Most boys had been playing outdoors and it was too hot for pyjamas, so the room thronged with sweaty limbs clambering over mattresses and shrill voices disputing the score of a football match. Some of the tiniest boys had trained themselves to ignore the noise and were already asleep.

Two stinking feet rested on the edge of Marc’s mattress, centimetres from his face. He tried to sit up, intending to slap them away, but he moaned with pain as the congealed blood on his back ripped away from his sheets.

‘Look who’s awake,’ the owner of the feet sneered, and before Marc knew it bodies were clambering over squeaking bed frames towards him. Nine-year-old Jacques, who slept below, stood on the edge of his bunk and peered over Marc’s pillow. He got the first proper glance at his back.

‘Holy shit that’s bad,’ Jacques gasped.

Six others were soon either trying to get behind Marc or shouting requests for him to turn around so they could see his injuries.

‘Does that hurt?’ Jacques teased, as he pushed a finger against one of Marc’s cuts.

‘Piss off,’ Marc shouted. ‘Do that again and you’ll get a punch.’ But Marc was fond of his little bunkmate and Jacques knew it was an idle threat.

By this time someone had grabbed the heavily-stained blanket covering Marc’s legs, revealing his most dramatic injury: a deep gash where the cane’s metal tip had torn into his thigh.

‘Nasty,’ someone said as all the others backed away.

‘And Tomas’ heel mark on his belly,’ another noted. ‘He messed you up, Marc! What did you do?’

‘Leave off,’ Marc said grumpily, snatching his blanket back. But there were six lads in his face and he knew there was no way they’d give him any peace until he’d explained.

‘Is it true you were snogging Jae Morel?’ someone asked.

Marc’s head was pounding, but the pressure was on. If he looked weak the lads would rip him to shreds.

‘Sure,’ Marc said, putting on a grin. ‘She was all over me. I had my hands on her tits and everything.’

‘You dog!’ an older boy at the back of the crowd shouted.

But Marc’s nemesis, Lanier, was determined to prick his bubble. All boys had their slot in the pecking order and behaved accordingly. The trouble was, Marc and Lanier fitted the same one. They were the same age, had the same kind of stocky physique, and the result was an intense rivalry that stretched all the way back to fighting over toys as toddlers.

‘Jae Morel hasn’t even got boobs,’ Lanier snorted.

‘How would you know?’ Marc sneered. ‘When did you last see her?’

‘I spoke to Denis when he got back from Morel’s fields,’ Lanier said. ‘He told me you went psycho and threw Jae in the slurry pit.’