‘They’re heading in the direction of the truck. We should be able to drive them right down there.’

He set off at speed, shooting as he ran. One man went down and Jan put an extra bullet into his chest, hardly breaking his stride. Kobus and his son were running closest to him, whooping with triumph as another of the insurgents fell, limbs twitching for a second before he lay still in the dust. Faanie doubled his pace, passing his father and Jan. He was the first to reach the clearing where the pickup had been hidden beneath a camouflage of branches. One of the remaining terrorists appeared on the edge of the bush, and caught sight of the informer fastened to the mopani tree. With a wail of grief and fury he ran towards the sagging form, but Faanie fired and the force of the shot tossed the man into the air before he fell at the feet of the man who had betrayed them. Jan signalled to his cousin.

‘There are more, just inside the treeline.’

Kobus nodded and began to scramble away, keeping low, Faanie right behind him. Jan was left standing close to the tree where the scout struggled feebly. His face was spattered with dried blood and his eyes rolled in agony. Jan stood watching him, and then took out the whisky, drinking deeply, feeling the heat of it in his throat, the buzz in his head. The man was trying to speak, spitting the words through his broken teeth and bloody lips.

‘My brother.’ He moaned and tried again, jerking his head in the direction of the body on the ground. ‘My brother.’

In a sudden rush of pity, Jan took his knife and cut the rope. What the hell, the man was clearly dying. The scout toppled forward and began to crawl towards the body lying in the dirt. It was pitch dark now, but Jan caught a movement to his left and fired. A figure staggered into the open, screaming in pain, blood blooming on his ragged shirt. Faanie was behind him and he pushed his rifle into the man’s back, so that he fell to his knees.

‘I’ll finish him off.’ Faanie raised his rifle, grinning.

As his fingers tightened on the trigger there was a whistling noise, a thud, a faint rushing, squelching sound as he fell with the knife lodged in his throat his blood pumping in a dark stream down his chest and on to the ground. Jan stared at him in horror. Where had the weapon come from? Looking around he saw the scout he had freed. He had reached out and taken his brother’s knife, half raised himself from the ground, and with one last, extraordinary effort he had hurled the weapon at his torturer.

‘My fault. Christ, it was my fault,’ Jan muttered.