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It was a bit irrelevant to what Homer was saying, but I spoke anyway. ‘I can understand why the Hermit chose to live down here, away from it all.’
‘Away from the human race,’ Chris murmured.
‘It’s our own families,’ said Corrie. ‘That’s what everyone’s worried about, isn’t it? I guess I’d fight for my country but I’m going mad wondering what’s happened to my family. We don’t know if they’re alive or dead. We’re thinking and hoping that they’re at the Showground, and we’re thinking and hoping that they’re being well treated, but we don’t know any of that. We’ve only got Mr Clement’s word to go on.’
‘Seeing Mr Coles at the Showground helped,’ I said. ‘He looked healthy. He didn’t look too terrified or injured. That made a big difference to me.’
Fi spoke up. ‘I think we should try to find out more about the Showground. If we know that everyone’s there, that they’re unhurt, that they’re being fed properly and all that sort of thing, it’d make such a difference.’ Homer was about to interrupt but she went on. ‘I’ve been thinking about what Robyn and Kevin were arguing about. If I could get my family and friends back, healthy, I’d let these people have the stupid houses and cars and things. I’d go and live with my parents in a cardboard box at the tip and be happy.’
I tried to imagine Fi, with her beautiful skin and soft polished voice, living at the tip.
‘It sounds like we should try to find out more about the Showground then,’ Homer said. ‘But it won’t be easy.’ He added modestly, ‘Do you realise that every group that’s gone into town has been spotted, except Fi and me?’
‘Were you striped?’ I asked, and got the groan I deserved.
Lee was lying on my left, against a rock that was still warm. It seemed to be his turn to speak. ‘I don’t think they’ll be into tortures and mass executions. The world’s changing, and any country that does that stuff knows there’s going to be a stink about it. I mean, I know it still happens, but not as much as it used to. Nowadays they seem to do things unobtrusively, over a long period of time. These guys are obviously trigger-happy, but there’s a big difference between shooting in hot blood and shooting in cold blood. We know that they’re firing off endless bullets in hot blood – they’re wild that way, and I’ve got the hole in my leg to prove it. But that’s sort of normal in a war, and a lot of it’s self-defence. It doesn’t mean they’re into concentration camps. The two things don’t automatically go together.’
‘I hate them,’ said Kevin. ‘I don’t know why you’re all being so understanding. I just hate them and I want to kill them all and if I had a nuclear bomb I’d drop it right down their throats.’
He was really upset, and he’d stopped the conversation as though he had nuked it. But after a few moments of awkward silence Homer started in again.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘do we want to check out the Showground more thoroughly? Can we do it with the stealth and finesse that Fi and I showed, or are we going to march in like a heavy metal band at a bowling club?’
‘We could tu
‘Yeah, or pole-vault over the fence. Anyone got a serious suggestion? And how badly do we want to do it anyway?’
‘Badly,’ I said.
‘I won’t pretend the thought doesn’t scare the skin off me,’ Corrie said softly. ‘But it’s what we have to do. We’ll never sleep again at nights if we don’t.’
‘We’ll never sleep again at nights if we’re dead.’ Chris said ‘Look, with my parents overseas, I’m not quite as involved as you guys. But I’ll have a go, I suppose.’
‘I know what our parents would say,’ Fi said. ‘They’d say that the most important thing to them is our safety. They wouldn’t want us dead in exchange for them living. In a way we’re what gives their lives their meaning. But we can’t be bound by that. We have to do what’s right for us. We have to find meanings for our own lives, and this might be one of the ways we do it. I’m with Corrie; scared out of my skin, but I’ll do it because I can’t imagine the rest of my life if I don’t.’
‘I agree,’ Robyn said.
‘All day and all night,’ said Lee, ‘I pray for my leg to get better so I can go and find my family.’
‘I’m with the majority,’ Kevin said.
We looked at Homer. ‘I never thought I’d have to hurt other people just so I could live my own life,’ he said. ‘But my grandfather did it, in the Civil War. If I have to do it, I hope I’ll have the strength, like Ellie did. Whatever we do, I hope we can do it without hurting anyone. But if it happens ... well, it happens.’
‘You’re getting soft,’ Kevin said.
Homer ignored him. He continued, briskly. ‘I keep thinking of that quote Corrie mentioned the other day, “Time spent in reco
‘So, what I’m thinking is, we need some kind of observation place, somewhere hidden and safe, where we can watch the Showground. The more we know, the better our decisions will be and the more effective we can be. Judging from the radio, the whole country hasn’t been a pushover, and there’s a lot of action still going on. We ought to talk to anyone we can find in town, like Mr Clement, and even try to link up with the Army, or whoever’s still fighting in other districts. We should set ourselves up as a real guerilla outfit, living off the land as much as possible, mobile and fast and tough. We might have to survive like this for months, years even.
‘For example – you mightn’t like this, so say so if you don’t – suppose we sent two or three people into Wirrawee for forty-eight hours. Their job would be to get information, nothing more. If they’re really careful they honestly shouldn’t get seen. They’ve just got to become totally nocturnal and triple-check every move they make. The rest of us can start organising things more efficiently here. We’ll never get a better base camp, but we should get more supplies in and make it a proper headquarters. It’s frightening how quickly we’re going through the food. We should start organising rations. And I’d like to set up other little hideaways through the mountains. Stock them with food and stuff, in case we get cut off from this place. Like I said, we’ve got to get more mobile.
‘And living off the land, we’ve got to get serious about that. So the people back here should figure out some possibilities. Where are all the springs in these mountains? Can we trap rabbits or roos, or even possums? Ellie and I, our families have always killed our own meat, so we can do a bit of rough butchering.’
‘Same for me,’ Kevin said.
‘I can do a nice sweet and sour possum,’ Lee said. ‘Or catch me a feral cat and I’ll make dim sims.’
There was a groan of disgust. Lee leaned back and gri
‘We could bring animals in here,’ Corrie said. ‘Chooks, a few lambs maybe. Goats.’
‘Good,’ said Homer. ‘That’s the kind of thing we need to look at, and think about.’
Kevin looked gloomy at the mention of goats. I knew what he was thinking. We’d been brought up as sheep cockies, and the first thing we learned was to despise goats. Sheep good, goats bad. It didn’t mean anything, just went with the territory. But we’d have to unlearn a lot of the old ways.
‘You’re thinking in the long term,’ I said to Homer.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘The really long term.’
We talked on for a couple of hours. Corrie’s radio had had the last laugh. It spurred us out of our shock, our misery. By the time we stopped, exhausted, we’d come to a few decisions. Two pairs would go into town the next evening, Robyn and Chris, and Kevin and Corrie. They would operate independently, but stay in close contact. They’d stay there the next full night, most of the night after, and return by dawn the following day. So they’d be away about sixty hours. Kevin and Corrie would concentrate on the Showground. Robyn and Chris would cruise around town, looking for people in hiding, for useful information, for equipment even. ‘We’ll start to reclaim Wirrawee,’ as Robyn put it. We worked out a lot of complicated details, like where they’d have their base (Robyn’s music teacher’s house), where they’d leave notes for each other (under the dog ke