‘It’s all quiet now,’ Henry said. ‘We have to go back. We have to find Jack.’ He tried to speak calmly, but his teeth were chattering as if he was cold. ‘I feel as if none of this is happening.’

‘I feel like that, too,’ Frank said. In the early morning light Henry could see that his face was streaked with tears and caked with blood from a cut over his eye. Frank made a wobbly attempt at a smile. ‘Don’t worry about Jack. He’s too smart to have got himself wounded, or be . . .’

The word ‘dead’ hung between them. Neither of them could say it.

They pushed their way out of the scrub where they had taken cover and walked back past the broken wall of the barricade. A haze of smoke hung in the air, shot through with feeble rays of sunshine. Henry sniffed: he could smell burning, and something else. Blood?

As he hesitated, looking around, he heard a faint voice to their left. ‘Help, mate. Give us a hand.’

Henry turned to Frank. ‘Did you hear a voice?’

‘Yes, but I can’t see anyone.’

‘Hello!’ called Henry. ‘Where are you?’

‘I’m down here, in a ditch. There’s a wooden slab on top. I’m wounded, and I can’t shift it.’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll help you.’

Henry and Frank followed the sound of the voice, and saw a blood-stained leg, dressed in navy blue serge, sticking out of a shallow hole.

‘My mate put me here for safety after I got shot. Now I can’t move.’

‘It’s a trooper,’ Frank whispered to Henry. ‘Why should we help him? Let’s leave him and go find Jack.’

‘He might be badly hurt, though,’ Henry whispered back. ‘We should find out. He’s a human being, as my Mam would say.’

‘All right,’ said Frank. He stopped whispering. ‘I’ve re-loaded my pistol,’ he said loudly.

‘Where are you hurt?’ Henry asked the trooper. ‘Can you move at all?’

There was silence. Then the voice replied. ‘If you must know, I was shot in the . . . in the rear.’

Henry took hold of the heavy wooden slab that covered most of the hole, and with Frank’s help he heaved it aside.

‘Well,’ said Frank, ‘would you look at that, now.’

‘Why, Sergeant Nockles,’ said Henry. ‘You are the last person I expected to see. I’d have thought a battle would be something you’d keep well away from.’

‘Calling me a coward, are you?’ said Nockles. But he didn’t sound as aggressive as he usually did.

‘You were shot in the bum,’ Henry said. ‘That means you were running away. Of course you’re a coward.’

Nockles pointed his rifle at Henry’s chest. ‘Watch your tongue, Master Bird. Just get me out of here, or I’ll shoot you both.’

‘I don’t think you’d do that, would you?’ said Henry. ‘Because it might be a long time before anyone else finds you. Unless your mate comes back . . . but he could’ve been killed, couldn’t he?’

‘Not the way your lot were fighting. Talk about cowards –’

‘Don’t you dare call them cowards,’ Frank said furiously. He pulled out his pistol. ‘I ought to shoot you dead right now, you – you blatherskite!’

‘All right, all right!’ Nockles said. ‘Don’t shoot!’

‘It’s your lot who are the cowards,’ Henry said. ‘Only cowards would sneak up in the night and attack without any warning. And then what you did when the barricade came down . . .’ He stopped, remembering the horror. ‘Come on, Frank, let’s leave him to be eaten by ants.’

‘Good idea,’ said Frank. ‘We’ll never tell where he is. I suppose they’ll find his rotting corpse one day.’

‘Wait!’ called Nockles. ‘I’ll bleed to death in this hole. Just get me out of here, and I won’t ever bother you again.’ He looked at Frank. ‘I kept my word to your mother, didn’t I? You can trust me.’

‘We wouldn’t trust you as far as we could throw you,’ Henry said. ‘So before we do anything, give us your rifle. If you don’t, we’ll leave you to rot.’

With a grunt of anger, Nockles threw out the gun.

It was hard work prising him out of his cramped hiding place, and Nockles was swearing with pain by the time he was on level ground. As they laid him down, his jacket fell open and Henry saw that he was wearing a silver watch on a handsome silver chain. He stared at it, and his heart jumped. He reached forward and turned the watch over. Engraved on the back, in a fancy scroll, were the initials AJB.

‘That’s my father’s watch, you thief,’ he said. ‘We never saw the licence you said you’d give him in exchange, so it’s mine by rights. I’m taking it back.’

He unhooked the watch and chain and put them in his own pocket. ‘You can make your own way home, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘We’ve done all we can for you, and it’s a lot more than you deserve.’

The stockade was a miserable sight. The tent in which they’d spent the night was now a pile of smouldering ashes. Henry pushed some burnt blankets away with his foot, and suddenly felt as if his heart had stopped beating. Beneath the smoking remains he could see grey fur.

‘Frank, it’s Jack!’

‘Calm down, Henry. Look, you eejit, it’s only his cloak. He left it behind when he went charging off into battle.’ Frank picked up the scorched and charred mess. ‘That’s a shame. Jack will be sorry to see what’s happened to it.’

‘Thank God I’ve found you.’ It was Mr Hunter, out of breath, peering at them from behind his half-moon spectacles. ‘I’ve been searching for you boys since daybreak. It’s chaos with so many dead and wounded. Do you need help? Are you hurt?’

‘We’re not hurt,’ Henry said. ‘We’re looking for Jack. Have you seen him?’

‘Ah,’ Mr Hunter said. ‘Happy Jack. No, I lost sight of that brave fellow soon after the dragoons arrived. The last I saw, he was charging towards the attacking forces, shooting at them like a demon from the fires of hell.’ He patted Henry on the shoulder. ‘In all likelihood he has been taken prisoner. Many from our side surrendered to the military. The dragoons took several dozen men at sword-point and marched them off in chains to the watch-house.’

‘Jack wouldn’t have surrendered,’ Henry said.

‘No, he’d never do that,’ agreed Frank. ‘I know Jack.’

As he spoke, a woman screamed. ‘The soldiers are coming back,’ she cried. ‘Run!’

There was a scuffle as people tried to hide or escape. This time, though, no shots were fired. Instead there was a rumble of wooden wheels.

‘They’re bringing carts,’ Henry said. ‘Why are they bringing carts?’

‘That’ll be for taking away the dead,’ Frank said. He crossed himself. ‘By all the saints, who’d have thought it would end like this?’

Three horse-drawn carts were driven into the middle of the stockade, and soldiers walked around, collecting bodies from where they lay. They threw them onto the carts as if they were logs of wood.

‘Ah, boys, don’t look, don’t look,’ said Mr Hunter. ‘It’s not a sight for youngsters. Indeed, it’s not a sight I’d wish on anybody.’

Frank turned away, but Henry couldn’t stop looking. Among the bloodied dead were people he’d known. Many of them had been at the campfire last night, talking cheerfully as they imagined their great victory. There was the old miner in the beaver hat. And a woman – a woman! – still in her nightdress. Now they were dead, and for what? They’d gained nothing. Nothing at all.

And then the last body was thrown on top of the heap. A pepperbox revolver was still clenched in its right hand.

It was Happy Jack.