Getting one of those saplings to break at the base was another thing entirely. They were supple and strong, and they fought back. He used his kirpan to dig a ragged notch in the bark, then further into the wood beneath, and eventually he managed to get enough leverage. The trunk snapped unevenly, and not all the way through. He still had more twisting and bending to do before it came away from the ground.

Hand-sore and tired, he sat down with the y-shaped tree, and undid his turban.

He suspected that his parents would tell him he was committing a terrible sin, ruining his pagh and breaking his vows simultaneously. They were strict, and above all, proper. Outward behaviour was a discipline. It trained the mind and the body to obey until rightness and decency became an ingrained habit, difficult to break and impossible to forget. That still mattered to him. But he knew there was more to being a Sikh than just following the traditions: justice, mercy, compassion and, yes, feeding everyone.

The cotton cloth of the pagh was a long strip, folded, folded, folded and folded again. He wouldn’t need much, and his subtraction wouldn’t even show. He used his kirpan to start him off, forcing the blunt point hard through the material, then tearing it along its length. When he judged he’d gone far enough, he made another cut, and tore from the side.

He’d been a Scout, and could even remember some of his knots. Nicks in the cloth allowed the forked tines of the sapling to interweave it, and he tied it off using the spare material. There: possibly not as deep as he’d wanted, but perfectly serviceable as a scoop. If his kirpan had more of an edge, he’d have been able to fashion a fish spear, like the Inuit, or the South Sea islanders used. Not that he knew how to use one, but form followed function. He knew how it ought to be used. After that, it was all practice.

He stopped, and leaned forward and hugged his knees. What was he doing? Making nets and thinking about spears? There was a monster in the river, and he’d just avoided being eaten by it. Just for a moment, he’d had nothing to worry about, and he’d let his mind wander. Despite him saying that this place wasn’t paradise, he’d believed it was safe. Even the wolfman’s wolves, chained and controlled, had seemed benign in the end.