John Marsden - While I live

For the first few minutes we took no great care but then Lee signalled with a finger to his lips that we needed to get quiet. Gavin was falling behind but when I tried to take his drum he snarled at me and I snatched my hand back. I counted my fingers quickly, and he smiled. I felt proud of that — getting a smile out of Gavin was hard work sometimes.

We side-slid down a gully into the bed of an old creek. A little water was running along it. That was good as it helped wash away any noise we made. My arms felt like they were going to drop off. I couldn’t imagine how Gavin was still carrying his drum. Lee, in front, looked as steady and calm as ever. I think he had the leaking can though, as the smell of petrol kept wafting back over me.

The further we went, the slower Lee went. Soon he was stopping every five or ten metres to take a good look ahead. I realised in the middle of this just how quickly and easily I had slipped back into my wartime role. It was like the worries of my parents’ deaths and the financial hassles with the farm, even the really important things like the Legal Studies assignment I was planning to do this same lunchtime, all of it had dropped away. I was back with Lee, on our way to meet Homer, we were out there in the bush against a dangerous enemy, and in a weird sort of way it was comfortable. All my senses were functioning at maximum revs. I was wide awake. Somewhere along the way, during the last year or so, I’d become good at this stuff. Maybe I should join the Army.

While I was congratulating myself on my brilliant military skills I nearly ran into Lee’s back. He was behind a tree and he looked around and frowned when I bumped his petrol can. ‘How about we leave the fuel here and see if we can get a look at the set-up?’ he whispered.

‘OK.’

I pointed to the drums, made a ‘stop’ gesture at Gavin, and mouthed, ‘You stay here, look after the petrol,’ and he nodded calmly. ‘What does he do with his fear?’ I asked myself. Occasionally it showed, but not often.

I knew he would be safe. He mucked around all the time when there was no pressure on, but he wouldn’t do anything stupid in a situation like this. And he’d be happy now that he had something important to do.

Lee and I left the creek and, unslinging our rifles, went a bit higher. I could see that the gully was opening out ahead. We moved carefully through the bush. Lee led me about three-quarters of the way up the ridge. It was steep country but quite bare. I was trying to stay calm and focused but I couldn’t help thinking that it was rare for us to be doing anything like this in broad daylight. Pretty dangerous.

We stopped about a thousand times. If sentries had caught Homer, we had to assume they would be out here somewhere. And probably more of them than before, now that they’d been spooked by Homer’s arrival. On the other hand he could have just walked into a couple of blokes coming back from a party in the nearest town. We didn’t know, but we always had to assume the worst.

At last I caught a glimpse of movement. I grabbed Lee from behind. He just nodded, to show he’d seen it too. We crouched slowly and shuffled into the rocks a bit further. I got up higher and found a friendly boulder, and from behind it realised I was looking down on the whole camp.

It was quite a set-up. There were four buildings that I could see, prefab places that looked like the demountable classrooms we had at school. They hadn’t made much effort to camouflage them. I could see only six soldiers, who were in a mixture of uniforms and T-shirts and jeans. But two of the soldiers were definitely on guard, outside a yellow building. Of the others, one was crouched in front of another building, having a smoke, two, both carrying rifles, were talking to each other at the side of the clearing, and the last was walking away into the bush. Luckily on the other side of the clearing. He too carried his rifle.

I pointed to the building that was guarded and Lee nodded. So that was where Homer and possibly Nick Greene were held. I assumed one of them at least was still alive, or there wouldn’t be any need for guards. So that was the good news.

Now that we were here, looking at the reality of it, my confidence started fading. We couldn’t just shoot these people out of hand. That’d be murder, wouldn’t it? Officially we weren’t at war with them anymore. And anyway, if we did start shooting we’d probably get killed. If there were twenty of them we were way outnumbered.

I slithered back a little and Lee joined me. ‘What do you think?’ I asked him.

‘It’s hard to say. Half of them could be out in the bush. But they’re not very organised. They looked like a mess this morning. Torches rushing around everywhere. Half a dozen guys with rifles could have picked them off easily.’ He looked at me then added, ‘Where do you want to set off the petrol?’

‘Over that way.’ I nodded to the other end, away from where Gavin was waiting. ‘Unless…’

‘Unless what?’

I’d been planning to detonate the petrol some distance off, to start a diversion. But now, looking at the landscape, I had a different idea.

It would be wild and it would be risky, but if it came off it could just reduce the odds a bit.

It took forever to get organised. We had to be so careful. On the one hand there was a sense of urgency, because every time I looked at the campsite I felt they were getting busier. In particular there was more and more movement around the yellow building where we assumed Homer and the Greene guy were held. I couldn’t work out what was going on, but I was getting bad vibes. As soldiers went in and out I imagined, or sensed, that they were acting cocky and aggressive. Kind of high-powered. Around the rest of the camp they seemed pretty lazy.

Then at about two o’clock a vehicle came in and parked quite close to the building. I had the feeling that it was going to be involved with Homer and Nick Greene in some way. My hunch was that it was going to take at least one of them away. I didn’t have any evidence for that. Just the way it was placed I guess, and the way the driver, when he got out, talked to a couple of soldiers, with a lot of gesturing at the demountable.

The ute was a funny little green four wheel drive, a Suzuki, with a tray back. For a moment I got the sick idea that maybe it was there to take away a couple of bodies but I shook my head fast to get rid of that one. I couldn’t let myself think in those terms.

The car’s arrival showed at least one thing though, that there must be a driveable track going out to the north-west. I didn’t know if that information would be any use to us but I filed it in the back of my mind.

We spent nearly two hours watching to see what they were doing in the way of sentries. Boy, did that bring back memories of the war. Already, in the months since it had finished, I’d more or less forgotten these long, boring but tense periods of time. They were boring because you couldn’t move, you just stayed hidden in your spot, watching and listening and getting thirsty and hungry, and they were tense because your life was on the line and at any moment there could be a disaster. I think only people who have been there can understand what it’s like. From a distance I suppose war can seem exciting, but for every five minutes of wild head-spinning, gut-churning, nerve-charging action there’s a hundred hours of hard slogging and tedious work.

Anyway, as far as I could tell there was no real system of sentries. Instead there seemed to be guys out in the bush wandering around with their rifles, each with his own area to cover. Some were dangerous and some were slack. For example, some came into the campsite to talk to their mates and have a smoke, until the guy in charge pointed them back into the bush. But there were times when a whole large area would be unpatrolled for more than twenty minutes, even half an hour. It wasn’t much of a window of opportunity. But it was all we had.