Burning for Revenge Read online

  Burning for Revenge

  John Marsden

  * * *

  Houghton Mifflin Company

  Boston

  * * *

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to Charlotte and Rick Lindsay, Rachel

  Angus, Mary Edmonston ("Miss Ed"), Paul Kenny,

  Catherine Proctor, and Helen Kent.

  * * *

  Copyright © 1997 by John Marsden

  First published in 1997 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited,

  St Martins Tower, 31 Market Street, Sydney

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce

  selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin

  Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  www.hmco.com/trade

  The text of this book is set in 12-point Transitional 521 BT.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Marsden, John.

  Burning for revenge / John Marsden.

  p. cm.

  Sequel to: Darkness, be my friend.

  Summary: Having been separated from the New Zealand rescue troops

  they were guiding, five Australian teenagers continue their resistance

  against the unknown enemy invading their homeland.

  ISBN 0-395-96054-1

  [1. Survival—Fiction. 2. War—Fiction. 3. Australia—Fiction.]

  I. Title.

  PZ7.M53147Bu 2000

  [Fic]—dc21 98-51986 CIP AC

  Printed in the United States of America

  RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5

  * * *

  To my sister Louise Marsden, with much love

  * * *

  An Aussie Glossary

  abattoir: slaughterhouse

  Aga: wood stove

  (on the) backfoot: in a defensive position

  batts: insulation material

  biro: ballpoint pen

  bitumen: asphalt, tar

  blowie: blowfly

  bugger: something difficult or unpleasant

  bush: uncleared Australian countryside

  CBD: Central Business District

  cactus: doomed

  Cazaly: an Australian footballer famous for his high leaps

  chewy: gum

  chipping burrs: cutting out prickly weeds

  chook: chicken

  cockies: farmers

  crack onto: to make a sexual advance toward someone

  crash hot: pretty good

  dags: wool around a sheep's anus

  daks: trousers

  dogleg: a bend in the shape of a dog's leg

  dubbin: leather preservative

  dunny: toilet

  echidna: small Australian mammal

  Esky: insulated container, cooler

  Fergie: brand of tractor

  fibro: type of building material

  footy: Australian rules football

  fortnight: two-week period

  gantry: crane

  goss: conversation

  graziers: farmers who have sheep or cattle

  (on our) hammer: close behind

  hectare: an area equaling 100 acres

  hessian: coarse material

  Humphreys: dolls named after Australian TV character

  jemmy-shaped: curved at each end

  jumper: sweater

  k: kilometre

  Kiwis: New Zealanders

  (rate of) knots: going very fast

  milkbar: small corner store, mini-mart

  mortein: fly spray

  one-tonner: small tray-top truck

  Panadol: brand of pain reliever

  pile driver: machine that rams posts into the ground

  possies: positions

  pull-throughs: cords for cleaning rifles

  queue: line

  rabbiting: gabbing

  rack (off): "go away" (said with anger)

  rapt: delighted

  removalist: mover

  rissoles: meat patties

  rocket: greens used in salad

  scroggin: nuts and cereal mixture, gorp

  shires: counties

  slab: case of beer

  slag: spit

  sledgie: sledgehammer

  synchromesh: system which facilitates gear-changing in vehicles

  Tassie: Tasmanian

  tip: dump

  torch: flashlight

  uni: university

  ute: utility vehicle

  wasted: not appreciated

  whingeing: whining

  willy-willy: dust storm

  wombat: small Australian mammal

  wrigglers: mosquitoes at their larval stage

  yabbying: fishing for crayfish

  One

  The summer storms are the wildest. Maybe that's because they're so unexpected. But they can really rip a place apart. It's like the sky saves it all up, then lets it go in one huge blast. The air shakes. There's nothing soft or gentle about the rain: it pours down, a huge heavy torrent that wets you to the skin in half a minute. The thunder's so close and loud you feel it all around you, like a landslide or an avalanche. And sometimes there's hail.

  Before the war, I found summer storms exciting. I enjoyed the noise and the violence and the out-of-control wildness, even though I knew there'd be problems afterwards. Trees blown down or struck by lightning, fresh-shorn sheep getting dangerously cold, creeks flooding.

  Occasionally the problems came during the storms. One time I had to go out in massive rain to move a small mob of ewes, because a falling tree brought down their fence and the rams were getting horny. I started moving the mob but Millie, the dog, got a bit excited and when one sheep went the wrong way she chased it straight into the creek. The creek was running at a million k's an hour, about to break its banks. The water was just beginning to lap over on both sides. The ewe and the dog, both paddling like mad, got swept away. I ran along the bank, trying to find a spot where I could jump in and pull them out. To be honest, I didn't think they had much hope. But a kilometre down the paddock they were washed up on a gravel spit. The ewe staggered out, half-drowned. Millie staggered out, half-drowned too. She didn't hesitate. She went straight after that sheep again, chasing it back to the mob.

  Poor sheep. There are times when I feel quite sorry for sheep.

  Another time we were out at the Mackenzies' when a big storm hit. We got home to find a sheet of galvanised iron had come loose on the shearing shed. It was flapping in the wind with a sound I've never forgotten. Like it wanted to beat itself to death—a frantic, desperate, wild noise. When I got up on the ladder, I could see the iron tearing centimetre by centimetre: solid indestructible metal being ripped apart by the wind. It was quite scary trying to hammer down this crazed, thrashing thing in the dark.

  Here, in this place I've learned to call home, a summer storm is dramatic. In the Bible it says Hell is a place of heat and fire. This is officially called Hell—that's the name on the maps—and it does get hot in summer. But when a storm drops on top of us, it's hypothermia country and the temperature can fall fifteen degrees in half an hour.

  Of course if life had gone the way it was meant I wouldn't be sitting in a little tent in Hell, watching the fabric stretch and pull, watching the rain chuck a tantrum against the fly, listening to the screech of another branch ripping and falling, and trying to keep writing this record of our lives.

  I would have been sitting in our snug cabin in New Zealand, eating pizza and reading Pride and Prejudice or The Horse's Mouth for the fourth time. Better still, I would have been back at my real home, checking the water troughs in the paddocks or yabbying in a dam or cutting the poor breeders out of a mob of cattle, to send to market.

  Well n
one of those things would happen for a while yet. They might never happen again. I just had to accept that, but it didn't stop me playing the old useless game of "if only."

  If only our country hadn't been invaded.

  If only we could have carried on the way we used to, watching other people's wars on television.

  If only we'd been better prepared, and thought more about this stuff.

  Then later, when we'd got ourselves out of the battle zone, if only we hadn't agreed to come back and continue the fight, to help the Kiwi soldiers in their failed attempt at the airbase.

  Well, we didn't really have much choice about coming back—Colonel Finley put so much pressure on us.

  And we put pressure on ourselves.

  That was another "if only." I suppose we would have felt guilty if we hadn't come back. Besides, we had such high hopes of meeting up with our parents again. If only we could have all been as lucky as Fi. She at least got to see her parents for half an hour.

  I was still burning about Colonel Finley. The helicopter he was meant to send. The helicopter he'd promised us. The way he more or less abandoned us after his Kiwi troops went missing. The way that when we called up and asked for the chopper, suddenly they were too busy. For a dozen crack New Zealand troops we knew there'd have been no problem. But for us, there was a major problem.

  The joke was that we'd achieved more with our rough-and-ready tactics, our homemade bombs and make-it-up-as-you-go approach than just about any professional soldiers could have done. We thought so anyway, and when we were in New Zealand enough people were ready to tell us that. Only now that we were back here, trapped in lonely wild Hell, they seemed happy to forget us.

  If only the chopper had turned up and whisked us back to safety. I wanted it to be like a taxi: just dial the number. Where are you going? How many passengers? What name? We'll have it there in no time, love, no worries.

  It was hard not to be bitter. We felt like Colonel Finley had dumped us. We talked about it nonstop for a week, till we got sick of it as a topic for conversation, and agreed not to talk about it any more. That was the only way we could stop it poisoning us.

  After we'd finished our week or so of sulking we started getting restless. Lee was the worst. Since he found out about the death of his parents he was burning for action. When I say action I don't necessarily mean revenge, although he sure was keen on that. But I think he could have been distracted from thoughts of revenge if there'd been other things to think about, other things to do.

  There was nothing. We'd built a few odds and ends in Hell—the chook shed mainly—but we couldn't build anything else because it was too dangerous. There was such a risk of being seen from the air or even from the top of Tailor's Stitch, the ridge that wound far above us, the west wall of our hideout. Lee didn't seem interested in reading the few books we'd brought, he didn't have his precious music with him and he wasn't in the mood for talking. All he had were his thoughts. He sat alone for hours every day and wouldn't even tell me what he was thinking.

  Homer and Kevin weren't any better. One afternoon they spent four hours trying to hit a tree trunk with pebbles. They sat on the bank of the creek and chucked stones at the tree until they ran out of ammo, then they went over and picked up the pebbles and started again. By the end of the afternoon Homer had hit it six times and Kevin three. Fair enough, it was fifty metres away, but I thought they could have done better. I thought I could have done better. That wasn't what bothered me though. It was their mood. They seemed so flat, so uninterested. I nearly suggested going out and attacking the enemy again, just to get them motivated.

  As it happened I didn't need to suggest that. Almost at the same moment as I thought it—well, less than half an hour later—Lee suddenly turned to me and said: "I'm leaving here, going to Wirrawee or somewhere. Cobbler's Bay maybe. Stratton even. I'm not going to spend the rest of the war sitting around waiting to be rescued. I want to do as much damage as I can."

  My breath went. I knew I couldn't stop him. In some ways I didn't want to stop him. In other ways I did. I was deeply in like with Lee. Maybe even love. I wasn't sure about that. Sometimes it definitely felt like love. Other times I didn't want anything to do with him. When it came to Lee, I felt the full range of emotions, from wild passion to revulsion. On the average I think I was in like with him.

  But it wasn't just Lee that I wasn't sure about; it was everything. Maybe it's just a teenage thing, not being sure about stuff. I wasn't sure if there was a God, if there was life after death. I wasn't sure if I'd ever see my parents again, if Lee and I should have made love, if we'd been acting the right way since the invasion, if the sun would rise in the morning or set at night. I wasn't sure if I liked eggs hard-boiled or soft.

  So Lee saying calmly and strongly that he was going out to continue the fight—how could I tell him he was doing the wrong thing? I was less sure about that than I was about the sun rising.

  We were sitting quite a way up the track, on the last flat bit, at the point where it started to climb to Wombegonoo. For a long time neither of us spoke. I knew what a big statement he'd made. I knew we were approaching the end of our short rest. We both knew we might be approaching the end of our short lives. Death might be sneaking up on both of us right now. Because I knew, of course, that I couldn't let Lee go out there on his own.

  I think we both felt that none of us, none of our group of five, would let Lee go alone. In a way I should have resented him putting us under this kind of pressure, not giving me or the others a real choice. He'd done it to us before and I hadn't liked it. I didn't like anyone putting me under pressure, telling me what to do, making decisions for me. I remember going off my head when Homer announced we were coming back from New Zealand in the first place. If it was different this time, perhaps it was because I knew things were getting too desperate; the war was at such a critical stage and our help was needed like never before. We simply couldn't lounge around having long rests between gigs.

  When we talked to the others I found things were a bit more complicated than I'd expected. Homer and Fi reacted like I thought they would—pretty much the same as me. But Kevin ... well. I hadn't let myself think that any of us might go off like he did.

  How could I? If I did, I might have to think about my own fears. Those fears had sent me into panic when Colonel Finley said he wanted us to come back from New Zealand. Those fears had taken control of me completely when the enemy soldier walked towards me in the streets of Wirrawee. Those fears caused a scream to come ripping out of my throat, when silence was the only option. For all I knew, my scream might have caused the capture or death of the twelve New Zealand guerillas.

  So I couldn't think about Kevin not being as brave as me. I couldn't condemn him for lacking a bit of guts sometimes.

  It happened while we were at the fireplace, eating a lunch that was mainly rice, like a lot of our meals these days. Lee started making his big announcement, but he'd hardly finished his first sentence before Homer burst out: "We might as well go and do something. This is hopeless, sitting around here. Even if we do some tiny little thing, it'd be better than this."

  "Danger's a drug," I thought, as I sat there watching him. "And you're hooked on it, Homer."

  "I don't mind doing little things," Fi said. "I just hope you guys can stop at little things. But you never seem satisfied with that. You always want to go for the big blast."

  Kevin said nothing for a minute. Then, with voice shaking, he said: "I don't think we should do any more. The way Finley's dumped us here ... it sucks. Why should we do anything for him? He's sold us right down the creek."

  No one seemed to know how to answer that. I mean, I think we did know; it's just that no one wanted to be the one to do it. We weren't too keen on flowery patriotic speeches.

  For some stupid reason I opened my mouth though. I had no right to, but I did.

  "Kevin, this isn't anything to do with Colonel Finley. We've all said about a thousand times what we think of him
not sending the chopper. That's not the issue. The main thing is that we're in a position to do something to help and no one else can. I don't think we've got much choice."

  Then I said the stupid thing, the unforgivable thing. "I know we're all scared Kevin, but we've just got to go out there and do it."

  There were some things we never said to each other and the word "scared" was one of them. Oh, maybe at night in our sleeping bags when we were being honest and we couldn't see each other's faces, but this wasn't one of those times.

  Kevin went red and even Fi, sitting beside me, drew away a little.

  "At least I don't scream when I see a soldier," Kevin said.

  He got up and walked off. I sat there burning with shame and fury. I knew why he'd said if. even in my rage I knew why he'd said it, but I didn't know if I could ever forgive him. I had enough trouble forgiving myself.

  Homer said, "That wasn't very smart Ellie."

  "Oh leave her alone," Fi said.

  Lee didn't say anything. That hurt too. I thought he would have stuck up for me, especially against Kevin, who he didn't like much.

  So that was why I was lying in my tent listening to the summer storm smashing into the bush, watching the thrashing and threshing of the tent, crying out in fear as a small branch landed on the nylon fly. The thunder boomed and blasted, the rain had never fallen more heavily, and I never felt more alone in my life.

  Two

  We were all paralysed by the tension between Kevin and me. I thought it would blow over in an hour or two, like most of our arguments, like the summer storms. But Kevin wouldn't talk to me and no matter how keen the others were to get out of Hell they didn't seem able to make a move while this coldness went on. I tried to apologise to Kevin, but he wouldn't listen. That made me feel I was definitely in the right now, which didn't help settle things, as it made me less interested in trying again.