The Night Is for Hunting (21 page)

Before the war started I’d trusted people. I’d had years of experience at it. Jack, on the other hand, didn’t have a clue. His life before the war sounded pretty crummy. He hadn’t told us heaps about his father or the high-rise flats, but I picked up enough to know that almost everything had been the complete opposite to me. For example, when I was a kid, it never crossed my mind that the next meal mightn’t be on the table. I’d never gone to bed hungry. I had a feeling Jack hadn’t been that lucky.

In the middle of one of our meals he said, ‘We didn’t have anything except chicken noodle soup to eat, for four days once.’ I made some comment about the war being tough on everyone, but he said, ‘No, this was before the war, with my dad.’ Then he realised by the way everyone suddenly looked at him that he was making himself conspicuous, so he shut up fast and got stuck into his roast lamb.

So as I lay there I started to get a feeling for how Jack saw the world. Maybe it had always been him and his father, on their own. As far as he knew, it was going to be him against the world for the rest of his life. At the age of nine that must look like a pretty tough gig.

Solo man, that was Jack. He didn’t trust anyone, probably hadn’t trusted anyone for a long time.

If there was food around, I could imagine how he’d want to get himself a guaranteed supply, a stockpile to keep himself alive. It probably never crossed his mind that he could rely on us to look after him, to feed him, to keep him safe. We didn’t mind doing it, but I guess he thought we had some other agenda, or that we might be here today and gone tomorrow.

I was getting a headache trying to think like Jack, trying to get inside his skull. Feeling more tired and weary than any time since this war started, I got up and held out my hand. He looked at me suspiciously and wouldn’t take it. We walked down the track, Jack following quite a way behind.

As we came into the campsite Homer, who was arm-wrestling Gavin, called out, ‘You got him, huh?’

‘I guess I did.’

‘What did he do?’

I glanced back at Jack, who had stopped dead in his tracks. I knew how much he admired Homer. He was staring at me, and his face was about the colour of some of the corpses we’d buried.

‘He bet me he could beat me up to Chicken Rock,’ I said.

Jack turned and walked away.

My tent was empty now so I had my second attempt at a sleep, on my own bed this time. I actually slept quite heavily. I woke to the best noise I could possibly hear: the steady drumming of rain on the tent fly. Even as I lay there it got louder and harder. There was a bit of wind: the fly stretched and strained, and pulled at the pegs, but nothing we needed to worry about.

Beside me Fi was snoring lightly, and between us Natalie and Casey lay sprawled in their own restless sleep. These days it seemed like they spent more time in our tent than they did in their own. It was musical tents around this place, musical chairs.

I lay back and closed my eyes again.

If Homer hadn’t woken me a few hours later I would have slept through the radio call to Colonel Finley. Homer looked exhausted, and I was angry with myself, and embarrassed, when he told me he’d been up on Tailor’s Stitch the whole time I’d been asleep, keeping watch. He’d taken over from Lee, then come down to get me for the call. I couldn’t believe I’d neglected something so obvious. Your judgement goes straight out the window when you’re tired. Of course we needed sentries: from now on we could never again count on being safe in Hell. All our objections to sentry duty, which we’d gone through when we first sussed out the enemy campsite and their warm fireplace, counted for nothing now.

In fact we would need quite a complicated system of sentries, so that if a patrol came along Tailor’s Stitch the sentry could notify us without exposing themself to danger.

We woke Fi but she didn’t want to come, and Kevin was the same. Lee was already waiting. Grumbling at myself and apologising to Homer I stumbled along behind the two boys, up the path, trying to shake off the weariness but without much success.

I didn’t shake it off until I was at the top of Wombegonoo, and heard Colonel Finley’s calm voice speaking quietly from across the Tasman. He woke me up.

‘Do you still consider you can hold your position safely for another forty-eight hours?’ he asked.

I nodded.

‘Yes,’ Homer said. ‘Over.’

Now that the rain was falling steadily I was quite confident. The bloodstains, and our tracks, would be wiped out. For a hundred years or so, maybe longer, only the Hermit and us had found a way into Hell. I didn’t think that enemy soldiers, not knowing the ways of the bush, would get down into it too quickly. We could hole up there for a while.

‘All right,’ Colonel Finley said. ‘We’re heading into a critical time. I want to ask for your help again. But be aware that I’m talking about active and dangerous service. And I need an affirmative response before I go any further. Over.’

‘You’ve got it,’ Homer said.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to consult among yourselves and call me back in an hour? Or later?’

‘No,’ said Homer. ‘Over.’

For once I didn’t mind Homer making decisions on my behalf. In fact I nodded encouragingly at him. Admittedly we were on shaky ground making these promises while Fi and Kevin were blissfully asleep in Hell, but we knew they wouldn’t go against us.

‘All right. The drop-off point, where you landed when we sent you back from here, is that still secure? Over.’

‘Yes. As far as we know. We haven’t been there for a couple of weeks. Over.’

‘All right. At 0300 tomorrow you can expect a visitor. He’ll be with you for twenty-four hours only. Understood? Over.’

We looked at each other in astonishment. My first thought was that so soon after Christmas we were really getting a Santa Claus. Amazing.

‘OK,’ said Homer.

‘I want you to check the site at 2300 hours tonight and confirm by radio that it is secure. Your date of birth will be the password. Again at 0100 and 0245 you are to confirm that it is secure. Use Ellie’s date of birth, then Lee’s, for those two calls. Understood?’

‘OK.’

‘Is there anything you want? Over.’

‘Chocolate,’ I yelled into the transmitter. ‘And avocados. And Iced Vo-Vos. And tomatoes.’

I think Colonel Finley got worried that he’d created a monster and we’d go on all night, because he ended the call pretty quickly. But the funny thing was that after my little outburst none of us could think of anything else. Half an hour later, going back down the track, we were still trying to think of things we’d have liked. It helped take our minds off the pouring rain, but none of us came up with anything too brilliant.

‘Marshmallows,’ Homer said.

‘Some new books,’ Lee said. ‘I’m sick of
Red Shift.’

‘A watch,’ I said.

We didn’t leave a sentry up on Tailor’s Stitch right away, because in this weather we thought we were pretty safe. And we were so excited by the call to Colonel Finley – excited and nervous – that we wanted to get together with Fi and Kevin and discuss it, not be left up on the ridge on our own in the cold, straining to see death approaching in the dark.

Epilogue

I’ve been flat out writing, literally flat out, because I’ve been in my tent most of the day, lying on my right-hand side first, then my left-hand side, then my back, then starting again on my right-hand side.

Next to me is a little bunch of flowers that I found on my bed. I think it was a present from Jack. Half the flowers in the bunch are weeds, but it’s about the most precious gift I’ve ever had, so I’m not complaining. Every so often I pick it up and have a sniff.

It’s not all that comfortable, lying here like this, but somehow I need to do it. I don’t want to go out into the bright sunshine that’s been burning away since ten o’clock. I don’t even want to sit in the open air. Not for the first time I’ve been thinking of Andrea, the counsellor I saw in New Zealand. I’d love to see her again right now, but I don’t imagine she’ll be the mystery visitor dropping out of the sky.

To be honest I don’t know what I’d say to her at the moment. I need a few months to work that out. Some of it would be to do with the war, some of it to do with what Fi said to me that time we were climbing the spur.

Sure I’ve made up with Lee, and Fi and I seem to be getting on OK again, and I’m trying to be nice to everyone, but I’ve got a funny feeling Fi was talking about a bit more than that. What scares me is that she was talking about changes so big and deep and powerful that I can’t undo them. Because I’ve got half a feeling that I’ve changed that much in the last twelve months.

Lee’s calling me right now; he’s looking for the spud peeler I think. He’ll have to find it himself though. I want to finish this.

Of course the reason I’ve been writing so fast and furiously is that I want to get it up-to-date before we go out to meet the helicopter. After tonight, anything could happen. If there’s something really urgent about to break we mightn’t even get back here. We’re taking light packs, and a rifle each, in case we have to move on somewhere else. We’re leaving Fi and Kevin here with the kids, which isn’t ideal, but it’s all we can do.

So now that I’ve brought this up-to-date I can go back over Tailor’s Stitch, knowing at least one part of my life is organised. I sure have written heaps since this war started. If the war ever ends maybe I could do something with it. In the meantime I’ve got piles of paper all over the place, most of it hidden in the tin box in the windowsill at the Hermit’s hut, some of it back in New Zealand. Andrea’s looking after that.

A feeling in my bones tells me that the climax is coming. It’s not just the way Colonel Finley spoke on the radio; it’s been growing on me for a while. I think we might be heading for the big showdown. If we are, I want to be part of it. I don’t want to go back to New Zealand if there’s a chance of helping at the critical time.

There’s lots of things I’m hoping for though. I want to do whatever has to be done without letting anyone down. I wouldn’t mind finding out what happened to the Kiwi guerillas. I want to see our country back in our control. And I want to find my parents.

When it’s all said and done, the only things that matter in life are so damn simple. Family, friends, being safe and well. I think before the war a lot of people got sucked in by the crap on TV. They thought having the right shoes or the right jeans or the right car really mattered. Boy were we ever dumb.

Maybe people thought they could hide behind that stuff. Maybe they thought that if they wore Levis, ate Maccas and drank Pepsi no-one would look any further. No-one would see the real person.

War’s stripped all that from us. I’m trying to think of any situation before the war when that happened. I can’t think of many. Our Outward Bound course, yeah, after a couple of days with those guys we were more interested in what people were really like than what shop they bought their clothes from. When Jodie Lewis got hit by a car and was in a coma, that brought us together big-time, and we weren’t too bothered by what shoes people wore. Suddenly people who normally never spoke to each other were hugging and crying together.

It seems like suffering’s the only time we can see what’s essential. If peace ever comes back I’m making a vow: I’ll design myself special glasses. They’ll block out whether people are fat or thin or beautiful or weird-looking, whether they have pimples or birthmarks or different coloured skin. They’ll do everything suffering’s done for us, but without the pain. I’m going to wear those glasses for the rest of my life.

In the meantime there’s a war still raging, kids outside my tent whingeing, and less than an hour before I go up to Tailor’s Stitch to take over sentry from Fi. If I hurry I can just get this down to the Hermit’s hut, and put it in the tin box. I only hope it won’t be the last time I get to write about me and my friends, and the things that have happened to us since the war began.