Daughter of the Regiment Read Online Free Page B

(Mum crushed them so the chooks wouldn’t get the idea of eating the eggs).
    The chooks began to scratch the pile apart, pecking first at the cheese and bread and leaving the greenery till later.
    Harry checked their water (still flowing well) and their food container (still half full), then hesitated. He was almost scared to look through the hole this morning. But of course there was nothing to be scared of. Cissie had been happy yesterday. The sadness was just a dream.
    The chooks were still busy with the scraps at the end of the run. Harry peered through the gloom of the chookhouse. Faintly, in the distance, he could hear the sound of the ute bumping across the ramp as Mum and Dad headed off to town.
    The hole was still there. He’d half hoped it wouldn’t be, but it was shining just the same behind the perches.
    Harry ducked, making sure he didn’t bump his head on the perches. Someone would be sure to notice if his hair was mucky and ask why. Harry pressed his eye to the hole.
    There was no one there.
    What had he expected? Harry thought, almost in relief. Of course there was no one there. They’d only been there yesterday for their picnic. They’d all be back at the garrison today. He’d probably never see Cissie again; never see anything again through the hole, except the creek and trees.
    Wait a second—something moved on the far side of the creek. It leapt out of a bush, then bounded down along the creek bank, out of sight.
    Harry grinned. A wallaby. Maybe it was the zillion times great-grandaddy of the wallaby who lived nowadays over on the flat on the other side of the creek. He could see a wallaby any day he wanted to, without glueing his eye to a hole …
    Someone was coming! That’s why the wallaby had fled. Perhaps it was Cissie and her parents again. Perhaps it was someone else from the camp.
    It was Cissie. But she looked different, thought Harry. She was taller, surely, than she’d been yesterday. How could she have grown so much taller in just a day?
    Maybe it hadn’t been just a day for her, Harry realised. She looked at least eight now, or nine. Maybe more time had passed in her world.
    Cissie came closer. She’d been crying. Her face was swollen, her eyes were red. She breathed in funny shaking gulps, as if it was hard to run and cry as well. She sank onto the rock where she had sat the day before—or had it been two years before, or more—and sobbed.
    It was like his dream, and yet it wasn’t. The dream had been indistinct, as though reality wobbled to and fro. But this was real.
    What was wrong? wondered Harry. Had someone hurt her? Had she quarrelled with her parents? What had happened? Harry pressed his mouth close to the hole.
    ‘Hello!’
    There was no response from the other side of the hole. He tried again. ‘Hello! Cissie! Cissie, can you hear me?’
    The girl kept sobbing.
    It was no use. It was just like it had been yesterday. He could hear her, but she couldn’t hear him. But there must be something he could do to help. Her sobs sounded so desolate.
    ‘Cissie? Cecilia, love.’ The voice sounded out of breath.
    ‘Papa?’ The girl looked up. Both she and Harry had been too intent to hear him come. ‘Papa … I … I’m sorry I ran. I just couldn’t stay there. I just kept on running …’
    ‘It’s all right, Cissie love. I understand.’ The man stepped into view.
    Cissie’s father was short, thought Harry. Why had he thought a soldier must be tall? He had black hair that stuck up like he had run his hands through it, and bushy side whiskers that nearly met at his chin. He looked like he had been crying, too. Did soldiers cry? He knelt by the girl and took her into his arms. ‘Mama is with the angels now.’
    Harry froze under the perches. ‘No,’ he thought. ‘Oh no …’
    ‘I don’t want the angels to have her!’ cried Cissie. ‘She’s mine, not their’s! I want her here. She shouldn’t have gone away.’
    ‘But she can’t be here, my love. She would