‘Well, see now, John, you sound like that’s not a serious plan, but honestly, if you just put three people on each piece of rope, and then get them to run towards the sheep . . .’

‘Oh, so it’s pieces of rope now, is it? We’re cuttin’ it? So you want us to find scissors? Or is it cuttin’ with our teeth we’re doin’?’

‘That bit shouldn’t be too hard. But you’re sounding angry, John. What’s your plan?’

‘Well . . .’ Soldier John started waving his hands around a lot, and talking loudly. Some people nodded wisely. Others stared around anxiously, or looked out to sea. I could see James setting up to argue it out. But the sheep were still wandering around unconcernedly, we still hadn’t rescued anybody, and we still hadn’t even had a nice breakfast.

I turned to Kate and Lana. ‘This hillside’s got two cliff faces, right? And the sheep won’t run away down those?’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Kate, comprehendingly. ‘Shall we just . . .’

‘Yeah.’ I pointed at the far side of the hillside and waved.

‘Just there, down to there?’ said Lana.

I nodded.

Dr Jones and some of the others had been following our hand movements. They moved closer.

‘And if two more people go down and shut the gates on the houses . . .’ I said.

‘Then stand on Long Street,’ said Kate, finishing.

I nodded, Kate nodded, Lana nodded and Dr Jones smiled.

‘We’re off,’ said Dr Jones, grabbing another one of the women. Together they ran down the hill, the few sheep in their way scattering.

‘Yes, if we could shear them, that would make a lot of sense,’ Stinky was saying knowledgably. Soldier John had his head tilted to one side, and James was now leaning on his fork, which was firmly embedded into the ground. ‘It shouldn’t be too hard, I’d imagine.’

‘No,’ said James. ‘We just need some scissors. And then we could use the wool for making jumpers afterwards.’

‘Shall we go now?’ I whispered to Kate and Lana.

‘Yeah,’ said Lana. ‘Definitely. The sooner we can get this animal bullshit out of the way, the sooner I can have a bath.’

‘You chase the sheep down, Martha,’ said Kate, ‘and me and Lana will stand in the way.’

They set off down the hill, grabbing several others, who looked like they had about as much interest in listening to hypothetical sheep-shearing conversations as we did. Down at the bottom of the hill, Dr Jones was shutting all of the garden gates which she passed. I eyed the sheep around me carefully. Most of the herd were over towards the far side of the hill, directly above the cliff face and the houses in the bay below. Four of them seemed to have decided that now was the time to look at me while having a grass snack. They stared in my direction with their blank, unblinking, featureless eyes.