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minutes. Some of their suggestions were pretty smart, so
I chucked them in. Writing it out made me nervous, though. It was
like we were going into action again, for the first time in a long
while. It was a different kind of action to the other battles we’d
fought – this was more a battle of wits – but a lot hinged on it.
If it went wrong, things would turn ugly for Kevin’s family, back
at the Showground. They were the ones actually running the biggest
risk and they didn’t even know it.
    In the end, after we’d waited a day and a half
without any contact with Kevin, we delivered the letter in a
different way. When the work parties were in the paddocks with
their guards, Fi and I slipped out of the bush and, again using the
old houses as cover from the colonists in the main homestead, stole
into the prisoners’ quarters. We found Kevin’s bed easily enough:
it was the messiest. We got one of his socks and put the paper in
it, then made the bed roughly and hid the sock in there. We figured
the sentries wouldn’t notice if the bed had been made in the
morning, but Kevin certainly would. He’d realise there must be
something special going on.
    The other thing I had to do was check the old
well set in the ground in the little courtyard. It was one of the
biggest I’d seen but, like a lot of those old wells, was in a
dangerous condition. The stonework was crumbling and collapsing
around its edges. There was a cover over it: a big steel cap that
could be opened in the middle by pulling two handles in opposite
directions. While Fi held me by the back of my shirt, I wrestled
with the two handles until the cover slowly ground open. A rush of
stale, damp air exhaled into my face. The gases were all I hoped
they would be; I felt instant nausea at just a sniff of them. I
held my breath and leaned forward, peering down the shaft. It was
beautifully dark and deep: I couldn’t see the bottom. I dropped a
pebble and waited nearly six seconds before I heard it hit water,
which was perfect. I scrambled backwards. The air had made me so
dizzy that I had to get Fi to pull the cover back in place. I
didn’t want to go near it again.
    Nothing happened then until the next morning
when Kevin gave the signal we’d suggested in our letter. We’d asked
him to wear something green for yes, red for no, yellow if he
wanted to meet us and talk it over. I’d been betting that Kevin,
who was a cautious guy, would be dressed all in yellow. But he
surprised us. He came out with a green cap, a lurid green shirt and
an olive pair of trousers. The outfit looked terrible but I
realised then, if I hadn’t realised it before, just how desperate
he was to get away and rejoin us.
    We were watching from the scrub and when we
saw all the green we looked at each other in a mixture of fear and
excitement. For once we wouldn’t have much to do. Mostly, we’d have
to sit and watch. The only way we’d have a lot to do was if the
guards realised that something was wrong and came looking for us.
In a way I would have preferred more action. Sitting and watching
has never been my style.
    We did have one job though: to go get a sheep.
Or a pig or roo or calf. But a sheep seemed the easiest. We waited
until the work parties set out for the day, then we went in the
opposite direction. Out in a distant paddock we found a small mob
of two-tooths. We hung around till midafternoon, then Homer and I,
helped and hindered by the others, cut out a sheep and got it in a
corner. We decided not to kill it there and then because it would
leave evidence in the paddock. So we tied its legs and Homer, with
a bit of a struggle, got it up across his shoulders and staggered
off into the bush with it. There are advantages in having a strong
male around sometimes. When we were well into the trees, Homer
dropped the sheep and he and I killed it. I cut its throat and he
broke its neck, while Fi stood there making little whimpering
noises of disgust, as though someone had spat on