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‘What’s that mean?’
‘It means you can pick up stations from all around the world. Corrie, do you mean you’ve only been trying the local stations?’
‘Well, yes, PO and FM. That’s what Dad told me. I didn’t know about all that other stuff, and I didn’t want to flatten the batteries, mucking around with it. They’re nearly dead now, and we don’t have any more.’
I felt wildly excited and called to the others, ‘Come here you guys, quick!’
They came quickly, drawn by the urgency in my voice.
‘Corrie’s radio can pick up short wave but she didn’t realise it. You want to listen in? The batteries have nearly had it, but you never know your luck.’ I selected ‘OC Etendue 1’ and handed the little black transistor back to Corrie. ‘Give it the gun, Corrie. Just spin the dial the same way you did before.’
We crowded round as Corrie, tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth, slowly began to rotate the knob. And a moment later we heard the first rational adult voice most of us had heard in a long time. It was a female, speaking very fast among the static, but in a language we didn’t understand.
‘Keep going,’ Homer breathed.
We heard some exotic music, an American voice saying ‘You welcome Him into your heart and only then can you know perfect love’, two more foreign language stations – ‘That’s Taiwanese,’ said Fi, surprisingly, of one of them – then, as the radio started to die, a faint voice speaking in English. It was a male voice, and all we could hear was this:
‘... warned America not to get involved. The General said that America would find herself in the longest, costliest and bloodiest war in her history if she tried to intervene. He said his forces have occupied several major coastal cities. Much of the inland has been taken already, and losses have been below expectations. Many civilian and military prisoners have been captured and are being held in humanitarian conditions. Red Cross teams will be permitted to inspect them when the situation stabilises.
‘The General repeated his claim that the invasion was aimed at “reducing imbalances within the region”. As international outrage continues to mount, FCA reports sporadic fighting in many country areas and at least two major land battles ...’
And that was about it. The voice faded quickly. We heard a few scattered words, ‘United Nations’, ‘New Zealand’, ‘twenty to twenty-five aircraft’, then it was gone. We looked at each other.
‘Let’s everyone get pens and paper and write down what we think we heard,’ Homer said calmly. ‘Then we can compare notes.’
We met again ten minutes later. It was amazing how different the versions were, but we agreed on the important details. What we could infer was as important as what the man had said. ‘For one thing,’ said Homer, sitting back on his heels, ‘we can tell it’s not World War Three. Not yet, anyway. It sounds like it’s just us.’
‘The part about the prisoners was good,’ Corrie said. Everyone nodded. It sounded genuine somehow. It had helped all of us, a little, though awful fears still kept leaping up and attacking our minds.
‘He’s trying to remind the Americans of Vietnam,’ Fi said. ‘It’s meant to have been their national nightmare or something.’
‘Bigger nightmare for the Vietnamese,’ Chris commented.
I glanced at Lee, whose face was impassive.
‘The Americans don’t like getting involved with other countries.’ I remembered something we’d done in Twentieth Century History. ‘Woodrow Wilson and isolationism, isn’t that one of the topics we’re meant to be preparing, over the holidays?’
‘Mmm, remind me to do some work on it tonight.’ That was Kevin.
‘“International outrage” sounds promising,’ Robyn said.
‘That’s probably our biggest hope. But I can’t imagine too many other countries rushing in to spill their blood for us,’ I said.
‘But don’t we have treaties and stuff?’ Kevin asked. ‘I thought the politicians were meant to organise all this. Otherwise, why’ve we been paying their salaries all these years?’
No one knew what to answer. Maybe they were thinking the same thing I was, that we should have taken an interest in all these things a long time ago, before it was too late.
‘What does it mean “reducing imbalances within the region”?’ Kevin asked.
‘I guess he’s talking about sharing things more equally,’ Robyn said. ‘We’ve got all this land and all these resources, and yet there’s countries a crow’s spit away that have people packed in like battery hens. You can’t blame them for resenting it, and we haven’t done much to reduce any imbalances, just sat on our fat backsides, enjoyed our money and felt smug.’
‘Well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles,’ Kevin said uncomfortably.
‘And now they’ve taken the cookie and crumbled it in a whole new way,’ Robyn said. ‘In fact it looks like they’re taking the whole packet.’
‘I don’t understand you,’ Kevin said. ‘You sound like you don’t mind. You think it’s fair enough, do you? Let them walk in and take everything they want, everything our parents have worked for. Help yourself guys, don’t mind us. Is that what you get out of the Bible? Do unto others, or whatever it is? Remind me not to go to your church.’
‘Not much chance of that,’ Corrie said, smiling and putting her hand on Kevin’s knee, trying to calm him down. But Robyn wasn’t put off.
‘Of course I mind,’ Robyn said. ‘If I was a saint maybe I wouldn’t mind, but I’m not a saint so I mind rather a lot. And its not as though they’re acting in a very religious way. I don’t know any religion that tells people to go in and steal and kill to get what they want. I can understand why they’re doing it but understanding isn’t the same as supporting. But if you’d lived your whole life in a slum, starving, unemployed, always ill, and you saw the people across the road sunbaking and eating ice cream every day, then after a while you’d convince yourself that taking their wealth and sharing it around your neighbours isn’t such a terrible thing to do. A few people would suffer, but a lot of people would be better off.’
‘It’s just not right,’ said Kevin stubbornly.
‘Maybe not. But neither’s your way of looking at it. There doesn’t have to be a right side and a wrong side. Both sides can be right, or both sides can be wrong. I think both countries are in the wrong this time.’
‘So does that mean you’re not going to fight them?’ Kevin asked, still looking for a fight himself.
Robyn sighed. ‘I don’t know. I already have, haven’t I? I was right there with Ellie when we smashed our way through Wirrawee. I guess I’ll keep fighting them, for the sake of my family. But after the war, if there is such a time as after the war, I’ll work damn hard to change things. I don’t care if I spend the rest of my life doing it.’
‘You were the one who thought we were taking too big a risk going to look for Robyn and Lee,’ I said to Kevin. ‘You didn’t seem so fired up then.’
He looked uncomfortable. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ was all he would say.
Homer spoke up. ‘Maybe it’s time to decide what we’re all going to do. We’ve had a chance to rest up, get our breath back, think about things. Now we should decide if we’re going to stay here in hiding till the war sorts itself out, or if we should get out there and do something about it.’ He paused, and when no one spoke he continued. ‘I know we’re meant to be schoolkids, too young to do much more than clean a whiteboard for a teacher, but some of those soldiers I saw the other night weren’t any older than us.’
‘I saw two who looked a lot younger than us,’ said Robyn.
Homer nodded. No one else spoke. The tension was heavy, like a humid night. Here in this secret basin we’d been insulated for a little while from the fear and sweat and bleeding of the outside world. People were keeping each other prisoner, hurting each other, killing each other, but we’d retreated to the paradise of Hell.