Is true. I been holding back on telling James, no matter how many times him ask me. I don’t really want to go back there. Is a time hidden behind the line in me memories.

But this morning, James keep pressing me, and finally I say, ‘Was like a dream. A dream me wake up into.’

‘What you mean?’ James ask, edging closer like he sense I going finally tell him what him been wanting to hear.

I look at him straight. ‘Was a dream me longed to see for real, except when it happened, me wished it was still a dream.’

‘Was exciting?’

‘Exciting? No! A dream filled with fear, with blood, with fire. A bittersweet dream, where we lived like free men, not slaves, but where all me saw round me was death stalking him prey. A dream where me saw the insides of a slave’s guts hanging out and him begging me to kill him. Saw the fear in a man’s eyes as me lifted up a cutlass to try to chop him down. Where many of us died, left by the side of the road to rot. And many of dem who died was me friends.’

James turn all quiet. Seem like him finally come to understand this rebellion business was more than just a story.

‘You think a man want to pick up arms and fight? To kill or be killed, to make other men suffer? That is a madness that come over you when you find youself behind a locked door and the one with the key never going open it. That man is a criminal. Swap places and him not going accept it. Was war! A different time, a different place,’ I say. ‘It bring results, was worth it, but the price we all pay was much higher than expected.’

That morning, for once James ask no more questions. Sit quiet while we drink tea made in the billy, eat damper we hold on a stick to toast over the fire.

Every time we bout to leave the cave, I wonder whether we coming back. Always take one last look round, store it in me memory, before we pull aside the branches we use as cover and set them back in place. We make our way down through the ravines and gullies until we get to a path taking us closer to a road we know is well used. Blacken our faces with soot from the fire so you can’t tell one from the other, then settle down to wait. Every time we go out on a raid, we try to head to a different place, but we keep coming back to this one. A sudden sharp bend in the road mean the rider must slow down to take it.