The Other Side of Nowhere (23 page)

‘Okay, boy. Time to help, yes?’

I listened intently from behind the relative safety of a rock boulder, barely breathing for fear of being heard. At first, Matt didn’t make a sound.

‘I said, get up.’

‘Hey, ouch,’ Matt said indignantly. ‘What was that for?’

‘Shut your mouth and get up!’

I clenched both fists and George tightened her grip on my wrist.

Then Baldy spoke in a language we couldn’t understand. It sounded like he was barking orders or giving some sort of command or instruction. There was shuffling in the sand as he spoke and we could hear the murmur of hushed voices, but couldn’t understand what was being said. Then, more forcefully, he urged them to action with words in English.

‘Go on, off you go. Go, go, to the boat.’

This time the shuffling was more purposeful. George and I looked at each other without speaking. We didn’t need to. Everyone was being ushered from the cave, Matt included. I felt a surge of panic but felt utterly powerless to do anything.

‘Here, take this bag,’ we heard Baldy grunt.

‘Take it where?’ asked Matt.

‘You’ll see.’

‘It’s too heavy,’ complained Matt. ‘I can’t lift it.’

‘Then drag it.’

I heard the sound of something scraping across the sand. Gradually the noises softened and everything became quiet. As George eased her grip on my arm, I poked my head around the rock. There were a few blankets on the ground and a couple of bags and even a suitcase against the cave wall, but everyone had gone.

I dashed across to the cave’s entrance and blinked cautiously out into the sunlight. Matt was about halfway down the beach, struggling with a large duffel bag. He was the last in a line of hunched figures heading towards the water, where Zaffar was standing by the side of the inflatable.

George appeared at my elbow. ‘Can you see Nick?’

Nick?
God, I’d forgotten about him. I looked up and down the beach, but there was no sign of him.

George and I stood watching the procession of people reach the water’s edge. When Matt reached them he dropped the bag then slumped down on the sand. As soon as he did, Baldy gave him a nudge, forcing him to stand up again. Then Baldy shoved Matt back in the direction of the cave. With his shoulders sagging, Matt trudged back up the beach towards us with Baldy close behind, giving Matt an occasional, unnecessary prod in the back.

‘They’re coming back,’ said George.

There was no time to think. Any moment now Matt could be in serious danger, or off on the boat. Everything was a risk. We had to do something.

‘Come on,’ I said, grabbing George’s hand and taking off across the sand towards the tents. For a few seconds we were completely exposed. We hit the tents at full speed and flung ourselves onto the sand, rolling out of view. I waited, my heart pounding, half-expecting that at any moment Baldy would appear.

Then a face did poke around the side of the tent. We both jumped and I nearly screamed in fright.

‘Nice of you to drop in,’ whispered Nick, grinning. He motioned for us to follow him around the side of the tent where he had created some cover in between the cardboard boxes I had seen the other day. I lifted one of the box flaps and saw it was half full of bottles of water and cans of food.

Nick threw me a bottle he’d been sipping from. ‘Here, help yourself.’ Then he pressed a finger against his lips motioning for us to be quiet as Matt and Baldy walked past us, back into the cave.

As soon as they were inside, Nick nodded towards the inflatable at the water’s edge. ‘They won’t get far in that thing – must be using it to ferry everyone out to another boat.’

‘Ali said the boat they came here on took off once they dropped them on the beach,’ I said. ‘Maybe it’s come back.’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ Nick replied. ‘But it’s kind of weird they didn’t just go straight to the mainland in the first place.’

George started to fill Nick in on the conversation with Ali and I chimed in when I remembered something she’d left out.

As usual, George hadn’t just been listening, she’d been processing the information at the same time, piecing things together far quicker than I ever could.

‘You know that plane we saw? I doubt it was looking for us after all, I bet it had come back to find the boat again,’ she whispered.

‘Which ain’t great news if you’re trying to smuggle a boatload of people into the country,’ said Nick.

‘Exactly,’ said George. ‘If I was Zaffar, I’d be freaking out about getting caught.’

I had heard Ali tell his story and seen the anxiety written all over his face, but it was only now listening to George that I started to realise the magnitude of what was happening.

I looked at the gathering of people near the water’s edge and felt a strange churning in my stomach. ‘What are you saying, George? What do you think Zaffar is going to do to them?’

‘I don’t know, but I’m scared of what might happen to them when they leave the island.’

I swallowed nervously. Whatever danger Ali and the others were in at the hands of a desperate Zaffar, Matt was in the same boat, perhaps literally.

‘Then we can’t let them get off the island,’ I said.

‘Okay, listen. I’ve got an idea,’ Nick said, his voice low and urgent. ‘Not a great idea, but it might work.’

I shot a glance down the beach. Zaffar was at the water’s edge, organising people into small groups. It was clear they were getting ready to leave the island. Whatever Nick had in mind, there wasn’t a moment to lose.

‘I reckon I can get to the water without anyone seeing. The tide’s in, so the water’s all the way up to the rocks on the other side of the beach. If I can stay in the shadow of the cliffs, they won’t see me. When I’m in the water I’ll get in behind the inflatable … But I’m going to need a diversion.’

The frown on George’s face was etched so deep it looked like her forehead was caving in.

But Nick paid no attention. ‘I’ll need you guys to distract Zaffar –’

‘Distract him?’

‘So I can tackle him from behind.’

‘Tackle him?’ blurted George.

Nick slapped his hand on his knee. ‘Are you going to repeat everything I say?’

Just then Baldy reappeared at the cave entrance. He stood waiting until Matt walked past him, dragging another bag across the sand.

‘Zaffar’ll never expect a tackle,’ Nick whispered when they’d passed. ‘If I can get him off balance and into the water … Then maybe we can even the odds a bit. And Matt and the others can bolt.’

George stared, shaking her head. ‘You’re crazy. Those people can hardly walk, let alone run away or fight back. And what are you going to do with Zaffar in the water?’

‘He’s got a gun,’ I added, in case Nick had forgotten.

Nick didn’t say anything to defend his plan or add anything to make it sound more plausible. That was the moment we all knew that we had no real plan. Whatever we did next, we did out of sheer desperation.

Nick sat back and drew a deep breath. ‘Don’t worry about me. You guys just have to distract Zaffar and keep Baldy away from the water.’

George sat with her shoulders sagging forward in resignation.

Nick gave her his trademark smile as he got up into a crouched position. ‘George, we can do it. We can stop them getting off this beach.’

George held his gaze and sighed. ‘You better get going then, I guess. When we see you in the water, we’ll, I don’t know, throw a rock or something,’ she said.

Nick winked at her and, making a fist, placed it between us. First George and then I did the same and the three of us touched knuckles in a show of solidarity.

Nick stood up, ready to run. As I crouched behind him, I saw, edging slowly into view from around the point, the bow of a fishing trawler. My heart leapt at the thought that someone had come for us at last, but I sensed Nick stiffen. He dropped back down onto one knee and tucked in close to the tent.

‘What is it?’ I whispered. I peeked out again and noticed Zaffar waving to the trawler as it slowly came about and began to head into the bay.

‘I know that boat,’ said Nick frowning. ‘That’s Joe Freeman’s boat, from Shell Harbour.’

At the mention of the name Freeman, I realised that I knew the boat too. ‘
The Free Man
,
’
I muttered.

‘Yeah, that’s right. How did you know its name?’ asked Nick, surprised.

‘Matt and I saw that boat at the jetty. The guy with the sleeping bag I told you about, we saw him getting off
The Free Man
.’

George gave Nick a firm nudge in the back. ‘Nick, c’mon. You have to go now. No-one’s watching,’ she urged.

Nick nodded distractedly, not taking his eyes off the fishing boat. ‘Okay, listen … If this all turns to crap, head back to the hut. We’ll meet up there when we can … Good luck guys.’ Before either of us could wish him luck in return, he was off, sprinting across the sand towards the cave. I watched as he jumped the stream in one stride then disappeared from sight in the shadow of the cliff face on the other side.

‘So, how are we going to distract them?’ whispered George.

‘Stuffed if I know.’

‘We could just walk down the beach towards them with our hands up. You know, pretending like we were surrendering,’ she suggested.

I shook my head. ‘We have to keep Baldy away from the water, away from Nick when he wrestles Zaffar. We need him to come to us.’

‘There must be something we can use,’ she said, looking around the tent. ‘We could pull the tent down … or start a fire. Maybe there’s something inside one of the tents.’

At the mention of fire, I had an idea. I slipped the backpack off my shoulder and pulled out the Very pistol – the ancient flare gun Nick had found at the hut. ‘We could use this.’

George eyed it suspiciously, ‘You really think that thing’s gonna work?’

‘Soon find out. Anyway, it’s worth a try.’

‘To do what?’

‘To set fire to the tent.’

Baldy and Matt were about to pass by again. As Baldy came into view, I felt an intense urge to rush him, to fire the flare gun point-blank into his ugly face. But the fear that nothing would happen, leaving me exposed as a kid with a toy, kept me from moving.

As they disappeared into the cave George pulled me close. ‘Okay then, if that’s our best shot, let’s do it. We need to watch for Nick, though – don’t try the gun until we see him in the water.’

We looked out towards the water, but there was no sign of him. The trawler had come to a halt about halfway out in the bay.
What if Matt’s in the first lot to be ferried out to the trawler?
I wondered. But I had to push my worries aside and focus on the job at hand.

Baldy came out of the cave and headed down the beach, this time walking a few paces ahead of Matt, who was struggling with the weight of a large suitcase. I don’t know what made him do it, but as Matt drew level with the tent he turned and looked straight at me. He paused, looking at Baldy as if he was contemplating whether or not he should make a dash for it. I almost waved him over, for a split second thinking the best thing to do would be to get him and run. But even if we could outrun Baldy and his gun, we couldn’t just leave Nick.

Reluctantly, I motioned for him to keep walking. He gave me a puzzled look before slowly regaining his stride, continuing down the beach with the suitcase dragging in the sand. Then George grabbed my arm and let out an amazingly good birdcall. Matt spun around and stopped.