'Mr Harris, can I talk to you for a minute?'

Steve nodded, giving her a shy smile. He gulped down some air and brought up a burp: 'Yeah! Sure!'

Sissy looked startled. He was polite all right, and very good-looking too, but she hoped he wasn't drunk at this early hour.

Steve pointed to his throat, swathed in the loose silken scarf, and said in a slow croak so that she understood, 'I just had – my tonsils – out.'

'Oh! I'm sorry.' Sissy smiled, dimples in her cheeks. 'I was wondering when your friends would be back. I really need to talk to them…' She bit her lip, and went on anxiously, 'There's two local boys going to get themselves hurt – this Malone could even kill them. They're going for him tonight.'

Steve's mouth opened, worked soundlessly. The poor boy's throat must hurt terribly, she thought, because he then scribbled something down on the back of the list and handed it to her. Sissy read it and quickly shook her head, dark curls bounding against her pale neck -'Och no! It's not Malone they're after… It's the stag.'

Steve felt better, he'd put a few pints down, and now he had something to do. It was important, he had to warn the lads about the poachers. He took a heavy swig from a bottle of scotch, and then turned the jeep round to head back to the camp.

Dillon tensed up, listening again for what had sounded like somebody or something disturbing the bracken a few yards away from the hide. Wearing his one-piece DPM combat suit with hood, lying full-length on a bed of straw, he peered through the six-inch gap, trying to discern a distinct shape in the darkness. Not a bloody sausage. Then a low whistle, and Dillon relaxed as Jimmy slithered in, teeth white against his blacked-up face. He crawled between Dillon and Harry, cradling what looked like a brand-new weapon. Dillon stared more closely. An L42 sniper rifle fitted with an IWS night sight.

'I dunno how you do it!' Dillon marvelled, envy in his voice.

'It's all down to contacts,' Jimmy bragged, chuckling.

'That prat Steve come back with the nosh?' Harry grumbled. 'I'm starvin'!'

Dillon reached for the headset as the radio emitted a couple of snaps and crackles. He twisted a dial, boosted the power with the slide control, listening intently for Cliff.

'You know what we should do?' Jimmy ruminated, lovingly running a lightly-oiled rag over the L42. 'Entice him down onto low ground… they like apples. We get him as near to the truck as possible – give ourselves a hernia if we try and lift his carcass, and -' he squinted through the night sight, crooked his finger alongside the trigger. 'Pow!'

'Word of advice, mate – keep stum about nobblin' that stag,' Harry advised him. 'Don's passionate about it!'

Dillon held up his hand for quiet, pressing the tiny button microphone nearer his mouth. 'Zero contact,' he confirmed.

Blur of static and Cliff's voice, clear as a bell.

'Alpha One to Zero. Two kids moving out of grid range south-east. Suspects armed. Looks like a crossbow. Over.'

'Zero to Alpha One. Maintain position and surveillance. Out.' Dillon flicked off, frowning. 'Going the wrong way for the salmon,' he said, and turned to Jimmy, eyes narrowed. 'Sounds like they're after the stag…'

'Shit! He's ours.' Jimmy wriggled backwards. 'Okay, I'm on my way.' He hesitated for a second, waiting for the nod from Dillon, and crawled out.

Harry folded his arms and stared morosely into the darkness. 'I wouldn't mind nickin' a salmon,' he said with feeling. 'I'm bloody starvin'.'

Pacing himself, Steve jogged for a quarter-of-a-mile, alternated it with a 'double' – double-quick-time march – over the same distance. To his right, behind the chain-link fence, the compound and the salmon tanks, to his left open countryside. Judging roughly where the hide was, he came off the lane and onto the grass verge, intending to cut across below the ridge. In the pitch-darkness he had some difficulty locating the trip-wire the lads had laid, eventually found it, and carefully stepped over. He set off at an easy run, not because he was knackered, but because the little hummocks of tough, wiry grass were treacherous as hell, and he didn't want to finish up with a sprained ankle or, worse, a broken leg.

Steve had remembered the trip-wire. He'd forgotten about the pressure pads, set at fifty-metre intervals, until he stepped on one, triggering the battery of sulphur flares which zoomed up into the dark sky, blinding white bursts of light that blanked out his vision, turning night into day.

Stumbling, almost falling, blinking furiously, all that Steve could see was a mass of whirling red dots imprinted on his retina. High above, the fizzing flares drifted slowly downwards. Steve covered his face, mouth flapping open and shut, realising too late that he was caught out in the open, exposed to enemy fire. Where was the rest of his section? Why the hell hadn't he taken cover, the first rule when encountering SF, Sustained Fire? Tracer was coming at him. Masses of red streaking dots filling the sky. He heard the rattle of machine-gun fire, opened his mouth to scream, to howl, to cry for help, and nothing came. A mortar shell landed right in front of him, and in the gritty explosion a voice yelling, Corporal Harris, take cover: Harris, get down! Harris, take cover, get back, Harris, this is an order!

The voice echoed through Steve's head, but he could see Big Blackie Jeller crunched up, howling with pain, could see him, and no way could he turn back and run for cover. Big Blackie was his mate, and he hesitated just a fraction before he disobeyed the order and went back for him. As he gripped Blackie's hand, he felt the burning red-hot sensation rip through his neck, the blood filled his eyes, his mouth, everything was red, everything was over. Then came the darkness, weeks of darkness, of terror. He didn't remember being stretchered back, airlifted to the hospital, he remembered nothing but that moment of terrible scorching pain, and now it was back, squeezing the life out of him. Rooted to the spot, Steve shook all over, his arms in uncontrollable spasms, fingers twitching, and his mouth, gaping, filled with his own blood, unable to cry out.

Don found him, curled up like a child, hands over his head. For a second Don thought someone had been caught in one of the traps. He slithered and eased his way closer, and then he realised it was Steve. Steve huddled in wretched mute hysteria, his eyes wide, staring into oblivion. Don gently eased him to sit up, but Steve seemed afraid of him, and not until he had wrapped him in his arms repeating that it was all right, that he was safe, did Don feel the rigid tension released. But Steve's hands were still like a vice, holding on to Don, and Don sat with him, rocking him, talking to him. Don, who was too shy to talk to anyone, understood, had no need for words, because he had been in that darkness, he had been in that mute land of fear.

Steve tried, once, twice, and then burped out, 'Poachers – two kids.' Don gave a pat to Steve. 'Good lad, I'll go tip off the lads… they're up in the hide, can you make it there?'

Steve nodded, watching Don move like the clappers, bent low, zig-zagging out of the way of the flares, heading back to the camp. Steve was alone again, listening to his own heartbeat slowly returning to normal, unlike the rest of him, that would never come back.