The Dead of Night (12 page)

"Hang onto my hands," Homer said.

"There's no point. If we can only get down here by holding onto people, then what does the last person do?"

The top of the tree was about three metres below, but I thought I could reach it. The edge of the cliff was rounded, not sheer, and my biggest problems were the loose gravel and the need to connect my feet with the top of the tree. With a few instructions from Robyn, I lined myself up, then hung at full stretch for a few seconds. I needed to take a leap of faith. A slide of faith, anyway. I took a breath, swallowed, and let go. The slide only took a second but there was that horrible long thought that I might miss the tree and slide forever. I pressed myself into the gravel harder and scrabbled at the rockface with my fingers. Then my feet hit the broken trunk and almost immediately my legs were wrapping round it. I let myself slip a little further and hugged the old white wood with my arms as well, closing my eyes and resting my face against it.

"Are you OK?" Robyn called.

"Sure." I opened my eyes. "I'm just not thinking about getting back up again."

I looked down, searching for a place to rest my feet. The spikes of wood were arranged neatly below me, all the way to the bottom. It seemed pretty straightforward. I put my left foot down to the first spike and rested my weight on it, straightening a little in relief. The branch immediately snapped. I hugged the tree
again, as advice started pouring down on top of my head. "Keep your feet close to the trunk." "Don't put all your weight on one branch." "Test the branches first." They were sensible enough suggestions, but I could have figured them out for myself. I could feel the sweat starting to make my shirt sticky and my forehead hot; I gritted my teeth and searched for the next branch.

By keeping my feet so close to the trunk that the soles of my boots were twisted against it, I made progress. Boots weren't ideal for this kind of work, but they were all I had. It took me five minutes, it felt like fifteen, but at last I was standing, wild with relief, at the base of the trunk, my back to the bush.

"Come on," I yeiled.

"What about the packs?"

"Put the fragile things in your pockets, and chuck the packs down."

And that's what they did. We didn't have many fragile items, torches, radio, a pair of binoculars. Then I had to dodge the falling packs. I'm sure they weren't aiming them at me. I'm quite sure they weren't. And I resisted the temptation to set fire to the trunk as they gingerly worked their way down it, one by one.

"We'll have to pick up a bit of rope somewhere," Homer said, when we were all standing, a bit breathless, at the bottom. "From Risdon maybe. It'll help us get back up."

There was no path through the bush, and the trees were packed tightly. It was going to be a grunt. We went over a ridge, found a bit of a gap along a line of rock, and followed that until it ran out. After that we just had to struggle on. It took us about an hour to
travel a kilometre. "I'd rather be back in the creek," I said to Fi.

And that's when we heard the voices.

Our first view of Harvey's Heroes was from a ridge of rock overlooking the camp. We'd snuck up on them so carefully that we could hear their voices clearly. It was such a relief that they were speaking in English. We lay there wide-eved, watching them and gazing at each other in amazement. A month earlier we would have gone in yelling and screaming and waving our arms, but now we were so cautious we would have looked a gift horse in the mouth, nose, ears and throat before we'd accept it. And then we'd ask for references.

Still, there was no doubt that these people were fair dinkum. Some of them were in military uniform, there were rifles leaning against a large gum tree in the centre of the clearing, and the tents were camouflaged by fresh-cut branches. I could see at least twenty tents and in the few minutes that we watched we saw twenty different people, all adults, mostly men. They moved quietly around the camp. They had a relaxed air that I found attractive. My only worry was that their sentry system was so poor that we were able to spy on them without being caught.

"Well," said Homer, "are we going in?"

Lee started to rise but I pulled him back.

"Wait," I said. "What are we going to tell them?"

"What about?"

"Well..." I hesitated. I wasn't sure what I meant, what impulse had caused me to ask that question. Finally I said the only thing I could think of. "Are we going to tell them about Hell?"

"I don't know. Why not?"

"I don't know. I just don't want to, for some reason. I want to keep it as our secret place."

Homer paused. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to keep quiet about it. Till we find out more about these people, anyway."

I had to be content with that. Homer stood, and we followed him. We walked forward about ten metres before anyone noticed us. A man in jungle greens, carrying a shovel, came out of a tent, saw us, gaped in disbelief, then straightened up and gave a bird call. It was meant to be an imitation of a kookaburra but it wasn't very good. Nevertheless, it worked. Within seconds we were surrounded by men and women who came from every part of the camp. There were thirty or forty of them. Some of the women, to my astonishment, wore make-up. The unnerving thing though was that they were so subdued. A few of them patted us on the back, but most said nothing at all. They crowded us quite closely, close enough for us to smell their sweat and hair and breath. They didn't seem unfriendly, just wary, watchful. They seemed to be waiting for something.

I spoke up. "Hello. We sure are glad to see you. We've been on our own a long time."

A short tubby man came pushing through the crowd.
He was about thirty-five, black-haired, puffy-faced, with his head held at a rather strange angle, slightly to one side, and leaning back a little. He had a large, sharp nose that gave his face a strong look. He was dressed in a dingy yellowish-green military uniform with tunic and tie but no hat. His tie was khaki, as was his shirt. The others shuffled back, making room for him. The man gazed at us for a moment, then focused on Homer.

"Hello youngsters," he said. "Welcome to Harvey's Heroes. I'm Major Harvey."

"Thanks," Homer said awkwardly. "It's fantastic to find you. We had no idea anyone would be here."

"Well, come with me, and we'll have a chat."

We still had our packs on our backs as we followed him through the camp. It was a clearing that wasn't a clearing, as there were so many gum trees that at times it was difficult to squeeze between them. Tents were placed in all kinds of odd corners. But compared to the thick bush around us it was a clearing.

Major Harvey's tent was so big by our standards that it was like a drawing room. The five of us could have slept in it, no worries. But all it contained was a camp stretcher covered by a mosquito net, a table and three chairs, and a few boxes and trunks. We dropped off our packs at the entrance. Major Harvey walked briskly to the chair behind the table and sat there, leaving us to sort out where we'd sit. In the end Homer and I took the chairs and the other three sat on the ground.

The major caught my eye as I glanced at the mosquito net and gave a rather nervous laugh. "Bit of a luxury that," he said. "Fact is, I've got rather sensitive
skin." I smiled a stupid lopsided sort of grin and said nothing. The major turned back to Homer.

"Now," he said, "firstly, congratulations on still being free of the enemy's clutches. You've obviously done very well for yourselves. You'll have to tell me what you've been up to."

I leaned back in the chair. I felt tremendously tired. Suddenly I could hardly stay awake. Adults! At last we had adults around us, people who could make the decisions, accept the responsibility, tell us what to do. I closed my eyes.

"Well," Homer began nervously. I was surprised by how nervous he sounded. His confidence seemed to have left him, in the face of this man who made it so clear that he was in charge. "Well," he said again, "we were camping in the bush when the invasion started. So we missed the whole thing. When we came out we found everybody had disappeared. It took us quite a while to work out what had happened. When we did realise, we shot back into the bush in a hurry, and we've been there ever since. Except for a few raids. We've done a bit of damage. We blew up the Wirrawee bridge and we attacked a convoy, and we've been in a few other fights. We lost one of our friends, who got a bullet in the back, and another of our friends who drove her to hospital, and Lee here got shot in the leg, but apart from that we've done OK."

I opened my eves and looked at Major Harvey. He was gazing thoughtfully at Homer. His face was expressionless but his eves were alive, brown and sharp. After a few seconds, when it was obvious that he wasn't going
to say anything, Homer stumbled on. "We're rapt to find you. We just came into the Holloway Valley to have a look around. We had no idea there'd be anything like this. You look like you've got a small army."'

There was silence again, I couldn't work out why he wouldn't speak, but my brain was too heavy and slow to work properly. Was there something obvious that I'd missed? After all, now that we were back with adults, we expected a bit of praise, a bit of recognition. Wasn't that what adults were for? We weren't looking for medals but we felt we'd come through some hard times and done the best we could. I'd expected the major to get a bit excited when he heard what we'd achieved. Maybe he thought we hadn't done enough?

When he did speak I really did get a shock.

He said: "Who gave you permission to blow up the bridge and attack convoys?"

Homer gaped at him, mouth open like Jonathan Jo. He gaped at him for so long that I finally took over as spokesperson. "What do you mean, permission?" I asked. "We didn't have anyone we could ask about anything. We've hardly seen an adult since this whole thing started. We've just been doing what we thought was best."

"This bridge. How do you know so much about explosives?"

"We don't," Homer answered. "We don't know anything about them. We used petrol."

Major Harvey gave a tight little smile. "All right," he said. "I'm sure you feel you have done your best. It's been a difficult time for everybody. But you can hand things over to us from now on. No doubt that'll be a
relief to you. Although none of us here are regular soldiers, I have had Army experience and this is a military camp, run to military standards. From now on you'll come under my command. There'll be no more independent action. Is that understood? By all of you?"

We nodded, rather dumbly. He seemed to relax a bit when he realised that we weren't going to put up a fight. Everyone was mentally exhausted, not just me. We sat there and listened as he explained the set-up of Harvey's Heroes.

"The enemy are currently in control of this valley," he said. "But the troop concentrations here are much less than in the Wirrawee area. Wirrawee is vital to them because as long as they control Wirrawee they control the road to Cobbler's Bay. And we believe Cobbler's Bay to be one of their main landing points.

"Our job is to harass the enemy as much as possible, causing maximum inconvenience to him and disrupting his activities at even possible point. We are severely outnumbered in terms of manpower and severely disadvantaged in terms of firepower. Nevertheless, we have made a difference in our own small way. We have sabotaged a number of enemy vehicles, destroyed two power stations and inflicted significant casualties." He gave a tight little smile. "I think I can say that the enemy is more than aware of our contribution."

We smiled back and muttered polite comments as he continued.

"In a few moments I will introduce you to my two ic, Captain Killen." I let out a giggle at this name,'but the major looked at me blankly.

"Sorry," I said.

He continued to talk, without looking at me, and it took me a moment to realise that I'd seriously offended him. "We are a combat unit on active service," he said. "And you have just had a perfect demonstration of why you will not see many members of the fairer sex among our numbers. A tendency towards levity at inappropriate moments is not something we encourage."

My little giggle was replaced by cold violent anger, mixed with disbelief. Only Homer's quick hand on my knee stopped me saying something. The fairer sex? Levity at inappropriate moments? Jeez, all I'd done was laugh.

I didn't notice the rest of the speech, just sat there smouldering until the two ic, Captain Killen, came in and was introduced. Only then did it strike me that the major hadn't even asked us our names.

At least the captain seemed harmless enough; a tall thin man with a soft voice. He had a prominent Adam's apple which bobbed up and down as he talked, and he kept blinking all the time. He was a man of few words though. He spent a minute with us outside Major Harvey's tent, pointing out the layout of the camp, then said he'd show us our sleeping quarters. He led us through the camp again, to the western edge, and stopped outside another big tent.

"The two boys," he said, pointing at the opening. Homer and Lee hesitated, and looked at us. Homer raised his eyebrows, rolled his eyes and disappeared into the tent. Lee, his normal impassive self, followed. Captain Killen was already walking away and we three quickly caught up with him. We threaded our way along a row of tents, stepping across fly-ropes. Beyond
that row was a brush fence, a rough bush job, about a metre high, and beyond the fence more tents, all green coloured.

The captain stopped and called out "Mrs Hauff!" It sounded like a cough, the way he said it. From the front tent Mrs Hauff emerged. She was a big woman, about fifty, and heavily made up. She wore a black sweater and blue jeans. She looked at us a bit like a shop assistant looks when you're trying to exchange a top you don't like.

"So you're the girls I've got to find room for?" she said. "All right, just come with me. Thank you Brian," she said to Captain Killen, who nodded and turned on his heel. Nervously we followed Mrs Hauff. She allocated us to separate tents, me to one next to Fi, but with a sleeping bag in it already. Robyn was eighty metres away.