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<h1>9</h1>

<p><em>August 1. 12 noon:</em></p>

<p>"Just climb down," Billy prodded, nudging Doug with his elbow. "Quick, before somebody sees us." The pair of them were up on the orchard wall, fifteen feet above the ground and it would have been an impossible climb but for the solid swathe of old ivy that festooned the stone. From up on the top, the thick growth helped hide them from view. An expanse of dead straight rows of vegetables, angled away towards the far wall, thick lines of lettuce, curly red or tight green footballs of new cabbage. There were beans on wires reaching for the sky, stalks of rhubarb as thick as a boy's arm.</p>

<p>They had taken a detour back down to the Ladyburn stream, rather than going up through the barwoods onto the high moor, for no particular reason except that it was a tiring hike up the hill and much easier going down in the shadow of the valley. Old Leitch the gamekeeper might chase boys off if he came across them, but it was hardly likely he was down in the gardens of Overbuck Estate, and so as long as they were quiet and careful, they'd be in and out again before anybody noticed.</p>

<p>"It's too high," Doug protested, "and there's no way back up." Doug had never liked heights.</p>

<p>"Course there is," Billy insisted, urging him over the parapet. " Look over there. They've planted trees against the wall. It's just like a ladder. No bother at all."</p>

<p>The pear tree espaliers slanted upwards, hugging the stonework, laden with half-sized stone-hard fruits. It was far too early in the season for them to be worth stealing but there were richer pickings on a hot August day and for the five boys, out on an adventure after the claustrophobic and tense summer months of the school holidays, they were too sweet to resist.</p>

<p>Already Tom, never one for taking huge risks, was crawling along by the wires where the tall raspberry canes nodded in a warm eddy of wind. Beyond him, Danny and Corky were leaning over the blackcurrant bushes. Billy could see their hands peck out and come straight to their mouths and in his imagination he could already taste the bitter-sweet juice bursting on his own tongue.</p>

<p>"Well, I'm not waiting around," Billy asserted. He scrambled along the top of the wall. Somewhere in the distance, in the shadow of the massive conifers, great Californian redwoods that towered over the water garden, a pheasant squawked its metallic challenge and overhead a wood pigeon murmured softly. Billy gingerly slid his feet over the other side and lowered himself down, tongue hanging out as he concentrated on finding a toe-hold. He dropped down another few inches and his tee-shirt, the kind of thing they used to call a
    <em>Sloppy-Joe</em> scraped upwards, exposing his belly to the rough sandstone.</p>

<p>Finally his questing foot found a convenient cross-wire and he lowered himself backwards. Further along the wall, a lead fastener pulled out of its niche, instantly slackening all the tension out of the wire. Without warning Billy dropped almost a yard before it pulled him up sharp, wide eyed and heart-thudding. The wire sprung back, vibrating like an old guitar-string.</p>

<p>"Fu..." Billy mouthed, hands scrabbling for the edge of the wall, in case the wire snapped under his weight, but by luck, it held fast.</p>

<p>"Told you it was too high," Doug told him.</p>

<p>"Oh don't be such a
    <em>crapper</em>," Billy shot back. The colour was coming back into his face after the fright. "Honest to God, Bugs, I never saw a bigger scaredy cat in my life."
</p>

<p>"Don't call me that,
    <em>fatso</em>." Doug snapped back. He forgot his complaint and scrambled over the top, feeling for handholds. Billy climbed down the pear tree, one step at a time, trying to avoid the support wires. Over on the far side, they could hear somebody talking or singing, but there was nobody in sight.
</p>

<p>"Come on Doug," Billy cajoled when he'd reached the bottom. After a few moments, Doug carefully turned himself around and got onto sturdy lateral branch. Whispering loudly, Billy directed his feet, but it was slow going. It took several minutes of prompting and persuasion to get talk him down to earth. They finally reached the raspberry patch and found Tom stuffing himself with long pink fruits and the two of them tried to make up for lost time.</p>

<p>After ten minutes of pillaging, Tom asked where the others were.</p>

<p>"I saw them down at the far side," Doug said, his face stained with juice, making his chin as red as his big ears. "They getting tore into the goose-gogs, but I think they went through the door in the wall over there."</p>

<p>"What for?"</p>

<p>Doug shrugged. Billy was shoving raspberries into his mouth like a harvesting machine, making juicy little slurping noises all the while. He was enjoying this.</p>

<p>Danny and Corky stopped just beyond the green door at the far end of the vast greenhouse which took up half the length of the entire orchard wall. The panes had been whitened with the same chalky material that greengrocers used to advertise their prices on shop windows but there were a couple of clear patches which showed green shadows behind. Corky pushed himself up against the glass to cut off his shadow and peered inside. He turned and tapped Danny on the shoulder, eyes wide and mouth set into a perfect circle. Danny leaned, shaded his eyes and took in the enormous grape vine stretching from one end of the greenhouse to the other. For a second he saw nothing but a thick canopy of leaves and then the picture jumped into clear focus. Immense bunches of grapes, great purple inverted pyramids, hung down by the dozen. The grapes themselves looked as big and as succulent as ripe plums.</p>

<p>"I want some of them," Corky said. Danny nodded. He'd never seen such a wealth of exotic fruit, and he was sure nobody else had. If they were lucky, they'd maybe get an apple to eat in the schoolyard, but grapes, they were for rich folk. And nobody came any richer, in these parts, than the folk from Overbuck House.</p>

<p>The greenhouse door was unlocked and they let themselves in, looking apprehensively over their shoulders, every nerve alert and tingling, ready for the shout of rage that would follow discovery. Off to the side, they could see Billy's red shirt against the green of the raspberries. Inside the greenhouse the air was hot damp and just how Danny imagined it would feel inside a jungle in Africa. The vine was festooned with grapes, groaning and sagging with them. They seemed to glow with inner fire under the bloom on the top curves.</p>

<p>"We could take hundreds and they'd never even notice," Corky said. "But we'll need something to carry them in." He went out, beads of sweat already trickling down his temple and into the dry air outside. "Find a bag or something," he said, looking beyond the door. "Or a potato sack would be even better. We could carry more."</p>

<p>Danny thought they'd already done pretty well with the raid on the general store. They'd all shared the chocolate, giggling at the reward for mischief, none of them feeling particularly guilty at swiping a few cans from such bounty. Here was greater bounty, rich and lush; beyond their expectation. They went through the green door, following a line of nodding scarlet poppies towards the yew hedge.</p>

<p>"They must be as rich as sin," Danny said. The grey baronial columns of Overbuck house towered over the dark green of the tight clipped hedge, spiral turrets pointing to the sky.</p>

<p>"Richer than that," Corky said. "I read about them in the library. They've got millions and millions. My old man said they made their money out of making gas for the Germans to use and he says they should be strung up and bayoneted, but the book says it was guns and dynamite, and I reckon that's probably right. My old man doesn't read books unless they're about pigeons."</p>

<p>He turned, face earnest. "There was a picture of them from way back, before the first war, in the olden days. There were about a hundred people working in the house, just to look after the family, like make the beds and polish their shoes and even pour their drinks and wipe their arses."</p>

<p>He grinned. "They even had somebody to heat the bed up for them if it was old. Can you imagine that? Having as much dough?"</p>

<p>Corky raised up his hand, as if holding a glass. "More
    <em>cavvy-yarr</em>, Jeeves," he said in a fake toff's accent. "And light me a cigar."</p>

<p>"You don't smoke," Danny said, returning the grin.</p>

<p>"I would if I had their fortune," Corky vowed. "Great big cigars."</p>

<p>The wealth of the place was unimaginable, beyond any of their dreams. The boys followed the track down to the stables and crept through the tack room, still buzzing with the delicious sense of danger. If the gardener caught them, they'd get a boot right up the backside, just for starters, but it was worth it. This was a fairyland, a film set. No money had ever been spared on Overbuck estate.</p>

<p>One of the dusty tack rooms was open, filled with sawhorses and horse-jumping fences. In the corner a trunk sat angled in against a horse-box. It was a wide, curve-topped wooden affair, bound with ornate metal ribs, and looked like every chest ever described in a pirate story.</p>

<p>"Treasure," Corky whispered. He pushed against the lid and to their surprise it creaked open. Corky got it up to head height and flipped it back slowly, letting it settle against the cobwebs on the wall. A shaft of light angling through the window made something glitter and for an instant Danny thought that they had indeed found treasure, but it was only the top of an old decanter, chipped on one side. It lay on a pile of old books.</p>

<p>"Some treasure," Danny said, but already Corky was turning them over in his hands.</p>

<p>"Celtic myths and legends," he said, leaning over to see the cover. "Must be about football."</p>

<p>"No," Danny said. "It's Irish stories. They're pretty good. I read some of them, remember I told you about Cuchullain the Hero. He beats superman any day."</p>

<p>Corky flipped the book open and a monstrous face, a witch from a bad nightmare glared out from an old woodcut print.</p>

<p>"The Morrigan," Corky read the caption. "The Irish goddess of destruction." He turned to the other boy. "Look at the mug on that. Looks like a really mean old bitch. Look Dan, she's a dead ringer for Sister Julia."</p>

<p>Danny suddenly burst into a fit of the giggles. The hideous face with feral eyes and the jagged, monstrous teeth looked nothing like the little nun who ran the school, but she looked just as fierce.</p>

<p>"<em>Wheesht</em> man, you'll get us both hung." Corky stuffed the book down the waistband of his jeans. On the wall, an old tattered nosebag hung from a nail and he reached to unhook it. They crept back up towards the greenhouse, keeping to the shaded side of the stables and just before they reached the green door in the wall, Danny heard somebody talking beyond the corner of the wall where the flower-garden sloped down to a shorn smooth lawn shadowed by trees. At first he almost called out, thinking it was the other three coming back. A shadow appeared, just a motion seen through a teardropped fuschia bush and a man came walking towards them, his head just turned away from them. Corky spun and pulled Danny backwards, yanking him by the collar of his tartan shirt back into a stand of flowering shrubs.
</p>

<p>The man was tall and had short blonde hair slicked back like an old movie star, though he was still young. He was dressed like a cricketer, all in white, with a pullover draped casually over his shoulders. It flapped behind him as he came striding up the path, his face sunburn-red.</p>

<p>"Fucking little whore," he spat, managing to curse in a way neither of them had heard before. It sounded like a dirty word properly spoken. He went loping down the path, feet crunching on the stone chips. "Dirty common
    <em>slut</em>."</p>

<p>Corky started to rise out of the bushes but this time Danny pulled him backwards as another figure came tripping round the corner. This time it was a woman, maybe in her early twenties. Like the young man, her hair was that rich golden colour, but it fell in waves on either side of her face. She was wearing a pink shirt and a short tennis skirt. The top was open to her navel and as she moved, both boys saw one breast come swinging out. The motion flared the shirt, exposing its twin, both of them pert and firm and uptilted. She strode forcefully along the path, shoes grinding on the gravel, golden hair spilling and bouncing.</p>

<p>To Danny and Corky she was the most beautiful thing they'd ever seen.</p>

<p>"Don't you
    <em>dare</em> call me a whore," she called out in an accent they had only heard in English films. "At least I know which side of the fence I'm on." She stamped her foot, petulant as a little girl, and then went chasing down the path after him. Danny thought she looked like Marilyn Monroe, but even prettier. Much prettier. A waft of perfume drifted towards them, sweet as climbing roses, yet mingled with another scent that none of them recognised, because none of them had ever yet smelled the true scent of a woman.
</p>

<p>They huddled by the door, wondering whether anyone else would come through, but there was no sound on the bath beyond. They sneaked up to the door in the wall. Corky turned to check on the lawn. He stopped and pointed. Another man was standing beside a slowly swinging hammock. His back was to them and he was tucking a shirt into the waistband of his trousers. He was tall and slim and his hair was thick and grey.</p>

<p>"That was Janey Hartfield," Corky said. "What a pair of knockers. Hell's bells, she must have been
    <em>doing</em> it."</p>

<p>"What, right there in a hammock?" Danny was shocked, amazed, strangely excited. He and Corky, they'd both confided in each other that there were a couple of girls who weren't too bad after all. Danny found that in recent months, Claire Brogan had developed an uncanny appeal. Corky admitted that her friend, Ann Coll, who had jet black hair and eyes to match, had the best smile ever. In hat moment, however, both the girls seemed thick and clodden compared to the slender, hot and prancing grace of Janey Hartfield.</p>

<p>"Looks like it," Corky said. "Lucky swine that he is. Look at the age of him. He looks like a colonel in a war movie" Corky nudged Danny forward through the doorway, but Danny's mind right at that moment was elsewhere. It was the first real breast he had ever seen outside of the tattered pages of Parade magazine and he was still stunned by the sight of it. It was the first time he had smelt a perfume just as rich and as heady as that, and the first inhalation of that other special scent. He did not know it, but that smell had affected him more than the perfume. Little hot shivers went juddering inside his belly and for an instant his jeans felt as if they had shrunk. Danny hadn't quite crossed over into puberty yet, but the chemistry was just beginning to happen. He felt as if a warm and soft hand had trailed up the inside of his thighs, making the skin ripple into gooseflesh.</p>

<p>"She's a goddess," he said in a whispering sigh. "A film star."</p>

<p>"No. She's a whore," Corky said. "At least that's what her brother thinks."</p>

<p>"He didn't look happy," Danny said. In his mind's eye he kept seeing that pink nub of flesh swinging out followed by the other one, defying gravity, smooth as polished marble, ruby crowned.</p>

<p>"And with all that money," Corky observed. "If it was me, I'd be laughing every day of the week." "If it was me, if I had all that and I could speak that way, I could do anything." He winked and held up the old canvas nosebag. "But I haven't, so come on, put your eyeballs back in again and let's give him something to worry about."</p>

<p>He pulled Danny's arm and hauled him along the track. Together they went in to the jungly heat of the greenhouse. When they emerged, crouched low, five minutes later, the bag was stuffed heavy with the biggest grapes any of them could remember. They reached the pear tree and clambered up to the wall, giggling all the while, Danny still unable to completely cast away the spell of the fair haired woman, but doing his best. Up and into the waxy ivy leaves, with the release of tension juddering inside them at the thought of almost getting caught and then winning through, they crawled along the wall. Finally, the giggles subsided.</p>

<p>"Where's Billy and the rest..." Danny started to ask when suddenly there was a crash of glass and a loud, hoarse shout.</p>

<p>"Come back here you thieving little cretins," the voice echoed across from beyond the wall. A split second later, Tom came streaking through the other door across the far side of the kitchen garden, the one that led to the majestic main house. Billy came next and went blundering across the cabbage patch. Doug came last, his face white, even in the distance, but in a couple of seconds, elbows pumping, loping with the grace of a startled roebuck, he had overtaken Billy who was an inch or so taller, but carried more weight. In a moment he was right on Tom's heels. The three boys came racing over the rows of lettuce, sending the leaves flying. Doug hit the wall first and came clambering up the pear tree, no hesitation now. He didn't even see the two others lying in the thick carpet of ivy. Tom followed next, gripping his way up the ladderlike branches, climbing quickly, but missing some holds in his panic. His body seemed oddly stiff. Behind him Billy was jabbering.</p>

<p>"Come on,
    <em>Jeesacrist!</em> Move, will you!" The fright had screwed his voice up so tight the words were all jammed up against one another. He gave Tom a shove and the smaller boy almost went flying off the top of the wall. He grabbed for a piece of the ivy, felt it rip away, began to fall backwards, a yell blurting out. Then, quick as a snake, Corky stuck his hand out and snatched his wrist in a tight grip.
</p>

<p>"You were nearly a goner there."</p>

<p>"Stupid fat shite," Tom gabbled at Billy. Doug was halfway down the tangled ivy creeper on the far side. A big lumbering shape came crashing towards them across the garden. Danny thought he saw a gun and simply threw himself off the wall, using the thin ivy twigs to slow his descent. He hit the ground hard but kept his feet. Doug was running for the trees. Danny followed with Tom and Billy pounding after them.</p>

<p>Beyond the wall the angry man's voice followed them, but they were safe. They got to the trees and along the beaten earth path that led down to the stream and splashed over the shallows and up the other side. They didn't stop until they were up on the edge of the woods, sitting on the fallen spruce tree under which they'd hidden the tent and the bags.</p>

<p>Tom was hauling for breath. Billy's face was so red with exertion that it looked as if it might explode.</p>

<p>"Don't you ever call me that again, runt-face," he grunted.</p>

<p>"Stupid fat shite," Tom repeated, this time in a grated whisper. Billy's brows came down, visible now under the fringe of black hair. His eyes went dark.</p>

<p>"Lighten up," Corky said in that reasonable way he had. "We all got away, and look what we've got." He held up the old nosebag. Oily-black grapes seemed to be bursting out of the top, spilling out the way Danny had seen in the old paintings in the art gallery. Big as plums, swollen and somehow magical.</p>

<p>Billy's face lightened and instantly he forgot his gripe with Tom. "Not bad. But you never reached the kitchen, did you?" He turned to Tom and winked. Tom ducked his hand under his shirt and pulled out a bottle that was jammed into his waistband. Now the reason for his stiff-gaited climb was apparent. The wine glowed a deep red in the light of the noonday sun.</p>

<p>"And look at this," Billy said proudly. From under his tee-shirt he produced a rolled up parcel. He unravelled it and it turned out to be a kitchen towel. Even before the full unwrapping occurred, they could smell the juicy tang of roast chicken.</p>

<p>"It was just lying there and the window was open."</p>

<p>"<em>Jeez,</em> if they catch us they'll shoot us." Corky said.</p>

<p>"Not if we get rid of the evidence," Billy replied. "It's our lucky day."</p>

<p>"Lucky bloody <em>year!</em>"</p>

<p>It was less than two hours after they'd run away from Phil and the others at the gate on the farm road, and they had plenty of time. They hauled the tent out from where they'd hidden it and followed the stream up the hill, beyond the fork where the Ladyburn and the Langcraig tributary met, taking the left branch which would angle them north and west and up into the hills, climbing all the while. They stopped about two miles upstream at a natural clearing where the trees had petered out and the sheep had grazed the grass short. They fell on the stolen chicken and the grapes and Billy spent a lot of time with the spike on Tom's old army knife, working the wine-cork free. He finally popped it and took a deep drink, belching and gasping when he finished.</p>

<p>"Great stuff," he pronounced. "It's really hot when it gets down."</p>

<p>Tom and Doug tried it and then Danny took a swallow feeling his taste buds leap at the sudden infusion of a taste he'd never experienced before.</p>

<p>"Don't hog it all," Billy said. "Finders get first dibs." He took another swallow then passed it to Corky. "Here, take a slug."</p>

<p>Corky shook his head. Billy nudged him with the bottle.</p>

<p>"I don't want any," Corky said. "I can get any amount of wine at home." He caught Danny's eye. "It rots your brains out."</p>

<p>"Oh big tough Corky. Don't smoke, don't drink and don't swear," Billy scoffed. "Just what <em>do</em> you do?"</p>

<p>Corky ignored him. Billy pushed the bottle at him again and Corky just hit it with his hand. It went tumbling out and fell on to a stone where it caved in with a liquid crash.</p>

<p>"Flippin' hell," Billy bawled, rising to his feet. "You didn't have to break it." He reached for the bottle, but the bottom had cracked wide open and all the blood red wine simply drained into the grass. Danny watched it go with some regret. His mouth still tingled with the tantalising, rich flavour. He could have used another swallow. He had savoured riches.</p>

<p>Billy sat down again, still complaining, but everybody ignored him. Doug told how a gardener had spotted him under the net of the strawberry beds and how he'd almost got tangled in the mesh in his rush to escape. Billy and Tom had been ahead of them and one of them had put his foot through the glass of a cold frame.</p>

<p>"Could have taken my leg off," Billy said vehemently, forgetting the wine, and now checking his shin for signs of damage.</p>

<p>"Then you could have really hopped along," Doug told him.</p>

<p>"And you could save a fortune on shoes," Tom added.</p>

<p>"And gone in for the hop, skip and <em>hop</em>," Corky said, laughing now.</p>

<p>"Let's go to the hop," Danny chipped in, shoving himself up from the grass and getting onto one leg. He hopped to the edge of the stream and started to sing. "Oh baby....let's go to the hop."</p>

<p>Without any hesitation Tom and Dog followed him, both of them hopping jerkily and singing raucously until Tom lost his balance at the edge of the bank and slid down to land backside foremost in a couple of inches of shallow water at the edge of the stream. By this time they were all laughing, even Billy. Corky was lying back, holding his sides and Doug, who had eaten more grapes than he had consumed in his entire life was almost sick.</p>

<p>They were just boys out on adventure, glad to be away, glad to be out from under. The day stretched ahead of them, all the trouble and excitement behind them. They fooled around by the stream for a while, then climbed up the slope of the far side of the valley to the last fields where they hooked out a few pounds of early potatoes and some carrots, adding to their provisions. In half an hour they were beyond the line of the barwoods now and as they straggled up the natural track made by the cattle coming down to drink, a pair of dark eyes watched their progress from the shade of the tall spruce trees.</p>

<p>The eyes blinked in the glare of the sun reflecting off the water in the pool of stagnant water. The rays heliographed dazzling white light that made the eyes blink furiously against the glare, but they did not turn away from it. The light flashed sharp spears, fading out the colour of the grass and the thick ferns that crowded down the shoulder of the valley. For a second, the scene was fuzzed in monochrome, in layers of misty grey.</p>
<hr/>
<p><em>He was out of</em> this <em>time again. He was back....</em></p>

<p>The light was in his eyes, reflecting from the black space in the floating weed. An iridescent blue damselfly helicoptered in on impossibly slow wings, great black eye-spots winging seductively at the ends where they stroked at the air. The light was in his eyes and the beat of blood sounded like a mill-weir behind his ears.</p>

<p><em>Dung fly. Dung fly.</em></p>

<p>Somebody had spoken. He twisted round as far as he could but the sound hadn't come from Conboy who was slumped against the wedged open door, lying half in and half out of the truck as if and he couldn't make up his mind whether to come in or go. The flies were crawling all over Conboy's eyes and he wouldn't do a thing to make them go away. Black flies, humping and bumping, jittering into the air, in Conboy's eyes and in his mouth and in the other eye in the corner of his forehead. Conboy stank and he hadn't said anything for a while, but maybe he would talk some more later on.</p>

<p>The light was in his eyes and the pounding was in his head and he soared with it.</p>

<p><em>Dung fly. Dung fly.</em></p>

<p>Somebody had called it out. The darkness came and the light went out and he slept for a while and then he remembered the pain. The truck had rolled and bounced and he'd been thrown and now he was stuck under the fallen tree, unable to free himself and the flies had gathered on Conboy and they were crawling on the deep wound that scored down his own thigh on the leg that was trapped in the mud.</p>

<p>Up there in the track, he heard people moving about, and the chants in that strange high and bell-toned language where every word was a shout of anger or a cry of pain.</p>

<p>"All of them," the Sergeant-Major had said. "They're all gun runners and terrorists. Just keep them on the move and that makes sure the Reds got fuck-all to live on. And don't worry, they don't feel the same as you and me. They don't think the same. Don't feel pain and they don't cry tears."</p>

<p>He knew that. They were pagan people. Little barbarians. They had no belief.</p>

<p>Up on the track, people were moving beyond the lush foliage and he shrank back, unwilling to call out yet scared of the next rain and the water level of the pool rising up to his chin or higher still. How long he'd been here he could not say. Two days, maybe three. No longer than a week. The pain in his leg came and went and the buzzing in his head ebbed and flowed and Conboy sometimes looked at him with the flies in his eyes and when night came he could hear his blaspheming voice accusing him.</p>

<p>"Mad bastard. Mad bloody bastard." Conboy's voice grated. The way it had done when he had pulled him back by the arm, reaching to grab the still hot barrel of the rifle.</p>

<p>"Jesus fucking Christ you crazy shit." Conboy had been angry and scared then when he'd come round the side of the hut. Everybody had panicked when the shooting started and a couple of grenades had gone off with sudden concussions punching into the air, converting two of the little huts to fountains of tumbling chaff. Blood was splattered over one wall, a whole line of it. A flop of bodies lay in the corner, beside an overturned basket of grain or rice.</p>

<p>"No comfort," a voice said, deep inside him. "Give them no aid and no comfort."</p>

<p>"Holy mother," somebody had whooped. "Gideon's flipped his fuckin lid."</p>

<p>Gideon they called him. Well they might, for Gideon was a warrior for the lord.</p>

<p>Now Conboy was lying there with his third, ragged eyehole and accusations in his voice.</p>

<p>"You shouldn't have done it, man. Shouldn't have touched the kid."</p>

<p>Pain pulsed up from his leg and he prayed for it to stop and for Conboy to go away and leave him alone and he prayed for mercy the way the priests had shown him. But there was no God to hear him and succour him out here in the heat and the steam. They were down in the valley now.
    <em>The valley of the shadow.</em></p>

<p>
    <em>Dung fly.</em> That's what it sounded like. Over and over, hollow little clucks that sounded like no true language. He heard it again and something touched his cheek. Very slowly he forced his eye to open. The left one was thick and glued and he could feel a fly crawling over it.
</p>

<p>He squirmed awake, fighting off the dreadful tiredness. Two children were standing on the far end of the fallen tree. The girl a head smaller than the boy, both of them tiny and very thin, with long black hair and patina skins. The boy plucked another small berry from an overhanging bush and threw it towards him. It bounced against his forehead.</p>

<p>"Dung fly," the girl said. She pushed at the boy.</p>

<p>He turned, ignoring the pulses of pain and the ripples in the water.</p>

<p>"Do it, Gideon," Conboy said drily. "Get them quick."</p>

<p>The boy's eyes widened and the girl's face puckered as if she would cry. She pulled at his hand, tugging him away. Conboy's flies spun into the air and the boy started back. He jabbered again, a tumble of hard consonants and nasal dipthongs. They turned quickly and went scampering off the trunk, disappearing immediately into the sea of green with hardly a rustle, but he could hear the girl's high-pitched voice for a while until it too faded.</p>

<p>The blackness came back.</p>

<p>"They're all head-hunters," Conboy had said. "They've been at it for millions of years." The flies buzzed around him and his sockets opened wide. "They take the head and eat the brains and that way they got your soul forever. That's what they think. Crazy little shits. You can't tell what they're thinking, but you know what's in their heads. They put people on spikes and watch them die."</p>

<p>The humming sensation was back again, a shuddery little vibration that sometimes lifted him out of the pain and up into cool height where his thoughts were clear and powerful. And he knew that God had abandoned him out here, turned his back on him, but he also knew that now he did not need any other. He had the power of life and death. His given right.</p>

<p>The bamboo crackled and he forced his eye open again. The boy was back and this time there were two men. A third joined them and then a fourth.</p>

<p>"Dung fly," the boy said. That's what it sounded like. He pointed. The men stood together. They wore long skirts made of some rough cloth and they all had the parang blades for cutting bamboo. They regarded him solemnly and in silence. Finally one turned to the rest and made a short speech.</p>

<p>Out of sight, he lifted the butt of the gun and drew it towards him. The pain was high and glassy and he swooped along it.</p>

<p>They all turned round again. They looked like any of the villagers he'd seen in the past six months and each of them looked the same as the rest. Their villages went up in flames and their rice-stores scattered and burned. They were herded into the trucks and taken forty miles up the track to start again, and that made sure they were in no position to help the hordes of Godless commies trying to beat the forces of the good Lord.</p>

<p>One of the men lifted his parang and spoke. Another raised his blade. He watched them coming, through the half closed eyelid. They edged across the log, walking warily, feeling for purchase with their bare feet. The darkness closed in again and the rush of blood pounded behind his ears. The black flicked out and he was up in the cold again and he saw them moving towards him with chopping blades and there was no chance a slant-eyed little heathen was going to take his head.</p>

<p>"Shoot them," Conboy insisted from his vantage point. "I can see them coming. They're coming for you. You should finish what you started,
    <em>Gideon</em>."</p>

<p>The men stopped, eyeing him warily. He squirmed a hand forward, drawing the gun towards him, skating on the smooth ice pain.</p>

<p>The men scattered. One second they were creeping towards him and then they were off and his gun was bucking again and they were screaming in terror and crashing through the green. The smell of cordite mixed with the smell of broken leaves and wet sap and the scent of blood.</p>

<p>"That showed them," Conboy said. "Kill them all and they can't touch us." The flies crawled out with the words, crawled back in again. Conboy's silent yell went on and on. His other eye bristled with life. Up the slope a line of people were moving fast, following a track and he could hear their yelling and he knew they'd come back again.</p>

<p>"We'll be waiting," Conboy said in his buzzing, hazy voice and the darkness began to crowd in again in billows of shadow.</p>

<p>The next time he saw the light he was in a hospital bed with a drip snaking into his arm and a pipe coming out of his leg where the flies had been eating at him and after a while the Major wanted to know who had put the bullet through Conboy's temple. And he couldn't remember anything except the voices and the look in Conboy's eyes as he lay back, talking to him while the flies buzzed.</p>

<p>The sun spangled on the water and the Major's face wavered away and the world gave a little
    <em>shudder</em> and he was back on the hillside watching the line of boys moving slowly, following a track up the slope and he could hear them yelling at each other. The sun was high and it was hot and the buzzing of flies came drowsily down from the trees and he could feel the beat behind his ears again, the surge of hot blood, and the feeling started pushing its way back into him.
</p>

<p>It was hot under his shirt and a trickle of sweat rolled down from his armpit, a cold little line tracing its way across his ribs, and he blinked his eyes hard, once, twice, against the glare and for a moment their cries sounded like...</p>

<p><em>He was going up now, into that cold place where he remembered</em></p>

<p>They sounded like....</p>
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