‘And that’s why she wants us to stay here. She wants us to wait till Sergeant Grimm comes and captures us.’

‘We have to leave. Get your backpack,’ Aimee said briskly. ‘We’ll head up to the drovers’ road. He’ll never track us there.’

Marius hurried to the tail of the cart. He climbed down and looked back down the road when he heard the roar of an engine. A hawk-eyed soldier in a rain cape was leaning out of the hatch of a Whippet tank, giving orders to the crew of drivers and gunners inside. The soldier looked up and saw Marius a moment later.

‘I think it’s too late, Aimee. Silver Hand’s already here and he’s seen us. We’re dead meat.’

Aimee gripped Marius by the shoulders and shook him. ‘We can go across the fields,’ she shouted over the noise of the rain beating on the canvas. ‘He didn’t catch us before when you were almost too weak to walk.’ She began to drag him to the field gate where Daisy stood with streams of water dripping off her drooping ears.

‘But in this mud we’ll be lucky to do five kilometres an hour. I looked at that report on the Whippet tank. I didn’t understand much but I did see some figures. I am sure they said a Whippet can go at eight kilometres an hour... and it doesn’t need a rest. We can’t run at eight kilometres an hour.’

Aimee grinned in spite of the danger. ‘No, but Daisy can. Hurry.’

Inside the Whippet tank the air was hot and thick with exhaust fumes. The crew were in their vests to cope with the heat. The engine noise was painfully loud and the men wore leather helmets with their earflaps pulled down. There was a gunner at one side and two gearsmen at the back. They had to change the speed of the tank tracks to make it turn. The driver sat at the front and tried to see his way through the driving rain.

Sergeant Grimm dropped into the spare gunner’s seat and shouted over the din, ‘Head left into that field. I can see the runaways.’

The driver gave the order to the gearsmen and the tank slowly turned. The wooden gate was closed. The tank turned it into splinters and churned through the mud into the field.

Silver Hand looked out through the gun port and saw his prey climbing on to a donkey. He pushed back the catch on the machine gun.

‘You’re not going to shoot the girl, are you?’ the driver shouted.

‘I’m going to bring down the donkey then kill the boy,’ Grimm replied. He looked along the barrel of the machine gun and pulled the trigger a moment after the front of the tank dipped into a fold in the field. The bullets sprayed the earth and sent up clods of damp grass.