“How long should they search for?” Scott asked quietly, with a sideways glance at the pastor’s wife who, having controlled her sobs, was now dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

Johnson looked through the trees to the expanse of unbroken blue high above them. There were, he thought maybe six or seven hours before sunset.

“Until it’s too dark to see.”

“And then? You want them to stay out?”

The inference in Scott’s voice echoed the question he’d been about to ask himself.

“Advise them they’ll require one night’s provisions. I expect to rendezvous with the Marine at noon tomorrow. Tell whomever you assign that’s when I want them back with us. They’re to give themselves time to repair to Bulwagga for embarkation. We cannot – we will not – wait for them. Make that clear.”

“Yes, sir.” Scott’s grim expression said it all. If the search party failed to find the boy in time, they were consigning him to the perils of the forest, which meant his chances of survival were not merely remote, they were non-existent.

For a brief moment Johnson found himself debating the wisdom of sending four trained soldiers to look for one missing child in ten thousand square miles of wilderness, even though he knew that to consider any other course of action was unthinkable. Had it been any one of the other civilians, he’d have given the same order. Be they Loyalist, slave, servant or prisoner, his commitment was to transport every single one of the civilians to safety. No one would be left behind, not if he could help it. Especially not Ellis Hooper’s boy. Hooper had been a good man, a loyal soldier who’d given his life for the Crown. Sending out men to look for Hooper’s missing son was more than a matter of guardianship or trying to make up for the De Witts’ negligence – if that’s what it had been. It was about duty. He owed Hooper and his boy that much.

“We’ve probably traversed at least three crossing places since the lad was last seen,” Johnson said. “So make sure the search party marks its trail. We don’t want them wandering round in bloody circles, too.”

“You think that’s what happened?” Scott enquired doubtfully. “He found his way back to the road and then took the wrong path?”

“If he’s not lying injured somewhere, it’s a possibility. In these backwoods all it takes is one wrong step and then every damned tree starts to look like every other damned tree. Easy enough for a grown man to lose his way, never mind a twelve-year-old boy with no woodcraft. Put yourself in his shoes.”

Scott didn’t have to. He was already there.

A twelve-year-old boy with no family to come back to and no one to miss him, Johnson thought grimly.

“I’ll go and select the men,” Scott said.