Simon freezes.
He scans the ground for stones the right size for ammo. There’s one near the fire. Very carefully, he stretches out one foot to nudge it close enough to pick up. Silently, he loads the catapult. His heart’s thudding again. Dan and Johnny sleep on, unaware. How vulnerable they are, Simon thinks. How stupid. They should have thought before about keeping a nightwatch, doing shifts. Simon edges himself round. He’s armed, ready. He waits. Nothing.
The newly risen sun is flooding the fields with golden light. It’s breathtakingly beautiful. But something’s there, he’s sure of it. All the tiny hairs on his arms and the back of his neck are standing upright. Alongside the stone wall, there’s deep shadow where someone could be hiding. He can’t see from here.
Another sudden movement. He swings round, ready to fire. Three small rabbits bound out from the shadow, race round, then settle to graze. Simon almost laughs aloud with the release in tension. Was that all it was? He waits. He could easily get the rabbits. They could have them for breakfast, spit-roasted over the fire. But he doesn’t even try. For one moment, he’d identified with the rabbits; they’re on the same side.
Just as he gives up and sits back on the ground near the fire, a shot cracks out. One rabbit keels over, the others race back to the wall.
‘Whazzat?’ Dan sits up, rubbing his head. Johnny’s woken too.
‘Sshh,’ Simon whispers.
‘Who is it?’
‘Can’t see. Get your ammo ready.’
‘Hang on,’ Dan says. ‘You crazy or what?’
‘Sshh,’ Simon says. ‘It’s that mad bloke. For real.’
‘He’s just potting rabbits,’ Johnny says. ‘Cool it, Si.’
‘He’s got a gun,’ Simon says, ‘and he’s been watching us. Who knows what he’ll do next?’
Dan gives a very loud and dramatic yawn.
‘I’m serious,’ Simon hisses. ‘Idiot.’
Johnny half laughs. ‘What are you going to do? Shoot him with a catapult?’
Dan does an impression of someone getting shot in the head: he writhes in agony and collapses on the ground with his tongue hanging out. Johnny starts to laugh again, but stops mid-laugh and looks nervously at Simon. ‘What was that?’
They listen. It comes again, a dragging sound.
Johnny grabs at Dan. ‘Shut it. Listen.’
Fear is contagious.
‘Get ready,’ Simon says in a low voice. ‘Load your air rifle.’ He holds his catapult taut, aimed at a patch of wall, beyond which the noise has stopped. One stone might not be enough and he can hear Johnny fumbling with the tin of pellets, trying to load the air rifle with shaking hands.
He’s imagined the scene often enough. Now it’s for real.
‘Perhaps we shouldn’t…’ Dan starts to say.
‘Shut up!’ Simon hisses. ‘Ready?’ He glances briefly behind him towards Johnny, who holds the air rifle to his shoulder, eyes trained along the barrel. He hears the safety catch click off. This is it. There’s a sudden crack of shot firing out, and then another, and Simon feels the catapult twang as his stone flies through the air. Someone yells out, though in the muddle Simon can’t tell who. He moves stealthily, like a trained soldier, into position next to the wall and then slowly raises himself up so he can see over the top. A man is bending over a dead rabbit, picks it up, holds it by the ears so that the limp body dangles down and bumps his leg as he walks away over the field towards the next stile. His boots leave a line of flattened, damp grass spotted with blood.
Simon’s heart is still thumping manically. He turns to look at Johnny. He has lowered his air rifle, looks dazed. Dan’s huddled over on the grass, rocking slightly, his hands over his ears.
‘What happened?’ Simon asks.
‘I don’t know! When I heard the shot I just panicked and fired.’ Johnny joins Simon at the wall, looking over at the figure disappearing from view. ‘Who was it? Did you see?’
‘That bloke. I told you! Shot the rabbit deliberately to scare us off. Make sure we knew he had a gun. Really dangerous. So close. Stupid idiot. Nearly got himself shot. Serves him right.’ Simon’s hands are trembling.
A funny whimpering sound is coming from Dan. He’s still rocking back and forth.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ Simon asks Johnny. They watch him for a moment. From behind Dan’s hand comes a thin trickle of blood.
‘Christ!’ Simon says. ‘You shot him!’
He goes over to Dan to look. Peels his hand away from his head. There’s lots of blood. Thick, dark, oozing. Dan’s shut his eyes. He groans.
‘How bad is it?’ Johnny kneels down next to him. ‘How the hell did that happen? It can’t have been me, he was behind me. Must have been that mad bloke after all. You were right.’
‘It’s bad enough,’ Simon says. ‘Not fatal.’ He bites his lip. He’s seen the wound. But it’s not from an air-rifle pellet. It has the jagged edges made by a stone. Shot at close range by a catapult. Shit!
‘What’ll we do?’ Johnny asks.
‘Get him home. My house is nearest. Pack up the stuff and come back for it later. We might have to carry him.’
They survey Dan’s lanky body.
‘We need to stop the blood, don’t we?’ Johnny says. ‘Pressure on the wound. What can we use?’ He ransacks his own bag, then Dan’s and Simon’s, searching for something to tie round his head. In the end they tear a T-shirt into strips and it seems to work, sort of. Dan whimpers all the time they’re doing it, like a wounded dog. Simon feels sick.
‘I saw this programme,’ Simon says, ‘where they turned the tarpaulin into a stretcher. I’ll see if I can work out how to do it.’
‘Can’t he walk?’
‘I don’t know. The wound’s deep. He might faint or something.’
‘Why don’t you run back and get someone? What time is it?’
‘Dunno. Early. You stay here with him, then? What if that bloke comes back?’
Dan’s stopped moaning. He opens his eyes and stares at them.
‘You OK, mate? What happened?’ Johnny says. ‘It wasn’t me, was it? Shot you?’
Dan grimaces. ‘It was a bloody stone. From your catapult, you moron, Piper.’
Johnny stares at Simon, open-mouthed.
‘I — I don’t know how… the catapult went off just like that… I didn’t see where the stone went… it must have bounced off the wall or something…’
‘Does it hurt a lot?’ Johnny’s staring at the blood seeping through the T-shirt.
‘Too bloody right it does. Now I’ve got a headache on top of the hangover I already had.’
Simon kicks out the fire. He scatters the ashes. He bundles the billycans into his rucksack along with everything else.
‘What’re you doing, man?’ Dan asks.
‘We’ve got to get back. Sort out your head. It looks bad. Do you reckon you can walk?’
Dan nods. ‘Ouch. Hurts when I move it.’
‘We’ll go really slow.’
They eventually make their way across the fields, stile to stile in a diagonal line all the way back to the lane. Blood begins to drip through the strips of cloth. It’s a relief to get to the road and to see the house. The curtains are still drawn shut.
Not at Leah’s house, though. She doesn’t miss a thing, does she? She’s standing at her window, practically naked, watching their slow progress up the road. She gives Simon a half smile, flutters her hand.
‘Slag,’ says Johnny. ‘Who does she think she’s waving at?’
Simon prays that she doesn’t open the window wider, or call something out to him. He keeps his eyes down and one arm supporting Dan’s shoulders. Dan’s face is completely drained of colour.
They stumble through the unlocked back door. Dan slumps on to a kitchen chair.
Voices drift down from upstairs. Two voices. Nina and a man.