anyone, though I thought one looked a bit like Corrie's Mum.

The prisoners seemed to know what to do without being told. Some took bags from the back of the hardware truck and set off for the fruit trees. A few went into the house, and two to the machinery shed. A
soldier accompanied each group; the fourth soldier stayed at the trucks and lit a cigarette.

I looked across at Homer. "What do you think?"

"It's another work party."

"Yes. Good chance to gather some info, maybe."

"Let's just watch for a while."

"Time spent in reconnaissance, huh? One of them looks like Corrie's Mum."

"I don't think it is," Fi said. "It's just the silver hair. She's too thin. And too old."

We returned to our holes and cracks, and kept watching. I saw glimpses of the people in the orchard, but there were no signs of the ones in the buildings. But after ten minutes the soldier who'd gone into the machinery shed came ambling out and joined his mate by the truck. He was obviously trying to bot a cigarette. It took him a few minutes but finally the first man pulled out the packet and handed one over.

Then they both got in the cab of the bigger truck and sat there to have their smokes.

"We'd better get out of here," Robyn said. "We've got these guns with us. We don't want any more trouble."

"OK," Homer said. "Do a clean-up first. We can go out the end door and up through the trees."

"You guys do that," I said. "I'm going down to the machinery shed."

The others looked at me doubtfully.

"I don't think..." Robyn started. '

"It's a really good chance," I cut in swiftly. "We haven't heard anything for weeks. I want to know how
Corrie is. And our families. Robyn, can you take my stuff?"

She reluctantly nodded.

"I'll come too," Lee said.

I was tempted, because I would have felt more confident with some company. But I knew it wouldn't work.

"Thanks anyway," I said. "Two'd be a crowd."

Lee hesitated, but I wasn't in the mood. I wanted to do something, to prove to myself that I still had some courage, that the terrible night in the Holloway Valley hadn't turned me to junket. And all those weeks of rain had made me impatient. The last time I'd tried to be independent and strong I'd lost my fingertips. Now I was anxious to try again, to do better, to get back some self-respect. Maybe some respect from the others too.

The other four began packing, moving quickly and quietly. I went out of a window at the side and hurried deep into the gum trees, to get around the sheep yards. There was a belt of trees running all the way down the hill that gave good cover, and I stayed in its shadows till I had the machinery shed between me and the trucks. Then I started edging closer to the shed, using it as my shield. My problem was that there was no entrance to the shed except the eastern side, which was all entrance: it was completely open. I had to come out of the trees and creep along the side of the shed, aiming for the only cover left to me, a water tank at the corner.

Reaching the tank was nerve-racking. The hard thing was to calm myself, to stop my chest taking on its own life and breathing like a set of bagpipes. I had to clench my fists and yell at myself, silently, in my head, to get control and calm down, to get ready for the tough part.
I went down on my hands and knees and wriggled under the tankstand. Then, with agonising slowness, a millimetre at a time, I put my head out and peeped around the corner. I don't mind saying it was one of the braver moments of my life. A soldier could have been standing a metre away. But there was no one there. Bare ground stretched away, brown and wet. I could see the trucks about fifty metres from me, looking huge and deadly from my position. I wriggled out a little further, twisting to the left as I did. From there I could see into the deep, dark machinery shed. There was a tractor and a header, and an old ute. Further back was a stack of wool bales. I couldn't see any people, but I heard a clink of tools and a murmur of voices away in the far corner.

I hesitated another few seconds, then took a breath. I steeled myself, like I was at the School Sports waiting for the gun, then took off, running silently for the wool bales, using the tractor as cover. If I'd had a bit of white fluff on my bum I would have passed for a rabbit. But I got there safely and waited, trembling, pressed against the smooth skin of a bale. The voices kept talking, rising and falling like a river. I couldn't make out the words, but it sounded like English. I started sidling along the bales, glancing at the entrance all the time so I could see if anyone came in. At the corner of the bales I stopped again. Now I could hear the voices clearly. I trembled and sweated, and tears smarted in my eyes as I recognised one of them. It was Mrs Mackenzie, Corrie's Mum. My first instinct was to sit down and bawl like a little kid. But I knew I couldn't give in to such weaknesses. They were for the old days, the innocent days, when we lived a soft life. Those days were lost, along
with paper tissues and plastic supermarket bags and jars of moisturiser—all the useless luxuries that we took for granted before the war. Not only had we taken them for granted, we'd even thought they were important. Now they were as foreign and far away as the luxury of crying with relief at a familiar voice.

Corrie's Mum. Mrs Mackenzie. I'd had a thousand cups of tea and five thousand scones at her kitchen table. She'd taught me how to make toffee, how to giftwrap Chrissie pressies, how to send a fax. I'd told her about my cat dying, my crush on Mr Hawthorne, and my first kiss. When my parents got especially-annoying or frustrating I'd pour it out to her and she'd soak it all up, like she understood exactly how I felt.

I peered around the side of the bales. I had a good view of the back corner of the shed. I was looking at the workbench, with the tools neatly arranged on the walls above it. With no power connected, the area was dark and gloomy but I could see the two people working at the bench." A man with his back to me was tinkering with something. I didn't recognise him from his back, and I wasn't so interested in him anyway. My enthusiasm was all for Mrs Macca. I looked at her hungrily, and felt at once the disbelief in my stomach. She was side-on to me, cleaning out a carburettor with a toothbrush. A shadow was on her face, but I could hardly believe she was Mrs Mackenzie. This person was old and thin, with silver hair, long and straggly. Mrs Mackenzie was middle-aged and nicely plump,' red-headed like her daughter. I kept staring at her, my disappointment giving way to anger. I really thought it wasn't her after all. But gradually, as I looked, I began to see traces
of Mrs Mackenzie in her face, in the way she stood, and in the way she moved. Then she put down the toothbrush, wiped her hair away from her eves, and picked up a screwdriver. And in the movement of her hand as she brushed her hair aside, I saw Corrie's Mum. In shock and love I cried out, "Mrs Macca!"

She let go the screwdriver, which fell to the floor, bouncing and clattering. She spun round, her mouth and chin dropping, which made her face even longer and thinner. She went very white and clutched her throat.

"Oh. Ellie."

I thought she was going to faint, but she leant quickly and heavily against the bench, putting her left hand to her forehead and covering her eyes. I wanted to go to her but knew I mustn't. The man, glancing out at the trucks, said to me, swiftly, "Stay there." I was annoyed, because I'd worked that out for myself, but I didn't say anything. I already knew I shouldn't have called out. Mrs Mackenzie bent down and picked up the screwdriver, but it took her three tries and she seemed like she wasn't seeing it properly. Then she looked across at me, yearningly. We were half a dozen metres apart but it may as well have been a hundred k's.

"Corrie, are you all right?" she asked. I was shocked that she'd called me Corrie and hadn't seemed to realise it. But I tried to act naturally.

"We're fine, Mrs Mac," I whispered. "How are you?"

"Oh, I'm just fine, we're all fine. I've lost a bit of weight, Ellie, that's all, but I've needed to do that for years."

"How's Corrie?" I felt that awful dread in my heart
again, but I had to ask, and now that Mrs Mackenzie had called me Ellie again I thought it was OK. But she took a long time to answer. She looked half asleep, strangely. She was still leaning against the workbench.

"She's OK, Ellie. She's lost a lot of weight too. We're just waiting for her to wake up."

"How are my parents? How's everybody?"

"They're all right. They're fine."

"Your parents are in good shape," the man said. I still didn't know who he was. "We've had a bad few weeks, but your parents are fine."

"A bad few weeks?" I asked. This conversation was taking place in urgent whispers, with many glances at the trucks.

"We've lost quite a few people."

"How d'you mean 'lost'?" I almost choked on the question.

"They've got a new bloke," the man said. "How d'you mean?"

"They brought in an Australian bloke from out of town. Some chalkie. He keeps picking people out for interrogation, and a lot of them get taken away after he's finished with them."

"Where to?"

"How should we know? They won't tell us. We just hope to God it isn't a firing squad."

"Who does he pick?"

"Oh, first it was all the people who'd been in the Army Reserve. He knew who they were. Then it was the cops', and Bert Heagney, and a couple of your teachers. Anyone who's a bit of a leader, you know what I mean?
He doesn't know everyone, but he knows a lot of people. He does about five a day, and we're lucky if three of them come back in the evening."

I said, "I thought there were informers at the Showground already."

"Not like this bloke. There's people who suck up to them, but they don't do this kind of thing. They don't help with interrogations. Not like this mongrel."'

There was so much anger in the man's voice at the end of his answer that his voice rose sharply in volume. I cowered down in the shadows for a moment, but no one came. I knew I'd have to go soon, but I wished Mrs Mackenzie would say more. She seemed so gaunt and tired and washed out. "How's Lee's family?" I asked. "And Fi's, and Homer's? How are Robyn's folks?"

Mrs Mackenzie just nodded.

"They're good," the man said.

"What do you have to do here?" I asked.

"Get it ready. There'll be colonists moving here in the next few days. You kids'll have to be careful. There are work parties out everywhere now. We're expecting hundreds of colonists soon."

I felt sick. We were getting hemmed in. Maybe one day I'd have to accept the unthinkable, the unfaceable, that we'd be slaves for the rest of our lives. A future that was no future, a life that was no life. But I had no time for thought. I had only time for doing.

"I've got to go, Mrs Macca," I said.

To my horror she suddenly burst into wild sobs, turning away from me and falling forward onto the workbench, dropping the screwdriver again as she wept. She
was sort of screaming and crying at the same time. My scalp felt like I'd had two hundred and forty volt's applied to it. It was like I'd been given an instant crew-cut. Frightened, I backed away fast, scurrying to the far end of the wool bales and ducking behind them. I heard a truck door open and a soldier come walking into the shed.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I don't know," the man said. He sounded quite convincing, like he didn't really care. "She just started crying. It's those bloody Swedish carburettors, I reckon. They'd drive anyone to tears."

I almost grinned as I crouched there in the darkness.

Nothing seemed to happen for a while. The only sound was Mrs Mackenzie's sobbing, which had now become quieter. I could hear her gulping, as she tried to get some air in her lungs, get some control back. "Come on, love," the man said. I heard more footsteps, which sounded like the soldier again. They went out of the shed and faded away towards the house.

"Go for your life Ellie," the man said in a normal conversational tone, as though he were talking to Mrs Mackenzie.

I had to rely on his judgement, so I took off, without saying anything, slipping around the corner of the shed, past the water tank, and into the bush. I greeted the trees like they were my friends, my family. I hid behind one for a while, embracing it while I got my breath back. Then I toiled on up the hill, to find my friends.