The Third Day, The Frost (4 page)

Chapter Five

‘So, am I a genius?’ I asked the others. We
were back in the hayshed, sheltering from more rain. It was very
dark – probably about ten o’clock – on the night of our
conversation with Kevin. I couldn’t see anyone’s face except Fi’s;
but I could sense their excitement. I was excited too; I thought it
was a good plan.

‘I don’t know about genius,’ Homer grumbled.
‘But it’s not a bad idea.’

‘How would we get word to Kevin?’ Robyn
asked.

‘I’m not sure. Just have to wait for a chance.
It shouldn’t be too hard.’

‘We could write it down,’ Fi said, ‘and if we
get half a minute alone with him we could slip it to him then.’

Privately I thought that was a bit risky, in
case it got into the wrong hands, but I agreed to do it. I wrote it
early the next morning, with the others adding more suggestions
every few minutes. Some of their suggestions were pretty smart, so
I chucked them in. Writing it out made me nervous, though. It was
like we were going into action again, for the first time in a long
while. It was a different kind of action to the other battles we’d
fought – this was more a battle of wits – but a lot hinged on it.
If it went wrong, things would turn ugly for Kevin’s family, back
at the Showground. They were the ones actually running the biggest
risk and they didn’t even know it.

In the end, after we’d waited a day and a half
without any contact with Kevin, we delivered the letter in a
different way. When the work parties were in the paddocks with
their guards, Fi and I slipped out of the bush and, again using the
old houses as cover from the colonists in the main homestead, stole
into the prisoners’ quarters. We found Kevin’s bed easily enough:
it was the messiest. We got one of his socks and put the paper in
it, then made the bed roughly and hid the sock in there. We figured
the sentries wouldn’t notice if the bed had been made in the
morning, but Kevin certainly would. He’d realise there must be
something special going on.

The other thing I had to do was check the old
well set in the ground in the little courtyard. It was one of the
biggest I’d seen but, like a lot of those old wells, was in a
dangerous condition. The stonework was crumbling and collapsing
around its edges. There was a cover over it: a big steel cap that
could be opened in the middle by pulling two handles in opposite
directions. While Fi held me by the back of my shirt, I wrestled
with the two handles until the cover slowly ground open. A rush of
stale, damp air exhaled into my face. The gases were all I hoped
they would be; I felt instant nausea at just a sniff of them. I
held my breath and leaned forward, peering down the shaft. It was
beautifully dark and deep: I couldn’t see the bottom. I dropped a
pebble and waited nearly six seconds before I heard it hit water,
which was perfect. I scrambled backwards. The air had made me so
dizzy that I had to get Fi to pull the cover back in place. I
didn’t want to go near it again.

Nothing happened then until the next morning
when Kevin gave the signal we’d suggested in our letter. We’d asked
him to wear something green for yes, red for no, yellow if he
wanted to meet us and talk it over. I’d been betting that Kevin,
who was a cautious guy, would be dressed all in yellow. But he
surprised us. He came out with a green cap, a lurid green shirt and
an olive pair of trousers. The outfit looked terrible but I
realised then, if I hadn’t realised it before, just how desperate
he was to get away and rejoin us.

We were watching from the scrub and when we
saw all the green we looked at each other in a mixture of fear and
excitement. For once we wouldn’t have much to do. Mostly, we’d have
to sit and watch. The only way we’d have a lot to do was if the
guards realised that something was wrong and came looking for us.
In a way I would have preferred more action. Sitting and watching
has never been my style.

We did have one job though: to go get a sheep.
Or a pig or roo or calf. But a sheep seemed the easiest. We waited
until the work parties set out for the day, then we went in the
opposite direction. Out in a distant paddock we found a small mob
of two-tooths. We hung around till midafternoon, then Homer and I,
helped and hindered by the others, cut out a sheep and got it in a
corner. We decided not to kill it there and then because it would
leave evidence in the paddock. So we tied its legs and Homer, with
a bit of a struggle, got it up across his shoulders and staggered
off into the bush with it. There are advantages in having a strong
male around sometimes. When we were well into the trees, Homer
dropped the sheep and he and I killed it. I cut its throat and he
broke its neck, while Fi stood there making little whimpering
noises of disgust, as though someone had spat on the floor of her
parents’ beautiful drawing room.

‘Sorry Fi,’ I said, grinning.

We left the blood for the flies. Homer
shouldered the carcass and led the way back to the farmhouses. The
tension was killing me. It’s much worse when it’s your own plan;
the responsibility is too much, too much. I resolved that I’d never
suggest anything again, knowing even as I made the resolution that
I wouldn’t be able to keep it. I talked to Robyn as we walked along
though, and that was interesting. She had this great religious
theory about how the sheep was a sacrificial lamb, sacrificed to
save Kevin’s life. I didn’t know about that.

Once we were in sight of the farmhouse we had
to take a lot of care. It was no easy matter for Homer to carry the
sheep all the way to the well. Lee went to a tree which gave him a
good view of the main homestead and he waved to us when it was all
clear. It took twenty minutes before he signalled, which meant time
was starting to get tight. It was 4.25 already. Flies were driving
Homer crazy. It’s amazing how quickly they sniff out the bleeding
and the dead, even in winter. But at last, with a short rush, he
was able to hoist the carcass and take it to the well. Robyn and I
got the top open and Homer, with a sigh of relief, tossed it in,
head first, so it would fall all the way. We slammed the top shut
again and raced back to shelter. From now on we were reduced to
being an audience.

At 5.19 the men returned. They all went
straight into their quarters: apparently this was not a bath night.
Was it my imagination or did they look nervous? Wasn’t Kevin
walking kind of stiffly, grimly? I could hardly breathe. My chest
felt tight. But nothing happened till 5.35. Then Kevin began his
run for the Academy Award.

First he sauntered out past the
galvanised-iron shed and had a bit of a poke around it, as though
he’d never seen a galvanised-iron shed before. He looked at the
corner post nearest us – and nearest the sentry – then checked the
guttering. The sentry called out, obviously asking what he was
doing, and Kevin muttered something before dawdling away. He was
meant to look like a bored teenager who was going to get into
trouble, but he seemed a bit self-conscious about it to me.

After that we lost sight of him for ten
minutes, but we knew what was meant to happen. Kevin would wander
over to the well, force the cover open, and take a look down it.
The crumbling stonework would give way, and Kevin would fall to his
death. Either the fall or the fumes would kill him; it didn’t
matter to us, as long as he was definitely dead. We waited
nervously.

Sure enough after five minutes came a sharp
cry. It only lasted the briefest moment, seemingly cut off in
mid-voice, but it was unusual enough to catch the attention of the
sentry. He stood more alertly and turned in the direction of the
cry, then did a full circle and looked carefully all around him. He
was no fool. In the ‘How to Invade Other Countries’ textbook he’d
obviously read the section on ‘Decoys’ twice. But a few seconds
later a man, one of the prisoners, came running out past the shed
and called desperately to the sentry. Without even looking to see
if the sentry was following, he ran straight back again. It was
nicely done, and seemed to finally convince the soldier. He only
hesitated a moment, then quickly followed the prisoner.

We waited in a state of high tension. We could
hear a lot of shouting and we caught glimpses of people running to
and fro. It lasted about thirty minutes, then seemed to calm down a
bit. But it was more than an hour before the sentry came back and
took up his position again. And that was the end of the night’s
excitement. Everything went very quiet and stayed that way. We
presumed it had worked, but we didn’t know. It was another great
night for insomniacs.

Next morning the work parties were late to
leave. When they did go they looked subdued and dejected. There was
no sign of Kevin, of course. But suddenly I had an awful thought.
‘My God,’ I said to Homer, ‘I hope he didn’t really fall down
it.’

Another slow hour passed. Then I saw a
movement by the corner of the shed. I called out, softy, to the
others but there was no need. They had already seen it. We all
craned forward. It was an agonising moment. Kevin or not Kevin?
Success or failure? Life or death?

He sprinted towards us, grinning from ear to
ear. It was as though he were unloading months of misery with this
one short run to freedom. I wanted to cheer but it wouldn’t have
been a good idea. We were still in deadly peril, hanging around
there and, more importantly, Kevin’s family were in deadly peril. I
took a step forward to greet him.

The soldier seemed to come from nowhere. He
didn’t, of course. There was an old rainwater tank, open to the
sky, that had been dumped between the buildings and the bush. It
had been there so long that weeds had started to grow through it
and over it. It had become part of the landscape and so we hadn’t
even noticed it. But the soldier must have concealed himself in it
sometime before dawn. He was one smart cookie.

He stood with his back to us. Kevin had
stopped in an instant and stood there, mouth open, the colour
draining from his face. The soldier had a rifle pointing at Kevin,
and the rifle was cocked. The only thing we had going for us was
that he obviously didn’t know we were behind him.

I didn’t know what to do, couldn’t think of a
single thing that might help. All I knew was that I had completely
screwed up and people were going to die. I heard the soldier say,
‘You think I stupid. They think I stupid. But I no stupid. You
stupid.’

I still couldn’t think of anything to say or
do. Behind me there was a slight movement, a stealthy sound. I
turned my head enough to see, not moving my body in case the
soldier sensed it. Homer had opened the top of his pack and was in
the process of withdrawing his shotgun. He had it half out of the
pack already. Further across I saw Lee fishing in his pack for
something. I made frantic signals at Homer with my face, widening
my eyes and wiggling my eyebrows. I didn’t know what the solution
was, but it wasn’t the shotgun. There were a dozen or more
colonists up at the main house; they were sure to be better armed
than us. I heard the soldier say to Kevin: ‘You walk to house.’ At
that moment Lee began to move forward. Sick with knowledge, I made
myself look at his hands to see what he held. I expected to see a
knife, like the one he had used to kill the young soldier back in
the Holloway Valley. But he held no knife. He had not found what
he’d been looking for in his pack, and now his hands were at his
waist. What he was quickly pulling off was worse than a knife. It
was his leather-plaited belt.

Lee’s eyes were wide open, like spotlights. He
moved with the stealth of a feral cat – so quietly that I only
heard the slightest crunch as he took each footstep. I somehow
found time to be jealous of his grace and lightness of tread. But
then I realised I was going to have to do more than watch.

In some ways what Lee had was the perfect
weapon. The belt ran through two small rings of steel, and came
back between them to get its tension. It was the kind of belt that
we all wore: most of us had made our own in Leatherwork. It took
Lee, though, to think of using one as a weapon. I had a horrible
sick awareness that it was probably going to be perfect. But there
was one big problem: Lee was going to try to strangle this guy with
a belt while the guy stood there holding a gun. It was probably the
bravest, stupidest thing I’d ever seen anyone try to do. I knew I
had to help.

The soldier was losing his temper fast. ‘Turn
round!’ he shouted at Kevin. ‘You bad boy! You turn round!’

Kevin looked terrified. He had seen Lee moving
up behind the soldier and I don’t know who he was more scared of:
Lee or the soldier. But at least the man was sure he was the one
who’d caused Kevin’s loss of colour, and shaking lips. He hadn’t
yet thought that there might be anyone behind him; hadn’t yet
thought to turn around. I began moving forward with Lee. I knew
what I had to do: get the man’s gun arm. I tried desperately to
move as quietly as Lee. Kevin was turning round as ordered; slowly,
but he was turning. ‘Hand up, hand up,’ the soldier yelled. Lee and
I were only a couple of steps away now, and I thought that we
should strike while the man was yelling; he would be less likely to
hear us while his own voice was filling his ears. I had an awful
moment of hesitation when I didn’t think I was going to be able to
do it; I wanted to freeze but knew I simply couldn’t. The only way
I could make myself act was to count: I went, ‘One, two, three,’
very quickly to myself, and dived.

Lee launched himself a split second later.
Kevin fell sideways, desperate to avoid the aim of the gun. But the
man didn’t shoot Kevin by reflex, which is what I’d most feared. He
didn’t shoot anyone. He didn’t even pull the trigger. He did what I
suppose most people would do in that situation: he started spinning
round to see what was going on behind him. That was the way his
reflexes worked. I rabbit-chopped his arm as hard as I could hit,
then grabbed the gun and swung it upwards. I’d been hoping he’d
drop the gun with the shock of my hit; he didn’t, but he lost his
grip on it and had to snatch at it to try to get it back. At that
moment, Lee knocked the man’s cap off and dropped the belt over his
head. Now, fighting two battles at once, the man got confused; he
tried to push me away and at the same time turned to attack Lee.
Then Homer arrived with a rush and, between us, we prised the gun
out of the man’s grasping fingers. He knew he was in trouble then.
Lee was tightening the belt fast. The man tried to get his hands
onto the belt but Homer and I grabbed an arm each and dragged them
down again. Lee started to put all his weight on the belt. The
soldier tried to call for help. Too late. I started getting
hysterical myself but some force within me made me hold on. The
soldier was pitching to the right, staggering. I lost my grip on
his arm and he brought it up to his throat but it did him no good;
Lee was implacable. The man’s face was mottled now, dark red with
patches of white, getting darker by the moment. A horrible gurgling
noise came from his mouth, like someone trying to gargle but doing
it in the mouth instead of the throat. I didn’t, couldn’t watch any
longer, but looked away, towards the beautiful bush, the bush that
I loved. Did these things happen in the bush? Did animals and birds
kill each other in cold blood because of fights over territory? You
bet your life they did.