The Dead of Night (2 page)

"I don't know about you Guys, but I've been sitting around here feeling depressed, only that's not going to get us anywhere. I think it's the shock of losing Corrie and Kevin, right at the moment when the four of us were coming back feeling so up and proud and happy. Wrecking the bridge felt good, and it was a shock to go straight from that into a disaster. It's no wonder we all feel sick and unhappy and angry. It's no wonder we've all been biting each other's heads off, though there's no logical reason why we should. The fact is, no one's made any terrible blunders. We've made mistakes, but nothing worth slashing wrists over. Corrie getting shot—no one could have picked that. We'll never be able to cut out all risks. The way Kevin told it, these turkeys just came from nowhere. We can't protect ourselves from all possible attacks, twenty-four hours a day.

"Anyway." Homer shook his head. He looked tired, and sad. "That's not what I wanted to talk about. We've all thrashed these things out among ourselves often enough since it happened. I want to talk about the future. And by that, I don't mean we forget the past. No way. In fact, one of the things I want to say will show that, but I'll come to it. First, I want to tell you
what I've been thinking about most. And that's courage. Guts. That's what I've been thinking about."

He squatted, and picked up a dry old twig and started chewing on it. He was looking down at the ground, and even though you could see he was self-conscious, he kept talking. More quietly but with a lot of feeling.

"Maybe this stuff is obvious to everyone else. Maybe you ali figured it out when you were knee-high to grasshoppers, and I'm just struggling along in the distance trying to catch up. But you know, it's only occurred to me the last week or so how this courage business works. It's all in your head. You're not born with it, you don't learn it in school, you don't get it out of a book. It's a way of thinking, that's what it is. It's something you train your mind to do. I've just started to realise that. When something happens, something that could be dangerous, your mind can go crazy with fear. It starts galloping into wild territory, into the bush. It sees snakes and crocodiles and men with machine guns. That's your imagination. And your imagination's not doing you any favours when it pulls those stunts. What you have to do is to put a bridle on it, rein it in. It's a mind game. You've got to be strict with your own head. Being brave is a choice you make. You've got to say to yourself: I'm going to think brave. I refuse to think fear or panic."

Homer, pale-faced and eager to convince us, was talking earnestly at the ground, only glancing up occasionally.

"We've spun our wheels for weeks. We've been upset and we've been scared. It's time for us to take charge of
our heads again, to be brave, to do the things we have to do. That's the only way we can hold our heads up, walk proud. We've got to block out those thoughts of bullets and blood and pain. What happens, happens. But every time we panic, we weaken ourselves. Every time we think brave, we make ourselves stronger.

"There's a few things we ought to be doing. We're heading into autumn; the days are getting shorter already, and the nights are sure as hell colder. We've got to keep building up our food supplies, stockpiling for winter. Come spring we can plant a lot more vegetables and stuff. We need more livestock, and we have to work out what's practical to keep down here, given that there's no pasture. We've got enough warm clothes, and we'll never run out of firewood, even though it's not easy to get sometimes. But they're only the basic things, the survival things. What I'm talking about is not just hiding in here like a snake in a log but getting out and acting with courage. And there's two things in particular I think we should do. One is to go and find some other people. There's got to be other groups like us, and all those radio reports keep talking about guerilla activity, and resistance in the occupied areas. We should try to link up with them and work together. We're operating in such ignorance: we don't know where anything is or what's happening or what we should be doing.

"But before we go looking for them I want to look for someone else. I think we should go find Kevin and Corrie."

To anyone watching (I hope there wasn't anyone) it
must have resembled an outdoors ballet class. We all slowly began to unfurl and turn towards Homer. Lee dropped his piece of wood. Chris put down his pad and pen and stretched out. I stood and moved to a higher rock. Find Kevin and Corrie? Of course. The idea infused us with hope and excitement and boldness. None of us had thought anything about it because it had seemed impossible. But Homer's saying it had brought it within the realms of possibility, till suddenly it seemed like the only thing to do. In fact, his saying it made it seem so possible that it was almost as if it had happened already. That was the power of the spoken word. Homer had put us back on our feet and got us dancing again. Words began to pour from all of us. No one doubted that we should do it. For once there was no argument, no debate about the morality of it. All the talk was about how, not whether.

Suddenly we'd forgotten about food and livestock and firewood. All we could think about was Corrie and Kevin. We realised that we might actually be able to do something about them. I felt stupid that it hadn't occurred to us before.

Already, just a couple of months since the invasion, the landscape looked different. There were the obvious
changes: crops not harvested, houses lifeless, more dead stock in the paddocks. Fruit rotting on trees and on the ground. Another farmhouse, the Blackmores', had been destroyed, maybe by accidental fire, maybe by soldiers' shells. A tree had fallen onto the roof of the Wilsons' shearing shed and still lay there in a cradle of galvanised iron and broken rafters. There were more rabbits around, and we saw three foxes, which is unusual in daylight.

Some of the changes weren't so obvious. A gap in a fence here, a broken windmill there. A tendril of ivy curling in through a window of a house.

There was something else too, an atmosphere, a change in the feel of the land. It felt wilder, stranger, more ancient. I was still comfortable travelling through it, but I felt less important. I felt that I wasn't much more significant than a rabbit or a fox myself. As the bush took back the farmlands, I would become just another little bush creature, scurrying through the undergrowth, barely disturbing the land. In some strange sort of way I didn't particularly mind that. It felt more natural.

We took our time, keeping well away from the road, walking across paddocks in the shadow of the hills, using the trees for cover. We didn't talk, but there was a new mood in all of us, a new energy pumping through our blood. We walked all the way to the ruins of Corrie's house, then took a break there, raiding their little orchard for afternoon tea. A lot of the apples were nibbled by possums and parrots but there were enough whole ones for us to stuff ourselves, and we did. But we
paid a price an hour later when we all started ducking behind trees; the apples had gone through our alimentary canals like a flood in Venice.

Still, it was worth it.

We hung around the Mackenzies' place until well after dark. We figured we were pretty safe there, because with the house just a pile of rubble there was nothing much left to attract the soldiers. I'd thought I'd feel depressed at the sight of the wreckage, but I was too nervous at the thought of what lay ahead. To be honest (there I go again) I'd already stopped dreaming noble dreams of rescuing Corrie and Kevin; instead I was thinking more about keeping myself alive. I even had the grim idea that my body might soon be looking like Corrie's house, splattered across the landscape.

The worst thought of all though—the one I stamped on every time it reared its dark filthy head—was that Corrie might be dead. I didn't think I'd be able to cope with that. I was scared that finding Corrie dead would be the end of me. I didn't know how it would finish me; I just had this deep belief that I could not continue living if my mate Corrie had been killed by a bullet fired by an invading army in the middle of a war. Surely I couldn't survive that? Surely no one could survive that. It was too far beyond normal.

From the moment Homer had suggested we go into town and find Kevin and Corrie we'd banished the thought that either or both of them might have been killed. The quest for them had given our lives meaning again; we weren't in a hurry to rip that up and throw it away.

At eleven o'clock we started out for Wirrawee, walking in pairs on the grass verge of the road, about fifty metres between each pair. We'd hardly left the Mackenzies' when Lee, to my surprise, took my hand and held it in his warm grasp. That was the first time in weeks he'd taken any initiative with me. I'd been making the running, and although he'd responded OK most of the time, it had made me feel insecure, as though maybe he didn't care all that much. So it felt good to be walking along hand in hand, under the thick black sky.

I was keen to say something, any trivial little thing, just to let Lee know how happy I felt to be wanted again. I gave his hand a squeeze and said, "We could have used the bikes, to the Mackenzies' at least."

"Mmm. But not knowing how much things might have changed ... Better to play it safe."

"Are you nervous?"

"Nervous! It wasn't just the apples that had me dropping my daks."

I laughed. "Do you know, that's the first joke you've made in weeks."

"Is it? Have you been counting?"

"No. But you've seemed so sad."

"Sad? I suppose I have been. Still am. I suppose we all are."

"Yes ... But with you it goes so deep, and I can't reach you."

"Sorry."

"It's not something to be sorry about. It's just the way you are. You can't help that."

"OK, I'm not sorry then."

"Hey, that's two jokes. At this rate you'll be doing stand-ups at the Wirrawee nightclub."

"Wirrawee nightclub? I think I missed that. Our restaurant's the nearest thing to a nightclub in Wirrawee."

"Remember how everyone at school kept complaining that there was never anything to do in Wirrawee? Definitely no nightclubs. We had that Year 9 disco but we never got around to having another one. It was good fun, but."

"Yes. You and I had a dance."

"We did? I don't remember that."

"I do."

He said it with such feeling, and his hand tightened so hard on mine that I was startled. I tried to look at his face, but couldn't make out his expression in the darkness.

"You remember it that well?"

"You were sitting with Corrie, under the premiership flag. You were holding a drink with one hand and fanning yourself with the other. You were red in the face and laughing. It was pretty hot in there and you'd been dancing with Steve. I'd been wanting to ask you since I'd got there—that was the only reason I went in the first place—but I didn't have the guts. Then suddenly I found myself walking towards you without even knowing how I'd started. It was like I'd become a robot. I asked you and you just looked at me for a sec while I felt like a complete idiot, and wondered which tactful way you'd find to say no. Then without saying anything you gave Corrie the can of drink and you got up and we had our dance. I was hoping for a long slow song but it
was 'Convicted of Love.' Not too romantic. Then at the end Corrie dragged you off to the dunnies and that was the end of it."

My hand had become damp and sweaty, but so had Lee's I think. It was hard to tell whose hand was providing the damp. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. Had Lee really felt that way about me for so long? Unbelievable, wonderful.

"Lee! You're so ... Why didn't you tell me all this ages ago?"

"I don't know," he mumbled, shutting all his words in again, as quickly as he'd let them out.

"You've seemed so ... I never know whether you really care or not."

"I care, Ellie. It's just that I care about other things too; mainly my family. I get so exhausted thinking about them that there's no room for anything else."

"I know. Do I ever know. But we can't deep-freeze our lives until our families get out. We have to keep living, and that means thinking and feeling and ... and just advancing! Do you know what I mean?"

"I know it. Only it's hard to do it sometimes."

We were passing the Church of Christ at the edge of Wirrawee. Homer and Robyn, who were ahead, had stopped and we waited with them for Fi and Chris, who'd fallen a little behind. From now on there would be no more talk of emotions, and liking each other. I had to put away my amazement at the strength and depth of Lee's feelings. We had to be completely alert, concentrating. This was a war zone, and we were going into the heart of it. There must have been a hundred or
more soldiers just in little Wirrawee, and every one of them would want to kill us if they could, especially after what we had done to their buddies.

Each of our three pairs separated, one person to each side of the street. I was on the right, Lee on the left. We waited until the dark figures of Homer and Robyn had been gone sixty seconds, then we followed. We went along Warrigle Road, with the Mathers' house on the ridge above us. I wondered how Robyn would feel as she passed it. We turned into Honey Street, as we'd agreed, and crept along the footpath. There were still no lights in this part of Wirrawee and I caught only occasional glimpses of Lee. I saw nothing of the other four, and could only hope that we were all going at the same speed. Honey Street at least seemed normal enough, except for a wrecked car crushed up against a telegraph pole. It was a dark blue car, which made it hard to see, and I nearly walked into it myself. As usual my mind started wandering: I began wondering how I'd explain it to the cops if I had a collision with a parked car..."Well Sergeant, I was going east along Honey Street, doing about four k's, when I suddenly saw the car right in front of me. I hit the brakes and veered to the right, but I struck the vehicle a glancing blow on its right-hand side..."

I had so many different daydreams for when I was walking anywhere. My favourite was counting things, like the number of electrical appliances we had at home (sixty-four, I'm ashamed to say), the number of songs I could remember with a weekday in the title (like "Let's Make It Saturday"), the number of mozzies who'd
never be born because of the one Id just killed (sixty billion in six months, if every female laid a thousand eggs).