It was shortly after I realized this that the sound came back. Just as suddenly as it had been shut off, someone lifted the needle and placed it back on the record. My panting breaths, the rush of the wind and the sound of my trousers pushing through the brush burst into my brain at what seemed like double the normal volume, but after a few shaky seconds where I nearly lost my balance, I was almost insanely happy. The deafness had lasted just a few minutes, and now it had gone! The swish of my legs now spurred me on - create more swish, more noise, let the sounds continue for as long as you can enjoy them - and I leapt over rocks and eddies and kept running, full pelt, towards Gunner, until I slowly started to bear down on him, my heart thumping in my ribcage.

‘I need to get to Udi. Do you have any idea which direction I should take?’

He shook his head. ‘You no fit to go anywhere. You be very sick. You shake and sweat, and you no answer when I speak.’

‘I lost my hearing for a couple of minutes,’ I said. ‘It’s back now.’

He looked at me. ‘This has happen to you before?’

I felt inside my shirt pocket and pulled out the soft pack of Players. So much for my little game - the remaining cigarettes were all sodden.

‘Who the hell is Samuel Johnson?’ I said.

He smiled. ‘Someone I know at school. It was the first name that came to my mind.’

I nodded. ‘Thanks for the help back there,’ I said. ‘I appreciate how hard it must have been.’

There was an awkward silence. When he’d seen that I was still visible from the road, he had realized it would lead the men down the hill - to me, but also to him. So he’d run back, made me duck for cover, and it had worked. But we’d lost Senegal and Boxer as a result - and who could blame them?

Now we were resting for a moment against a large palm tree he had picked out. He had found some of its flowers in the surrounding shrubbery and squeezed them open until a string of sap had dribbled from the stems, which he had offered me. Fermented, it would have become ‘palm wine’, but the sweet stickiness had been welcome enough and I had gained a little strength from it. My shivering had also subsided, although my thigh still pulsed with a dull pain.

‘I sorry about your girl,’ said Gunner.