Daui Dogs.

Conlag Dogfish?

Daui Just dogs.

Conlag Could be a strange sea, this side of Britain. Sea of dogs! Waves of tails! Rabid surf, all froth and teeth! Dogshit beaches!

Daui I’d put nothing past this country.

Conlag Better get back in the trees. Come dawn, see where we are.

Daui Three nights of trees. I’ll not sleep under trees again.

Conlag Better, Daui. If men make you live like an animal –

Conlag True! It’s true!

Daui Creepy crawlies. Things that are there and not there. Ghosts. Mantraps. Wild animals. Gods. All that rubbish. I’ll not take that again.

Conlag But maybe these bastards aren’t asleep. Maybe they’re fucking. Makes your hearing sharp. Makes you see in the dark too. They’ll hear us! Run out and see us! With hard-ons! And kiss us – or worse!

A silence. They burst out laughing.

Daui I never know when your brain’s running out your nose or not.

The sound of Daui scuttling about.

Not too wet here.

Conlag All right, all right. It’s wrong. But I’m not the leader of this robber band.

Robber band of two poor fuckers.

Daui Brambles here. Do for the sleeper’s wall. You got the bag?

Conlag Yes I’ve got the bag.

Daui Let me feel it.

Conlag I’ve got the bag.

Daui What have you done with the bag?

Conlag There is the bag! Dear oh dear.

Daui Is it the bag?

Conlag What bag do you think it is?

Daui You could have changed it for another.

Conlag Look –

Daui Back in the trees! Someone you’re in league with! Some corpse, ghost, thing! That’s following us all the time! That you’re winking at, behind my back! When people go as slow as you, down in the filth like you, I don’t know what you do!

Conlag You call me low –

Daui I don’t know what you do!

Conlag Feel the iron in the bag. Feel it.

A silence.

Daui The wine –

Conlag The wineskin’s in the bag. Squishy. Feel it.

Daui’s voice heavy with exhaustion.

Daui Iron and wine.

Conlag I’m glad we killed that man we met. And took his iron and his wine. Didn’t he squeal! Didn’t he squeal!

He laughs.

You sleep first. I’ll watch.

Daui I could sleep.

But don’t drink the wine.

Conlag Me? Drink our wine?

Daui And don’t go talking to yourself. And screaming.

Conlag Right.

Daui And leave my arse alone.

Conlag Right.

Daui And don’t sell me to ’em.

The things in the trees.

While I’m asleep.

Conlag sighs.

Conlag Right.

A silence.

Daui?

A silence.

You don’t think – that’s what we’re going to find?

A silence.

After all our sorrows.

A silence.

And heartbreak. And boils. And my pusy ear. And the thing at the bottom of my spine.

A silence.

Find a dogshit beach?

Daui A boat. We’ll find a boat. Or people are going to die.