When they arrived at the Eureka Lead, the building of the stockade was already under way.

Men, women and children were putting up a barricade around a large area containing a few tent homes. Henry recognised many faces, Mr Hunter’s among them. Everywhere people were busy, talking and laughing, sawing and hammering.

Henry had imagined that the barricade would be made of stone, like a fortress or the defence of a castle. He was disappointed to find that it wasn’t much more than a fence made mostly from the planks used to support mine-shafts. Would that really keep out an army?

While Jack joined the miners digging post holes with crowbars, Henry and Frank helped to carry the planks to where they were to be used. They held them upright while they were fixed in place and roped together.

As the hours passed, Henry’s arms and legs began to ache, and the raw timber planks left splinters in his fingers. He didn’t mind. Each small hurt was something to be proud of.

The great starry flag was raised on a tall flagstaff that had been put up in the middle of the enclosure. Watching it unfurl, Henry’s blood raced. We’re going to win, he thought. We’ll show the Government and the soldiers and the traps what we’re made of.

He and Frank and Jack worked until night fell. When most of the fence was built they helped to make it stronger by heaping overturned carts and empty barrels at its base.

‘It looks solid enough, but it’ll come down easier than it went up,’ said Alex McGregor, looking doubtfully at the barricade. ‘I fear it won’t keep out a rampaging bull, let alone the Queen’s own regiments.’

‘Yes, it’s a fairly ramshackle thing, I’m afraid,’ Jack said. ‘But it will serve to keep us all in one place. That’s the main aim.’

Frank went home soon after dark. ‘I wish I could stay, but I have to help Ma get her pies ready for tomorrow,’ he said.

‘I’ve got nowhere to go,’ Henry said. Saying it made him feel sad, but he wasn’t going to let Frank see that. After all, weren’t they in the middle of the greatest adventure of their lives?

That night he made a bed for himself on Jack’s floor. Jack gave him an old straw mattress and a coarse woollen blanket. ‘Make yourself comfortable,’ he said. ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back.’

It was strange to be on his own, without Father and Eliza close by. Henry wondered if Father was thinking about him, and whether he was still angry, but he was so tired he didn’t wonder for long before he fell asleep. He woke much later when the little hut was filled with the dim light of dawn. He stretched, turned over, and sensed that something was lying next to him. Something cool and . . . solid. He opened his eyes. There, coiled up beside him, was Lola.

Henry sat up very quickly. He moved as far away from her as he could, and then made himself look. There she was. Perfectly quiet, perfectly still.

Henry made himself reach out and touch her. ‘Hello, Lola,’ he whispered. Lola raised her head and her tongue flickered in and out. Henry hesitated, and then, with his whole hand now, he began to stroke her. The diamond pattern on her skin was really pretty. It reminded him of the living-room carpet in his old home in Birmingham.

What was it Jack had said, all those weeks ago? When you dare to do something, it is hardly ever as frightening as you expect it to be.

He hoped that would be true of the battle to come.

Henry heard Frank’s low whistle at the door only minutes after Jack returned.

‘I couldn’t stay away,’ Frank said, as he came inside. ‘Things are happening, Jack, aren’t they?’

‘They are,’ Jack said, handing him a mug of tea. ‘Our men have taken a proposal for peace to Commissioner Rede, and he has rejected it. It’s just a matter of time now before the battle starts.’

‘Do you think people will get killed?’ asked Henry. Goosebumps rose on his arms.

‘Possibly, my dear Henry. We would still prefer to get what we want by discussion rather than by bloodshed, but our hopes for peace are fading.’ Jack pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘I know you boys support the cause of the miners. Will you now be part of the revolution?’

‘Yes!’ shouted Frank. ‘I’m in!’

Henry didn’t answer straightaway. He could hear Father’s voice saying, ‘Mob violence achieves nothing.’ What if that was true? What if the rebel miners were making a terrible mistake? Then he thought of Sergeant Nockles, and his doubts vanished. He touched the pistol in his pocket.

‘I’m in too, Jack,’ he said.

‘Splendid,’ Jack said. ‘We’ll need as many helpers as possible. But if there’s fighting, it will be bloody, with guns and pikes and bayonets. You must give me your solemn promise that you will do your best to stay out of danger. Understood?’

Henry thought of the drummer boy. He wouldn’t have thought of his own safety. He’d have been in the thick of it, beating his drum, calling the soldiers to battle.

Jack’s usually cheerful face was very solemn. ‘Understood?’ he repeated.

Henry looked at Frank. ‘Don’t worry, Jack,’ he said. ‘We’ll be careful, won’t we, Frank?’

‘I suppose so,’ Frank said reluctantly.

‘And finally,’ said Jack, ‘if anything should happen to me, I want you to have everything I own. I don’t have a family, or none that cares about me, so you can divide my few possessions between you. Frank, your mother must have my silver teapot. Other than that, all I ask is that you keep an eye on Lola.’

Henry nodded, but he felt uneasy. Was this coming battle really as serious as Jack seemed to think it would be?

‘She will probably stay around my hut even if I’m not here,’ Jack said. ‘It’s her territory now. But she likes people.’

‘We’ll keep an eye on her,’ Henry told him. His heart was thumping hard now. ‘But we won’t have to, will we? Because nothing’s going to happen to you.’

‘Of course it won’t,’ Jack said. ‘But now there are serious battle plans to be discussed, covies, and I’m off back to the Eureka. I’ll see you there. The password is “Vinegar Hill”.’

‘Why Vinegar Hill?’ asked Henry.

‘It’s a place where a battle was fought between Irish rebels and English soldiers, way back in the last century.’

‘Did the rebels win?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Jack, ‘but it was a magnificent defeat.’

‘Our brave soldiers need to be fed,’ said Mrs Shanahan. She was busy putting cold mutton pies into gunny-sacks. ‘Would you boys take these to the stockade? I’ll be making fresh batches all day, and there’ll be griddle scones besides.’

Henry found a big wooden wheelbarrow beside a neighbour’s tent, and together he and Frank loaded it with supplies. Taking a handle each, they trundled off to the Eureka.

‘It feels as if the town has died,’ Henry said. The road was almost deserted and the few shops along it had closed, although the sly-grog shops were still doing brisk business. Nearly all the miners had stopped work. The only sound was the clinking of blacksmiths’ hammers.

‘They’re making iron pikes,’ Frank said. ‘You can use them like bayonets, you know, to stick in the enemy.’ He put down his wheelbarrow handle and jabbed violently at the air. ‘Yah! Yah!’

Henry swallowed. Sticking an iron pike into somebody was too horrible to think of.

‘Halt!’ shouted the sentry at the entrance to the stockade. He moved in front of them and aimed his rifle at the wheelbarrow. ‘State the password!’

‘Vinegar Hill,’ Henry said.

‘Pass, friends,’ said the sentry.

Inside the barricade, children played hopscotch or pretended to be soldiers. On flat land nearby men were drilling in battle formation, marching up and down with rifles on their shoulders. A butcher’s cart arrived and several sides of beef were unloaded. Another cart delivered crates of bottled ale.

It’s like a giant fete, thought Henry. He couldn’t believe that the stockade might become the scene of a battle. And nobody else seemed to think it would, either.