changed in a hurry. The next few minutes were madness: a wild sideshow ride where the winners got to live and the losers got to die.
Eight
The first sign of trouble was when Fi grabbed my arm. She whispered in my ear: "There's a car coming." I don't know why she whispered. It was hard enough to hear anyway, above the diesel rumbling of the truck. I glanced across to where she pointed and sure enough there it was: a green jeep with a canvas top, moving at high speed straight towards us. It was coming from the far side of the airfield and was still three or four hundred metres away. But there was no doubt it was after us. It was openly menacing, racing at us so directly.
I thought fast. I had to make my mind work as fast as that car was travelling, even faster. I don't know why your brain works sometimes and at other times it freezes up. It's not only danger and adrenalin; that time in Wirrawee when everything deserted me was a time of great danger and yet I fell apart. Here was another time of great danger and this time my brain functioned. But to be fair to myself, the time in Wirrawee wasn't long after Robyn died, and not long after I'd done something I really regretted with a boy in Wellington.
With the jeep, I didn't hesitate. I started making a big turn, quite gentle, so it wouldn't look suspicious, even slowing down a little, and at the same time said to Fi: "Get a good grip on something."
"What about Kevin?" she asked.
I hadn't even thought of Kevin. "Tell him too," I said. There was no more time for conversation. Fi shouted into the back of the truck: "Kevin, grab a hold of something!"
At this stage we were facing northwest. The jeep was coming from the west. When we turned they slowed, then swung hard left to come around the front of us, maybe to get onto the driver's side of the truck, I don't know. I hadn't been expecting that, but it worked just as well for what I wanted. I think they still weren't sure about us, not knowing if we were a threat to their security or there for some legitimate reason. They probably couldn't believe anyone had got through their fantastic defences.
I started accelerating again, gently at first, then, when I judged them to be at the right point, I charged. Foot straight to the floor. The old truck did pretty well. Probably no one had ever asked her to do anything exciting or brave. Probably no one had asked her to go at full speed. Whatever, she surged forward with more power than I'd expected.
It happened so quickly that the soldiers in the jeep were caught unawares. I saw their startled faces. They were yelling at the driver and trying to get their rifles up. The driver thought he was going to get around the right-hand side of me, then did the worst thing possible: he changed his mind. He decided he wouldn't make itâhe probably wouldn't have, it's hard to sayâand he braked, slammed it into reverse and tried to back away at the same time as he spun the wheel hard to the right. It was a terrible, stupid decision. That's what I meant before, about how sometimes our minds work and sometimes they freeze. I don't know why he made such a bad move, such a bad call, at that moment of his life. And I'll never know now. Fi ducked to the floor, with her hands over her eyes, and I shut my eyes for the last two or three metres. It terrible. I still accelerating when we hit them. Someone told me once that the police are trained to do that: accelerate when they know they're going to hit another car. That way they suffer less damage themselves. It's horrible, but I don't know where that leaves me, because I didn't take my foot off the accelerator until the very last second. I wouldn't have even then, but some reflex made me lift it off as we hit. It seemed too frightening to hit at full speed in that cold-blooded way.
Still, we would have been doing ninety when we rammed.
It was a massacre. The jeep fragmented; there were bits lying all over the tarmac. Some pieces were a hundred
Eight
The first sign of trouble was when Fi grabbed my arm. She whispered in my ear: "There's a car coming." I don't know why she whispered. It was hard enough to hear anyway, above the diesel rumbling of the truck. I glanced across to where she pointed and sure enough there it was: a green jeep with a canvas top, moving at high speed straight towards us. It was coming from the far side of the airfield and was still three or four hundred metres away. But there was no doubt it was after us. It was openly menacing, racing at us so directly.
I thought fast. I had to make my mind work as fast as that car was travelling, even faster. I don't know why your brain works sometimes and at other times it freezes up. It's not only danger and adrenalin; that time in Wirrawee when everything deserted me was a time of great danger and yet I fell apart. Here was another time of great danger and this time my brain functioned. But to be fair to myself, the time in Wirrawee wasn't long after Robyn died, and not long after I'd done something I really regretted with a boy in Wellington.
With the jeep, I didn't hesitate. I started making a big turn, quite gentle, so it wouldn't look suspicious, even slowing down a little, and at the same time said to Fi: "Get a good grip on something."
"What about Kevin?" she asked.
I hadn't even thought of Kevin. "Tell him too," I said. There was no more time for conversation. Fi shouted into the back of the truck: "Kevin, grab a hold of something!"
At this stage we were facing northwest. The jeep was coming from the west. When we turned they slowed, then swung hard left to come around the front of us, maybe to get onto the driver's side of the truck, I don't know. I hadn't been expecting that, but it worked just as well for what I wanted. I think they still weren't sure about us, not knowing if we were a threat to their security or there for some legitimate reason. They probably couldn't believe anyone had got through their fantastic defences.
I started accelerating again, gently at first, then, when I judged them to be at the right point, I charged. Foot straight to the floor. The old truck did pretty well. Probably no one had ever asked her to do anything exciting or brave. Probably no one had asked her to go at full speed. Whatever, she surged forward with more power than I'd expected.
It happened so quickly that the soldiers in the jeep were caught unawares. I saw their startled faces. They were yelling at the driver and trying to get their rifles up. The driver thought he was going to get around the right-hand side of me, then did the worst thing possible: he changed his mind. He decided he wouldn't make itâhe probably wouldn't have, it's hard to sayâand he braked, slammed it into reverse and tried to back away at the same time as he spun the wheel hard to the right. It was a terrible, stupid decision. That's what I meant before, about how sometimes our minds work and sometimes they freeze. I don't know why he made such a bad move, such a bad call, at that moment of his life. And I'll never know now. Fi ducked to the floor, with her hands over her eyes, and I shut my eyes for the last two or three metres. It terrible. I still accelerating when we hit them. Someone told me once that the police are trained to do that: accelerate when they know they're going to hit another car. That way they suffer less damage themselves. It's horrible, but I don't know where that leaves me, because I didn't take my foot off the accelerator until the very last second. I wouldn't have even then, but some reflex made me lift it off as we hit. It seemed too frightening to hit at full speed in that cold-blooded way.
Still, we would have been doing ninety when we rammed.
It was a massacre. The jeep fragmented; there were bits lying all over the tarmac. Some pieces were a hundred
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