‘Thought you’d get up high to see me. Wouldn’t have spotted you otherwise.’

Ansell laid his face in the dust.

‘God, am I glad to see you.’

‘Mutual.’

He felt MacConnachie’s hand rest on his shoulder.

‘Are you all right?’

Ansell looked up, nodding.

‘Yes.’

MacConnachie examined him a moment, then frowned.

‘Come on, I’ve found a place.’

‘I saw it.’

As he wriggled after MacConnachie, Ansell said,

‘What happened to you?’

MacConnachie hesitated.

‘Tell you later.’

Ansell thought that, once in the gully, MacConnachie should not have left it.

It took them twenty minutes to travel the forty yards to the gully. All the time, the numbers on Big Ridge increased as more and more of the River Boys reached the top. Once inside, Ansell said,

‘Can we rest a bit? I’m clapped.’

‘Sure. Have a drink.’

‘You too?’

‘All right.’

Solicitously, MacConnachie unstoppered and held the canteen for Ansell, who allowed the water to linger in his mouth before swallowing. He noticed that MacConnachie fingered the gash in its side, not drinking himself. Safe again, Ansell grinned.

‘Close call.’

MacConnachie muttered,

‘I didn’t know it was that close.’

‘Don’t think I realized myself at the time.’

MacConnachie sat silent, drinking. Ansell looked along the gully. It was deep, scrub-thick, and gave the impression, at this distance, of reaching all the way to Little Ridge. Suddenly, unasked, MacConnachie began to explain himself, scowling and pausing often:

‘I nearly had kittens when I saw them close over you.’ Silence. ‘I took a hell of a chance. I ran like the clappers. Stupid. We could have been blown. But I couldn’t fancy them’ – he banged the stopper home with the palm of his hand – ‘crawling all over me. Like ants!’ Silence. ‘Hate those little men. Hate them!’ He wasn’t able to look at Ansell. ‘Anyway, I found this place.’ He looked instead at the place where Ansell had lain under the bayonets. He said, ‘I had kittens.’

Ansell was at a loss for words.

‘I had them myself.’

‘I believe you.’ A long silence. ‘I was… I guess maybe… Perhaps I…’

Ansell couldn’t bear it; he had to look away.

‘You did the right thing. You covered the flank. We had enfiladed fire, if we needed it.’

‘That’s right. I mean, I did, didn’t I?’ MacConnachie nodded vigorously, as though the appearance of conviction could engender the conviction itself. ‘That’s true.’

For something to say, Ansell said,

‘They’re coming towards us again.’

‘We must move.’

MacConnachie was at once busy with practicalities.

‘We’ll go up this gully. Watch for drifting dust.’

Then he noticed that he was still holding the canteen and, with a foolish grin, re-stoppered it and handed it to Ansell.

‘Let’s go.’

The boy was right. Yes, he’d done the right thing. Enfiladed fire. Yes.

Ansell was visited by a comic vision, such as he had had before. It was of MacConnachie, suitcase in one hand, gun in the other, haring across the landscape, ‘going like the clappers’, with the skirts of his native coat flapping about his ankles; had there been a hand clasping a bonnet to the back of the head, it might have been a grandmother making a getaway.