The Worm King (17 page)

Zelda had taken less than an hour to fetch
them and at first they were all stoked, then it became apparent the men only
came for the food. Ken greedily scoffed down the last of their precious curried
eggs. He played the pokies with Jerry every Friday; rain, hail or shine. Since
his wife passed away four years ago he didn’t have much left apart from the
pokies and occasional flutter on the nags.

‘I understand completely,’ said Lord Brown.

‘I don’t,’ Āmiria cried. The time had
come to pull out all stops. The Hat told her earlier that Lord Brown was a
professor, which she wasn’t sure if she even believed, but decided to run down that
path anyway. ‘It’s not fair. Just before, Professor Brown was telling us how
you Turks were really famous and all, and helped invent wheels. And squares,
and lots of other stuff and I need to get to Tamworth to find my Daddy and you
have this bus just sitting there, so it’s not fair!’ She mustered up her
saddest face and rubbed the edge of her eye with the heel of her palm.

Zelda turned in surprise to Lord Brown. ‘So
you
do
work at a University? I work part-time at the Uni here, and thought
I recognized your face from somewhere.’

‘Squares? Did we? That’s right, think I
heard that sometime from someone else too.’ Jerry scratched his bushy, gray
moustache and tried to recall where he’d heard.

‘A Turkish bloke invented the kebab, I know
that,’ asserted the Hat. ‘It was at Gallipoli.’ Jerry looked dubious but Ken
nodded in agreement.

‘Gallipoli certainly was a marvelous Turkish
victory,’ affirmed Lord Brown. ‘But in our strategy meeting earlier, we were
discussing far more ancient days. Zelda happened to mention you were Turkish,
and I was telling them of the six hundred years when Turkey led the world in
innovation. Turkey was the Silicon Valley of the Bronze Age, and I’m sure this
is old news to you, being from that wonderful country yourself, but it cropped
up when we were brainstorming for ideas on getting to Tamworth.’

Jerry looked confused. ‘Silicon Valley, you
say?’

‘No, Tamworth,’ corrected Āmiria,
irritated.

Ken belched and for a few unpleasant seconds
the pungent waft of curried eggs overpowered the smoke from the candle and the
pong of canned tuna. At least the kitchen was warmer with more people in the
room.

Lord Brown reached out and pulled the saucer
holding the candle nearer his end of the table and straightened his back, which
made him seem taller. ‘The Hittites ruled Turkey from 1700BC to 1100BC. They
made enormous advances in justice and whatnot and introduced the Hittite Laws. They
began using iron tools a good 1500 years before the Egyptians. But most of all,
the Hittites were masters of the chariot.’

‘The chariot?’ blurted Jerry incredulously.

‘I can believe that, the way you drive,’ laughed
Ken.

‘Oh yes. The Hittites of Turkey were famous
for building and driving chariots. The golden age of chariot warfare is
generally accepted as 1700BC to 1200BC, which overlaps neatly with the era of
the great Hittite Kingdoms. They were outstanding charioteers, and in fact, I
have read of them being described as “God’s Charioteers.”

‘Well I never!’

Ken chuckled. ‘That’s right! You never bin
outside Australia, and the closest you ever got to a chariot was the trots on a
Saturday night.’

‘That may be, but now you mention it, I do
remember me father saying something about Hittites one time.’

‘It was probably the name of a horse he
had.’

‘It may have been in connection with Kadesh?’
prompted Lord Brown.

‘Could’ve been . . . who
was he again?’

‘The Battle of Kadesh was in 1274BC. It was
six thousand chariots and forty thousand men, going hammer and tongs: the
Hittites against the Egyptians. Kadesh is a town in Syria and the Egyptians
were getting antsy about the Hittites moving south and pinching their
territory, so the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II rode north with four divisions of
infantry and two thousand chariots, to kick some Hittite arse, so to speak. It
was the biggest chariot battle to ever take place. And all this happened only about
fifteen years after Moses took his people out of the slave industry around
Cairo and those other pyramidy spots, which is generally recognized as 1291BC.’

‘Who won? asked Āmiria.

‘At Kadesh?’

‘Yes.’

‘The Hittites initially caught the Egyptians
off guard and cut right through their lines then overrun their main camp. They’d
developed a much heavier chariot than the Egyptians and it proved far more
successful. It carried three men, rather the two on the Egyptian ones, and
could be used to smash into opposing troops and fight hand-to-hand, as well as
from a distance. The Egyptian chariots were lighter and really only mobile
firing platforms for their archers. Anyway, while the Hittites were stopping to
loot the Egyptian camp, Ramses made a comeback and forced the Hittites up
against the nearby Orontes River, where many unfortunately drowned.’

‘Looting! That’d be right,’ guffawed Ken.

‘Overall they called it a draw. But Ramses
went straight back to Egypt and the Hittites hung onto Kadesh, so to my way of
thinking the Hittites were clear winners on the day.’

The candle had almost spluttered out, so
Zelda fetched another from the cupboard above the sink. ‘Only two left after
this, so we better put it out soon and have a break.’

Jerry shuffled in his seat and drummed his
fingers on the table. ‘I suppose Tamworth isn’t that far. Especially if you’re
happy to go while it’s still dark, then I could head down and see Jean after
that.’

‘Jean?’ said Lord Brown.

‘Yep, that’s me sister. She lives in
Katoomba.’

‘How’re we going to get past that mob of
Aborigines, what’re blocking the highway north?’ asked Ken.

Āmiria
stood, then leant on the table, looking at them each one by one. ‘We’ll go straight
through the cunts.’

WEATHER
BADGE DIARY

Mrs Sheng
and Mr Snow had a big argument. We have to stay with the cook while our room is
being done up. He made a sausage casserole for our last meal and wears a dress
which is strange. Krystal thinks it is a wedding dress that has been cut really
short.

Natasha

Chapter Twenty-Four

Melanie

‘S
hush!! Quiet!’
Winston froze. The desperate
whisper came from behind and to his left.
‘Don’t move. There’s snakes
everywhere!’

So that really had been one earlier.

‘Where are you?’ he replied, unsuccessfully trying
to keep his voice down.

‘Quiet! The lights from the hotel are
attracting insects and rats which are attracting the snakes. I think one
might’ve just nipped me on the calf. Can you give me a hand?’
She sounded less scared than someone ort to be, laying in the dark,
getting mauled by snakes.

‘I can’t see,’
he whispered.

‘Wait a sec.’
Winston heard her scraping across rough ground, then a tiny flame erupted
barely centimeters from his face.
‘I’ve got two lighters left.’
She was
younger than she’d sounded, maybe in her twenties but it was hard to tell with
so much dirt caking her face. They lay on concrete, or a road, covered with a thick
layer of ashy muck which he’d initially assumed must be an abandoned garden. The
flame flickered off.

After scarpering from Harelip he had covered
very little distance before deciding to go to ground. Even in his terror, he knew
running fast in dark was bound to end badly. He’d also wanted to wait to ascertain
whether the nutcase had actually gone. By then, the screaming had ceased, so he
wasn’t sure exactly where Harelip was, so just waited. And waited. There’d been
no sign of the headlight, nothing. After twenty minutes his night-vision was
back up at full strength, and with concentration, he could make out the outline
of the fence. But what was that shape against the fence? A tree trunk? He’d shaken
his head and tried to calm down. Then the shape seemed to disappear. Was it even
there in the first place? Another hour passed before Winston felt comfortable
in moving back towards the fence, and on the way he’d run into the girl.

She coughed quietly and he felt flecks of spray
lightly splatter his face.
‘A few weeks back you could buy about fifty of these
for a dollar. They make them in China by the zillion. Maybe that’s a slight
exaggeration. Now you wouldn’t swap one for a ton of gold would you? When we
first got here a man at the front gate told us to shove off, or he’d shoot us. Can
you believe that! But we really needed water so we came around here and my
husband snuck through a hole in the fence. I don’t know how long ago it was—a
long time—and he hasn’t come back. I’m so thirsty. Do you have anything I can
use as a pressure bandage?’

‘No, sorry. Wait on, yes I do.’
He took off his jersey and shirt, then tried to rip a strip across
the shirt bottom where the tail hung down, but it was against the grain of the
fabric and the tear went skew-whiff immediately. He held up the tiny, torn-off triangle
of material against the hotel lights, then cast it aside in frustration. After
another moments contemplation he tore off the whole left arm where it joined
the chest section, then put the jersey and mutilated shirt back on. Even with two
singlets on underneath, it still felt considerably colder minus the shirts arm.

‘Whereabouts did it get you?’
The lighter clicked on and she’d swung around up-seated with her right
leg pointed directly at him and the flame held down near her ankle. She had
sandshoes on, with no socks, and her dress was in worse shape than Winston’s
shirt, so he removed his jersey and gave it to her. The air was freezing on his
bare left arm but he ignored it and focused on her leg. Despite the dirt he
thought he could make out a pair of red puncture marks halfway between the
ankle and knee. The skin around the punctures looked puffy, and when he touched
it, she jumped, and the lighter clicked off. He wrapped the torn-off material
around her calf by feel and definitely got the right spot because she gasped each
time he crossed the wound. The bandage barely went around twice and he’d nothing
to pin the end down so resorted to tucking it under the first wrap, which wasn’t
going to hold very well and he hoped she didn’t intend moving too far.

‘He went in twice.’
Winston thought she was still talking about the snake and he winced.
‘First time he came back with some crushed biscuits in the bottom of a packet,
and a two cabbage leaves. The cabbage leaves were the best.’
She laughed,
then stopped abruptly.
‘Ben didn’t take the water bottle though! I had it! I
feel so stupid. He said there’s a tap, next to rubbish skip where he got the
food, so he went back in to get water. Wouldn’t let me go, because there’s some
guard just inside the fence. Ben thought the guard might hear us from here, so
you have to stay quiet, but it’s good to make a wee bit of noise to keep the
snakes away.’

In other words, the hotel was surrounded by a
barbed wire fence, angry guards and starving poisonous reptiles. Winston recalled
the Eastern Brown was prolific around Canberra and had the second-deadliest
venom in the world. The snakes must be circling that fence like sharks,
stopping anyone getting past.

‘It’s too cold for them to be really
active, but they’ve gotta eat sometime I suppose, and they wouldn’t have put on
enough condition this time of year to go into total hibernation, like they
usually do in winter. You can just about brush them gently out of the way but some
of them are more . . . feisty. What’s your name?’

‘Winston.
Sorry, Winston.’

‘Listen Winston, do you reckon you could
get under the fence and try and get some water? I don’t think this bite’s too
serious, but I really need a drink, or I’m gonna flake out.’

Winston had a strong suspicion the gap in
the fence her husband would’ve used was the same one he’d come through. If this
were true, he’d moved in a big circle between running from the trench and
finding the girl. It was a miracle he hadn’t been bitten.

‘I’m Melanie.’

He screwed his eyes shut, and decided to
keep them closed too, until all this went away. The situation was horrific
beyond belief. If he couldn’t see anything, maybe it wouldn’t seem as bad. An
eerie howl echoed nearby, then a faster
yip, yip, yip
sounded in reply. Something
metallic clanked from the direction of the hotel. He felt himself sliding into
a sickening descent, as though his body wasn’t moving but his head was caught
in a swirling hurricane.

‘Are you alright?’
whispered Melanie.
‘Hey.
Hey!’ The lighter clicked on and
Winston forced his eyes open.

He dredged up a smile.
‘I’m fine. Just
catching my breath.’

‘Dingos,’
she
explained. The lighter went off.
‘Don’t worry ’bout them. They’re more
scared of you.’

Winston hummed quietly while gently brushing
a long, thin branch held out at full stretch as he shuffled slowly forwards.
Very
slowly forwards. The hotel lights were far enough away to be absolutely no help
seeing the ground, but they still carried an ugly sharpness making them
unpleasant to look at. No more than seventy meters she’d said, then he’d get to
the fence, and needed to follow that until he was in line with the light at the
extreme left-hand side of the hotel. The gap Ben snuck through should be right around
there. Each time Winston looked directly at the hotel to take a mark, the
lights made it more difficult to see his immediate surroundings. He finally saw
the fence, and stopped. Then he worked his way along for what seemed like ages,
until the bearing light was well to his right, so he must’ve gone
past
the gap. He started back, this time veering closer to the fence. Still no sign
of it. He looked one way, then t’other. The hotel lights were just sufficient
to make out the row of barbed on the top, which he had no chance of clambering
over. He studied the fence again. Fifteen meters to his left, a vine had
wrapped itself halfway up a support post, and he couldn’t see much past this. In
the other direction he could see perhaps thirty meters before the fence disappeared . . . 

Vine? What? He edged towards the suspicious
plant.

It wasn’t a vine, it was a mass of wire. Winston
couldn’t see any guards, so he risked using the lighter and saw wire looped
round and round, stitching the gap that’d previously been there into a tangled,
metal seam. It’d be easier to dig down through to China than try and cut
through that mess. The lighter began burning his thumb so he let it flick off.

Where to now? The front gate! Yes! Exactly
where he’d come in with Francesco and Astrid. Melanie and her husband had tried
to talk their way through, but he wouldn’t do that: he’d sneak in. Sometimes
being small had its advantages.

He crouched behind a charred stump, some
fifty meters from the gate. It’d taken more than two hours to reach the gate,
despite it being less than three hundred meters as the crow flew. He was
exhausted and needed food, but more than anything needed a guzzle of water. Partway
along, he’d passed a small trench below the wire which felt like an old wombat
hole that’d probably collapsed after the fence was put up. It would have been simple
enough to slither under at this point, nevertheless he’d pressed on to the
gate.

Three men were manning it, whereas there’d only
been two when he was here yesterday with Francesco. They had a single lantern
and spoke amongst themselves a few times although he couldn’t make out any
words. Francesco’s truck was still there, and the four other vehicles looked
the same too. There was no life evident in any of them but he couldn’t be
certain because one car in the dark looks pretty much like any other.

Winston was considering his options, when a
truck arrived, followed by a jeep and a car. The convoy pulled up briefly
before being waved though and he wondered if he could’ve hung onto the rear
car’s bumper. When the final vehicle passed, one of the guards walked to the
opposite side of the gate and watched it, so they already had that angle
covered.

He had a feeling security might’ve been
tightened. Another thought nagged at him too: the implications of that patched-up
hole in the fence. In actual fact, he’d be mad to even
try
and sneak
through at the gate. If Harelip had fixed the fence, or got someone to do it,
he would’ve also undoubtedly come around here and spoken to the guards. “Keep
your eyes open for a dwarf,” was all he would’ve had to say. Getting nabbed
here would be fatal.

Something rustled on the ground nearby.
‘Fatal,’
he whispered.
‘Fatal, fatal, fatal.’
The rustle came again, but further
away. When they’d been queuing up yesterday, bolting back Grange with gay
abandon, had there been other people just out of sight, sitting in the dark
like this, watching? Muttering to themselves? He wouldn’t be surprised. In case
he ran into any others, he resolved forthwith to only mutter happy words. No
sense making them lash out by whispering “fatal” in their ear as an
introductory howdy-doody.

‘
Groovy. Hehehe! Hahaha! Groooooovy. G-G-G-Grooovy,
hehehe
!’

He had to warn Astrid and Francesco. Their
room was definitely on the opposite side of the hotel, on the first floor. Or
perhaps it was the second floor? Whatever, he should be able to chuck a stone
at the window and attract their attention. Easy. Another rustle in the scrub,
closer this time.

‘EASY!’

So the plan was to return to Melanie, go
through the wombat hole, tap on the window, free the others, back to the truck
and gone-ski. ‘
Easy
.’

Winston arrived back at the gap in the fence
nearly four hours after having left it. He searched for Melanie for another two
hours, but never saw her again. It began to rain. He lay on his back with his
mouth open but immediately discovered it to be undrinkable, and even felt as
though it were burning his skin, so was forced to crawl into an empty plastic
rubbish skip he’d stumbled across near the wombat hole. He lay there withered
and shivering, clutching his knees and crumpled up, muttering just loud enough
so it could be heard over the drumming rain.

‘
Easy. Groovy. Easy. Groovy. Easy
 . . . ’