No one else had much to add for a while. Then Fi, who was looking white and miserable, said, ‘I know logically we should do this and we should do that. But all I know is that the thought of doing anything makes my nose bleed. All I really want to do is to go down to the Hermit’s hut and hide under his mouldy old bed till this is over. I’m really fighting myself to stop from doing that. I suppose when the time comes I’ll probably do whatever I have to do, but the main reason I’ll do it is because I feel the pressure of keeping up with you guys. I don’t want to let you down. I’d feel so ashamed if I couldn’t match you in whatever it is we decide to do. I don’t think there’s any way we can help our families right now, so not losing face with you all has become my biggest thing. And what worries me is that I can’t guarantee I won’t pack up under pressure. The trouble is, I’m so full of fear now, that anything could happen. I’m scared that I might just stand there and scream.’

‘Peer group pressure,’ said Lee, but with a sympathetic smile at Fi. He was using one of Mrs Gilchrist, our Principal’s, favourite phrases.

‘Well, of course you’re the only one who feels that way,’ Homer said. ‘The rest of us don’t know the word “fear”. Kevin can’t even spell it. We know no feelings. We’re androids, terminators, robocops. We’re on a mission from God. We’re Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.’ He went on more seriously. ‘No, it’s a big problem. None of us knows how we’ll react when the fan gets hit. I know what it’s been like for me so far, just doing little things, like waiting in that car in Three Pigs Lane. My teeth were chattering so bad I had to hold my mouth shut to keep them in. I don’t know how I didn’t vomit. I was absolutely convinced I was going to die.’

We kept talking on, over, under and around the topic. Apart from Fi, the ones who were least keen were Chris and, strangely enough, Kevin. I could understand it a bit with Chris. He just lived in his own world most of the time, his parents were overseas, he didn’t have many friends. In fact I don’t think he liked people all that much. He probably could have lived in the Hermit’s hut quite happily, unlike Fi, who would have gone crazy in half a day. But I got the impression that, like Fi, Chris’d go along with whatever we decided; in his case because he didn’t have the energy or initiative to stand out against the group. Kevin was more of a puzzle, changing his attitude from one day to the next. There were times when he seemed bloodthirsty and times when he seemed chicken. I wondered if it depended on how long it had been since he’d been close to danger. Maybe when he’d had some action recently he went a bit quiet, dived for cover. But when things had been safe for a while he started getting his aggression back.

As for me, I was a mess of different feelings. I wanted to be able to make calm, logical decisions, to put points for and against on opposite sides of a piece of paper, but I couldn’t get my feelings out of the road enough to do it. When I thought about those bullets, and the ride-on mower, and the truck ride, I shook and felt sick and wanted to scream. Just like Fi and Homer and everyone else. I didn’t know how I’d handle it if and when it all happened again. Maybe it’d be easier. Maybe it’d be harder.

Nevertheless, I think we all felt that we should do something, if only because the idea of doing nothing seemed so appalling that we couldn’t even contemplate it. So we started tossing a few ideas around. Gradually we found ourselves talking more and more about the road from Cobbler’s Bay. It seemed like that was where the most important action was. We decided that when Homer and Fi and Lee and I went out, the following night, we’d concentrate our attentions there.

I walked away from our meeting, leaving everyone, even Lee, and went back up the track quite a way. I ended up sitting on one of Satan’s Steps, in the last of the hot afternoon. I could hear the creek churning away over a pile of rocks below me. I’d been there about ten minutes when a dragonfly landed near my feet. By then I must have become part of the landscape, because he seemed to ignore me. When I looked at him I realised he had something in his mouth. Whatever it was, it was still wriggling and flitting its little wings. I bent forward slowly and looked more closely. The dragonfly kept ignoring me. I could see now that it was a mosquito that he had, and he was eating it alive. Bit by bit the mosquito, still struggling wildly, was munched up. I watched, fascinated, until it was completely gone. The dragonfly perched there for another minute or so, then suddenly flew away.

I sat back again, against the hot rock. So, that was Nature’s way. The mosquito felt pain and panic but the dragonfly knew nothing of cruelty. He didn’t have the imagination to put himself in the mosquito’s place. He just enjoyed his meal. Humans would call it evil, the big dragonfly destroying the mosquito and ignoring the little insect’s suffering. Yet humans hated mosquitos too, calling them vicious and bloodthirsty. All these words, words like ‘evil’ and ‘vicious’, they meant nothing to Nature. Yes, evil was a human invention.

Chapter Nineteen

It was dark, probably around midnight. We were lying in a culvert, looking out over the edge at the dry black highway. We’d just come within seconds of making a very big, very fatal mistake. The way Robyn and the others had described it, they’d bowled up to the road, sat there watching for an hour or so, then shoved off again. So we’d taken much the same approach. We were about fifty metres from the gravel edge. I was leading, then came Lee limping along, then Fi, and Homer bringing up the rear. It was just the slightest unnatural sound that caught my ear. I was going to ignore it and go on, but my instincts took over, and I stopped and looked to the right. And there they were, a dark solid mass coming slowly down the road.

Now my instincts betrayed me: they told me to freeze; they stopped me from going anywhere. I had to get rational again, and fast. I had to activate that determined voice in my brain: ‘If you do nothing, you’ll die. Move, but move slowly. Be controlled. Don’t panic’ I started fading back, like a movie played backwards, and nearly stepped straight into Lee. Luckily he didn’t say anything; I felt his surprised hesitation, then he too started stepping backwards. By then the patrol was so close that it became dangerous to move any further. We stood still and pretended we were trees.

There were about ten soldiers and they were in double file, dark shapes against the skyline, higher than us because we were in the scrub off the shoulder of the highway. I didn’t know where Fi and Homer were but I hoped they wouldn’t suddenly come blundering out of the bushes. Then my heart seemed to stop at a sound away to the left, a startled rattle of movement. The soldiers reacted as though someone had pressed a button in their backs. They leapt around, spread out in a wide line and threw themselves to the ground. They came shuffling forward on their elbows, facing Lee and me, but with the nearest one just metres to our left. The whole thing was frighteningly efficient. It seemed like these were the professional soldiers Mr Clement had told us about.

A moment later a giant torch, its light burning a path through the night, began to search the bush. We followed its traverse as though we were already caught in its beam. Then the light hesitated, stopped, focused, and I saw what actually was caught in its beam. A rabbit, very young, crouched low to the ground, its little head searching to the left and right, sniffing at the white shining around him. There was laughter from the road. I could feel the relaxation. Men started standing. I heard a rifle being cocked, a few comments, then a violently loud explosion. The rabbit suddenly became little fragments of rabbit, spread over the ground and rocks, a bit of fur splattered on the trunk of a tree. No one came down the embankment. They were just bored soldiers, enjoying themselves. The light switched off, the patrol got back into its formation, and continued down the road like a dark crocodile.