‘Of course I mind,’ Robyn said. ‘If I was a saint maybe I wouldn’t mind, but I’m not a saint so I mind rather a lot. And its not as though they’re acting in a very religious way. I don’t know any religion that tells people to go in and steal and kill to get what they want. I can understand why they’re doing it but understanding isn’t the same as supporting. But if you’d lived your whole life in a slum, starving, unemployed, always ill, and you saw the people across the road sunbaking and eating ice cream every day, then after a while you’d convince yourself that taking their wealth and sharing it around your neighbours isn’t such a terrible thing to do. A few people would suffer, but a lot of people would be better off.’
‘It’s just not right,’ said Kevin stubbornly.
‘Maybe not. But neither’s your way of looking at it. There doesn’t have to be a right side and a wrong side. Both sides can be right, or both sides can be wrong. I think both countries are in the wrong this time.’
‘So does that mean you’re not going to fight them?’ Kevin asked, still looking for a fight himself.
Robyn sighed. ‘I don’t know. I already have, haven’t I? I was right there with Ellie when we smashed our way through Wirrawee. I guess I’ll keep fighting them, for the sake of my family. But after the war, if there is such a time as after the war, I’ll work damn hard to change things. I don’t care if I spend the rest of my life doing it.’
‘You were the one who thought we were taking too big a risk going to look for Robyn and Lee,’ I said to Kevin. ‘You didn’t seem so fired up then.’
He looked uncomfortable. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ was all he would say.
Homer spoke up. ‘Maybe it’s time to decide what we’re all going to do. We’ve had a chance to rest up, get our breath back, think about things. Now we should decide if we’re going to stay here in hiding till the war sorts itself out, or if we should get out there and do something about it.’ He paused, and when no one spoke he continued. ‘I know we’re meant to be schoolkids, too young to do much more than clean a whiteboard for a teacher, but some of those soldiers I saw the other night weren’t any older than us.’
‘I saw two who looked a lot younger than us,’ said Robyn.
Homer nodded. No one else spoke. The tension was heavy, like a humid night. Here in this secret basin we’d been insulated for a little while from the fear and sweat and bleeding of the outside world. People were keeping each other prisoner, hurting each other, killing each other, but we’d retreated to the paradise of Hell.
It was a bit irrelevant to what Homer was saying, but I spoke anyway. ‘I can understand why the Hermit chose to live down here, away from it all.’
‘Away from the human race,’ Chris murmured.
‘It’s our own families,’ said Corrie. ‘That’s what everyone’s worried about, isn’t it? I guess I’d fight for my country but I’m going mad wondering what’s happened to my family. We don’t know if they’re alive or dead. We’re thinking and hoping that they’re at the Showground, and we’re thinking and hoping that they’re being well treated, but we don’t know any of that. We’ve only got Mr Clement’s word to go on.’
‘Seeing Mr Coles at the Showground helped,’ I said. ‘He looked healthy. He didn’t look too terrified or injured. That made a big difference to me.’
Fi spoke up. ‘I think we should try to find out more about the Showground. If we know that everyone’s there, that they’re unhurt, that they’re being fed properly and all that sort of thing, it’d make such a difference.’ Homer was about to interrupt but she went on. ‘I’ve been thinking about what Robyn and Kevin were arguing about. If I could get my family and friends back, healthy, I’d let these people have the stupid houses and cars and things. I’d go and live with my parents in a cardboard box at the tip and be happy.’
I tried to imagine Fi, with her beautiful skin and soft polished voice, living at the tip.
‘It sounds like we should try to find out more about the Showground then,’ Homer said. ‘But it won’t be easy.’ He added modestly, ‘Do you realise that every group that’s gone into town has been spotted, except Fi and me?’
‘Were you striped?’ I asked, and got the groan I deserved.
Lee was lying on my left, against a rock that was still warm. It seemed to be his turn to speak. ‘I don’t think they’ll be into tortures and mass executions. The world’s changing, and any country that does that stuff knows there’s going to be a stink about it. I mean, I know it still happens, but not as much as it used to. Nowadays they seem to do things unobtrusively, over a long period of time. These guys are obviously trigger-happy, but there’s a big difference between shooting in hot blood and shooting in cold blood. We know that they’re firing off endless bullets in hot blood – they’re wild that way, and I’ve got the hole in my leg to prove it. But that’s sort of normal in a war, and a lot of it’s self-defence. It doesn’t mean they’re into concentration camps. The two things don’t automatically go together.’
‘I hate them,’ said Kevin. ‘I don’t know why you’re all being so understanding. I just hate them and I want to kill them all and if I had a nuclear bomb I’d drop it right down their throats.’
He was really upset, and he’d stopped the conversation as though he had nuked it. But after a few moments of awkward silence Homer started in again.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘do we want to check out the Showground more thoroughly? Can we do it with the stealth and finesse that Fi and I showed, or are we going to march in like a heavy metal band at a bowling club?’
‘We could tunnel in,’ I suggested.
‘Yeah, or pole-vault over the fence. Anyone got a serious suggestion? And how badly do we want to do it anyway?’
‘Badly,’ I said.
‘I won’t pretend the thought doesn’t scare the skin off me,’ Corrie said softly. ‘But it’s what we have to do. We’ll never sleep again at nights if we don’t.’
‘We’ll never sleep again at nights if we’re dead.’ Chris said ‘Look, with my parents overseas, I’m not quite as involved as you guys. But I’ll have a go, I suppose.’
‘I know what our parents would say,’ Fi said. ‘They’d say that the most important thing to them is our safety. They wouldn’t want us dead in exchange for them living. In a way we’re what gives their lives their meaning. But we can’t be bound by that. We have to do what’s right for us. We have to find meanings for our own lives, and this might be one of the ways we do it. I’m with Corrie; scared out of my skin, but I’ll do it because I can’t imagine the rest of my life if I don’t.’
‘I agree,’ Robyn said.
‘All day and all night,’ said Lee, ‘I pray for my leg to get better so I can go and find my family.’
‘I’m with the majority,’ Kevin said.
We looked at Homer. ‘I never thought I’d have to hurt other people just so I could live my own life,’ he said. ‘But my grandfather did it, in the Civil War. If I have to do it, I hope I’ll have the strength, like Ellie did. Whatever we do, I hope we can do it without hurting anyone. But if it happens ... well, it happens.’
‘You’re getting soft,’ Kevin said.
Homer ignored him. He continued, briskly. ‘I keep thinking of that quote Corrie mentioned the other day, “Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted”,’ he said. ‘The stupidest thing for us to do would be to charge in like Rambos with our little .22’s popping away. Fi’s right, our families don’t want us stretched out cold on a slab in the morgue. If we take a few extra days, well, that’s the way it has to be. The only reason we should take big risks is if we found that something terrible was about to happen to them. Of course it could have already happened, and if it has, well, we can’t do anything about it.
‘So, what I’m thinking is, we need some kind of observation place, somewhere hidden and safe, where we can watch the Showground. The more we know, the better our decisions will be and the more effective we can be. Judging from the radio, the whole country hasn’t been a pushover, and there’s a lot of action still going on. We ought to talk to anyone we can find in town, like Mr Clement, and even try to link up with the Army, or whoever’s still fighting in other districts. We should set ourselves up as a real guerilla outfit, living off the land as much as possible, mobile and fast and tough. We might have to survive like this for months, years even.