I can’t believe the plan worked! We made our escape. I give silent thanks to Holt and then is like we have the same thought. We start to run like mad men through the bush, ignoring the branches and scrub clawing at us, scraping against our skin. We run and keep on running till finally we can’t run no more. We have to stop, double over, trying to catch our breath. Listen for the sound of guards running after us, but the only thing that greet us is the birds, startled from them resting places. Look round in the growing evening gloom. We are surrounded. Only boulders, bush, bramble and tall eucalyptus trees stretching into the distance. For some reason James and me start laughing, we can’t seem to stop. Is not happiness, is more like what happen when you let a rope go slack after you been pulling and tugging at it for a long, long while.

We been travelling through the bush for what seem like a week, but must be only a few days. We keep ourselves hidden. Taking turns to watch, making sure we not heard, not seen. Midafternoon we stumble pon a broken-down hut covered in cobwebs, overgrown with vines and weeds. We watch for a few hours before we decide is safe to enter. The door is stuck so we have to push, heave to get it open. Inside, everything is old and rotten. Look like the people who lived there must be leave in a hurry and no one else seen the inside of it. Not much in the way of supplies. We collect wood, light a fire, cook a bird we knock down with a stone. Sleep indoors for the first time since we escape. Stay another night, before we keep on moving.

One evening, as the last lingering rays of evening settling in, the bush turning a soft yellow, the smell of fire, of food, start drifting towards us. We so hungry, we take a chance, sneak up as close as we can, surprised to see a family of natives made camp. A man, woman, small child and old man sitting round the fire. A couple of spears lay beside them. Behind is a shelter, two animal skins stretched cross the low branches of a tree.