Kate lay down, and Lana ran towards a group of three sheep. As she gained on them one turned its head lazily to look at her. It kept chewing and staring until she was about four metres away when, suddenly, all three sheep turned and ran in Kate’s direction. For a second it looked like it might work, but then at the last moment they all swerved towards the road. Once there they slowed, and again started to chew at the weeds spurting from the cracks in the tarmac. One old ewe gave a particularly cheeky bleat in our direction as she strolled past.

‘Right. This is rubbish,’ said James. ‘I’m going to sort this out.’ He cracked his knuckles. ‘Everybody get back up here,’ he called. ‘We need a proper plan. This is like rugby, people.’

Soldier John glared at him, but he didn’t argue. There were fourteen of us on the hillside, I counted. We had Staring Crone amongst us, so that cut our numbers down to thirteen really, because we couldn’t expect any help from her. There were several others who, given the chance, I thought would probably have gone off by now . . . if they’d had any idea where to go. They certainly weren’t going to be reliable sheep catchers, anyway.

‘Right, right,’ said James.

A couple of sheep looked over with mild interest. Their third friend ignored the bother altogether, focusing on the particularly juicy patch of grass on which he was standing, continuing to munch with relish.

‘We’ve got to think about our long-term goal here.’

‘Our long-term goal is to get the crap out of here, and find somewhere to live,’ said Lana. ‘And I swear to bollocks if you even start to give us one of your inspirational speeches, then I’ll stab you in the eye with that fork.’

James eyed the large garden fork he was holding. ‘And avoiding that will be one of my many long-term goals, Lana,’ he said. But I could see he was going to speak more quickly now, and he had lost his noble speech-making face that he sometimes makes. ‘I just meant . . . our short-term goal is to catch the sheep, but our long-term goal is to get them on to a boat. Down on the shore. We need to see ourselves as more in those two teams. I’m thinking a pincer movement, and maybe somebody could go get some rope? So we could tie them up.’ He said that last bit with assurance, but it didn’t stop most of the people listening from either sighing in irritation, or looking at each other in resignation.

‘Found a handy rope location, ’ave you?’ said Soldier John. ‘Know where large quantities of it are kept, do you? And what are you plannin’ to do? Weave a giant net?’