BURRANGONG, SEPTEMBER 1978
Dawn came in a thin line of light over kilometres of water, spreading across the paddocks in a vast brown sea. Arjun stared up at the pink and gold of growing daylight, despairing. The water level had fallen several metres, exposing some driftwood, one very wet wallaby and two sodden rabbits, all of whom seemed to be hoping the humans didn’t notice them. The whole of this side of the river was under water until the distant mountains. Their hill was a pimple of green above the brown.
Mrs McLain wearily straightened her legs and slid from the bike, steadying herself with both hands on the rubbish bin. Arjun managed to clamber out of the bin himself. There was muck on his shoes. He rubbed it off on the wet tussocks.
‘They’ll never find us,’ he whispered. ‘No one could even hear us yell from here.’
If only they could make a fire: not just for warmth, but because rescuers would see the smoke. How long would it take for the water to go down enough so they could walk back to town? Days? Weeks?
They’d starve, or die of exposure tonight, or the next night. There wasn’t even anything up here they could use to make a shelter.
‘Find a rock,’ Mrs McLain said hoarsely. She removed her helmet, as if it was too heavy to carry any longer, or maybe to let the sunlight warm her damp hair, then sat on the wet ground, stretching out her legs.
‘Why . . .?’
‘Follow orders,’ she snapped, lying back on the muddy grass. Her eyes closed. Her face looked skull like in the growing light.
Arjun picked up a pebble.
Mrs McLain’s eyes opened again. ‘Bigger! Big as your fist. Now beat it against the rubbish bin. Harder!’ she panted, as Arjun knocked tentatively on the metal. ‘Three short, three long, three short, pause and then repeat. You got that?’
‘Three short, three long, three short, pause and repeat.’ Arjun was already beating as he spoke.
‘Harder, boy!’
He bashed the tin as hard as he could. It left dents in the side.
Three short, three long, three short, pause and repeat. ‘Why?’ he demanded, as he repeated it again.
‘SOS,’ the old woman muttered from the ground below him. ‘The call for help. They’ll hear that ten miles away.’ Her eyes closed again. ‘Keep going.’
He beat the pattern again, as hard as he could. ‘Mrs McLain, please don’t die now!’
Her eyes opened. ‘Who said anything about dying? Just resting . . . I didn’t die back then either, even when they shot me.’
‘They . . . they shot you?’
‘Didn’t think we’d escape from that shell hole, did you? We were sitting ducks, German soldiers all around us. Of course they shot us.’