The Third Day, The Frost (23 page)

I ran to the door in a mad sprint, and shook
it. I knew this was the only chance I’d ever have. But the door was
solid. I looked desperately at the windows: if we could somehow get
up to them, maybe the bars might have been loosened by the blast. I
shouted something at Homer, can’t even remember what, but his ears
must have been as deafened as mine, because he shook his head to
show he couldn’t hear. The six of us were racing around crazily,
like mice in the bottom of a grain bin when you take the top off
and they realise they can’t get up the smooth sides.

Then came a blast so huge that it threw me
through the air. It was like a giant had blown at us, with a breath
so hot and big and dry that it sent me flying, then spinning and
rolling when I hit the ground again. Now I was surrounded by noise.
It seemed like it would never end. Debris was flying around me and
something hit me in the back so hard I was scared it might have
snapped my spinal cord. But I clung to one certain fact: that I had
to get to my feet. Everything depended on my being able to get to
my feet. I stumbled up and looked in shock and astonishment at the
sight before me. The prison had been half demolished. The gym
looked like it had been demolished fifty years ago. The ground was
so covered in rubble I couldn’t even tell where the gym had been. I
could see Fi, amazingly, only two metres from me, but huddled on
the ground, not moving. Kevin was wandering around on my right,
looking dazed. Robyn was bending over something, something lying at
her feet. I couldn’t see Homer or Lee. I ran to Fi and touched her
cheek. It was warm and I saw her eyelids move. There was blood
oozing out of a great gash on her cheek. I couldn’t wait: I
squatted, got my arms under her and, with a grunt, lifted her and
slung her over my shoulders, praying that I wasn’t making her
injuries worse.

I took a few staggering steps, trying to get
my balance, but couldn’t get it properly, so continued to
stagger.

I could see what Robyn was doing now: she was
pulling weapons from a body on the ground. It was one of the guards
who patrolled the top of the outside walls all day. He must have
been blown off the wall before he could get to a shelter. Somehow
his ammunition and grenades hadn’t exploded. I left Robyn and
blundered towards the main entrance, where both sets of gates were
down and there was a twenty-metre gap in the wall. It seemed to
offer the quickest exit. I tried to yell to Kevin but I didn’t have
the breath for it: he wouldn’t have heard anyway. Robyn saw me
though, and came after me. She was holding the guard’s rifle and I
think she had the hand grenades in her shirt, because she was
bulging around the stomach. ‘Better you than me,’ I thought, but I
had time to be amused that Robyn, the great pacifist, was now so
heavily armed.

Then Lee and Homer came rushing across from my
left, jumping over piles of stone and timber. They were both
covered with dust and blood but there was no time to ask if they
were all right. Lee grabbed Fi and carried her. I still couldn’t
get my breath to say anything, but I pointed to Kevin, and Homer
ran across to get him. My back was hurting like hell, and now my
leg was too, but I didn’t dare look at it. Lee and Fi were already
ahead of me; I saw Fi suddenly come to life and start struggling to
get down. Robyn was through the gate. I checked for Homer and saw
him leading Kevin by the hand: they were heading in the right
direction so I left them to it and followed Robyn.

I ran out into the prison driveway. It was
free air I was breathing now, but I wasn’t thinking of that. I was
just trying to make my mind work, hoping I wouldn’t get shot,
wondering what I’d find out there. The driveway was relatively
clear but to the right was an enormous crater, only a hundred
metres from the prison wall. I seemed to remember that there’d been
a little park, quite a few trees, around Stratton Prison, but they
were all gone. Not a leaf was left.

At the bottom of the driveway was a blue
Mercedes, slewed sideways with the driver’s door open as though it
had been abandoned in a hurry. In the middle of the driveway was
Major Harvey, holding a gun at Robyn’s face. Robyn had thrown her
rifle on the ground and was standing there with her arms folded
across her stomach. I stopped dead, feeling a terrible tightness in
my chest. Major Harvey looked across at me. I realised at that
moment how much he hated me. ‘All right, boys and girls,’ he
shouted. ‘The party’s over. Everyone lie down on the ground.’ I
heard him clearly, so my ears must have come unblocked again. When
no one moved he screamed: ‘Quickly, or I shoot this one.’ I began
to kneel. The other four did the same. Only Robyn remained
standing. She was a metre from Harvey but he was not watching her,
confident now that he had the situation under control. I saw her
hand slip inside her shirt. I screamed, but no sound came out. I
tried again and this time made a hoarse hacking noise. I knew it
was already too late. Major Harvey looked across at me, triumphant.
I screamed again and at last said her name. It was the last present
I could give her: the knowledge that I knew. She looked across at
me and gave a scared little smile as if she didn’t know what she
had done, or whether she should have done it. Harvey glanced at her
and at the last instant realised: he must have seen the pin of the
hand grenade. He opened his mouth, dropped his gun and took a step
towards her. He reached out a hand, like he was begging. Then they
both disappeared. That was all. They disappeared. There was a bang
of course but it seemed slight, compared to the bombs; so did the
shock wave that hit me an instant later. But they had disappeared,
that was the thing. Robyn was there, she was alive, she was real,
she was a person and then she disappeared; she had ceased to
exist.

Chapter
Twenty-eight

After that we had some luck. God knows we
deserved it. But it didn’t mean much to any of us. We took Harvey’s
car and drove a couple of k’s, but suddenly found ourselves getting
shot at from the air, so we abandoned that pretty fast. We were in
the middle of the biggest air mission that the Kiwis had launched
for the whole of the war, although we didn’t know that at the time,
of course. They were using planes supplied by the Americans but
piloted by New Zealanders and our guys, and they did a lot of
damage. There wasn’t much left of the Stratton factories by the
time they’d finished.

Anyway, where we got lucky was that we saw a
plane go down on the highway. There was smoke pouring out of it and
the pilot dropped it on the road fast. He braked it so hard that it
almost stood on its nose, then he came scrambling out of the
cockpit onto the wing and jumped to the ground. We were less than a
k away. There were still bombs falling on the other side of town,
grey smoke everywhere and terrible toxic fumes that made breathing
horrible. We ran towards the pilot – don’t know why, just instinct,
I suppose. It was the obvious thing to do. Maybe we thought he was
an angel dropped out of the sky to save us. He was, too, in a way.
He was running like crazy to get away from the plane, scared it’d
blow up. We met in a paddock beside the highway.

‘Where’d you come from?’ he asked, gasping and
puffing and sweating. ‘God, this is a madhouse.’

He was red-haired, about twenty-four, tall and
skinny, with ginger eyebrows and lots of freckles. But he had nice
eyes and he was grinning, like it was all a big party.

Another roll of thunder spread across the sky
and there was a flash of fire on the horizon.

‘Big hit,’ he said.

‘How are you getting out of here?’ Fi screamed
at him.

‘Stick around and you’ll see. I’ll be gone in
three minutes.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, grabbing his
sleeve.

He pulled a little grey gadget, no bigger than
a remote control, out of his pocket. A red light on it was flashing
furiously. ‘This is my mayday button,’ he said. ‘It’s activated
already. They’ll be here in a couple of shakes.’

‘Take us with you,’ Fi screamed. She seemed
unable to talk normally; everything was a scream. The pilot was
looking at us like we were crazy.

‘I can’t,’ he said.

‘We’re all injured,’ I said.

‘I can see that. You look like you’ve been
through hell. But I’m sorry, I can’t take you.’

The sound of a helicopter, a giant throbbing
noise, penetrated the smoke and the grey. The pilot turned away
from us and started looking up, trying to see the aircraft. I could
tell he was losing interest in us; worse, he was starting to see us
as nuisances, people who were going to try to make things
complicated for him.

‘Wait,’ Homer said. Since we left the prison
he hadn’t spoken. Tears had been running down his face
continuously, just a constant flow from his eyes that he made no
attempt to brush or lick away. ‘Wait. Did you hear about Cobbler’s
Bay being blown up, couple of months back? And everything was
wrecked?’

‘Yeah, yeah, course I did. A mate of mine took
photos of it. It was in all the papers.’

‘That was us,’ Kevin said.

The pilot looked at us again, this time for
several long moments. Homer, still crying endlessly, Kevin with
snot hanging out of his nose, Fi with her face twisted in a
terrible expression of pain and her shirt saturated with blood, Lee
his face blackened and bleeding. Behind him a huge helicopter,
looking like a pregnant heifer, lowered its belly onto the road.
The wind from its rotor blew hard across us. It was tough to stand
up, to hear, to see.

‘Hurry up,’ he said, turning abruptly and
running for the chopper.

We followed as best we could, a limping,
sobbing group of five. I held Fi, and Homer helped Kevin. Only Lee
got there alone. The pilot was already half in the chopper and I
could see him gesturing to the people in there. Then he turned to
help us in.

If the crew hadn’t wanted to take us they
didn’t show it. As soon as we were in they took off, fast. Even as
we were rising they were wrapping blankets around us and laying us
on stretchers that were strapped to the floor. I couldn’t believe
how big the aircraft was, how much room there was inside. I’d never
been in a helicopter before. A water bottle was at my lips: for a
minute I tried to push it away with my mouth but then I gave in and
let them force the stuff into me. Fi and I were side by side,
gripping hands so tightly. We stayed that way all across the
Tasman, never once letting go. Even now I get terrified if she
leaves the room for a few seconds and I don’t know where she’s
gone.

Epilogue

When we’d arrived at Stratton Prison people
had crowded around the truck wanting to see us. When we arrived at
Wellington, coming in low across the water, through the choppy air
to the beautiful hilly city, there was a crowd there, too. I don’t
know that there was much difference between the two crowds. Both
were drawn by curiosity.

We’d been scrubbed up by the time we arrived
at Wellington, of course. We’d spent two weeks in an Air Force
medical centre at Astin Base, where we’d first landed. We each had
a long list of injuries. Mine read: shock, cracked vertebrae,
fractured patella, malnutrition, cuts and abrasions, acute anxiety
state, head lice ... I think that was all. I’m still on crutches.
Fi was probably the worst, with concussion, shock, a cracked collar
bone, a ruptured ear drum, and a long scar on her face that she’ll
remember every time she looks in a mirror.

The things we’d done did get a lot of
publicity. The war had been going badly for a long time and only
recently had there been any good news. They were anxious for
heroes, I guess. So there were a lot of people at Wellington
Airport, and we went to a special press room to talk to reporters
and get our photos taken. Every second question from the reporters
seemed to start with, ‘How did you feel when ...?’ We didn’t do
very well on those ones.

I don’t know what to think about it all. I
suppose we did the right thing. Everyone here seems to think we
did. The Army Intelligence guy, Lieutenant-Colonel Finley,
explained the effect of some of the stuff we’d done, and although
none of us said anything at the time, we were pleased about that.
The ship we sank was meant to have been the pride of their fleet or
something. I guess that was a score.

So, there it is. Sometimes, as we lie around
here – we’re in a sort of convalescent place outside Wellington – I
wish we could wind the clock back a year or two. It all seems so
idyllic when I look back. I only remember the good things: the
smell of scones in the Aga, the sycamore seeds whirring through the
air, the worms writhing in the rich compost, the walks across the
paddocks with Dad, and the cups of tea with Mum. I don’t remember
the dog with its stomach ripped open by a kangaroo, or the possum
with blood on its snout that died in front of me after eating rat
bait, or the flyblown body of a mouse that I found behind the
kitchen dresser. I don’t remember Dad yelling at Mum when she drove
the car five k’s on a flat tyre or Mum yelling at Dad when he
criticised some of her friends.

It seems like a lost world that I keep
reaching out for.

Meanwhile, our parents and families are still
prisoners and we can’t do a thing to help them. We just have to
wait.

And so we sit around, lie around, or hobble
around, in my case. Nothing happens here, nothing at all. We’ve
been living on adrenalin for so long that it’s strange when it’s
suddenly cut off. Other people are doing the fighting now. They’re
making some progress, too. Colonel Finley thinks the peace talks
are getting pretty serious: the more territory the Kiwis recapture
the more serious the peace talks get. Maybe one day I’ll be able to
think about the future again. At the moment all I think about is
the past. I don’t even notice the present. When I first started
writing about what happened to us it was because we all wanted our
stories to be known, wanted to be remembered. None of that matters
to us now. What I want is for Robyn to be remembered, for what she
did to be known. I never stop thinking about her. I used to think
heroes were tough and brave. But that last look on Robyn’s face: it
wasn’t tough or brave. It was scared and uncertain.

I learned something very important from Robyn:
you have to believe in something. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well,
it’s not. It’s not for me and it wasn’t for Robyn. But she did it,
and I’m going to keep looking and keep trying till I do, too.

That’s the real trouble with our politicians:
they don’t believe in anything except their own careers.

You have to believe in something. That’s
all.