‘Unless a first-year had an unusually successful day in the physics lab, I think they’re a good bet.’

‘Then we definitely shouldn’t fight them. They’re too strong.’ He walked back and forth through the huddled boys and adults, his hands clasped ferociously behind his back. ‘This is only a war if we make it a war. We need to play a different game. A game like chess.’

‘Pawns,’ Alexander told him carefully, ‘get taken in chess.’

Smith bit his knuckle in concentration. ‘Yes. So we cheat. All of you, listen to me, we need to find Tim.’ He divided the boys up into groups, and sent each of them out to a particular one of the boy’s haunts and gave them the same instructions. ‘If you find Tim, with or without the red sphere, bring him back here. Come back here anyway in two hours. If you see the enemy, run and hide. Don’t let adults try to protect you, just get out of their way. Benny, Alexander, you two take a few boys and go up on to the hills. Joan and I will try the orchard.’

‘Now, wait a minute⁠ —’ Benny began, but Alexander had grabbed her by the elbow and hauled her away through the gathering crowd before she could finish her sentence. The boys delegated to their party ran after them.

‘I don’t think your niece likes me very much,’ Joan told Smith as she watched them go.

‘You’re too alike,’ Smith told her, leading her away. ‘Not that I think either of you appreciate the comparison.’

A few minutes after the couple had left in the direction of the orchard, another commotion added to the one that the crowd were creating. Another group of tired and tattered schoolboys, a vast number this time, threaded their way out of the pub and collapsed in the garden, holding their hands to their bleeding ears.

They’d been in the tunnel when the bomb went off. The explosion had rushed down it as a pressure wave, the air rolling over them and bursting their hearing like a terrible, intangible fist against their temples. They looked like defeated prisoners-of-war and their faces were blank and hollow. Some of the locals started to help them up and a doctor moved from boy to boy. The startled townsfolk began to ask questions of them.

After the last schoolboy had climbed the stairs, Mr Moffat, the bursar, staggered up out of the cellar behind him. He’d run about the school for half an hour before the explosion, avoiding battles and shepherding schoolboys towards the library.

He collapsed on to the bar and a barmaid ran to him, pressing a glass of brandy to his lips in concern. ‘Ah…’ he said to her. ‘You’ve saved my life.’