Then Kevin said, ‘She’s been shot Ellie’.
His voice broke the spell. I ran forward and knelt beside Corrie. I heard the exclamations from Homer and the others as they came into the shed, but I had eyes only for Corrie. There was a little blood coming out of her mouth, tiny bright bubbles of pink blood.
‘Where was she hit?’ I asked them.
‘In the back,’ Chris answered. He seemed almost unnaturally calm. Robyn was sobbing soundlessly; Kevin was shaking.
‘What are we going to do?’ Fi asked, coming forward. I glanced up at her. Her huge eyes seemed to fill her face with shock and horror.
‘We’ll have to take her into town,’ Homer said. ‘We know the Hospital’s still functioning. We’ll have to trust them to look after her. There’s no other choice.’
He was right. There wasn’t.
‘I’ll get the Landie,’ I said, standing up.
‘No,’ Homer said swiftly. ‘The Merc’s still here. It’s closer and it’ll give her a better ride.’
I ran to get it. I backed it into the shed and jumped out to help lift Corrie in. But they didn’t need me for that; they moved her carefully and slowly into the back seat. Then we stuffed the footspace with hessian sacks, and jammed cushions all around her, so she couldn’t roll or move. I choked on my sobs as I watched her lying there, her chest slowly rising and falling with each gurgling breath. This was my dear Corrie, my lifelong friend. If Homer was my brother, Corrie was my sister. Her face looked so calm, but I felt that there was a terrible war being waged inside her body, a fight to the death. I straightened up and turned to the others. Homer was speaking.
‘This is going to sound cruel,’ he said, ‘but the only thing to do is to take her to the gate of the Hospital, abandon the car with Corrie in it, ring the bell, and run like hell. We’ve got to try to think rationally about it. Seven people are better than six. If we lose not just Corrie but someone else too, well, it weakens us badly. Not to mention the unpleasant questions that person would have to face.’
Kevin stood. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No. I don’t give a stuff what’s rational and what’s logical. Corrie’s my mate and I’m not going to dump her and run. It has to be me or Ellie because we’re the only drivers, and Ellie, if you don’t mind, I want to do it.’
I didn’t say anything, didn’t move. I couldn’t.
Kevin walked around to the driver’s seat and got in. Fi leaned through the window and kissed him. He held her arm briefly then let it go.
‘Good luck Kevin,’ Lee said.
‘Yes,’ Homer echoed, as the car started to reverse. ‘Luck Kevin.’
Chris patted the bonnet of the car. Robyn was crying too much to speak. I ran around the front of the car and leaned in Kevin’s window, walking with the car as it continued to back.
‘Kevin,’ I said. ‘Give my love to Corrie.’
‘Sure will,’ he answered.
‘And to you Kevin.’
‘Thanks Ellie.’
The car was out in the open and making its turn. He put it in first and turned on the lights and drove away. I could see the concentration in his face as he avoided the bumps in the driveway. I knew Corrie was in good hands, and I understood the lights too. I stood watching until the red tailspots had disappeared in the distance.
‘Let’s go home,’ Homer said, ‘to Hell.’
Epilogue
It’s hard to work out where stories begin – I seem to remember saying that at the start of this one. And it’s hard to work out where they end, too. Our story hasn’t ended yet. We’ve been holed up here for a week since Kevin drove away with Corrie in the back seat. I’ve been writing frantically all that time, but the others have been up on Tailor’s Stitch a lot, checking around. There’s no sign of any patrols yet, so we think Kevin’s been able to fake them out with some story about where he and Corrie were hiding. That camping stuff was still under the Masonic Hall, so maybe he remembered that and made good use of it.
We don’t talk about the other possibilities, that Kevin didn’t even get as far as the Hospital, for example. We just don’t know what’s happened, but I pray my guts out a dozen times a day for them. If I go an hour without thinking about them, I feel guilty.
I’m glad I got this up to date. Guess I’ll have to show it to the others now. Hope they like it. It’s a big thing to leave a record, to be remembered. I keep thinking about the Hermit’s tin box. Without that we’d have known nothing about him, except the rumours, which really told us so little.
I don’t know how long we’ll be here. Maybe as long as the Hermit. We’ve got the chooks, and we’ve planted vegetables, and we still hope to get ferrets and nets. That’s where Kevin and Corrie went that night, to Kevin’s uncle’s, to get some. They didn’t even see the soldiers who shot them. Suddenly there were bullets flying, and Corrie got hit. Kevin ran back, picked her up, and carried her all the way to my place.
Loyalty, courage, goodness. I wonder if they’re human inventions too, or if they just are.
I look around me. There’s Homer, making lists and drawing plans. God knows what he’s got in mind for us. Robyn’s reading the Bible. She prays quietly every night. I like Robyn and I like how strong she is in her beliefs. Chris is writing too, probably a poem. I don’t understand any of the ones he’s shown me so far – I don’t know if he understands them himself – but I try to make intelligent comments about them. Fi’s putting in some posts for a bigger chookyard. Lee’s sitting next to me, trying to make a rabbit trap. It doesn’t look as if it’d catch any rabbit with an IQ of more than 10, but who knows? Maybe rabbits have IQs in single figures. Anyway I like the way Lee stops every few minutes to stroke my leg with his lean brown fingers.
We’ve got to stick together, that’s all I know. We all drive each other crazy at times, but I don’t want to end up here alone, like the Hermit. Then this really would be Hell. Humans do such terrible things to each other that sometimes my brain tells me they must be evil. But my heart still isn’t convinced.
I just hope we can survive.
Author’s Note
The settings in this book are based on real places. Hell is a reasonably accurate description of Terrible Hollow, in the Australian Alps, near Mt Howitt in Victoria. Small cliffs, like steps, descend into the hollow, and are known as the Devil’s Staircase. Tailor’s Stitch is the Crosscut Saw, a long ridge of rock which runs for miles from Mt Howitt to Mt Speculation, through Big Hill and Mt Buggery. It is a particularly beautiful route for bushwalkers, and gives good views into the Terrible Hollow.
It is generally accepted by locals that a hermit did live in or around Mt Howitt and the Terrible Hollow for many years. There were eyewitness sightings, particularly in the late 1970s. In 1986 a hiker, Scott Vickers-Willis, found a beautifully carved handmade walking stick concealed in a bush on the edge of the Terrible Hollow. I have seen this stick, which is still in Mr Vickers-Willis’ possession; its discovery, in such a remote and wild part of the world, lends startling support to the hermit theory.
Other locations used in Tomorrow, When the War Began, include China Walls, a rugged mountainous area on private farmland near Khancoban in NSW, and the long wooden bridge across the Murrumbidgee River at Gundagai in NSW. Generally though the settings used in this book could be found in any Australian State.