Between the rest of us we had only a .22 hornet and a .410. My father had a .303, but ammunition for it had become so expensive that I didn’t think he still had any.
I was in the middle of explaining to the others where we kept our ammo. I’d already figured out I’d be one of the people going to town. Suddenly we heard a distant disturbing noise. It sounded like a plane, but louder and rougher, and it was getting closer very quickly. ‘It’s a helicopter,’ Corrie said, looking scared. We ran for the windows. ‘Get away from the bloody windows,’ Homer yelled, then to me, ‘We forgot to have a sentry.’ He rattled out a string of orders. ‘Kevin, go to the sitting room; Fi, the bathroom; Corrie, your bedroom; Ellie the sunroom. Look carefully out of the windows to see if there’s anyone coming by road or across the paddocks. Report to me in the office. I’ll be getting the .22.’
We did what he said. He’d chosen four rooms that together gave us a 360 degree view of the countryside. I scuttled across the floor of the sunroom like a big startled cockroach, then stood behind the curtains, wrapped myself in them and peeped out. I couldn’t see the helicopter but I could hear it, loud and coarse and threatening. I scrutinised the countryside carefully but could see nothing. Then something did move into my view. It was the little corgi, Flip, waddling across the courtyard. I felt sick. They would have to see her from the air, and what would they make of that? A healthy dog wandering happily around a house that was meant to have been deserted for a week? Should I call her, I wondered, in case they haven’t seen her yet? But if she responded too enthusiastically to my call it might make them even more suspicious. I made a decision, to do nothing, and at that moment the helicopter itself came swooping around to my side of the house. It was a great big ugly dark thing, like a powerful wasp, buzzing and staring and hungry to kill. I shrank back into the curtains, afraid to look into the faces of the people in the machine. I felt that they could see through the walls of the house. I squatted, then retreated along the wall of the room, around the next wall, fled through the door and down to the office, where the others were waiting.
‘Well?’ Homer asked.
‘No soldiers,’ I said, ‘but Flip’s out there, wandering around. They must have seen her from the helicopter.’
‘That might be enough to make them suspicious,’ Homer said. ‘They’d be trained to notice anything out of the ordinary.’ He swore. ‘We’ve got a lot to learn, assuming we even come out of this. How many soldiers in the chopper?’
He got various answers: ‘Hard to say’, ‘Maybe three’, ‘I didn’t see’, ‘Three or four, maybe more sitting up the back’.
‘If they do land they’ll probably spread out.’ Homer was thinking aloud. ‘A .22 won’t be much use. The Toyota’s still up at the shearing shed. I can’t believe we’ve been so stupid. It’d be no use trying for that. Go back to the same rooms, and see what they’re doing. And try to count the number of soldiers. But don’t give them the slightest chance to see you.’
I ran back to the sunroom but the helicopter was not in sight. Its ugly angry sound seemed to fill my head though, to fill the house. It was in every room. I hurried back to the office. ‘It’s on the west side,’ Kevin said. ‘Just hovering there, not landing.’
‘Look guys,’ Homer said. ‘If it lands I think we’ve only got two options. We can sneak out on the opposite side to where it’s landed, and use the trees to try to get away into the bush. The bikes are no use and the Toyota’s out of reach. So we’d be on foot and relying on our brains and our fitness. The second option would be to surrender.’
There was a grim and frightened silence. We had only one option really, as Homer knew.
‘I don’t want to be a dead hero,’ I said. ‘I think we’d have to take our chances and surrender.’
‘I agree,’ Homer said quickly, as though anxious to get in before someone disagreed.
The only one likely to disagree was Kevin. The four of us looked at him. He hesitated, then swallowed and nodded: ‘All right.’
‘Let’s go back to the sitting room,’ Homer said. ‘We’ll see if it’s still there.’
We ran down the corridor, then Kevin eased himself into the room and sidled to the window. ‘Still there,’ he reported. ‘Not doing anything, just watching. No, wait ... it’s on the move ... coming down a little ...’ Fi gave a cry. I glanced at her. She’d been very quiet all afternoon. She looked like she was about to pass out. I grabbed her hand, and she squeezed mine so hard I thought maybe I’d be the one to pass out Kevin kept up his commentary. ‘They’re staring right at me,’ he said. ‘But I can’t believe they could see me.’
‘Don’t move,’ Homer said. ‘It’s movement that’s the giveaway.’
‘I know,’ Kevin complained. ‘What do you think, I’m going to start tap dancing?’
For another two minutes we all stood like mannequins in a shop window. The room seemed to grow darker and darker. When Kevin did speak again it was in a whisper, as though there were soldiers in the corridor.
‘It’s moving ... can’t tell ... sideways a little, up a bit, up some more. Maybe going over the house, to have a look at the other side.’
‘This’ll be the big move, one way or the other,’ Homer said. ‘They won’t hang round much longer.’ Fi gripped my hand even tighter, something I wouldn’t have thought possible. It was worse than carrying a lot of plastic shopping bags loaded with dog food. Kevin kept talking as though he hadn’t heard Homer. ‘Still going sideways ... up a bit more ... no, backing off a bit. Come on, back off beautiful. Yes, backing off now, and accelerating too. Oh yes. Make like a hockey player sweetheart; get the puck out of here. Yes! Yes! Fly away, fly away home.’ He turned to us with a casual shrug. ‘See! All I had to do was use my charm.’ Corrie picked up the nearest object and threw it at him, as the helicopter began to sound more like a distant chain saw. The object was a little statue of Mary, which luckily for Corrie, Kevin caught. Fi burst into tears. Homer gave a shaky smile, then swung into action again.
‘Let’s get cracking,’ he said. ‘We’ve been lucky. We can’t afford to make that many mistakes again. He herded us all into the sitting room and out the front door. ‘We’ll have this conference out here, where we can see the road,’ he said. ‘Now look, I’ll tell you what I think. If there’s any major holes in it, tell me. Otherwise, let’s just do it, OK? We haven’t got time for long debates.
‘All right. Starting with the dogs. Flip and the other one, at my place, whatsitsname.’
‘Millie,’ I offered.
‘Yes,’ said Homer. ‘Millie. Guys, we have to abandon them. Leave out all the dry dog food you want for them, but that’s all you can do. Second, the milkers. I’ve had a look at yours Corrie. She’s not only got mastitis, it’s gone gangrenous as well. We’re going to have to shoot her. It’d be too cruel to leave her here to suffer.’ I glanced at Corrie. She was absorbing this dry-eyed. Homer continued. ‘Third, the Toyota. We can’t take it now. They will have seen it from the air, so if it goes missing they might notice that. The three people packing the vehicles will have to take everything they can on bikes, and ride to Kev’s and pick up another four-wheel drive there, to go with the Landie.’ He glanced at Kevin, to check if that were possible.
Kevin nodded. ‘The Ford’s still there.’
‘Good. One thing I was hoping we could get from here is lots of vegetables from Corrie’s mum’s garden. But I don’t think there’ll be time, unless it’s done in darkness. For now, I think we should go bush till tonight. Take the bikes and anything else that’s absolutely vital, and get going, in case they send troops out from town. I’m sure they won’t come out after dark, but till then there’s a risk.
‘Finally, about tonight.’ He was talking very fast, but we weren’t missing a word. ‘I think Ellie and I should go into town. We need a driver to stay here, and Kevin and Ellie are our best drivers. And it wouldn’t be fair to have an all girls group and an all guys group. Then if you three aim to get to Ellie’s by dawn, we’ll meet you there. If we’re not there tomorrow, give us till midnight tomorrow night, then leave for Hell. Leave one car hidden at Ellie’s and hide the other one at the top somewhere, near Tailor’s Stitch, and go down to the campsite. We’ll find our own way there when we can.’