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The Old Bastard

DAVE FREER


They landed on the far side of the island a bit before dawn, with the wind easterly so the outboard couldn’t be heard. Might have worked too, if that old bastard and young Mick hadn’t gone to set a dawn net in one of the small bays on the lee of the island. If the old bastard hadn’t gone and taken his rifle with him it might have worked out different too. But he always did.

Anyway, it was a rough awakening for the rest of the people in the camp. A shot, a scream and a few more shots, and some running, and frantic panicky looking for guns. The last part, for Jim, had been his role in the entire process. By the time he’d had his shotgun in hand, there was nothing to shoot at, just the old bastard up in the rocks telling him not to shoot him.

“Don’t tempt me,” said Jim. “What the hell is going on, you old bastard?”

“Three fellers thought they’d sneak up on us. So, I give one a new hole in his ear. Thems still running, but you better see ’em off. Keep a distance, because they’re shooting back. I left young Mick watching their boat. They landed in the cove next to Hippo Rock.”

Jim had gone off with three of the others, legging it along the upper track. Their “visitors” had run along the beach. You had to know the bush-track to the far side of the island was there. By the time they got to above the cove, the three were scrambling into the boat they had anchored just off the rocks. Lizzie, panting—she was maybe the fittest of all of them, but at five months pregnant, had less lung capacity than she was used to—took a bead.

“Save it,” said Jim. “They’d be lousy eating.”

She looked at him with a scowl. “You probably would.” Liz had been a vegetarian . . . before this all started. In the first month of survival out here, with nothing much but fish to eat, she’d changed her ideas. Wallaby, wombat, muttonbirds came onto the diet list a little later. It had been five months before the first vegetables, per se, could be said to have been part of their diet. There’d been a little bush-tucker, thanks to the old bastard knowing what you could eat, but mostly it was fish, shellfish and meat.

“It’d make a change,” said Jim, stirring a bit. You didn’t want to stir her up too much, though. Liz had had to kill a few of the infected to get this far. She was capable, especially if scared. It was more than his abilities, he suspected. He was just a linesman, a new emigrant who had been having a kayaking holiday and gone off to the islands when things went wrong. Australia was strange to him, as strange as their way of saying his name, so he’d settled on “Jim.”

“Unless you told me they tasted like white bread and their blood was coke, I’m not having any. What’s that?” she said, shifting the rifle she carried, peering through the scope. “That” proved to be young Mick, emerging from some tea tree and tumbled boulders. They called out to him, and the youngster grinned and waved back. He was a long way from the scared thirteen-year-old kid who had stayed home to play computer games . . . and whose family never came back. Like all of them, he’d never be quite the same again. But he’d found stand-in parents, and a nightmare of a grandfather in the old bastard . . . and maybe a bit more. There were more women than men on the island, and, well, old taboos had seemed a bit silly when you were hoping to survive.

“He’s calling us to come down,” said Liz. The vessel was now some distance off. “Think it is safe?”

Jim nodded. “I reckon.”

They soon found out just why.

“The old bastard told me he was going back, and I was to see what I could nick off their boat as soon as they was gone,” said Mick, meeting them, looking pleased with himself. “It’s back in the rocks.”

The boy had been busy. There were several boxes, and a fuel tank!

“They had a spare. And they must have found a house the zombies didn’t trash. There was a bit more, but I heard the shooting and got out. I was coming back, when I saw them running on the beach and hid out.”

The loot, when they got back to the camp, was, in Liz’s words, “exquisite.” One wouldn’t have described tinned tomato, a packet of weevil-infested flour, and a twelve-pound bag of sugar, gone hard, but still sugar, as that, two years back. Some of the other bits were more precious still—toothpaste, soap, half a brick of .22 and, most importantly, the fuel.

It called for a celebratory meal . . . and afterwards, introspection. The biggest problem, in a way—besides the five graves behind the little hut that had once been a shelter for visiting biologists, was that they had no idea what was left of the world. No working radio. No communications. All they knew was what had been known when they fled to Roydon Island. There were three little “tinnies”—aluminum boats, with outboards—two of which were a whole fifteen horsepower, and the third, twenty-five, a single-seater sea kayak that belonged to Jim, and the one Hobie 16 catamaran from the beach. Fine to cross the eight-hundred-yard channel, not so good for exploring, especially in light of not having fuel—years had passed and petrol didn’t like it. There had to be other survivors—there were fifty-two islands in the group. Sometimes they could see smoke. But no one had come driving or walking along the shore. No boats either—not since the twins had showed up in the tinnie from up North, scared and warily waving from the water, maybe twenty months back.

They’d waited. A few quick careful trips to loot the holiday houses and few permanent residences on the close shore when things got too scarce and hard after the first month. The bag of sprouting potatoes had been a lifesaver—because the old man had insisted on planting them. That trip had nearly ended in disaster because the zombies had been sleeping in one ruined house, hadn’t left to go hunting food yet. It had taken another five months to find the courage to go again, and it was only because of the death of one of the children. Still, that had brought little food, but two plastic five-thousand-gallon rainwater tanks, emptied and rolled down to the beach and towed across. Corrugated iron and fasteners and tools from the houses—and then a retreat.

“The authorities are going to be along eventually. As soon as it is over.” Jim remembered it being said, like it was some kind of holy mantra.

It was a very urban Australian attitude, and of the ten adults that had taken refuge on Roydon Island, eight had been blow-ins, sea-changers come to live on a remote set of islands . . . that was very much part of Australia. It had always seemed like a perfect place to ride out the end of the world . . . which was of course why it hadn’t been. One could not expect that no one else would think that, and when the end of the world came rolling relatively slowly towards them, that they too would not flee there, and bring it with them. They were an odd group, three men, old Mick, the old bastard, and himself, and the seven women. None with surviving partners. And, of course, young Mick, who was growing to be a man, fast. It hadn’t been quite that unbalanced originally . . . but, well, graves. The women worked it out between them it seemed. There was five of them pregnant, and two toddlers.

Next time, Jim decided, he’d pick a faster apocalypse to wreck his holiday with. One where the Internet worked and you didn’t run out of coffee before you died. The virus had spread just slowly enough to reach here too. On the positive side, relatively few of the infected made it here. On the negative side, there was lots for them to eat, and, well, Australians mostly didn’t think defensively. So, then there were more infected. Not a lot more, because the big island only had a population of a thousand odd people, in more than five hundred square miles. But that meant the little towns went down pretty fast. And then there had been the infected roaming around—could be anywhere. There was lots of cover, millions of wallaby, wombats, sheep and cows for food.

And here they were, two years on. With a flourishing potato patch, and all the fish you could eat—and precious little else. Well, no, that wasn’t true. They’d contrived a lot. But clothes were wearing out, and there was no fuel for the outboards, and there was no coffee left. The last part seemed as good a reason as any to go looking: to find more supplies, if not to find more people.

“Look, you can see smoke, sometimes. They must have dealt with it all,” said Liz. “We’ve got fuel now. We should go looking.”

“And find it’s that bunch that come sneaking in here,” said the old bastard, quietly and methodically cleaning his rifle. One of them, anyway. He’d been the first to move across to the island and had stashed a lot of his gear in the caves between the rocks. He could have sat up in those rocks and shot anyone who tried to land . . . instead he’d gone to the next island, the low-lying Inner Pascoe and watched. When he was sure it was okay, he came back. He’d been born on the islands, spent his life as a farm laborer and a deckhand. In Australia, guns had been hard to come by with a sea of permits and “reasons” required. But farming and vermin control on those farms was one of those reasons. So was shooting zombies—but that wasn’t on the application form. By Australian standards—no one else’s, there’d been lots of guns and lots of shooters on the islands. I never got any straight answers about how the old guy—and he was over seventy, and creaked and wheezed a lot—ended up with his collection. I was just glad he had.

“We’d have to be careful,” conceded Liz. “But winter is coming and we can’t go on like this.”

“Seem to be doing pretty well to me,” said the old bastard. “We can go and fetch a bunch more roofing tin and stuff. Let them come to us.” He stood up. “I better pull that net or it’ll be too late on the tide. Anyone coming along?”

Of course, young Mick was keen. I went along just to get out of the argument that I knew was coming. We got a good haul—the effect of minimal fishing pressure and the old bastard knowing exactly when and where to put the net. We had to do four trips, carrying baskets. It would have been easier using a boat, but it was a long row, and we were saving fuel. “Bloody fish,” said Kayley, looking up from the basket she was weaving when we got back. Someone was always at it. The baskets wore out.

“You just love filleting so much,” said young Mick—sticking his tongue out at her. A little exchange of courtesy followed involving her chasing him and hitting him with a bunch of rushes. Courtship, I guess, but pretty soon they were all filleting except for the three who were still busy banking potatoes.

Filleting, salting, and then hanging in the smoker to dry. It might be tedious—which was why we took turns to read aloud while it was being done—but it meant we’d not have another hungry time when the weather was foul for days. It was the old bastard again—he might be the wrong side of seventy, but he knew how to do all this sort of thing.

“I am just so sick of the same books,” said Bethany, and Jim had to agree. This one was a murder story—and they all knew who had done it. And they all knew that urban world had vanished for them. Maybe it wasn’t ever coming back. Talk soon fell to the idea of going searching for others. Liz was like water dripping on stone, Jim thought. He wondered how long it would take. The old bastard wasn’t listening. In fact, Jim realized, he wasn’t there.

Later, after they had buried the guts and heads in the potatoes, he came in, with a new axe handle he was whittling. Jim asked him where he’d been.

“Keeping lookout. I guess we’re going to have to do it. Them fellers this morning . . . they wasn’t up to any good. I know, ’cause, seeing as I wasn’t up to any good myself a lot.”

“You reckon they’ll come back?”

He shrugged. “Not the same way, maybe. Might try for softer pickings. There was only three of them, and they got shot at.”

“What do you think of going looking for people?” Jim asked.

“The smoke from the fire out on Prime Seal stopped.” That was a big island, a few miles long, much further out to sea, that had had quite a substantial house.

“So?”

“So, they either left or got killed. I thought about us going out there, only this is nearer to the shore. Run out of fuel there, and we’re stuck.”

“We can’t go on like this. We need to know what is happening.”

He tugged his beard. “I reckon mostly they’re all dead, but for people like us.”

“Maybe we need to get together with people like us then.”

“We don’t have it bad right now. We got enough to eat. There’d be people who don’t have that. Who are still livin’ off what they can scavenge.”

“We need more. We need medicine, and things are wearing out. I could use shoes that aren’t held together with bailing twine,” said Jim, looking ruefully at his feet.

“What makes you so sure they’re gunna have shoes or anything?” he said grumpily.

“What makes you so damn sure they won’t?” said Liz.

“Seventy years of experience,” said the old bastard.

It was plainly going to be an uphill struggle to convince him.

So, Jim was glad that decision was taken out of his hands the next day by the old bastard coming down to where they were working on cutting firewood. The old bastard was never idle himself. No one was, unless you wanted to catch an earful from the entire crew. There were few enough of them, that it stood out. Besides . . . what the hell else was there to do? It wasn’t exactly like you could surf the ’net or catch something on Netflix or even sit and drink a few beers. The brew made from potatoes had made them all puke.

“You got your wish,” he said. “Boat coming around Bun Beetons Point. Looks like an old cray boat. She’s got an Australian flag flying.” Even he sounded impressed by that.

They all rushed to look. After all this time it was good to feel that they had not been forgotten after all. By the time she came past the Pascoes everyone was down on the beach, waving.

Well, not quite everyone. Jim noticed the old bastard wasn’t there. Jim hadn’t spent two years with the old guy without getting to know how he thought. He’d be up in the rocks above the bay, with the boat under his ’scope. He suddenly wondered if they were all being too trusting. He tried to say so, but, honestly, Jim thought, he might as well have been trying to stop the tide with his feet. Everyone was just so excited, the women especially. He saw Liz trying to comb her hair with her fingers.

The boat stopped some hundred yards offshore, and someone used a bullhorn to call out that they were from the Australian government, sent to assist. Could they come ashore?

And of course, they said yes. The words “where have you been for the last two years?” never crossed anyone’s lips, honest. They were just that glad to see them. And the woman and the guy who came in on the dingy with a little outboard chugging were something they never thought they’d see again. Yes, their clothes were good . . . which was weird, and the guy was clean-shaven, wearing a woolly beany on his head. But the odd thing about them was that they were . . . well, fat. By Roydon Island standards anyway. They were smiling and waving, kind of like rock stars, and that was the sort of greeting they got.

“Glad to see you all so welcoming,” said the man as they stepped ashore. “Now, we had a report that there were some raiders up here. Bandits. You don’t know anything about this? I am sorry, but we have to make sure you’re not harboring them.”

“They tried a few days ago, but we saw them off,” Bethany volunteered. “We’re really glad to see someone from the government! What has happened out there?”

“Things have collapsed quite badly, but we’re rebuilding,” said the chunky man. “Now let me introduce myself and the mayor of New Hobart. So: this is Mayor Swinner and I am Fred Burroughs. I am the surviving senior representative of the Tasmanian Government, acting as the manager of the Bass Region. We’ll be happy to answer any questions, but we need you to join us in our growing settlement of New Hobart.” He looked up at our camp. “Oddly, not everyone wants rescue, but if we’re to rebuild Australia, we need you to join us.”

“Just try stopping me,” said Liz. “I can’t wait to get out of here.”

It seemed that everyone felt that way. Except for the old bastard. He didn’t say, because he wasn’t there. Well, young Mick didn’t say much, just looked confused by it all. Burroughs and the Mayor, however, were in a hurry to get back.

“The tide will be a problem if we get back later than midday,” explained Burroughs, when we wanted to give them a meal, and talk. We all had so many questions.

“If we don’t go now it may be some months before we can do this again. We don’t have a lot of spare diesel. So: basically, if you’re going, you need to come with us now. Collect anything you might want to bring with you. Extra food is always welcome, but it doesn’t look like you have a lot of clothes to pack,” he said, laughing.

People rushed back to the camp. Soon we were carrying down baskets full of potatoes, dried fish.

“I don’t suppose you will want dried fish. It’s awful,” said Liz.

“Oh, we don’t get a lot of fish,” said the mayor. “You seem to have done well on the potatoes.”

“The old bastard sees we get enough fish,” Jim said.

And then Liz said, “No, Jim. You’re not bringing those jars of muttonbird oil. It stinks.”

Jim noticed that the boxes of food that young Mick had pinched from the raider boat were missing. So was the fuel can. He nearly said something, but Mick nudged him.

“The old bastard took ’em,” he said quietly. “Said he is not going nowhere. Just to leave him alone. He said don’t say nothing about him. I don’t like it, Jim.”

Neither did Jim. The old bastard was a pain in the butt at times, but he was the one who knew how to do things. He’d grown up poor, without a fridge as a kid, and with the sea for a larder. But if that was the way he wanted it . . . well . . . it was difficult. But it all got taken out of his hands. They were on the beach, getting people into the dingy to go across to the cray boat, when Kayley said, “Where is the old bastard?”

“Who?” asked Burroughs.

“The old man,” explained Liz. “He’s about seventy. A bit out of it at times.”

“Anyone seen him?” asked Sally. “We’d better go and look for him.”

“We don’t really have time,” said Burroughs. “We’ll miss the tide, and there is weather brewing.”

But most of our mob was bellowing for him. Well, except me and young Mick.

“We have to go looking,” Liz announced. “We can’t just leave him here.”

She wasn’t all bad.

“It’s what he wants. He doesn’t want to go. And you’ll never find him if he doesn’t want to be found,” Jim said. “I hate it but it is what he wants.”

“He told me to go. To leave him,” said young Mick, looking seriously unhappy about it. Jim thought he was going to burst into tears, and found he felt the same way.

Burroughs stared at his watch. “Look, we’ll be back in a week or two, if the weather allows. We really don’t have the resources for aged care. We need the young and strong for this.”

“He’s not needing care. Much,” said Sally.

That was true. He mostly didn’t. “He doesn’t want to leave,” said young Mick.

“Well, see how he feels in a week or two,” said Burroughs.

Jim wondered what had happened to the “won’t be up this way for months.”

“He’s been on his own for weeks,” admitted one of the others. “But we can’t just leave him.”

“You must if you are to come with us. Come on, it’s not for long,” said the mayor woman.

So: they went.

Jim stood on the stern, looking back at the few acres that had been their home. Young Mick was there too. He didn’t want anyone to see he was crying. He waved at the island.

“He’s watching through that scope of his,” Jim said quietly. “We would battle another winter out there, Mick. Knowing him, he’ll probably follow us in his own time. He’s got boats and fuel.” The government people had not been interested in the vessels. Well, the island probably had one for every four people before this, and tinnies don’t rot.

Eventually, when Roydon Island was out of sight Jim went forward to where most of the rest of the group were trying to find out just what was going on in the world, how the Australian government was trying to put things back together. What they all knew, that we didn’t. He was in time to hear old Mick—who was in his forties, but it separated him from young Mick—say: “So you reckon the Australian government is getting back in charge. You took your sweet time. Where did you spring from? You’re not a local. I know the people what was in the council offices. They give me a lot of strife.”

Burroughs gave us a kind of sideways answer to that: “I’ve been in local government a long time. Not here, of course. The Planning Office and then General Manager of Johnstown. Things were a bit of a mess when I arrived here. Fortunately, I have the experience to manage the complexities of setting up a new administration. You’ll be glad to have the government back in charge of your lives, I am sure.”

Quite a few people nodded. The uncertainty had got to all of them, Jim knew. There was a comfort in having someone in charge.

New Hobart, it turned out, was a lot closer than old Hobart—the state capital—was. Maybe twenty miles away, just further south on the same main island our refuge had been off the shore of. They could have gone ashore and just walked south. The big island’s main little town had been about a mile further south, but that had been badly hit when things went pear-shaped with the initial spread. The cray boat scraped into a very shallow little bay. “Bluff road,” said Bethany. It had been a single-road sort of suburb, before.

“It’s New Hobart now. The city is at the old showgrounds,” the mayor informed them.

They had to wade the last bit ashore. Jim was surprised to see there were no other boats moored there. Even the dingy was winched onto a trailer and hauled up to the road. But there was a truck parked at the shore. A truck! And they had fuel and it was in going order. They loaded baskets of potatoes and fish onto it and then themselves and were driven to the gates of the “city.” It had . . . people. And the oval where the kids had once played sport was cultivated. A tractor stood there, people behind it who looked up, as they were brought into the fenced area.

As cities went, it wasn’t up to much. After living in what was basically an A-frame kitchen common room and bedrooms made of scavenged wood and tin, it was quite large. It was a series of big sheds and smaller buildings, with a fenced area and guard towers on the corners.

“Right,” said Swinner, getting out. “Welcome to being citizens of New Hobart. We run a cooperative society here, where everyone is cared for. I’ll have a word with the kitchen staff and we’ll have some lunch for you. You must be hungry after your sea journey and after living in such primitive conditions. Then we’ll have Mr. Burroughs and his assistants talk you through the city ordinances and how we work together for a new Australia.”

The food part sounded good. And it was. Much of it came out of tins, but we’d had precious little like that. And there was crockery, and knives and forks, sufficient for everyone, and not carved out of wood by the old bastard.

Then we went through to what we were told was the administrative block—a smaller shed, but well fitted out with comfortable couches and a lovely long wooden table, as well as having sections partitioned off, behind closed doors. It looked pretty civilized, after Roydon Island. You could almost believe you were back in the pre-plague days.

The mayor made a speech about us all working together, and how we’d be rebuilding Australia. Then she handed us over to Burroughs who said, with a smile: “Firstly, I am going to have to ask you to turn in your weapons to the armory. We have a strict no-firearms policy in New Hobart.”

Jim saw he wasn’t the only one who looked a bit taken aback at this. Not all of them had guns—but it had been the insurance against any attack by the infected. He said as much.

Mayor Swinner shook her head. “Goodness. This is Australia, not some savage place. You’re safe here. And honestly, we have a problem if you don’t hand them over. Our citizens are not armed. You are quite a large group. You might decide to attack them. This is for everyone’s good and comfort and security. Firearms and ammunition are scarce resources. We can’t just have everyone armed. That would be against the law! We need the weapons for hunting for the group and for defense, and to control any individuals who break the law. You can apply to get a rifle or shotgun, of course. It’s all done according to Australian law, under permit, and we assess your capability and suitability, and decide.”

Jim didn’t like it, at all. Yes, that was how it was in the old Australia. And yes, he missed a lot about it. But what if they got attacked? Or there were more infected that got here somehow?

“We have fences and guards. You’ll be quite safe,” Burroughs assured them. “Really, it is nothing to worry yourself about. You’re here now. You’re much better off than you were. You’ll just have to fit in. Honestly, I can’t see what the fuss is about. You never needed them in Australia before. The government took care of you, and we will again. You can trust us.”

It seemed most of the others were willing to do so. A man in a police uniform—somewhat the worse for wear, but still a police uniform, took the guns, and made them fill out paperwork. It all seemed very normal bureaucracy.

“They’ll be safely locked away,” said Burroughs. “Now, let’s record your names and assign you to the various work groups. You’ll get a chance to meet the other citizens that way. Young mothers will join the childcare group. Older children help with pulling weeds. We’ll be starting school soon.”

Jim found himself assigned to those carrying water from Pat’s River, about five hundred yards away from the “city.” It was backbreaking work, carrying a pair of five-gallon plastic drums from the freezing beer-brown frothy river, up the slope next to the bridge and then back, and then up a ladder and into a tank. It was like filling a bucket with a teaspoon. He was also sure it was unnecessary. The old bastard would have either moved the camp to the water or the water to the camp, he thought, grumpily. They only had rainwater on Roydon, but the tanks filled from sheets of corrugated iron sat against the cliff, making a store for all the bits they used occasionally, as well as the fish which was smelly enough to want to keep there.

He was shocked to see Liz carrying drums of water too. “She’s pregnant!” he protested to one of the guards—supposedly there to keep them from being attacked.

“Shut up. If she loses it we’ll give her another, soon enough,” said the guard, sitting, smoking a joint, shotgun over his knees. Jim weighed up his chances.

They weren’t that good. “Careful,” said one of the others, quietly, “Shady shot someone about a week ago.”

“How the hell do you guys put up with this?” asked Jim. “They just sit and do nothing. He’s fat and you look half starved.”

His fellow water-carrier grimaced. “They’re armed. We aren’t. My mob hid out on Prime Seal. When things got too hard, we headed back here. We could see smoke, we knew there were people. There was a bit of a settlement, maybe twenty people, around the old town. It was . . . a bit chaotic. Some fights about the food we found, about grog, about one of the women—and a few people got hurt. And then Fred Burroughs, Shady Johnson and Linda Swinner showed up on the old cray boat, said they were from the government and were here to help us get things organized. They aren’t from the island, and I reckon people wanted to believe. Things did get a little better. We had a meeting, and elected Swinner as Mayor—she had Burroughs backing, and well”—he pulled a face—“the other three who stood sort of split the vote. She made Burroughs Manager, and he made Shady Johnson the police officer and Smythe into captain of the town guard. They got Belcher, Ferny and Morgen in with them as guards too. Anyway, about two months later someone got on the piss, and took a shot at someone else. Nearly hit one of the kids. Next thing we had another meeting, and Swinner said guns were too dangerous, and we needed to keep them locked up unless needed.”

He sucked between his teeth. “And it went downhill from there. More groups and people come in—but they made sure they got disarmed, pretty quick.”

“But surely—I mean they can’t watch you all the time? You could make a run for it,” said Jim.

The Prime Seal refugee shuddered. “They say there’s still infected outside the fence. And there’s guards on the watchtowers. They say they’re for the infected, but they’d likely shoot you if you tried to go over it. There’s a bunch of bandits out there too, even if you got a boat. They attacked the Wybalenna Island lot. Shot someone, raped a couple of women, stole their stuff. They weren’t gonna come in, but after that, they came running. It happened on Tin Kettle Island too, or so I heard. But they killed everyone there.”

Jim had taken a good look at that fence. He wasn’t sure what it could keep out. But he held his tongue, wishing like hell they’d been less pot-sure about being rescued. He was even less happy about it when he discovered the accommodation. The group had taken over the showgrounds where the islanders had held their local agricultural show for many years. On the positive side, the buildings kept out the rain, and the fire in the middle of the floor of the biggest shed provided heat and light. But that was the point where “positive” ended.

The meal that evening was . . . a stew of potatoes and salted, smoked fish—prepared by someone who had no idea how to deal with fish preserved by salt and smoke. Rather than the “government” providing for them, they had provided for the “government,” it seemed. And the “government” had made a mess out of it. But, by the way their fellow citizens were tucking in, the food was welcome.

“Not much compared to food we got for lunch,” he said.

That got a laugh. “Oh, they always give new people a good first feed. That way you think you’re coming to the good time. Which it is, of course. Much better than out there.”

“I don’t bloody think so,” said Liz. She got up. “I think I made a mistake. I think I’m going home. Anyone with me?”

The little Roydon group got up. Some slower than others, but everyone got up. That is . . . except for the three mums with young kids. Jim realized they weren’t there. He’d been too tired when he came in to realize it, but no kids were.

One of the others said: “Sit down. You’ll get into trouble. You can’t leave.”

“Why not?” asked Liz, belligerently.

“Because they won’t let you. And it isn’t safe out there.”

In answer Liz just marched out, across to the “administrative block”—where they found the mayor and her manager and various parts of “government” and several young women enjoying drinks and lounging after their hard day at the office.

Liz cut to the chase. “Look, I think we’ll just go back to our old settlement. We don’t like this setup. We don’t fit in here. We don’t want to be here. Give us our stuff back and we’ll take ourselves back home. This was a big mistake.”

Burroughs puffed at his joint. “Sorry. You are not going anywhere. Go back to your quarters.”

Mayor Swinner tried a different tack. “We can’t let you do that. You didn’t have permission to be there. It was an illegal building in a conservation area. You’re lucky we didn’t press charges.”

“Press charges? Are you insane? We’d have died if we hadn’t stayed there! You can’t stop us going back,” said Liz, angrily.

“We can,” said Burroughs—waving at two of the guards—who now had shotguns pointed at them. “We can’t afford to let people go off and do their own thing, even if it wasn’t illegal. We’ve got rebuilding work to do and we need labor. We’ll make an example of you if you try.”

“You could do some labor yourself,” said Sally. “I haven’t seen any of you lift a finger.”

“We do the planning. Without us you’d be in dire trouble,” Burroughs informed them. “Without us this group would be starving and fighting. Someone has to organize. And anyway, if you went out there tonight, you’ll be unarmed and in the dark, easy meat for the infected and without weapons easy prey for the bandits out there. Because no, we’re not giving your guns back, and we’re not going to let you take the children. It’s not safe out there for them. Now get out of here. Shady. Smythe. Take them back. Note down who they are. It’ll be on your records.”

“On our records! It sounds like we’re in a prison, not Australia,” exclaimed Bethany.

Jim looked at the fence in the moonlight as the two guards herded them back. “I suppose Australia started that way. Only I don’t think I wanted to go back to that Australia.”

“Shut up,” said the guard, backhanding him across the head. “And get a move on.”

Later that night, Jim discovered they were also locked in. The problem was not just getting away. It would be how to get all of them away. Water-carrying seemed the one chance to make a break for it, but their group was divided up. And anyway—fleeing with children and pregnant women was going to be hard. The boat would be the best answer—but getting out to it without swimming, when it was not sitting on the sand at low tide, would be tricky. That was obviously why no boats were left on the beach. Talking was difficult, there was no real privacy, and they could plainly be overheard. It seemed probable that at least some of their fellow citizens were likely to inform. Jim was no closer to an answer by the time he got to sleep.

The next day saw them split into different work groups, Jim and young Mick and Liz and old Mick on water-carrying again. Jim had been shocked to discover that much of that water went into the two still-working flushing toilets. There were no showers or even a bath available. They had done better than that back on Roydon! It wasn’t that hard. Walking down to the river young Mick edged to get next to him and said: “I’m going to try and escape. Go back to the old bastard. Maybe he can help us.”

It was an idea Jim had kind of had himself. But if anyone could, it would be the kid. He’d learned a lot from the old bastard. And the old bastard had learned a lot from being a poacher. “I’ll create a distraction,” Jim said quietly.

Young Mick nodded. “I’ll get into the water. I think I can swim a bit underwater and get away.”

“I’ll start something when you’re at the river,” said Jim.

Jim had collected his water drums and started back up the slope. The two guards were sitting on the edge of the muddy path down and he got between them as young Mick arrived at the water. At that point Jim screamed, “SNAKE!” and peered wide-eyed at the guard with the rifle, and backed off a step.

“Where?” demanded the guard, looking at the ground instead of the “citizens” at the river.

“Behind you!” said Jim.

The guard turned hastily, and his attention—and his fellow guard’s attention—was just where Jim wanted it. And then some rat down next to the river yelled: “He’s jumped in the water!”

As the rifleman swung around, Jim hit him with the water can. It only had about a gallon in it, as Jim had realized, yesterday, that that was the wheeze all the others were pulling. The Roydon crowd were carrying full cans, the others were just carrying a little. The guards didn’t check, or slither down to the river and watch them fill.

The guard fell over, and Jim grabbed for the rifle, as the other guard’s shotgun boomed behind him. He was still struggling when there was another rifle shot. Jim almost lost his grip on the rifle barrel, and then managed to kick the guard in the face, and wrench the rifle away from him, and roll and try to get away from the shotgun blast he felt sure was coming.

Only it wasn’t. The shotgun-wielding guard was suffering from a serious dose of dead. Liz was scrambling to grab his shotgun. And the old bastard yelled from the far side of the river: “You better fish Micky out before he drowns.”

Jim slithered down the slope, and ran along the bank, to where the boy had just surfaced and . . . was struggling to swim. He could swim like a fish, Jim knew. Jim dropped the rifle and went to haul him out—and damn near drowned himself. The water was that icy it half sucked the breath out of him. Anyway, Jim managed to haul the kid to the bank. The fellow from Prime Seal gave them a hand up. Liz had come slithering down too.

The old bastard walked across the bridge to us. “That bloke you knocked down took off, Jim. I’m too bloody old for all this. I should have shot him too. Leave off pounding that fellow, Mick.”

Old Mick had a hold of one of the other “citizens” and was busy punching him. “Him what told them the boy was getting away,” he said, indignantly.

“We’re probably going to need you to do some shooting instead, Mick,” said the old bastard. “You all right kid?” he asked of young Mick. “Sorry. I wasn’t expecting that bastard to shoot you. I could see you was going to jump.”

Liz was examining young Mick’s back, pulling the torn, wet shirt up. There were a couple of tiny holes, but not much blood, because of the cold. She squeezed one and a bit of shot popped out. “Ouch!” said young Mick. “That hurt.”

“Just under the skin! I thought you were dead, you young fool,” said Liz crossly.

“The water caught most of it,” said the old bastard. “Water stops bullets quite remarkable. We used to try shooting the seals when they was robbing the nets. Never had much luck unless they were on the surface. Now, where is the rest of you? Don’t look like the ‘government’ is treating you too well,” he said sardonically.

“Back in the camp . . . they call it New Hobart. But it’s just the old showgrounds. You were right,” Jim said.

“Excuse me,” said one of the other water-carrying “citizens.” “What are you going to do with us?”

“Do with you?” said the old bastard. “What the hell should I do with you? You’re grown up, aren’t you? Do whatever you want with yourselves.”

“But . . . you just killed that man. That’s a crime. Manager Burroughs is not going to like it,” said one of the women, plaintively.

“Oh, shut up,” said Liz. “He tried to kill Mick. And Burroughs and that lot are making you work like a slave, while they do nothing.”

“I’d like to join you, if you’ll have me,” said the Prime Seal fellow. “I want out of here.”

“Maybe getting into there, rather, son,” said the old bastard. “And the rest of you? Choose. Run back or stay? Or run away.”

Of the water party of fifteen, four chose to bolt up the bank and start running back to the camp. The Roydon party made up four of those who stayed. “Good,” said the old bastard. “I only got another six guns. Yer better fetch ’em, Mick and Mick. They’re just next to the bridge. I’ve had enough of walking for one day. My feet are killing me. And you better get a move on, because they’ll be coming after us soon.”

“You mad old bastard,” said Liz. “It’s good to see you.”

“Well, check that feller’s pockets and see if he’s got any more shells,” said the old bastard, “instead of complimenting me on my beauty.” He’d seated himself at the top of the slope. The road to the showgrounds curved a little, giving him a clear view to the fence. “Now, how many of these jokers are there? Didn’t recognize the one that run, but that dead one is one of the blokes that come and sneak up on the camp.”

“The same people?” exclaimed Liz.

“Too right,” said the old bastard. “Good wheeze, getting you to all run to them and give ’em what they came for in the first place.”

Mick and Mick came running, carrying a bunch of firearms.

“Where did that come from?” said the Prime Seal islander. “That’s my shotty!”

“Their boat,” said the old man. “The one they got moored at Long Point. The one they use for being raiders, not the cray boat. They must have access to the big fuel tanks at the wharf.”

Long Point, Jim knew, was perhaps a half a mile back north from where they’d landed.

“Can any of you shoot worth a damn?” asked the old bastard. “’Cause it looks like they’re coming, and I am too old to run. How many of them are there? I can just see a mob coming this way.”

“Nine,” said the Prime Seal guy. “But Whitey is dead now. So, eight if you include Swinner. There’s a bunch of women who hang around them too.”

“The food was better and you don’t get crap duties,” said one of the women who had remained, who now held a rifle. It was only a .22, but it plainly was a comfort.

“Looks like six of them,” said young Mick, squinting through the scope of the .223. “I can drop one.” The old bastard had made sure that everyone on Roydon knew their way around firearms. They’d had to be careful about ammunition, but they at least had some idea what they were doing. He always said it was for the infected, but, well if you could shoot, you could shoot.

“Wait up,” said the old bastard.

“You going to shoot them all?” asked one of those who had joined them. He sounded doubtful.

“Not unless they start it,” said the old bastard. “You reckon they ain’t gonna shoot us?”

“They . . . they could,” he admitted. “But they are the government, I suppose.”

“Government, my arse,” said Liz.

“Yes, that about describes government,” said the old bastard. “But we’ll give ’em a warning shot, first, if we has to. Waste of ammunition in my opinion, but we give them a chance, right? We don’t want to shoot no one, just get our people back.”

“And mine,” said the Prime Seal Island guy. “I got a brother in there.”

The mob advanced, well, as a mob, set to sort out uppity citizens.

“Right, you lot,” the old bastard yelled. “That’s far enough.”

The lead member of the mob loosed off a shot. He wasn’t trying to give chances or engage in discussion. His little crew did much the same. The rebels were all down over the lip of the ravine that the river ran through, and it didn’t take the old bastard saying “Down” to get everyone to duck. Jim found being shot at—even ducked behind a good solid bank—something he could happily avoid. It was maybe why instead of nine rebels shooting back, perhaps four did. And they were not combat veterans, so it wasn’t much of an effort.

The advancing mob were not soldiers either, and they were out in the open, maybe eighty yards off, and the last thing they’d been expecting was anyone to shoot back. They’d been out to chase down runaways, not fight. Two were down, one screaming. And two had run—one dropping his weapon. The remaining two stood like rabbits in the headlights, firearms raised.

“Drop the guns, raise your hands, and you get to live,” yelled the old bastard.

The one thing you could say about the man they’d made a guard was that he wasn’t a coward. The other thing you could say was that he wasn’t very bright. He had a pistol, perhaps that had once belonged to a real policeman, because they were rare elsewhere in Australia. He loosed off another shot . . . with a pistol at eighty yards. It spat dirt next to Jim, showing that distance and accuracy at range didn’t alter the fact that being shot at was never safe. At which point the “guard” discovered that a ’roo shooter with a rifle and a telescopic sight and dead-rest was more accurate. He spun around and fell like a ragdoll. His companion had dropped his gun and raised his hands.

“Cover me,” said Liz. She’d been a nurse once.

“Stay down,” said the old bastard. Then he yelled at the standing man. “Kick the guns away. I’ve got you on my scope. Make any wrong move and I’ll drop you. We’ll come and give some first aid if you cooperate.”

“You shot them,” said one of the new people in horror, as the man under the old bastard’s sights did exactly what he was told.

“They tried to shoot us. What did you want us to do, kiss them?” said Liz getting up. “Come and help me, if you feel they need help.”

“Don’t get between me and him, Liz,” said the old bastard.

“Tell him to move away from his chums, then.”

The fellow edged away, nervously, and Liz went to the fallen, shotgun ready. Jim, after a second, followed her. She was looking at the wounded—or as it turned out, one dead. Jim was looking to the camp, to make sure nothing threatened from there. It was about four hundred yards, but with his tepid knowledge of firearms—he’d never even held one, before coming to the island—he had no idea if that was far enough to be safe.

One of men had a bullet through his calf. The leg could well be broken. The other fellow got hit twice: once through the shoulder exiting under the armpit, another inch toward the center of mass—and if he hadn’t been partly side-on he’d have been dead, not, as Liz pronounced, lucky to be alive—and once grazed across his head. The third one—the pistol-wielder, was dead.

“You can tell the old bastard’s shooting,” she said with a grimace. “The rest of us are pretty useless.”

She ripped the shirt from the dead man to make a pad to stop the bleeding on the shoulder wound. One thing you had to say about Liz: in a crisis she was brutally practical. She could sound off about the causes she’d spent her life on before the plague, but when it came down to it, she actually did, when others panicked.

Jim realized the others had emerged from the riverbank and were now—at the yelled instructions of the old man, in a scattered skirmish line, advancing on the camp. He picked up weapons—one shotgun and a cartridge belt, and a bolt-action rifle—and left Liz to the injured, or them to her. She had shoved the pistol into her waistband. He had to wonder if she had any idea how to use it. Well, being Liz, she’d probably work it out. The “prisoner,” if you could call him that, was being chivvied along in front of them.

Jim caught up with the stragglers, who, fair enough, were unarmed stragglers, and altered that situation. Heaven knew if they could use the weapons, but it looked threatening. What good that would do if it came to a fight, he didn’t know. He was also glad they didn’t have to find out. The gate was open and there was no sign of armed resistance. Some panic and flight from the “citizens” of New Hobart, but then of course someone from Roydon recognized the old bastard and started cheering.

“We’ve not come to cause trouble. Just to get our own back,” Old Mick yelled out. That was about the longest speech he’d ever made.

“They’re in the Administration block,” called out Sally.

So, they went over to the shed they called the Administration block. “It’s got two doors,” said someone.

“They have blocked the other one,” the Prime Seal man informed them.

“Do we need to go in there?” said Sally, who had joined us, holding her child.

“Do yer reckon if we left them alone, they wouldn’t come after us? Besides, I hear you gave them your guns. We’re going to need them because this lot won’t be the last,” said the old bastard.

“But if we go in there, well, someone is going to get shot. Probably us,” said Jim. “Probably you. And we need you. We didn’t know we needed you until we didn’t have you, you old bastard.”

“It ain’t me you need. It’s less like them. But you’re right. Let’s get them out of there. They’ll shoot at the door, likely.”

Just then someone from inside yelled: “This is illegal! Put down the guns. You’re breaking the law. You’re going to be in a lot of trouble when the authorities get here.”

Jim started to laugh but realized that quite a few of the band had actually lowered their weapons, and looked uncomfortable. A glance at who it was told him the story—Australian, urban. Had grown up accepting this. Not like where he came from.

For a moment he was worried. But the old bastard’s laughter broke that, and then the laughter spread. “It’s been two years, sonny,” said the old bastard. “They ain’t come before, and I reckon most of them that wasn’t zombies already got et by their friends, ’cause you parasites can’t feed yourselves. Now, we’ll burn you out of there if we have to, but our people want their guns back.”

“And everything else you stole,” said one of the people who had been there from before the Roydon group arrived. “You told us you were going to see we all got a fair share, but you just kept it all!”

An angry rumble came from the crowd. Plainly that had struck a chord of resentment.

“Burn them!” shouted someone.

And the crowd took up the chorus, some hitting the corrugated iron walls with sticks and fists.

“Give ’em five and they’ll unblock the other door and bolt out of it,” said the old bastard. So, he and Jim—and a few others moved around quietly as people beat on the main door.

Sure enough, they came sneaking out, the three of them. Shady, Swinner and Burroughs, all trying to hide behind each other. All armed to the teeth.

“All right,” said the old bastard. “Drop the guns and you can go.”

“I’ll drop you first,” snarled Burroughs. “Shady, cover them.”

Shady had, however, fallen over Swinner, while trying to get behind her.

But Burroughs had his rifle to his shoulder, muzzle raised. “You must be the one we left behind. We should have hunted you down.”

“Yeah,” said the old bastard. “And I should have shot you instead of notching your ear when you come sneaking around the first time. I used to work on that cray boat, once. You must have killed old man Harrison to get it, ’cause he’d never part with it. What happened? Did he rescue you—and you and your friends killed him for the boat?”

Burroughs flushed. “He was dead. We found the boat.”

“Liar,” said the old bastard. “I should have shot you.”

“And I should have had my men hunt you down. We were going to. But I can make up for it by shooting you now.” He was plainly working himself up to it.

The old bastard grinned his skew grin. “I don’t miss at this range. You shoot me, we both end up dead. I’m an old man. And my medication run out a while back. I’m dead, pretty much anyway. My family and my kids are dead. This ugly lot are all I have got. I got nothing to lose, shooting you. But if you drop it you might get to live.”

“And if you shoot him,” said Liz, from the side, shotgun raised. “You’re going to die, even if he doesn’t kill you. I can’t miss from this range either.”

“But if you drop it, you get to walk away. You can go to your boat at Long Point,” said the old bastard, reasonably. “Go anywhere you please. Take your friends along. Or you can die right here.”

“Fred. Please. Let’s just go,” said the “mayor,” looking terrified.

“This is illegal,” said Shady, sitting up and trying to look like a police officer, albeit one with brown trousers and wild eyes.

“So was what you did to Buzz Pasloe. You shot him,” said one of the crowd, which had rapidly come around.

“Go while the going’s possible,” said the old bastard, persuasively.

“I’ll drive them to their boat,” said old Mick. “Give me an excuse to drive the truck.”

“Like you need an excuse,” said Liz. Mick had been a trucker, once, who had come across to drive cattle to the ferry.

“You’ll let us go?” said Burroughs, wavering.

“My word on it,” said the old bastard. “Your boat is ready to launch, on the trailer. Mick will push it out for you. Just drop the guns, and you can go.”

“Could we take the cray-boat?” asked Swinner. “It’s bigger.”

“It’s on the sand with the tide,” said the old bastard. “Now drop that gun, Burroughs. It’s over. Take yourself, your friends and get on the boat.”

Reluctantly, Burroughs put the rifle down.

“Walk away from them. Hands in the air,” said the old bastard.

They did as they were told, and the old bastard got Jim to search them. He found two handguns, one in a concealed shoulder holster, and one tucked into a waistband and hidden under a shirt.

“Interesting,” said the old bastard, evenly. We all knew that, given the laws in Australia, those were either illegal or police weapons.

“I am a police officer. I have a permit,” said Shady.

“You’re a weed merchant who came to the island to sell speed for weed,” said someone, tersely. “And that’s not the make or model the cops carry.”

“Whatever he was, he’s out of here now,” said the old bastard. “Anyone else want to go with them had better go to the truck. Liz . . . you and Jim and Sal. You watch their stash of stuff. We want our guns and food back, and we’ll try and see everyone else gets a fair shake.”

He set off with the former mayor, chief of police and manager of New Hobart—and two others that survived uninjured sitting on the back end of the six-ton truck, with young Mick and the old bastard sitting backs to the cab, keeping shotguns pointed at them, while old Mick drove.

It didn’t take long before they were back. In the meanwhile, Jim found himself doing quite a lot of talking. Everyone wanted to know who the old bastard was. After a couple of years . . . Jim found he knew a lot and a little. He could—and did—tell them that the old bastard had taught them how to live off the land sea, that he never stopped doing something with his hands—even when he was sitting with his feet up.

“We got lucky. We’d all have died without him. And I don’t know his name. He just said to call him ‘that old bastard,’ and in time for tucker.”

“So . . . he was your leader?” asked someone.

“Um. No,” said Jim. “He just did stuff and expected you to keep up. And we did, because, I don’t know, we had to. I don’t think we really had a leader . . . there were only a few of us. We all worked. The old bastard would tell us when we were being dumb, or how we should do things. We’d argue, but mostly we ended up doing things his way. See, he knew how to do a lot of what we needed. He’s old, done a lot, and grew up poor and needing to grow, preserve, hunt. He was a fisherman, a farmhand.”

“I thought he must be a soldier. Or have been one,” said someone.

Jim shrugged. “He went to Vietnam, but he reckons he was a storeman, and a driver. A REMF. Says someone had not to have been a hero. I suppose he must have learned something.”

They asked about how they lived on their little island.

Jim was proud to explain. “We . . . we were actually better off than you seem to be. We piped our water, and we have a solar panel and a battery. It only does lights, but we always had someone reading aloud to us while we worked. We had fourteen gardens in case something happened to one. You seem to be growing half the potatoes we did. We had lots of food stocked, and spare time to work on projects. I guess because we were all working. Not carrying water a gallon at a time.”

“Have you got space for more people?” asked one of the women.

Jim took a deep breath. “Honestly. Maybe a few. But you’d have to ask him.”

But when the old bastard got back, he short-circuited that question. “Nope. Well, you can go. But I am not going back. Maybe to fetch stuff.” He scowled at Liz. “You’re right. We need more people. It seems like winter pretty well killed the infected, and we can run bait traps until we’re sure.”

He took a deep breath. “Them lot we just got rid of . . . well, that woman said something. About the mainland and getting radio messages.” There was a sudden silence. “Seems like other people are coming together. We’re going to need more than ten, if you’re not going to end up as slaves. We need more land, more people, and a lot more guns. There’s gonna be people with better than our rifles. But if every man and woman and child can shoot back, they’ll pick on a softer target, or trade instead of raiding.”

“You mean . . . there might really be an Australian government trying to get things back together? And they didn’t tell us?” exclaimed one of the crowd.

The old bastard shrugged. “Why would they? But forget this ‘Australian government’ story. That’s the past. No one is coming to look after you. You got to look after yourself. Anyway. We’ll try the radio on the cray boat. If anyone is broadcasting, we’ll be able to find out more.”

They did. The people of the settlement of New Hobart . . . discovered they were not alone. No, no one was coming to rescue them, but there were other people out there, some flourishing, some taking in new refugees. It was going to take a while to process it all, but somehow with it came the realization they’d moved from merely surviving to rebuilding.

That night they ate as a huge group. Some people contributed tinned luxuries from the divvied up loot the “government” had kept—but mostly they ate roasted meat—wallaby. And fish. And squid. It turned out that some of the New Hobart “citizens” could fish, and a few had done some hunting, but the “government” had had them confined to the farm area, growing crops on a field too small to feed everyone. When turned loose—and knowing there was a real future to be built, there was a great deal of knowledge and expertise there. You could literally see the idea that they could do more than survive; they could do quite well, germinate . . . and begin to grow like a weed. There was no one making the decision for them, but it seemed that most people wanted to stay close, even if they didn’t have to.

Later that evening, Liz handed a bottle over to the old bastard. “There are more. I’ve got a stock now. Half the old people on the island were on some kind of blood-pressure treatment, you silly old bastard. They’re dead, but you are not and we need you. I went into the remains of the town this afternoon. The pharmacy was looted—but they were looking for exciting drugs, not blood-pressure treatment. The diet on Roydon probably helped, but you won’t eat sensibly. So, take pills. I need you alive.”

“So do we all,” said Jim. “They might come back.”

The old bastard shook his head. “You’re going to say I’m a bastard, but it’s easterly blowing—offshore, and they got maybe half an hour’s fuel. Remember, I went over that boat on my way down.” He threw two bungs on the table. “They thought they had guns on the boat and could come back tonight. But you need to remember to check your bungs and fuel before you go to sea.”

Jim stared at him. “You’re a bastard.”

The old man nodded. “Yep. Told you that. But killing them here would have caused more problems. And they weren’t just going away. So, I dealt with it, rather than you. So, you don’t need me. I can get on with dying.”

Jim bit his lip. “We still do. You know things the rest of us never learned. Things we won’t find in books.”

“Not about electric,” said the old bastard. “Can you get it going, Jim? It won’t last forever but there’s a lot we can do if we have that. There’ll be fuel, but it is getting old, like me. Don’t work properly. The diesel lasts a bit, but petrol don’t.”

Jim nodded. “Something anyway. The power station would need more diesel than we can afford to use. But there is the solar plant, and the lithium-iron batteries should be fine. Just the powerlines need work. And I am a linesman, after all,” said Jim. “Never thought I’d work at it again.”

“Reckon there’s enough solar stuff to last a few years, until we get other things going,” said the old bastard. “You’ll be busy. No gas, no diesel, no petrol . . . ”

“Excuse me, but we can make fuel,” said the fellow from Prime Seal who had inserted himself into their conversation. “We can do alcohol, methane and even hydrogen. We probably can’t transport it or store it, but we can make it and use it. It was an interest of mine, and I’ll get it going for you.” He’d decided he wanted to be part of the Roydon crew. Well. Most of them had. They’d suddenly discovered that what their lives were missing was an old bastard.

The old bastard shook his head. “Not for me. You get it going for you, and people will pay you—especially if you can make a way to cut wood and to power transport, as long as it lasts. Don’t know what we’ll do for money in the end, but they’ll probably give you tucker. Or something useful. Ammo. Clothes. Be a while before we have our own wool, so clothes will sell,” said the old bastard.

“Collect old clothes is about all I can do,” said one of the women. “I was an accountant.”

That got a laugh. “Well,” said the old bastard. “There’s always labor. People always need that. Or you could start a pub. That’ll need an accountant, and the brewing part isn’t hard. Good grog is, but people will drink rotten stuff until they can get something decent. And there’s fruit and grapes in gardens I reckon. Those can be picked over, if you don’t get shot in the process.”

“I think that’ll happen after the drinking,” said someone with a grin. “And better to save the bullets for wallaby.”

The old bastard said: “Get farming instead. I took my boat along the coast after you lot left with the cray boat. I saw cows. And at least one horse. There might even be sheep somewhere. Some of the islands had sheep. And every farmhouse is going to have some guns, some ammunition. I don’t think this ‘government’ moved much away into the country. They looted the towns and looked for smoke to find people. There’ll be other people on some of the other islands maybe. They might join us, if life is good here. Trade with us anyway. We need numbers, numbers with guns and some kind of communications before someone comes over to attack us.”

“There’s not a lot of people. Not here, not elsewhere,” said Liz. “Humans are not short of land, for a long time. There’s much more loot in the cities—what is left of them. Why bother to go conquering?”

The old bastard looked thoughtful. “Hmm. Not land maybe, but cultivated land? Our crops, our livestock? There’s always going to be those who think stealing easier than working, Lizzie. And there’s sure to be others wanting to make us do the work. Thing is, people always take the easy path. And if they got to choose between trading or working for something, it’s going to be a long rocky road before anything but the bastards getting shot is going to change their minds to choose the hard way. They’ll always pick on the soft target first. When everyone shoots back—they’ll go elsewhere, or trade or work. And as for government, time ’straya learned what my people learned long back. Don’t trust ’em: they’re mostly thieves. Look, when we get big enough numbers of people, government is like the clap in dockyard whores. You end up getting it. But while every man and woman is armed they’ll do some work instead of just stealing.”

Jim touched the rifle on his shoulder. “It’s something my forefathers should have learned. My kids are not going to forget it. And that the old bastard usually knows what is going on.”


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