Tomorrow When the War Began for Chapter Twenty

Curr's Blue Star Fuel and Oil Distributors was in Back Street, about six blocks from the bridge. Fi and I found it with no trouble but with much relief. We'd agreed between the two of us that we could have a rest when we got there, and we sure needed one. We'd wheeled those bloody great bikes about four k's, stopping and hiding a dozen times when one or both of us imagined we'd heard a noise or seen a movement. We were pretty twitchy just doing that; I hated to think what we'd be like when the real action started.
I was a bit nervous being paired with Fi, I must admit. There was no way I was ever going to be a hero, but at least I was used to doing outdoors, practical things, and I suppose that gives you a bit of confidence. I mean just the little things at home that I took for granted, chopping wood, using a chain saw, driving, riding the horses (Dad still liked using horses for stockwork), being a rouseabout, marking lambs and drenching sheep – these were the commonplace routines of my life, that I'd never valued a lot. But without my noticing it they'd given me the habit of doing things without looking over my shoulder every sixty seconds to see if an adult was nodding or shaking his head. Fi had improved heaps in that respect, but she was still kind of hesitant. I admired her courage in taking on the job Homer had given her, because I guess true courage is when you're really scared but you still do it. I was really scared, but Fi was really really scared. I did just hope that when the chips were down she wouldn't stand there frozen with fear. We didn't want frozen chips. Ha ha.
Once we'd hidden the bikes we set off for Curr's. I tried to put into practice the lessons I'd learned from computer games. My favourite game was Catacomb and I'd found the only way I could get to level ten was to keep my head. When I got angry or overconfident or adventurous I got wiped out, even by the most simple and obvious little monsters. To get the best scores I had to stay smart, think, be alert and go cautiously. So we crept along, block by block, checking round every corner as we came to it. The only time we spoke was when I said to Fi, 'This is the way we'll have to do it on the way back with the tanker'. She just nodded. The only time my concentration wavered was when I caught myself wondering if I'd ever get to play computer games again.
As far as we could see it was all quiet on the Curr's front. There were big wire gates, locked with a chain and padlock, and a high wire fence all the way around the depot, but we were prepared for that with the wirecutters. We'd brought bolt cutters as well but they were no match for the gate: the chain was just too big. Plan B was to use the truck to break through the gate.
We took a smoko for twenty minutes. We sat behind a tree opposite the depot, getting our breath back, while Fi tried to call up Homer and Lee on the walkie-talkie. Just as we were about to abandon the attempt and go for the tanker we heard Homer's hoarse whisper coming from the receiver.
'Yes, we can hear you Fi. Over.'
It was somehow vastly exciting, and a wild relief, to hear his voice. Fi's eyes glistened.
'How's Lee?'
'Fine.'
'Where are you? Over.'
'Where we said we'd be. How about you? Over.'
'Yes, the same. We're about to try to get in. It looks OK. They've got plenty of what we want. Over.'
'OK, good. Call us back when you're in business. Over.'
'Bye,' Fi whispered. 'Love you.'
There was a pause, then the answer. 'Yeah, I love you too Fi.'
For Homer to say that to anyone was pretty good; for him to say it with Lee and me listening was amazing. We switched the walkie-talkie off and moved cautiously over to the fence of the depot. There were big security lights along the wire fence, but the power seemed to be switched off to this part of town. I hoped that meant that any burglar alarms would be inoperative too. I took a deep breath and made the first cut. No bells rang, no lights flashed, no sirens howled. I cut again, and kept cutting until I'd made a hole about big enough for a hare.
'We'll never get through that,' Fi muttered. As she was the size of a rabbit and I'm the size of a Shetland, it was obvious who she meant by 'we'.
'We'll have to,' I said. 'It makes me nervous standing here. It's too exposed. Come on.'
Fi put one leg through, then gracefully twisted her body after it and followed with her other leg. All those ballet lessons were good for something, I thought enviously. It was obvious that the hole had to be bigger, so I cut some more, but even when I did get through I ripped my T-shirt and scratched my leg.
We scurried across the yard to where the trucks were parked. I tried the doors of a couple but they were locked. We went over to the office and peered through the grimy window. On the opposite wall was a board hung with keys.
'That's our target,' I said. I turned and found a rock, picked it up and came back to the window.
'Wait,' Fi said.
'What?'
'Can I do it? I've always wanted to break a window.'
'You should have joined Homer's Greek Roulette gang,' I said, but I handed over the rock. She giggled and drew back her arm and smashed the rock hard into the window, then jumped back as glass showered over us both. It took us a few moments to shake it out of our clothes and hair. Then I leaned in and opened the door from the inside.
The keys were neatly marked with the registration numbers of the trucks, so we took a handful and went back to the yard. I chose the oldest, dirtiest semitrailer, because the newer smarter ones seemed to shine too much in the moonlight. It was a flat-fronted International Acco. The first thing we did was to go to the back of the trailer and climb up the thin steel ladder to the top, walking along the curved surface to inspect the storage compartments. It turned out that there were four lids, spaced at equal intervals along the top. I twisted one of the lids and took it off. It was much like the lids of the milk cans that we still had in our old dairy. It came away easily, even though it was quite heavy. I tried to see if there was any petrol inside but it was impossible to tell. I searched my memory. When the truck came to our place each month, what was it the driver did? 'Hold this,' I whispered urgently to Fi, giving her the lid, then shinnying down the ladder. Sure enough I found what I was looking for – the dipstick on a bracket on the base of the trailer. I pulled it off, and hurried back up the ladder. I dipped the tank that we'd opened. It was too dark to get a reading but the glint of wetness in the moonlight showed there was plenty of fuel in it.
We replaced the lid and checked the other three. Two of them were full; we didn't need to dip them. The last one was nearly empty, but it didn't matter. We had enough to cause a bigger explosion than Krakatoa. We screwed the lids back on and hurried down the ladder.
I went round to the driver's door, unlocked it, got in, and opened the passenger door for Fi, then began inspecting the controls. It looked OK but when I switched on the ignition a continuous beep began sounding, and a red warning brake light started flashing. I waited for it to go off, but it didn't.
'There's something wrong with the brakes,' I said to Fi. 'We'd better try another one.'
We spent ten minutes going along the row of trucks, trying each one, but always with the same result. I began to regret the time spent on our rest break. We might end up getting to the bridge too late.
It's no good,' I said at last. 'We'll just have to take the first one and risk it with no brakes. I'll use the gears as much as I can.'
We jumped back into the Acco, and started the engine, which throbbed into immediate life. To my astonishment the warning beep and the flashing light stopped within seconds.
'Air brakes,' I said to Fi, annoyed with myself for not having thought of it earlier. 'They have to build up pressure or something. I've never driven anything with air brakes before.'
I had more trouble finding first, having to pump the clutch a few times to get it. I was sweating heavily and Fi was trembling. The engine sounded so loud in the quiet night air. Then I eased the clutch out. The prime mover jerked, took up the strain of the trailer, and crept forward. I brought it well out into the yard, clear of the other vehicles, so I had plenty of room to make my turn. Then I swung it round and aimed at the gates.
It's really quite frightening to crash a vehicle directly and deliberately into something. At the last moment my nerve failed me and I slowed right down, bumping too gently into the gate to do any damage. I was really annoyed with myself. With my typical arrogance I'd been worried about Fi's nerves, but I should have been more worried about my own. I cursed, nearly destroyed the gearbox trying to find reverse, found it, and was startled by the loud warning beeps that immediately began at the back of the vehicle. Seemed like this truck beeped at any excuse. In my impatience I then backed up too fast. The trailer slewed and hit a stanchion, nearly jackknifing. Fi went white and grabbed the back of the seat.
'Ellie!' she said. 'It's petrol in the back, not water!'
'I know,' I said. 'Sorry.'
This time I rolled it smoothly and firmly into the gates, which strained for a moment, then sprang open like a bursting dam. I gave Fi a quick grin, and made another wide turn to get into the street without hitting anything. The trailer followed beautifully. To keep the noise down I put the gearstick into neutral and coasted down to a clump of trees, parking under them. Fi was already trying to call the boys on the walkie-talkie, but there was too much interference from the truck engine.
'I'll go down to the corner and check that it's clear,' she said, 'and call them from there.'
'OK.'
She slipped out of the cab and set off for the corner. I watched her through the windscreen I always admired so much about Fi, but now it was her courage I was admiring, instead of her grace and beauty. She looked like a breeze would blow her over, but here she was going alone through the deserted streets of a town in a war zone. Not many people would do it; still fewer people who'd had the sheltered life she'd had. I saw her get to the corner, take a long careful look in each direction, give me a thumbs up and then start talking into her transmitter. After a few minutes she waved me forward; I hit reverse again, but then found first, and rolled the truck down to pick her up.
'Did you get through?'
'Yes. They're fine. A couple of patrols have been past, but no convoys. Oh Ellie,' she said, turning suddenly to me, 'do you really think we can do this?'
I tried to give her a confident grin. 'I don't know, Fi I think maybe we can. I hope we can.'
She nodded and faced forward again. We drove towards the next corner. 'I'll walk from here on,' she said, 'and call you from each corner. It'll be just as quick. Turn the engine off while you're waiting each time though, do you think? It's pretty noisy.'
'OK.'
We made two blocks that way, but at the next I saw her take one look down the street to the right then draw back and come sprinting towards me. I jumped down from the truck and ran to meet her. She gasped just one word: 'Patrol', and together we went over a low fence into someone's front garden. There was a huge old gum tree right in front of us. I was so nervous that it seemed to be the only thing I could see. My eyes and mind focused entirely on it; nothing else existed for me at that moment. I climbed it like a possum, scratching my hands but not feeling any pain. Fi followed. I got about three metres up before I heard voices from the corner, which slowed me down, made me quieter, more cautious. I inched out along a branch to take a look. I didn't know if getting up here had been a mistake or not. I remembered Dad, one day when he'd put a big ugly patch on a hole in the eaves that possums had made, saying 'The human eye doesn't look above its own height'. At this moment in my life I sure hoped he was right. The trouble was that if they did see us we'd be, not like possums up a tree, but like rats up a drainpipe. There was no escape from here.
We waited and watched. The voices continued for a while, then we heard them grow in volume as they turned towards us. I felt intense disappointment. This marked the end of our Grand Plan. It could mark the end of us, too, because once they saw the tanker their first reaction would be to seal off the area and search it. I was surprised they hadn't seen it already. They'd stopped talking now, but I could hear the scuffle of their boots. My mind was racing; too many thoughts going through it too quickly. I tried to grab one of them to see if it might be any use in suggesting a way out of here, but I was panicking too much to get a grip on it, on anything except the tree. Fi, I slowly realised from the steady pain in my left leg, was gripping onto me as though she were a possum on an insecure branch. She had her talons dug in so hard that I was sure I'd end up with bruises. I saw a movement now, through the foliage, and a couple of moments later the soldiers slowly came into view. There were five of them, three men and two women. One of the men was quite old, at least forty, but the other two looked about sixteen. The women were maybe twenty. They were dawdling along, two on the footpath and three on the road itself. They'd stopped talking to each other and were just gazing around as they walked, or looking down at the ground. They didn't look very military. I guessed they were conscripts. The tanker was on the other side of the road, about fifty metres from them. I couldn't believe they hadn't seen it yet, and braced myself for the sudden cry of discovery. Fi's fingers had now cut off the circulation in my leg; it was only a matter of time before my whole limb, from the shin down, dropped off into the garden below. I wondered how the soldiers would react if they heard it drop, and almost let out an hysterical giggle. The patrol kept walking.
And they kept walking. They went right on past the truck as though it didn't exist. It wasn't until they were a hundred metres past and Fi and I were out of our tree and peering at their distant dark backs that we allowed ourselves to believe that we were safe. We looked at each other in surprise and relief. I was so happy that I didn't even mention the bruises on my leg. I shook my head.
'They must have just thought it was another parked vehicle,' I said.
'I guess if they hadn't been along this particular street before ...' Fi said. 'I'd better call Homer.'
She did so, and I heard his soft reply quite quickly.
'We've been held up for a bit,' Fi said. 'Ellie wanted to climb a tree. We'll get under way again in about five minutes. We're three blocks away. Over.'
There was a snort from the receiver, not of static either, before she signed off.
We waited nearly ten minutes, to be safe, then I turned the key, and heard the shrill beep of the brake warning before the engine rumbled into life again. We made two more blocks; when Fi signalled me from the last corner I switched the engine off and tried coasting silently downhill towards her. This was a big mistake. The brake warning began beeping and flashing redly at me again and I realised I wouldn't have any brakes. A moment later the steering wheel gave a shudder and locked itself into position, so I didn't have any steering either. I tried for a gear, to clutch start it, but missed the one I wanted and got only a crunching sound that set my teeth on edge. The truck lurched over the gutter and began to veer further and further left, aiming for a row of fences. I remembered Fi's warning: 'That's petrol in the back, not water', and felt very sick. I grabbed at the ignition key, turned it, and got nothing, turned it again and, with the fences now just metres away, got the beautiful sound of the beautiful engine. I swung the wheel. 'Not too hard, you'll jack-knife.' That was my voice. The trailer sideswiped something, a row of somethings, fences or small trees or both, nearly sideswiped Fi, then juddered to a halt just a metre from the corner. I switched off the ignition, then pulled on the handbrake, wondering what would have happened if I'd thought of doing that before. I leaned back in the seat panting, my mouth open to get air into my tight aching throat.
Fi jumped into the cabin. 'Gosh, what happened?' she asked.
I shook my head. 'I think I just failed my driving test.'
Our plan had been to park further across, behind some trees in the picnic area I didn't know whether to do that, which meant taking the noisy risk of starting the engine again, or to stay where we were, out on the open side of the street. Finally we decided to move. Fi slipped across to where she had a view of the bridge and watched until all the sentries were at the far end. It was twenty minutes before that happened. Then she signalled to me and I moved the truck into the dark shadows of the trees.
We contacted the boys by radio, and made our preparations. We climbed the ladder to the top of the tanker again and loosened the lids of the four tanks. Then we fed the rope into one tank until it was submerged, all but the end of it, which we tied to a safety handle beside the lid. We climbed down again.
Now there was nothing to do but to wait.