She went out to return in an hour with a burden of small parcels.

‘I got a little here and there,’ she said breathlessly. ‘The place is mad, Hugh, bonfires, shouting, guns going off—’

We sat at our door until late, until after midnight, surveying the village with its bonfires, man’s funeral pyre.

Two days later, on the fifth of April, Terry brought in an official envelope from the post.

‘I won’t, I won’t!’ I cried in a rage.

‘Let’s sit down and think matters over calmly,’ Terry said. ‘What—what does it say?’

I tore the envelope open.

‘It gives me two days,’ I answered. ‘Two days!’

‘And after that?’

‘Well, if I don’t appear—’ I made a motion to indicate manacled hands.

‘We must go at once,’ she said.

We went through the house, picking out all we counted we’d need, and reading through our lists as we searched. By nightfall the kitchen floor was piled with parcels and tins and boxes and bundles of clothing. The house already wore a gutted look. In the dusk I could see Terry’s pale face, drawn and weary, but with eyes that showed no yielding to weariness or doubt. I brought our baby car to the door.

‘We’ll load as much as we can into the car, Terry,’ I said, ‘and take it up by the Glentruim road until we get as near as possible to Loch Coulter. Then we’ll dump the stuff and I’ll carry it to the cave while darkness lasts. You’ll come here again with the car. To-morrow you’ll go to Kingussie, anywhere you can buy food. To-morrow night at ten I’ll be waiting in the same place as we’ll find to-night.’

We were but young in stealth. As we drove along the Spey, towards Loch Coulter, the silent night was full of ears that harkened to our passing. We laboured up the hill from the Spey, by Cattlodge with its crofts and staring windows and human folk in another world from us. It was midnight when our second journey ended, and dark, dark.

‘I’ll be waiting here for you to-morrow night,’ I told Terry. ‘Go home and sleep, my dear, you’ll need all your sleep.’

‘Oh, my dear!’ she cried, ‘how can I leave you here alone! Hugh, Hugh, this dreadful night—’

‘This night makes us free,’ I murmured, little feeling free.