Dolo murmured, ‘Here is a further stage. Now the children have to learn to use violence against others. The older ones have been put in charge of the younger. Beaten regularly themselves, now they enjoy meting out the same treatment to others. You see, they are forcing these two to fight, perhaps just for entertainment.’

At last one of the fighters battered her opponent to the ground. The fallen child was dragged away. The victor was a stocky girl; blood trickled from her mouth and knuckles. One of the older children walked into the crude ring, grinning, to face the stocky girl.

Dolo nodded with a connoisseur’s approving glance. ‘That fighter is strong,’ he said. ‘But now she will learn afresh that there are many stronger than she is.’

‘These barefoot cadets must long to escape.’

‘But their prison is not just a question of walls. In some places the regime is - harsher. When they are taken from their homes, the children are sometimes made to commit atrocities there.’

‘Atrocities?’

Dolo waved a hand. ‘It doesn’t matter what. There are always criminals of one class or another who require corrective treatment. But after committing such an act the child is instantly transformed, in her own heart, and in the hearts of her family. The family may not even want the child back. So she knows that even if she escapes this place, she can never go back home.’ He smiled. ‘Ideally, of course, it would be a family member who is struck down; that would be the purest blow of all.’

‘How efficient.’

‘Even in the face of violence a child’s social and moral concepts are surprisingly resilient; it takes a year or more before such things as family bonds are finally broken. After that the child crosses an inner threshold. Her sense of loyalty - why, her sense of self - becomes entwined not with her family but with the regime. And, of course, the first experience of combat itself is the final threshold. After that, with all she has seen and done, she cannot go home. She has been reborn. She doesn’t even want to be anywhere else.’

They walked on to the edge of the compound. Beyond the rows of buildings there was a break in the fence. On the rocky plain beyond, a group of children, with adult overseers, were lying on their bellies in crude pits dug into the ground. They were working with weapons, loading, dismantling, cleaning them, and firing them at distant targets. The weapons seemed heavy, dirty and noisy; every firing gave off a crack that made Luca jump.

Dolo asked, ‘Now. Do you see what is happening here?’

‘More indoctrination. The children must be trained to handle weapons, to deploy destructive forces - and to kill?’