She stepped up the bank, raced across the clear bank back towards the thistles and, skirting them, vanished down into the dry creek-bed like a startled bandicoot. With her heart in her mouth she raced back towards the camp. Had the fleetest enemy scout been there to see it is doubtful indeed if he could have caught her.

Little Tuki won through. Suddenly he appeared, racing through the camp as if all evil were at his heels. He stumbled to his knees gasping, “Burradella! Burradella! Enemy! Enemy!”

Burradella was standing gravely there before the boy could talk. Tuki’s heart felt like bursting, but he gasped out then the message from Weetah, word for word.

And the warrior Burradella acted swiftly, and definitely.

“Bunnadunne!”³⁵ he said. “Race to the Black Hill. Tell the look-out to smoke-signal Carrowreer look-out, and the Red Chief away out on Breeza Plains, ‘Enemy been heard talking on river crossing between Burrell Lagoon and Mullibah Flat Lagoon camp. Women and children being rushed to the Secret Camp under guard.’ ” And the swiftest runner of the young warriors was speeding away towards the look-outs.

“Giluram!” ordered Burradella. “Take Kubado and Burowa. Run up the creek. Find Weetah. Carry on swiftly and spy on the enemy. Count tracks. Rush to me some idea of numbers, and who they are, and where camped, if they are camping. If you can’t send me any news, say, not later than three hours after sunset, then don’t send here, for I may be gone. Send a runner straight to the Black Hill and fire-signal me and the Red Chief.”

Handing over the baby to his mother, Giluram seized his weapons and with a grunt to Kubado and Burowa was running up along the creek in anxious haste for Weetah, his prized young wife.

“Quick!” shouted Burradella. “The youngest woman and oldest children make this camp look as if we’ve left it hours ago, just taken our time to walkabout to another camp. We must gain time, make them believe we do not suspect there are any enemies at all anywhere near. Now fix those fires so that they look hours old—when the enemy scouts come there must be no embers left, only warm ashes. Hurry! All other women and children make ready to start for the Secret Camp! Bundle up food and water. Fifteen warriors collect all weapons to accompany the women as guard. Be quick!”

Young women and children ran to the fires, snatching the burning and charred sticks and running out into the lagoon to thrust them deep into the mud, then splashing back to the fires to scrape the live embers on to pieces of bark and hurry these, too, out into the lagoon. Very soon the fires were out, leaving only hot earth and ashes looking as natural as if they had been abandoned hours ago and slowly burnt down to ashes.

The older women and children were collecting their precious belongings and bundling them up for the get-away. Babies wound chubby legs round their mothers’ necks, clinging to their hair while hastily they collected the precious belongings of themselves and their absent husbands—what a howl there’d be if a wife left behind any precious trinket of his! Children were scrambling for the bundles they should carry, everyone fearful of overlooking some family treasure—old Mulliwah nearly in hysterical tears because she could not find the dried eagle’s claw that kept her from harm. The guards were hurrying to collect all weapons left in camp, sorting out all they could carry and fight with, quickly burying the remainder and all camp gear that could not be carried. Then all hands swiftly set to disguise tracks and give the camp every appearance of having been leisurely abandoned for the time being.