‘Hold on real tight!’ I yelled at Robyn, then hit the brakes with everything I had. I used the handbrake as well as the foot brake. The truck skidded, went sideways, nearly rolled. It was still skidding when I heard the satisfying crump of the car behind hitting us on our rear right side, then saw it spinning out of control away into the darkness. Then it rolled. We came to a stop and sat there, rocking heavily. The engine stalled again and for a minute we were a perfect target. I furiously wrenched at the key, so hard that the soft metal actually twisted in my grip. The second car was braking and almost stationary, but about a hundred metres away. The truck started. I rammed it into gear. More flashes of gunfire came from the second car, and suddenly there were two bangs from underneath me. I swung the truck onto the road and hit the accelerator, but the truck was tilting and sluggish, wallowing all over the road and bumping badly. ‘What’s wrong?’ Robyn said. She looked scared, unusual for Robyn.

‘They’ve shot some tyres out.’ Robyn’s mirror was still there and I glanced at that. The second car had started again and was coming on fast. Robyn was looking through the little rear window.

‘What’s in the back here?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t look.’

‘Well there’s something there. How do you operate the tipper?’

‘That blue lever I think.’ Robyn grabbed it and heaved it down. The second car was now trying to pass us. I was swerving all over the road to prevent him, a process made easier by the punctured tyres. Then something did start pouring out of the back, with a slow sliding noise. I still don’t know what it was, gravel or mud or something. In Robyn’s mirror I saw the car brake so hard it nearly stood on its head. A minute later we were at Three Pigs Lane.

I slewed the wheel around and blocked the lane with the truck as we’d agreed. For a moment I couldn’t see Homer. I felt sick. All I wanted to do was fall on my knees in the dirt of the lane and vomit. Robyn had total faith though. She was out of the truck and running to the shovel, helping Lee to stand. Then I saw Homer, backing dangerously fast, without lights, towards us. I jumped out of the truck and ran at him as he brought the car to a wobbling halt, just a few metres away from me and in the gutter. Everyone seemed to be reversing tonight, and not very efficiently. I heard a bang, and another bullet whirred past me, somewhere in the darkness. Homer was out of the car. It was a station wagon, a BMW, and he was opening the tailgate and helping Lee in. Robyn left him to it and ran to the front passenger door, opening it, and the back one for Homer. A bullet hit the car, smashing a hole in the rear passenger door. Only one person seemed to be firing at us, using a handgun. It was quite possible that there’d only been one person in that second car. Homer had left the driver’s door open and the engine running. I clambered in, out of the gutter, and looked around. Lee was in, Homer was getting in, Robyn was in. Close enough. I pushed it in gear, not adjusting well after the truck, and using too much force on the clutch and the gearstick. We kangaroo-hopped out of the gutter. There was a cry of pain from the back of the BMW. I put the clutch back in and tried again, this time getting a smoother takeoff, then lost yet another side window and windscreen, to a bullet that must have angled past me.

We’d been lucky, but when anyone’s shooting at a wildly moving target in the dark the luck should favour the target. I knew that from hunting trips. Sometimes I’d have a shot at a hare or rabbit that the dogs were chasing. It was a waste of ammunition, and dangerous for the dogs, but fun. I only ever got one, and that was a fluke. These guys had actually done pretty well in their attempts at us. They weren’t to be underestimated Some of them might be undertrained, like Mr Clement had said, but they’d given us a hard time.

The BMW was flying. It was a dirt road, but straight, and smoother than most. ‘Nice car,’ I said to Homer, glancing at him in the rear vision mirror.

He gave an evil grin. ‘Thought I might as well get a good one.’

‘Whose is it?’

‘I don’t know. One of those big houses by the golf course.’

Robyn, beside me, turned and looked to the rear of the car.

‘You OK, Lee?’

There was a pause, then Lee’s quiet voice, which I felt like I hadn’t heard in a year. ‘Better than I was in that bloody truck.’ We all laughed, loudly, like we had a lot of nervous energy.

Robyn turned to me, took my helmet off and started inspecting my forehead as I drove. ‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘Too distracting.’

‘But there’s blood all over your face and shoulders.’

‘I don’t think it’s anything.’ I certainly hadn’t felt a thing. ‘It’s probably just a bit of glass. Head wounds always bleed a lot.’

Already we were approaching Meldon Marsh Road. I slowed down and turned the lights off, leaning forward to concentrate. Driving at night without lights is horribly hard and dangerous, but I figured we’d lost the element of surprise that we’d had with the trucks. These guys would have radios. We had to rely on concealment now.

To drive directly to my place would have taken about forty or fifty minutes. But we still had a couple of hours of darkness left, and we’d agreed when making our plans, back at Robyn’s, to use that time. It was a choice of two evils. To go straight home would make it too easy for them to track us. To stay on the roads would expose us to enemy patrols. We could have hidden up somewhere and gone to my place the next night, but we figured that with every passing day, the grip these people had on the district would tighten. And after the damage we’d just done to them they might well bring in more troops by the next night.

Besides, we all wanted so desperately to get back to Fi and Corrie and Kevin, and to the sanctuary of Hell. We couldn’t bear the thought of another day so far away from it. We wanted to get as close as we could. It took all our self-control to take a roundabout route now.

Homer’d had the time, as he sat silently waiting in the BMW, parked in the shadows of Three Pigs Lane, to work out a rough route, and now he started calling out instructions from pencil marks he’d made on a map. ‘This takes us past Chris Lang’s place,’ he said, as we drove as fast as I dared along Meldon Marsh Road. ‘We’ll change cars there. If the keys aren’t in the cars, I know where they’ll be.’

‘Why are we changing cars?’ asked Lee’s tired voice from the back. I think he was dreading another painful move.

Homer explained. ‘Our plan is to go up to Hell in four-wheel drives and hide out there for a while. The Landrover’ll be packed and ready, at Ellie’s. That means we’ll be dumping whatever car we’ve used to get there. Now if, a day or two later, a patrol arrives at Ellie’s and finds a shot up BMW, that they’ve been searching the district for ... well, some very nasty things could happen to Ellie’s parents.’

There was a pause, then Lee said, ‘Chris’s parents have got a Merc.’

‘That did cross my mind,’ Homer admitted. ‘And they’re overseas, so the Merc’s probably in the garage, not at the Showground. I don’t think Chris has got his licence yet. If we’re going to have a war we may as well have it in style. Next left, El.’

We arrived at Chris’s ten minutes later, racing straight past the house to the garage and sheds, about a hundred metres away. We were getting tired, not just with physical exhaustion but with the emotional intensity of the last few hours. We climbed stiffly out of the car. The others went looking for the Merc while I went to the back of the BMW to talk to Lee. I was shocked by how pale he looked; his hair was blacker and his eyes bigger than ever. He smelt even worse than we did, and there was a new dark red stain on his bandage.

‘You’re bleeding,’ I said.

‘Only a little. I’d say a couple of stitches probably came apart.’