Tomorrow, When the War Began

We don’t talk about the other possibilities, that Kevin didn’t even get as far as the Hospital, for example. We just don’t know what’s happened, but I pray my guts out a dozen times a day for them. If I go an hour without thinking about them, I feel guilty.

I’m glad I got this up to date. Guess I’ll have to show it to the others now. Hope they like it. It’s a big thing to leave a record, to be remembered. I keep thinking about the Hermit’s tin box. Without that we’d have known nothing about him, except the rumours, which really told us so little.

I don’t know how long we’ll be here. Maybe as long as the Hermit. We’ve got the chooks, and we’ve planted vegetables, and we still hope to get ferrets and nets. That’s where Kevin and Corrie went that night, to Kevin’s uncle’s, to get some. They didn’t even see the soldiers who shot them. Suddenly there were bullets flying, and Corrie got hit. Kevin ran back, picked her up, and carried her all the way to my place.

Loyalty, courage, goodness. I wonder if they’re human inventions too, or if they just are.

I look around me. There’s Homer, making lists and drawing plans. God knows what he’s got in mind for us. Robyn’s reading the Bible. She prays quietly every night. I like Robyn and I like how strong she is in her beliefs. Chris is writing too, probably a poem. I don’t understand any of the ones he’s shown me so far – I don’t know if he understands them himself – but I try to make intelligent comments about them. Fi’s putting in some posts for a bigger chookyard. Lee’s sitting next to me, trying to make a rabbit trap. It doesn’t look as if it’d catch any rabbit with an IQ of more than 10, but who knows? Maybe rabbits have IQs in single figures. Anyway I like the way Lee stops every few minutes to stroke my leg with his lean brown fingers.

We’ve got to stick together, that’s all I know. We all drive each other crazy at times, but I don’t want to end up here alone, like the Hermit. Then this really would be Hell. Humans do such terrible things to each other that sometimes my brain tells me they must be evil. But my heart still isn’t convinced.

I just hope we can survive.

Author’s Note

The settings in this book are based on real places. Hell is a reasonably accurate description of Terrible Hollow, in the Australian Alps, near Mt Howitt in Victoria. Small cliffs, like steps, descend into the hollow, and are known as the Devil’s Staircase. Tailor’s Stitch is the Crosscut Saw, a long ridge of rock which runs for miles from Mt Howitt to Mt Speculation, through Big Hill and Mt Buggery. It is a particularly beautiful route for bushwalkers, and gives good views into the Terrible Hollow.

It is generally accepted by locals that a hermit did live in or around Mt Howitt and the Terrible Hollow for many years. There were eyewitness sightings, particularly in the late 1970s. In 1986 a hiker, Scott Vickers-Willis, found a beautifully carved handmade walking stick concealed in a bush on the edge of the Terrible Hollow. I have seen this stick, which is still in Mr Vickers-Willis’ possession; its discovery, in such a remote and wild part of the world, lends startling support to the hermit theory.

Other locations used in Tomorrow, When the War Began, include China Walls, a rugged mountainous area on private farmland near Khancoban in NSW, and the long wooden bridge across the Murrumbidgee River at Gundagai in NSW. Generally though the settings used in this book could be found in any Australian State.