When he woke he knew that he had only been unconscious for a short time. He knew where he was at once. Sarah was bending over him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I followed you. I thought you must have come in here.”

“Did you see who it was?”

“No. They must have run away just before I got here.”

“What are the others doing?”

“They say that they’re looking for whoever fired the shots, but they’re making so much noise that they’ve no chance.”

“I think,” George said, “that I must have been hit by the gun.”

He raised himself on to one elbow and felt sick.

“You’d better help me up,” he said. “ I have things to do.”

“Not tonight.” She was quite firm. She could have been in a hospital ward.

“I’m a nurse, don’t forget. And …” She hesitated.

“And I’m an old man,” he said.

It was exactly what she had been going to say, and she laughed.

“All the same,” she said. “You must rest tonight, or you’ll have headaches and dizziness for months.”

“When the old nurse retires here,” he said, “ you could take her place.”

“I could, couldn’t I?” It was like a promise, a future she could look forward to and enjoy, a way of not losing touch with her past. She felt grateful to him.

“Do you know who it was?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Who was it?”

He sat up carefully.

“I thought,” he said, “ that I was supposed to rest.”

By the time he had walked with Sarah’s help down the steps and was outside, Jonathan, Sylvia, and Will were waiting by the Land Rover.

“It’s no good,” Jonathan said. “They’ll be halfway down the island by now.”

Then they saw that George was hurt. Sylvia took no part in the general demand for explanation of his injury, the concern.

“Who was it?” she asked, interrupting the others. “ Did you see who it was?”

George ignored her question and allowed himself to be lifted into the Land Rover. There he swore them all to secrecy. No one on the island must know about the gunshots. He wanted no panic, no one making wild guesses, taking the law into their own hands. Despite the stabbing headache and waves of nausea, he felt in control.

“Please,” he said, “ don’t tell anyone. It won’t be much longer now. Tomorrow it will all be over. I’d finish it tonight but Sarah won’t let me.”

They took him back to the school house. He asked Jonathan to help him to bed.

“Don’t let Sylvia go out tonight,” he said when they were alone. “Keep her with you.”

“Why should she want to go out now? What is it all about?”

“Tomorrow,” George said. “You’ll know tomorrow,” and he sent Jonathan away before he undressed.

Now he was quite sure what had happened, and he slept.