‘With weird and embarrassing things happening all over it. Trust me, we’ve seen a lot worse. One woman drying out her walking gear is nothing compared to the group who decided to see in the summer solstice with a night of drug-fuelled naked dancing right on the edge of a thirty-foot drop. We had to call the police.’

‘Please tell me no one called the police about this!’

‘I think we can handle this one internally.’

A sudden crack echoed through the trees, causing Nesbit to spring to attention, ears twitching.

‘But that’s our signal to get out of the way.’ Sam pulled a wry grin. ‘Come on, I’ll show you a spot out of the action.’

He waited for me to shove my stuff back into the pack, and with a couple of flicks had the tent back in its bag. I tried to watch to see how he did it, but unfortunately blinked and so missed it.

‘Can you fetch some water for this?’ he asked, nodding at the campfire.

‘I think it’s already gone out.’ My amazing fire had not been quite as successful as I thought, having burnt out at some point after Sam’s arrival.

‘Oh, okay. Do you think it’s worth risking a forest fire?’

‘No, of course not. Sorry.’ I pulled my water bottle out of my pack and handed it to him. Sam had gone into ranger mode. I have to admit, I quite liked it.

‘We need a lot more than that. The stream is over there.’

‘Um…’

‘Yes?’ he asked, taking another look at the direction of the shooting lodge.

‘How do I get the water from the stream over to here?’

‘In your bucket?’

‘Um…’

He gave me a very hard look. Sam was the friendliest, most laid-back man I’d ever met, but it turned out he was deadly serious when it came to safety in his forest.

‘Are you trying to pluck up the courage to tell me that you lit a campfire, in open forestland, without a fire bucket?’

I nodded, too intimidated to speak.

Sam put his hands on his hips and stared at the ground. I got the feeling he was counting to ten in his head, but his set jaw gave nothing away.

‘Okay,’ he said, at about the point where I’d decided to pick up my rucksack and hotfoot it out of there. ‘We’ll use dirt.’

Cue a messy process that included spreading the burnt sticks about, digging beneath the dry surface dirt to damper soil below, then throwing it onto the sticks before doing the whole thing two more times until Sam declared the ‘fire’ to be sufficiently cooled. He then proceeded to check the surrounding area for any sparks or embers.

‘You really don’t have to worry, my fire was not that good.’