‘Something’s going on,’ I said. ‘Might be a convoy.’ We stood and looked, straining our eyes to peer down the dark highway. But it was the behaviour of the sentries that again told us what was happening. They started backing away, then their little group broke up and they split, half going to one side of the bridge, half to the other. One ran in little circles for a moment, then started running down the road towards Wirrawee, then changed his mind, and he too fled to the side.
‘It’s the cattle,’ I said. ‘It’s got to be.’
We sprinted for the tanker, leaving the silent, useless walkie-talkie behind. There was no time to wonder about a patrol coming down the street. We leapt into the truck and started the engine. I put it in gear and looked up, and although speed was now vital to us, I couldn’t help but lose a second as I caught the wonderful view on the bridge. A hundred or more head of beef, prime Hereford cattle, beautiful big red beasts, were steaming onto the old wooden structure like a mighty train of meat. And they were steaming. Even at this distance I could hear the thunder of the hooves on the timber. They were going like wound-up locomotives.
‘Wow,’ I breathed.
‘Go!’ screamed Fi.
I pressed the accelerator and the tanker lumbered forward. We had about five hundred metres to go and I was pumping adrenalin so hard I felt immune to danger, to bullets, to anything. ‘Go!’ cried Fi again. As we came in under the bridge I slid the tanker as far across to the left as I could get it, so that it was nestled under the lowest section of the superstructure. The trick was to do it without sideswiping the pylon and causing sparks, which might have finished Fi and me off quickly and horribly. But we got in there nice and close, leaving less man two metres clearance between the top of the tanker and the bridge. That was the first time any of us had thought of the possibility of the tanker not fitting under the bridge at all; it was a little too late by then to consider that problem. We’d been lucky. Fi couldn’t get her door open because she was so close to the pylon, so she started sliding across to my side. I half leapt, half fell out of the cab. Above my head the bridge shook and thundered as the first of the stampeding cattle reached our end. I was going up the ladder to the top of the tanker as Fi came out of the truck and without looking at me sprinted for the motorbikes. This run, which I too would have to do in a moment, was our greatest risk. It was across clear ground for about two hundred metres, to where we’d hidden the bikes in the bushes. There was no cover, no protection from any angry bullets that might come buzzing after us. I shook my head to clear the frightening thoughts, and ran along the walkway on top of the trailer, crouched over to avoid hitting the bottom of the bridge. When I reached the rope I glanced up. Fi had disappeared and I had to hope she’d made the bushes safely. I started pulling out the rope, coil after sopping coil, throwing it to the roadway below. The fumes were terrible in that confined space. They made me giddy and gave me an instant headache. Another thing we should have thought of, I realised: a sinker to tie to the end of the rope that had to stay in the tank, to stop it being pulled out when I ran off with the other end. Too late for that now. All I could do was jam the lid down as tightly as possible and hope that would hold it in.
I scrambled back down the ladder. It seemed to have taken forever to get the rope out. All that time I’d been oblivious of the thunder just centimetres above my head, but now I noticed that it was starting to lessen. I could make out individual hooves. I broke out in an instant sweat, found the loose end of the rope, grabbed it and ran. I had petrol all over me, had been breathing petrol, and felt very odd as a result, as though I was floating across the grass. But it wasn’t a pleasant float, more the sort of floating that made me seasick.
I was about a hundred metres from the bushes when I heard two sounds at once; one that was welcome, one that was not. The welcome sound was the throbbing of the motorbikes. The unwelcome one was a shout from the bridge.
There are sounds the throat produces which may not be in English, but which have an unmistakable meaning. When I was little I’d had a dog called Rufus, who was a border-collie springer-spaniel cross. He was just a natural rabbiter, and I used to take him out most afternoons for the joy of seeing him at full stretch after a fleeing rabbit. Whenever he was in hot pursuit he uttered a peculiar high-pitched yelp, that he never used at any other time. It didn’t matter where I was or what I was doing, when I heard that sound I knew Rufus was chasing a rabbit.
The shout from the bridge, although not in my language, was unmistakable too. It was a shout of ‘Alarm! Come quickly!’ Although I had a hundred metres to go it suddenly looked forever. I felt that I would never reach my target, that I could never cover so much ground, that I could run for the rest of my life and not get to safety. That was a terrible moment, when I came very close to death. I entered a strange state when I felt as though I was now in the territory of death, even though no bullet had struck me. I don’t know if a bullet had even been fired. But if a bullet had struck me then I don’t think I would have felt it. Only living people can feel pain, and I was floating away from the world that living people inhabit.
Then Fi appeared and screamed, ‘Oh Ellie, please!’ She was standing in the bushes but she seemed right in front of me, and her face looked huge. It was the word ‘please’ that reached me I think: it made me feel that she needed me, that I was important to her. Our friendship, love, whatever you want to call it, reached across the bare ground and reeled me in. I became aware that there were bullets stinging through the air, that I was pounding hard across the ground, that I was gasping for breath and that my chest hurt, and then I was in the safety of the trees and stumbling towards the motorbikes, dropping the end of the rope for Fi to gather it. I would have liked to hug Fi, but I was rational enough to know that I was a petrol-soaked leper, and a hug from me would have been a death sentence for Fi.
I grabbed the furthest bike and kicked it off its stand, then swung it round to face Fi. As I did there was a whoosh, and a string of fire began to speed across the grass. Fi came running back. To my surprise her face was alight, not with flame but from within. She was utterly elated. I began to wonder if there was a secret pyromaniac lurking inside her somewhere. She grabbed her bike; we wheeled them around and spun the back wheels doing takeoffs that dug gouges in the well-tended grass of the Wirrawee picnic grounds. Fi led the way, with wild war whoops. And yes, I admit now that we were the ones who did the wheelies on the seventh green of the golf course. I’m sorry. It was very immature of us.
Chapter Twenty-two
When we met Homer and Lee, up in a gully behind the Fleets’ house, there was a babble of noise for about ten minutes, with everyone trying to talk at once. Relief, excitement, explanations, apologies.
‘Everybody shut up!’ Lee finally yelled, using Homer’s tactic, and in the sudden silence said, ‘There, that’s better. Now Fi, you go first.’ We told our stories, then the boys told theirs. Feeling safer on their side of the river, they had stayed to watch the explosion; the earthquake that we had only heard and felt.
‘Oh Ellie,’ Homer said, ‘it was the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.’ I began to fear that we’d turned him into a pyromaniac too.
‘Yeah,’ said Lee. ‘It was a real blast.’
‘Tell us everything,’ I said. ‘Take your time. We’ve got all day.’ The morning had begun and we were breakfasting on cans from the Fleets’ pantry. I had baked beans and tuna. I was feeling pretty good; I’d had a predawn swim in the dam and was glad to have washed the last of the petrol from my skin. I was in the mood to be treated gently, and was looking forward to snuggling into Lee for most of the day. But in the meantime I was happy to lie back and close my eyes and hear a bedtime story.
‘Well,’ Homer said. ‘It went so well at first. We got to the stud with no hassles, although pushing those bikes for the last few k’s was hard work.’ Homer had done it twice; taking his bike to the hiding place, then going back for Lee’s. ‘As you know,’ he went on, ‘our plan was for me to do the mustering and get them out to the road nice and quietly. Then Lee was going to hide on the road and jump out at them with the flash, while I used the prod to stampede them.’