The Third Day, The Frost (5 page)

I had hold of the soldier’s arm again, feeling
the strength in it: its desperate struggle as it flailed and
writhed and fought. The fight was lasting much longer than I’d
expected. I could feel the veins swell in the tortured arm. Then,
suddenly, it was over. The arm went limp. A terrible smell filled
the air and I realised the man had fouled his trousers. I stole a
look at his face and quickly looked away again. It was the most
revolting sight I’d ever seen. His tongue hung out like a giant fat
bullboar sausage. His skin was purplish black. And his eyes ...
those eyes will follow me to my grave and beyond. They were the
eyes of a staring devil; a man sent mad in the last minute of his
life by the knowledge that he was dying, and by the manner of his
death. Every time I close my eyes, his open in my mind.

Chapter Six

‘What do we do now?’

The only ones who seemed able to function at
all were Robyn and Homer. I had the shakes badly and much as I
tried to stop them I didn’t seem able. Kevin was lying on the
ground. His face was grey. I’d only seen that colour in a human
face once before: when I’d visited Mrs O’Meara in hospital just
before she died. She was eighty-eight years old.

Fi was back behind us, in the bush, hugging a
tree and crying quietly. Lee was sitting on the ground with his
head between his knees. I couldn’t see his face and wasn’t sure
that I wanted to. Compared to the rest of us, Homer and Robyn at
least looked like they could still move and think.

It was Robyn who’d asked the question but
Homer who answered it.

‘Down the well.’

‘Eh?’

‘It’s our only choice, our only chance. Listen
to me, everyone. We’ve got to make this work. Kevin, did you make
up a dummy, like we told you?’

Kevin seemed to take five minutes to
understand the question, five minutes more to respond. Then he
slowly nodded. ‘We stuffed my work clothes with pillows.’

‘And what happened?’

Kevin spoke like an old man, a tired old man.
He was slurring his words. ‘It worked. They looked down there with
a torch and they saw it all right. Then they tried to lower one of
my mates on a rope, but he started yelling about the fumes and
acting all crazy, and they had to bring him back up again.’

‘Good,’ Homer said. ‘That’s perfect. Quick,
everyone, help carry this guy. Fi, you bring his gun, then come
back here and clean up the area, so there’s no sign of a struggle.’
Because we were too slow to move he got angry with us. ‘Come on,
damn you all. Get a bloody move on.’

We shambled towards the body and struggled to
get a grip on different parts of it. Kevin tried to help but turned
his face away in revulsion and let go of the feet which he had been
holding. The four of us struggled with the ghastly stinking thing
into the little courtyard. With Homer directing, we manoeuvred it
towards the well. It had been left open but our problem was to get
it down the shaft without falling in ourselves. He was a lot
heavier, and a more awkward shape, than the sheep. Just as we
nearly had it in the right position, Homer missed his footing and
had to let go of the man’s head. It dropped onto the rotting
stonework with a horrible crack that must have almost split it
open. I had the sick thought that if he hadn’t been dead already we
would have killed him again by doing that. Robyn gave a sob and
lost her grip. Homer was furious. He yelled at her. ‘It doesn’t
matter,’ I said. ‘Pick him up again.’ When we were all sure of our
footing we gave it a heave. It slid forward over the brink of the
well, caught for a moment by a bit of clothing, then came free, and
with a floppy rush, kept sliding and went over the edge, dropping
into the depths.

I waited for the splash but it didn’t
come.

‘It might have jammed halfway down,’ I
said.

‘Do you know where there’s a torch?’ Homer
asked Kevin. Kevin thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘OK, go and
get it. Hurry!’ he yelled, when Kevin moved away too slowly. Homer
turned to us. ‘Now,’ he ordered. ‘We’ve got to make it look like he
slipped and fell in. Fi, chuck his gun on the grass here, like he
threw it forward when he felt himself falling. Then go back and
clean that spot where ... where we ... where we had the fight with
him. Lee, go and check the route we brought him in by. Clean up any
tracks, any mess we might have left.’

‘Let’s fake it here,’ I said, pointing to a
place where the stonework was especially bad. ‘If we deliberately
collapse a few stones into the well, like they broke away when he
stood on them ...’

‘Yes, good.’

Kevin reappeared with the torch. I took it
from him and lay full length on my stomach to peer down the shaft.
It sure was a deep one, much deeper than any around Wirrawee. Even
with this strong torch I could only see, in the distant black
depths, a couple of vague bulky shapes that could have been human.
The fumes were weaker than they had been, but they were already
starting to make me dizzy again. I pulled back.

‘Well?’ Homer asked.

‘Well well well,’ I said, remembering an old
joke. Why was I the only one who ever seemed to want to make jokes
at times like these? I must have been sicker than even I thought.
Homer just looked at me like I really was sick.

‘It’s not bad,’ I said quickly. ‘I think the
soldier’s landed on Kevin’s pillows. It’s hard to see but. I guess
the sheep’s under all that.’

‘Sheep?’ Kevin asked, staring.

‘We dropped a dead sheep down there
yesterday,’ I explained, ‘to provide a nice smell in the coming
days. Otherwise they wouldn’t get sucked in by the dummy. Plus
it’ll discourage them from trying too hard to get you out.’

He gave a little grin, probably the weakest
grin I’ve ever seen, but it cheered me up to see that much.

Lee and Fi came back. ‘All done,’ Lee said
quietly. ‘We found this.’ He produced the soldier’s cap.

‘Good,’ Homer said. He put the cap on the
grass just beyond the decayed stonework. ‘Think it’ll work?’ he
asked Kevin.

Kevin nodded slightly. ‘Probably. This bloke
was such a drop kick. It’s the sort of dumb thing he would do, go
peering down the well for a thrill. And because the other sentries
thought he was a drop kick, they mightn’t waste much time
investigating. They all hated him.’

‘It’s out of our hands now, anyway,’ Homer
said flatly. ‘There’s nothing more we can do. Put the torch back
and we’ll get out of here.’

No sooner said than done. The time was only
10.45. I couldn’t believe so much had happened so early. We still
had a full day in front of us. Gee, by five o’clock, we could have
killed another dozen human beings, if we really set our minds to
it.

Kevin wanted to bring a few of his most
precious things, but we were unanimous in turning him down. It was
tough, very tough, but we didn’t dare take the risk. ‘If they
notice a single thing missing, then you’re stuffed, or your family
is,’ Homer said.

‘We all might be, if they come after us,’ I
said.

‘You’ll just have to hope your mates keep them
for you till after the war,’ Lee said. That didn’t seem much of an
offer, to any of us, but it was all we could suggest. To a lesser
degree it was going to be tough on us too, because we’d have to
share precious things like food and warm clothing. We had a bare
minimum as it was. Anyway, wasn’t it Kevin who’d stopped us taking
lots of extra stuff into Hell, when we first realised we’d been
invaded? No, it was Homer. Sometimes I got worried that my memory
was falling apart.

With our packs on our backs, and only Kevin
unburdened, we set off. Homer was in the lead. He set a cracking
pace, but we knew why, and no one raised a murmur. There was no
time for shock or horror or grief from the killing. We just had to
get our butts a long long way from there, if we wanted to keep our
butts attached to our bodies, which we all did. At least, I assumed
we did. A couple of us looked like they couldn’t care much either
way.

We didn’t stop for lunch, but ploughed grimly
on, no one talking, heads down, human pack-horses on a long trek.
In the back of everyone’s mind was, I’m sure, the thought of
Kevin’s family, whom we’d put at risk by our actions. No one
suggested that we stay and spy on the soldiers and watch how they
reacted when they found one of their number missing. It might have
given us some peace of mind if we’d seen them accept it as an
accident. But the risk was too great. Anyway, we’d given up hope of
peace of mind a long time ago.

Late afternoon we stopped for a snack and a
toilet break. I was terribly hungry and I’d been getting annoyed
with Kevin because he hadn’t even offered to take a pack for anyone
yet. Fair enough, he was depressed – in shock, I guess – but so
were we all, and these packs were heavy. So I dropped a few hints
and he made a few sarcastic comments and then I told him I wouldn’t
let him carry my pack if he paid me and so it went on. Typical
enough stuff when you’re tired. I was secretly grateful when Robyn
stepped in and told us to grow up, and then worked out a rough
roster which meant that we’d all get an occasional break from
carrying a pack.

The bush was thinning out again and we
realised we were approaching cleared country. This was bad news for
us as we would find it much harder to stay unseen, especially now
that colonists had spread so far and so fast across the state.
Electricity seemed to be on again everywhere, which was another
problem. Every house was an island of light at night-times.

Suddenly, at around seven o’clock, we came to
the end of the scrub. Without a word being said, we all dropped our
packs. We were standing on a slight rise. In the last of the
daylight we saw beautiful rich green plains stretching ahead of us.
The kind of country that makes your mouth water. The kind of soil
you could eat. But of course, being so productive, it was dotted
with little clumps of houses everywhere, all with lights on. We
could see the road that followed the valley we’d been in. About two
k’s further on, it joined a major road, a bitumen one, that came
across country from our left. Where they met was a small village,
with maybe a dozen houses and a service station. There was
occasional traffic on the road: two cars and a truck during the
time that we were watching. There probably hadn’t been much more
traffic than that in peacetime.

‘We’re losing this war,’ Homer said
flatly.

‘Tell me something I didn’t know,’ Kevin
said.

I knew what they meant. Everything looked so
normal, so typical, just the way it always had been. It was like
nothing had changed. Oh sure, there’d been a minor hiccup, a slight
change in the way things were run, and sure, different people were
doing the running; but nothing important had changed. The birds
still flew, the wind still stormed, the rivers still made their way
to the sea. The land hadn’t changed.

‘We have to keep going,’ Robyn said.

I knew what she meant, too. We’d have to keep
walking most of the night, maybe all of it. We couldn’t travel by
day in this kind of country. Darkness was the only safe time for
people like us. We’d have to find somewhere safe to rest up during
daylight. That would be difficult; difficult and dangerous. But we
had no choice.

Of course Robyn, being Robyn, was talking
about more than how long we should walk.

In a sense, though, this night travel suited
me. I was feeling more comfortable at nights, the longer the war
went on. I’d always associated the darkness of night with scary
things. It was the time of foxes and dingoes and feral cats. It was
the time of witches and goblins, of vampires and werewolves and
ghosts. It was the time of evil.

That was why it suited us.

On the other hand, on this particular night,
it didn’t suit me at all. I was so very tired, so utterly
exhausted. I was all in. I knew I couldn’t go another step. I hated
Robyn for saying that we had to. I waited for someone else to say
something, though: I had too much pride to be the one. Then I
realised no one was going to say it. Either they had as much pride
as me, or else they weren’t as tired as me. Grimly, hating them
all, I shouldered my pack.

‘Not yet, Ellie,’ Homer said gently. ‘It’s
still too early.’

‘You’re unbelievable, Ellie,’ Fi said, in
quite an admiring voice. ‘I don’t know how you do it. I couldn’t
walk another step. I’ve got to have a rest.’

‘Ellie could walk all week,’ Lee said, in the
same tone Fi had used.

I did feel a bit better then. I didn’t confess
how wrecked I was. Let them keep thinking I was super-woman if they
wanted. I knew the truth.

We waited another hour, not talking, each
alone with our thoughts. It was no secret what we were thinking
about. I stole a glance at Kevin. He was staring into the distance,
lips trembling, as though he were reliving every moment of it in
his mind. I wondered about his reactions. How did we seem to him
now? How much had we changed? I knew we’d changed a bit, of course,
but after seeing the expression on Kevin’s face when we killed the
soldier, I began to wonder if we’d changed more than we realised.
He’d looked at us like we were creatures from another planet. Well,
at least I knew that wasn’t true. We weren’t creatures from another
planet. We were just creatures from Hell.

Eventually I was the one who got everyone
moving again. It was because of those dumb comments about my being
so strong – I wanted to live up to them now. Plus there was another
reason. I never liked it when Homer took command too much or for
too long. I always had to assert myself when that happened. It’s
always been that way, even when we were little kids.

Lee and Robyn were asleep, but they got up
when I prodded them. That was one advantage of our way of life –
we’d become used to sleeping in short snatches and breaking our
sleep to do sentry duty. Everyone except Lee shouldered a pack, and
away we went.

That was the start of a horrible night. Fair
enough really, to follow a horrible day. I don’t know that I’ve
ever been so tired. We just went on putting one foot in front of
the other. Minute by minute, hour by hour. First my feet started
hurting, then my calves, then my back and neck. My head dropped
lower and lower. I soon gave up the occasional effort at
conversation. Plod, plod, plod. My muscles ached, my joints ached,
my bones ached. I must have spent an hour just thinking about what
I could sacrifice from my pack to lighten it. It became a wonderful
dream, the thought of having a pack that was two kilos lighter. It
seemed that life could offer no sweeter promise, no greater hope. I
weighed up the advantages and disadvantages of every item I
carried, trying to decide what I could dump. I was sure I’d be able
to find something but really there was nothing. Everything had its
uses. I couldn’t bear to think of doing without any of them. So I
kept going.