Beneath his hand Caleb felt the man’s hand constrict.

And then the sound of a shotgun being fired again. Punctuating the air like an army jet flying low. Both men winced at the sound of it.

Caleb said, ‘Dad?’ and prayed he would get a response. Knew it was stupid as he said it, no way his old man could hear him. Kept on praying. Found nothing but the breeze, the slurp of the mud at his heels.

THIRTY-FOUR

VERNON MOORE

At the sound of a muffled shotgun blast he crept forward. He could see two figures through the undergrowth. They were wrapped in each other’s arms, grunting. One of them was Brendan. When he was sent sprawling into the grass Vernon’s attention was drawn to a third figure, the younger kid, Sidney. He was turned in Vernon’s direction and there was panic on his face.

Vernon saw the kid could see him, could see his old white features in the dark. They locked eyes for a moment and Vernon tried to convey some sense of his thanks for shouting his name, knew it had been done despite the kid’s family, the immediate danger. He knew Sidney had risked everything to save his life. Sidney’s eyes looked terrified. Vernon couldn’t comprehend the selflessness of the choice. That such a thing could exist.

Sidney sprinted towards him, across the clearing. Then the sound of chaos, a shotgun erupting from behind. He watched Sidney’s eyes and knew what he was seeing. He had seen it all before. They did not roll back like in the movies, nor did they grow dim. They just kept on looking but now they were dead. His body collapsed. The eyes just a physical feature in the skull. There had been life behind them and now there was none. There once had been a father, his saviour, now just a sack of flesh.

The kid smacked into the earth like a palm-down hand onto water. His body sent muck flinging in Vernon’s direction. The other man, big and ungainly, scrambled over the mud towards him. The older Cahill nowhere to be seen. Vernon stood up a bit and wiped the muck from his eyes. The kid’s arm upturned like he’d broken the bones as he’d fallen, as his body had struck the mud.

The other man was now on his feet. He first went into the bushes nearby, pushing his way through, grunting and carrying on. Yelling incoherently, an animal in darkness. He soon gave up his struggle, though, and breathed. Walked into the middle of the clearing and looked skyward. Then he crept forward with the shotgun aimed at the kid’s body, looking every way as he stepped. Vernon watched him and kept silent. For all the world he was fifty years younger in the jungles of New Guinea watching the Japanese approach, handling his weapon. As though all his life had simply never been. The still-birth, his work, his son, the garden. He watched this man approach, the shadows beneath him coalescing with the grime. Then he stood.