Darkness Be My Friend (8 page)

The lights in Wirrawee weren't anything out of the ordinary. It was just the shock after what we were used to—and compared to what we'd been expecting. It was the fact that it all looked so ordinary, in the middle of a war. I'd thought they'd be hiding in the dark like we were used to doing.

But the streetlights were all on, and here and there a house or shop was still lit up, as though the people were staying awake to watch "Rage" or something. Around the Showground the big spotlights were definitely on: so strong they seemed to burn the air.

It was one of the weirdest feelings I've ever had, to know that my parents were probably there, so close to me, less than a k away. As close as we had been for nearly a year. Only once, when I'd been in the carpark itself, had I been any closer. Now I wished I could fly
over and land beside them. Or call out, as loudly as I could, "Hello, I'm here! Hello, Mum! Hello, Dad!"

As we stood there, looking out across the town, I took Lee's hand in mine. I don't think he even noticed. His hand was trembling slightly. It felt like the fluttering wings of a gentle butterfly. At this moment I didn't even remember that these same hands had taken human life, had killed. I certainly wasn't thinking of the fact that my hands too had taken life. For that moment I was close to Lee again, as close as I'd ever been.

Away to the west was the other big change in Wirrawee. We'd heard a little about it, but it was still weird to see it there. It was the airfield. Wirrawee had always had an airfield, of course, but just a paddock with a runway and hangar, and a small brick building called the Wirrawee Aviation Club. There were never more than six or eight small planes there. Comparing it to this new military airbase was like comparing a milk bar to the Centrepoint Shopping Complex.

And this place sure was complex. The thin dirt strip, good enough for the little Cessnas, had been replaced by a long concrete runway, gleaming in the dim lights that now surrounded the whole area. A tall cyclone fence stretched away into the distance. The Wirrawee Aviation Clubhouse was just a little thing stuck on the side of a big new grey building, three storeys high. It must have been thrown up in a hurry, and probably wasn't even finished, because there was still scaffolding on one side of it. I thought I could see a couple of bulldozers in the shadows near the scaffolding.

Iain had already moved a hundred metres down the
hill and was waiting for us to catch up. Kind of reluctantly, remembering we were meant to be leading, I went down there, passed him, and took up my position. Lee and Ursula were both in front of me, on the other side of the road. In front of me on my side was a man called Tim, a very solid-looking brown guy from Nauru.

We set off. The Kiwis had a method of moving through the town, not much different to the way we'd done it. I was quite pleased about that, thinking maybe we hadn't been so amateurish after all. It was a leapfrog technique, where the first people sneaked down the street, one on each side of the road, then stopped in a good hiding spot. The second pair followed them, passed them, and went on in the same way until they too stopped in a good place, and waited for the first pair. Behind us the others were doing the same thing. Lee was on the opposite side of the street, so that if either of us wanted to warn the Kiwis about something dangerous we could do it easily: I'd tell Tim as I went past him, and Lee would tell Ursula.

We were going along Warrigle Road, not far from the Mathers', and I knew I'd have to struggle not to be affected by that. We'd spent a lot of happy times at Robyn's place: my parents and I had gone there for barbeques every few months, and one drought year, when our swimming dam dried up, I'd practically lived in their pool. But I had to be tough, tough in my mind, and sternly tell myself not to think about Robyn. "It's just for an hour or two," I pleaded with her silently. "Don't be too angry with me."

I focused my eyes on the first dark patch we were
heading for, a spot under a bush about a hundred metres along, between two pools of light from street lamps. The street was silent, nothing moving. I remembered the first time I had left somewhere safe and entered a hostile area: in the carpark at the Showground, way back. I felt then that coming out of those shadows had changed me forever.

I walked like a cat down the street towards the dark spot. I felt that this walk changed me too. It wasn't quite as crass as me saying to the enemy, "I'm back," but it was something like that. Perhaps I was saying to myself, "I'm back," or "I'm functioning again, I'm showing some guts and determination again." Whatever. I do know that my senses were very alert. I was scanning the street like I had radar behind my eyes; my ears felt super-sensitive. I could feel each little soft touch of the cool night on my face.

And because I was so hyped up, as I got halfway along the stretch of footpath something made me pause. It was a faint flutter against my skin. Just the slightest movement of air. I hesitated, then stopped. Opposite me Ursula did the same. That was the agreement, that if one person stopped, then the other would too, immediately. I felt a bit silly, thinking it was probably nothing, a false alarm, and to stop like this so early in our walk would have them thinking I was scared.

But I still just stood there, listening, quivering with tension, trying to pick up a signal, trying to decide if I was imagining things.

And I heard a distinct crunch of a footstep on gravel, close by, to my left.

There wasn't meant to be a footstep there.

Something shrank inside my stomach, something curled up to a little black ball in there, something shrivelled and died. It affected me so much I couldn't move. The strength I'd been feeling moments earlier, the rebirth of courage, if that's what it was, perished like a prune. About a metre in front of me was a letterbox in the shape of a rabbit; next to that was what looked like a set of steps, maybe three or four. From where I stood my view was blocked by a small thick ugly conifer, not much bigger than me but enough to hide whoever was there. It seemed like it'd be one of those bare frontyards with nothing much but grass, and concrete paths. I couldn't be sure of that: it was just an impression I got.

A second later a man came down the steps. He was walking quickly and confidently, but lightly. He didn't look right or left, which was lucky for me. He went along the footpath about twenty-five metres to a parked Volvo station wagon. He must have been fairly close to Lee and Tim at that point, but I wasn't sure how close because I couldn't see them at all. The man was wearing army trousers, with a plain white T-shirt and a black jacket. His feet were bare. He used a key to open the boot of the car and he took out a small brown briefcase. I was watching everything, seeing everything vividly, but all this time I still hadn't been able to move. The man locked the boot again and began to turn to come back. Now I knew I should have moved when I had the chance. My skin began to prickle all over, every inch of it. It was the weirdest feeling. Even my scalp, under my hair, was prickling. I knew my face was burning red even though, of course, I couldn't see it myself.

And I still couldn't move.

The man was walking straight towards me. I'd forgotten about Lee, forgotten about the Kiwis. The world had shrunk to him and me, the man and me. He was walking lightly still, on his way to do some work perhaps, even at this time of night.

I did move one part of me then. My eyes. I moved my eyes. Because somewhere to my right I sensed a flicker of activity. Just a flicker. But my eyes went to it. It was Ursula silently stealthily crossing the road. She was moving with long strides. It was like watching a dragonfly darting from one lilypad to another.

A sharp gleam flashed from her hand. It was a knife, catching the reflection of the streetlight.

Who knows what might have happened? When you stand still, utterly still and silent, people can walk right past you and not notice you. Even animals can. I used to trick our old dog, Millie, like that.

"Utterly still and utterly silent," I was telling myself. "That's your only chance. Not a move. Still and silent."

I screamed.

Now, thinking about it, writing about it, I can understand it a little. And "to understand is to forgive." Isn't it? That's what they say. So it must be right.

I understand that I screamed because of all the stuff we'd been through, and because I'd seen too many people killed already, and because I'd once seen Lee use a knife to kill a man, and because I'd killed people in cold blood myself. And because of Robyn. I understand all that. And there's nothing else I need to know about it, is there?

Is there?

When I think back like this, like I'm doing now,
I seem to remember my scream as a kind of guttural noise, a hacking kind of cry. Maybe it was more a sob than a scream. I guess that was the only thing I did right. It was a low, hoarse sound, not a high-decibel glass-shattering scream that brought people to their doors and set dogs barking and cats yowling. So it was our good luck that only the one enemy soldier heard it.

After I screamed, I turned and ran. I'm not proud of any of this; that must be obvious; but it's what I did. I ran straight into Iain who'd been coming up fast behind me. He handed me on to someone else, I don't know who it was, while he went swiftly forward. I collapsed onto this other guy, clinging to him, half-sobbing, trying to fall down and at the same time trying to keep to my feet. I tried not to listen to the sounds behind me, but I couldn't not hear the gurgling sobbing noises as they killed him. I don't know what they did with the body either, I think there was some discussion about whether to make it look like an accident or whether to get rid of it where it couldn't be found. It was a real problem for them because they needed to stay under cover for another twenty-four hours or more. I could hear Lee's voice as they held their whispered conversation and I hated him for staying so calm and in control when I was not.

Anyway, I don't know what they finally decided, or what they did. I don't want to know.

After some time a soldier called Bui-Tersa came and got me from the guy who'd been looking after me. She was East Timorese and probably the youngest of all the New Zealand commandos. She was a quiet dark-haired girl with quick alert eyes and a wicked sense of humour.
She'd told me her name meant Thursday's Woman; it's a Timorese custom to name children after the day of their birth. I was grateful she'd be looking after me. I knew, of course, that they would never let me go on with them after what had happened. I knew there was no question that I'd have to go back. So I didn't put up any resistance, just let her lead me quickly and quietly through the streets and out of Wirrawee into the countryside.

In the cool clear night air, with all that space around us, away from the nightmare that Wirrawee had become, I began to breathe again. I wanted to apologise to Bui-Tersa, to say sorry to all the Kiwis, but for once I knew words were a waste of breath. I didn't care what Andrea thought, this was one occasion when talking wouldn't help. So I said nothing. I just kept following Bui-Tersa meekly across the paddocks.

I soon realised where we were going, though. And a minute after I worked it out, Bui-Tersa told me anyway.

"We're going to your farm," she said. "I might leave you at the bottom of that track where we landed the other night. That's if you think you'll be all right. If you think you can get into Hell on your own..."

She paused like people do when they want you to tell them something's fine. Her voice, normally light and laughing, was now quick and crisp.

"I'll be OK."

"Well, we'll see when we get there," she said. "But if you are OK, I probably will leave you there. Iain's got a job for me back in town for tomorrow night. Will you be able to navigate us there now?"

"Yes."

That was the only conversation we had. It wasn't that she was being unfriendly, far from it. She couldn't be unfriendly to anyone. She was too nice for that. Too nice to be a guerilla, I'd privately thought since first meeting her. But I sure didn't feel like talking and, besides, I realised early on that she was in a hurry. I could understand that, too. If she was going to drop me at the bottom of the Razor's Edge and then get back to Wirrawee that night, she would have to burn some boot leather.

Before much more time had passed I was too tired to think of talking anyway. All the events of the previous few days started to catch up with me. I felt terribly terribly weary, in a way that I never had before. It was like I was a hundred years old. If someone had offered me a walking frame at that moment I think I would have clutched it with both hands.

We kept going, somehow. There wasn't any choice, that's what it boiled down to. I felt very bitter at the way I'd betrayed myself, let myself down, and failed the Kiwis so badly. I concentrated on that—not deliberately, it just happened that way—and somehow that kept my legs moving, even though they'd lost all their energy and strength ages ago. But yes, they kept going.

We got to the track at 4.45 a.m. Bui-Tersa asked me how I felt, but again I could tell what answer she was hoping for. She was itching to get back with her mates. That was fair enough. I'd have been the same in her situation.

At least, that's what I would have said before this night. Now I couldn't be so sure.

But I felt OK about going into Hell on my own
anyway. I was back in the bush, that was the thing. The change in my feelings was no more complicated than that. About the only bad things that could happen in the bush were snakebite or bushfire. Getting lost was no big deal —I could always find water, and if you had water you could survive a long time. Anyway I couldn't get lost around here—I knew the country too well. The previous night Wirrawee had felt like a disease to me, the bush felt like the cure.

So I said goodbye to Bui-Tersa. I was so tired and sick at heart over what had happened that I didn't think about what she was going back to. It never crossed my mind that I mightn't see her again.

Kevin and Homer were glad to see me and I was glad to see them. I'd forgotten Homer's tantrum and he seemed to have got over it, so we just pretended it hadn't happened. I didn't tell them much, just that I'd stuffed up.