Burning for Revenge (8 page)

When a flight of bombers landed, a bunch of fuel trucks raced out to fill them up. The planes taxied to their parking spots. By the time they got there the fuel trucks were waiting. As the pilots and crew walked away the fuel was already pumping into the huge planes.

"There's a hundred million bucks' worth of aircraft sitting out there," Homer said.

He was probably underestimating. I guessed that planes like these would cost at least two or three million dollars a pop.

As it got darker we learnt the nighttime procedure. When a plane landed, runway lights were switched on, but they were very dim and were only on for a couple of minutes. The moment the plane touched down, out went the lights. Too bad if the pilot couldn't steer a straight line.

We gradually began to work out what the different buildings were, and Lee drew a rough map. I didn't like him doing that —I was paranoid about anything being on paper, because I'd read a story when' I was little about a spy in World War One being executed when they found a map stitched into his clothing. But this one time I bit my tongue. Everything was so urgent, so excruciatingly desperate, that normal rules had to be suspended. I understood that.

So we figured out that to our left was the dining room or canteen. We guessed that because of the smells, which made our mouths water, and because when it got darker, around teatime, various soldiers wandered past our hangar, all heading in that direction. Half an hour later, back they came. They looked hungry when they went there and well-fed when they came back. You can tell, somehow. I don't know how, but you can. We snacked when we got desperate enough, with more of our New Zealand food, but we hadn't brought much with us, as we'd wanted to preserve our little stores in Hell. And scroggin wasn't quite as satisfying as the fried chicken I thought I could smell wafting down the road.

I found I was too nervous to eat much anyway. Only Homer seemed to have a real appetite. As I looked at the food disappearing down his throat I wondered what we'd do when the supply ran out.

To our right was a big fibro building with only a few lights. And they just seemed to be security lights, on all the time. We thought it might be a storage place. Further off was the control tower—the building with the round top—which we could see clearly, higher than everything else.

Opposite us was a long low wooden building with small windows. We worked out fairly early that it had to be a barracks. There was music blaring, shirts hung out of windows to dry, and from time to time we had glimpses of half-dressed men coming from showers or getting changed.

Beyond that were the planes.

A plan was starting to form in my head and I started talking about it to the others. We were all trying to be brave I think, except for Kevin, who disappeared into the truck and seemed unable to move. Lee was really angry at him. At one stage he said: "Just leave him there. Let them have him." I was horrified. It wasn't the first time Lee had scared me. But this time at least I could understand his being so angry. I spent half the time feeling sorry for Kevin and half the time thinking he was gutless. I mean on one level I knew he had a big problem, like a medical or psychological problem, but at another level I was angry that he deserted us when we needed him most, leaving us to do all the work and take the risks. Of course when we were caught he would be too, but it was hard to see it that way.

We all had goes at talking to him, trying different tactics, like sympathy, abuse, common sense, encouragement. I suppose the strategies we used said a bit about us. Fi was sympathy, Lee was abuse, I was common sense and Homer, to my surprise, was encouragement. But none of them worked. The only "progress" was that instead of ignoring us when we went into the truck he curled into a ball and started crying. That didn't seem like much of a step forward.

So we just kept going with our plans, our vague half plans. My main idea rested on a bit of knowledge I'd picked up when I was little. Back when Homer was young and wild he'd sometimes have target practice with a rifle. But shooting at the usual targets, like tin cans or tree stumps, was too boring for Homer. To make it more interesting he filled the tin cans with petrol and sealed them again. I must admit I'd taken the odd shot myself, when Homer generously decided to share one of the cans. It was quite addictive. More fun than cleaning out sheep shit from under the shearing shed.

What we'd learnt back then was now the basis of our plans. But they were still only half-baked ideas when suddenly we were dragged into action.

At 6 a.m. Fi and I were both awake. Kevin may have been, I don't know, but he was curled up in his corner of the van. Lee and Homer were asleep, stretched out near him. It was the first rest we'd allowed ourselves since being dumped in the hangar. We wouldn't have taken that if we hadn't been desperate, suffering from sleep deprivation.

I took one more look at them, then closed the door of the van and went back to the lookout point. I was officially on sentry but Fi and I were sharing our turns, because neither of us could sleep. We were only doing an hour each anyway, as a four-hour break was all we could afford.

Fi and I getting insomnia when we had a chance for some rest was typical of the tricks the war kept playing on us.

The only interesting thing during our combined sentry duty was that a whole lot of aircraft took off at about 5:30. I'd say there were at least twenty. They took off in waves, three at a time as far as we could tell, roaring over our hangar. We felt the ground vibrate under our feet. I had to put my hands to my ears, the noise was so extreme.

If that wasn't enough to wake the boys, then they were certainly awake by 6:01. A PA system ran through all the buildings, and at 6:00 it played a major piece of music that was obviously meant to get everyone on their toes, ready for another good day of bombing the stuffing out of anyone they didn't like. The music sounded kind of weird to me, but it was loud and military, so when you heard it you knew you weren't at a Brownies' camp.

Next thing, we heard these trotting feet. It sounded like sheep on the wooden floor of the shearing shed. Fi was already looking through a spyhole; I leapt to mine. A whole lot of soldiers were hurrying past the hangar. They were all men and some of them looked very young. They carried rifles. Within a few seconds they were gone.

By then Homer and Lee had joined us at the door. We looked at each other anxiously, wondering what was happening, what we should do. I said to Lee: "We've got to use this time. Take the chance."

"I agree," he said. "I'm going to follow them, see what's going on."

"All right," I said. "I'll check out the barracks."

"I'll look in the store building," Homer said, catching the mood quickly, realising this was our first chance, maybe our last.

"What'll I do?" Fi asked.

"Stay here," I said quickly, in case the boys came up with some stupid suggestion. Sometimes I had this funny wish to protect Fi, to take care of her. She'd have killed me if she'd known that.

Homer opened the door a fraction more and the three of us started to slip out through the tiny gap.

I went second, behind Lee.

"Be careful," Fi said. I bit back a desire to laugh, and just nodded.

Outside, the wind felt sharp, quite cold for summer. It was only a short dash to the barracks building, but I knew I had to use the buildings and shadows for cover,
as much as I could. I bent over and scurried across the roadway. It was weird because I felt I wasn't able to breathe, somehow. Yet here I was, running, so I must have been breathing. I felt really paranoid, too, certain someone somewhere must be seeing me. I didn't know if it would be the people in the control tower or a helicopter overhead or a soldier still left in the barracks, but I felt I couldn't get away with this: it was too outrageous, too much, thinking I could run around in this huge and vital enemy installation doing what I liked. So I waited for the shout, the cry of alarm, the rattle of a rifle being loaded and armed and swung into position.

Then I was in the shadow of the doorway, and definitely breathing. Now my trouble was the opposite —I was breathing too hard: so noisily that anyone in the building must rush out, to see what was going on. I sounded like a set of bagpipes warming up. I sounded like Fi's little sister when she was crashing into another asthma attack. I struggled to get control but I could only give myself a few seconds. After about ten of those seconds I stepped out of the doorway's shadow and into the barracks itself.

It was like a dormitory. And so clean and neat! Every bed beautifully made, every bedspread straight and symmetrical, every table and chair squared off. The place stank of disinfectant, so much that my eyes stung. The windows shone. I couldn't believe men were this neat. I wished Homer could come and see it. This is how his bedroom could have looked but never did.

I scanned the place quickly. The slightest movement and I was in big trouble, having to make a decision to run or attack. Either way, I was cactus. I had no weapon,
except for the fruit knife in my sock. But the room was still. I hurried along the gap between the beds, looking for something, anything, to help us. There were no obvious treasures. At the end of the row I pulled open two locker doors at once, one with each hand. The insides of the lockers were as neat as the outsides. Uniforms and casual clothes, neatly wrapped in plastic bags, hung on coat-hangers. Each locker had a top shelf, and on it were the soldiers" personal possessions: photos and books and pens and cigarettes and sweets, again beautifully arranged. "Gosh, if Mum could see this..." I thought, but there was no time for that stuff. I scared of staying too long but I didn't want to go back to the others empty-handed either.

In the corner an open door showed the way to a little kitchenette, so I ducked in there and opened the fridge. Even it was clean and neat, but crammed with goodies. Fresh food was one of our major dreams, a full-on fantasy for us all, so I loaded up with everything I could carry that wouldn't leave conspicuous gaps in the shelves. "They'll think they're knocking off each other's stuff," I figured. "It'll start a major fight and they'll kill each other and then we can take over the airfield."

I got an avocado, some cheese, a small rock-melon, a bag of rocket and other greens, and some stuff that looked like rissoles and smelt like fish. Then I moved my ass out of there. I was in a real hurry to be back in the hangar. I didn't know how long it would be before the Papa Bears marched home with their rifles, to find someone had helped herself to the porridge. I did know that if they caught me I'd get treated a lot worse than Goldilocks.

On the way out I noticed one interesting thing, although I didn't realise what it meant until a bit later. Above each bed there were two brackets, about a metre apart. Or less than that, probably eighty or ninety centimetres. They were made of brass, and were screwed to the wall. They looked like they could support some weight.

I got to the door of the building, the door I'd come in by, and took a quick peep out. It looked clear, so I slipped through the little gap. Now I was in the open, on the outside of the barracks, a frighteningly exposed position again. I was a great target for anyone wanting to earn a medal. I looked to the right, I looked to the left, I looked to the right again. Then I stepped off the kerb.

And nearly got run over.

All that road safety training in primary school could have cost me my life'. I'd become so used to looking to the right, which normally would be fine, but in this case wasn't. The soldiers had hurried off to the left, and that's the way I should have looked.

Fifty metres to the left two officers had appeared. You could tell they were officers. The morning sun glinted off their gold braid, but even without that you could tell. It was the way they walked, like they owned the place. They were completely at home. You knew no one was going to yell at them for being late for sentry duty, or for having dirty boots.

They were strolling along the road having a good old chat. They didn't have rifles, but although it was hard to tell from that distance, I thought they might have handguns in holsters on their hips.

I stood there having a little tremble. They still hadn't seen me. But even as I trembled I knew I had to do something. A voice of logic in my head was saying: "You have to be calm, think coolly. It's your only hope." I knew from working with stock that the men hadn't seen me because I was standing still. You can get away with a lot by not moving. It's amazing what you can get away with. But although my stillness had saved me so far it wouldn't save me as they got closer. A teenager standing in the doorway with a pile of food plundered from their fridge? Yeah, sure, they were going to walk right past and ignore me.

I started to ease back into the building. I'd closed the door behind me but the tongue hadn't gone all the way into the catch, which was a bonus. So it opened quite smoothly and quietly. I was still in the shadows and now I slid a little further into them. They were only thirty, maybe thirty-five, metres away. A jet screamed overhead and although they didn't look up I thought it might distract them slightly and give me the moment I needed. As the noise hit maximum decibels, and the jet crossed the roadway on its way to the landing strip, I did a quick fade into the dormitory, closing the door behind me.

There was no yell of alarm from outside. I ran to a window and peeped out. The two officers were still coming, totally absorbed in their conversation. That was fine, except that now I was in a building where I didn't want to be, couldn't afford to be. Not if I wanted to stay alive.

Which I did.

I ran to the back windows. There was nothing much there to look at: all open space, a huge expanse of airfield. The jet I'd just seen was now taxiing to a halt, smoke puffing from its wheels. Soon it would start swinging round to go meet the fuel truck.

I ran to the front again. I was feeling like a rat in a trap, and acting like one too. All this frantic running backwards and forwards, an animal in a cage, hoping against hope there'd be some little hole she hadn't noticed before.