and let him fall to the ground. He made a kind of groaning noise as he fell, so he wasn’t dead, but I think he was pretty deeply unconscious. As he rolled a couple of metres down the track I caught a glimpse of some dark and light brown intestines or organs coming out through a hole in his stomach. I felt as though my own intestines were about to come out, through my mouth. My stomach rolled over like a heavy gym mat.
I threw myself into the driver’s seat again and drove up to the gap, through the grass. It seemed like a long trip, and a rough and wild one. There were all kinds of hazards in the grass: logs, rocks, holes. It was like driving over twenty speed bumps every hundred metres, and doing it way too fast. As I got close to the gap in the trees Homer yelled out. His voice was muffled for a moment because he was turned right around, looking through the window behind us, but then as he swung back in my direction I got the full force of his voice. ‘There they are, just down the hill. They’re firing already — shit!’
The engine had stopped dead. Just when the gap was getting so close. Another thirty metres and we’d have been in the cover of the bush. I’d never had an engine cut out like that before. I realised it had to be a bullet through the motor. Nothing could be done about that. I threw open the door and piled out, trusting that Homer and Nick Greene were doing the same on their side. Putting my head down I started the sprint for the trees but realised even as I took my first step that I couldn’t desert Nick, much as I was tempted to. I went round to him. Homer was already helping him, with an arm round his shoulders. He’s a big boy, Homer, but he can be gentle when he wants to, which is about once every three years.
The bullets were whining past, mostly to our left, I think. Nick was panting, trying to walk and not doing too well. I think it was fear as much as physical weakness. I grabbed him around the waist and we half carried him. We got fifteen excruciating metres, then twenty. You could hear the bullets moving in as the soldiers adjusted their aim. Then one twanged by me so close I actually felt the heat from it on my cheek. I put my spare hand up to my face, expecting to feel a burn. Nick twitched and half staggered forward and I was sure he’d been hit. We were into the shadow of the trees. A bullet thwacked a trunk ahead of me and the whole tree trembled. We dragged Nick those last couple of metres. We were in cover. Very temporary cover unfortunately. But we’d bought a minute or so. I turned at once to Nick. I grabbed him by the shoulders, almost shook him.
‘Are you OK?’
He nodded and gulped. His Adam’s apple was jumping like a lamb on a spring evening. I still wasn’t convinced. ‘You didn’t get hit?’
‘No, no.’
‘Well,’ I thought, ‘he ought to know.’
There was no time to carry out a medical examination. We had to turn our attention to other matters. Namely, how to outrun fit strong soldiers when we were half exhausted and one of us could barely walk. Homer did have the rifle I’d thrown at him. I’d left mine in the cabin of the Suzuki. We took a few steps forward but I knew we couldn’t outrun them. The only options were to hide or fight. I said to Homer, ‘Cover me,’ and started back towards the four wheel drive.
‘What?’ he said.
But I didn’t have time for a conversation. I was almost out of the protection of the trees already. I knew I had at least a few seconds free time before they’d react. The last thing they’d expect would be that one of us would come back. A glance downhill showed me I’d got that right. They were spread out across the slope, heads down, ploughing their way towards us. They hadn’t even seen me yet. I was actually at the car and grabbing the rifle before the inevitable shout told me I was in trouble.
Homer must have been waiting for it too because the first shot came from him. That sent them all diving into the grass. I flattened out, staying at about snake level as I slithered back. Later I realised that they wouldn’t have been able to see me when I got down low like that, because of the way the hill sloped. Wish I’d known that at the time. Instead I was shaking so hard I needed a straitjacket to hold me together. Apart from anything else I was worried about Homer shooting me by mistake.
We were on quite a well-defined track. It was fairly open bush, which was not good for us, but had undergrowth a metre high, which wasn’t bad. There was a lot of that thin sticky grass though, the stuff the old people call ‘wait-a-while’, because once you got caught in it you had to wait a while to get free again. That was more bad news. With no particular plan we ran along the track. I was looking for a place where we could either hide or make a stand. Nick was on his own and falling back so fast that after fifty metres he was twenty-five metres behind. So that was hopeless. We had only seconds left. And if we dived off the track looking for a place to hide, we would leave tracks so obvious that we might as well have driven a tractor through.
That’s when I heard a faint buzzing. It was coming from the other side, the opposite direction to the soldiers. For a moment I thought, ‘Sheez, we’re really in trouble now.’ Then I realised it could only be one thing. I called to Nick, ‘Quick, get round this bend.’
It gave him a bit of motivation I guess, to have a target that he could achieve. As we got to the curve I heard the shouts of the soldiers behind us. Hiding was no longer an option. We would have to stand and fight and hope that those buzzing noises were coming in our direction, and that Lee and Gavin were responsible for them. If not, we were all done for. Our lives hung by a line as thin as a single horsehair.
I pushed Nick towards a rock and told him, ‘Stay behind there.’
Homer and I went back a little way towards the bend. He took the right-hand side and I took the left. There were enough rocks for both of us to get some cover, but not much. I cocked one ear for the buzzing noise at the same time as I cocked the rifle. The noise seemed to be going away. I felt sick but I had to block out the fear and do whatever I could do. Whatever I was capable of doing. I lined up one of the first soldiers in my sights but hesitated, trying to get a good target. Again Homer fired first. He missed I think, but it sure had an effect on them. They went to ground. Bodies rolled in all directions and came up firing. I’d been underestimating these guys. They were real soldiers.
I cowered behind the rock. I think they were firing on automatic, because the bullets sprayed everywhere. But it didn’t make any difference: if the air’s full of bullets it’s full of bullets. They flew past me. It was like the twanging of lots of rubber bands, like when we fired letters to each other in class — or when the boys fired pellets. I saw clods of dirt exploding on the track as bullets hit them, chips in the rocks as bullets hit them and whined away. I hoped Nick had his head down.
I got off a few shots but I know I didn’t hit anyone. It was too difficult to take aim when they were keeping up such a barrage. Even worse was that they were advancing under cover of the fire. I listened desperately for the motorbikes. They didn’t seem to be getting closer but the good news was that they didn’t seem to be getting further away. Then suddenly the putt-putt of the engines came clear and undiluted from right behind us. I spun round, full of hope, but prepared to be disappointed. If it wasn’t Lee and Gavin we were dead. But there they were, in the distance, at the next corner. Lee was on the four-wheeler and Gavin on the Yamaha. Lee was on one side of the track and Gavin on the other. Gavin was standing astride the bike, which was really too big for him, and both of them were trying to suss out the situation, poised to turn and take off at a moment’s notice.
It was time for us to beat an orderly retreat, as General Finley would have said, or to get the hell out of there, as I would have said.
‘Ready to go?’ I yelled at Homer.
‘Oh yeah, might as well,’ he answered. ‘Nothing better to do.’
Typical.
We both fired a volley of shots then started wriggling back. When we thought it was safe we got up and ran. There was no danger here from direct shots but there was a danger from ricochets. We had to take that risk. As soon as they realised we were gone they’d be after us like foxes in a chook shed.
At the same time I waved urgently to Lee. He revved up the bike and charged forward. He couldn’t see what was ahead, so he had no idea of what he was getting into. But the only way we could get out of there was to put Nick on the four-wheeler.
We met at Nick’s rock. We were in an elbow of the track, just out of the line of fire, but we wouldn’t be safe for long. Nick picked himself up and Homer helped him out. Lee swung the bike around in a tight little turn that basically only involved the rear wheels. While he was doing that I went out wider, in a low crouch, then lay flat and kept firing down the track, pretty much anywhere, trying to hold them back a bit. Half a dozen times I saw soldiers in the scrub, heading my way, but not so as I could get a shot at them. They kept firing but like me, at random, as they worked towards us, trying for better positions.
Nick, looking pretty damn anxious, got on the bike. It took him three goes. When he was at last sitting behind
