The Turn Of The War Tide

Suprise?

"Oh! My! God! H-how? Where have you been? What did they do?" she sobbed.

"Whoa! Slow down cuz. I think we shouldn't talk about it all right now." he explained "As theirs too much to say and also it's a bit- a bit......" he trailed off, obviously a bit stressed and shock.

"Nerveracking?" I suggested, trying to help out Rhowan; my friend and my bestie's cousin.

"Yes! And yeah, it's slightly traumatic as well but I cam summerise up what happens for you's quiclky. I was at school doing stuff as you know seniors do when the lockdown started, soon we were being escorted to trucks" he looked over his shoulder and jerked a thumb behind him" like this one which escorted us to the showgrounds where they took our names and asked what our professions and or skills were. I said I was good with making cloths and a a few weeks till I finished school. They told me to grab some personal essentials like clothes and toileters off a table and to report to a tent with damaged soilders gear at 8am after breakfast to which he gave me a name tag with English and Russian writing. The first day they had me fixing uniforms. The next day they brought in double the amount of clothes and told me to be done by the end of the day. I told them to get stuffed and the officer in the tent slapped me; told me do it otherwise I wouldn't be eating for weeks and given a worse duty. So I thought if I was in this good of a position I should put it to use and started secretly combing through uniforms for information and kept them. Until yesterday they herded some of us up onto trucks and told us that we'd be working out on the feild since they couldn't make it back to town" he recalled.

I suspected we had something to do with that. Flic hugged her cousin even more, threatening anyone who gave them suspicious looks. Some medics came over and checked on Rowie before assuring Felicity they wouldn't harm him as they took him back to a truck. Marcus let out a laugh and yelled after him.

"I suspect that your cousin can answer some of your questions! Especially why your out here!" he laughed.

"They've got nowhere to go. We can't bring them back to our camp and we can't get through to Brisbane, so where do we place them for now?" Zephyr said in a low serious whisper once we were back at our truck.

"We can't take them with us. But weay just have to leave them here" Marcus suggested.

They did have nowhere to go. We couldn't just leave them here; let alone take them with us. It would attract to much attention from passing enemy ships or planes. If we left them here they were at risk of being found and rounded up again or taking on soilders that find them. It was a serious dilemma. And we were all divided. Right now we were sitting ducks on the road and those soilders most likely have given away our location to their buddies so we all agreed on moving to a safer location at the Keppel Bay Marina. There wasn't much room with all of us excluding the POW's we rescued; with them everyone was cramped. At last we arrived at the Marina at noon. The soilders unloaded the trucks and started stashing supplies incase we couldn't get over to the islands while we helped the POW's settle in to the hotel on the beachside while Marcus and Zeph took details and asked questions.

Me, the rest of the group and Rowie headed up to room that was farmilar to me and without warning after the door was unlocked I headed straight for the bathroom attached to it. I heard the others exclamations as they looked around before hastily following after me only to find me relaxing on a made bed, falling asleep.

I heard Flic's unamused voice say "You've been here before, haven't you? This was your room. That's why you remembered the layout and made your way to the bed".

"Yes and no. It's been over- six years.
.........wow! It'd been six years since my uncle's wedding here" I suddenly surprised them when I got up off the bed and went to the windows facing the front garden incased by trees and bushs to make a little oval of unclosed grass" That's where they got married and I had to do that awful stand up and recite a verse for them. Lucky I practiced, the others didn't. The last time I saw you know who freely and out of the hospital" I said pointing before making my way back to the bed and flopping onto it.

Some of them had confused looks on their faces but they knew I was talking about someone I had lost. Felicity's face was just blank and expressionless. But those eyes; those eyes knew and they were dark with unforg sympathy. I couldn't even utter his name, this place had such a grip on me as it ess one of the last places with happy moments around him.

"It's okay bestie. I know hoe you kinda feel. Come here!" was all I heard before a grunt left Felicity's nostrils and I opened my eyes to Flic in the air diving head first at he bed.

At me. Instinctively I retracted my legs and curled up on the bed just as she landed causing me to bounce up a bit like those blob launchers in the water. I screeched in response and rolled over to lay over the top over her on my stomach. To disgust Ivy enevn more Felicity very rarely wrapped me into a hug. Ivy grumbled something before shouting "Geronimo!" and launched herself onto the two of us. We'd only just gotten over the pain she'd cause when another body landed on us, than another. Everyone pilled in like a dog pile until it was just Rhowan left and he gave a litlle shrug before leaping up and then at us as we all freaked out amd tried to get away.

"Rhowan, you know you and the other Prisoners Of War can't come with us and they can't stay here either" I finally revealed to him.

"I know, I figured it out when you didn't let us stay at the Marina. Not that Felicity would have let you." he laughed; everyone chuckled "But why can't we take them to Brisbane?" he asked.

"Because the same reason you where heading along the highway away from town and along the coast to Brisi. The Russians have sprung up camps around Brisbane and are trying to force their way in but for every group we push back about ten meters is lost since another group will come in and take that territory while we push. That same reason" I explained to him.

Felicity's voice was very tentative but also carrying since she was asked about a touchier subject " What did you find in the unfiroms? Did you bring anything with you?".

Rhowan seemed to space out for a few seconds then his dirtied hand crept towards his right pocket "I- i was going to hide these somewhere better if they went to check my pockets but I had no time;only enough to stuff them into my pocket before I was escorted to the truck and a guard kept glancing around us  every couple minutes roughly. I could never pinpoint an exact time when he would look and I think he made sure of that".

He handed Flic a small bunch of folded papers and passed a relatively new one to me. I opened it and using my precious phone data I snsped a photo of the Russian to translate it. What came up left me shocked; not even a word to them and I was already heading to find Marcus and Zephyr.