We had our sticks in safety and our cave prepared for bad weather by the last week of August. We took energy from the sun, and after an evening and a morning spent trailing roots uphill we were still ready to go afield for rowans and cranberries and averans. We ventured once as far as the Truim to poach salmon in a pool I knew. I caught a fish with my hands. We crossed the railway. The rails were red with rust as if they had been long disused.

‘They soon grow rusty. A couple of days without traffic will do it,’ I said.

‘Surely not in this dry weather,’ Terry said.

‘There’s always dew at night,’ I assured her.

We had no doubt in our minds. Catastrophe had arrived on our country. We did but argue about the things we saw to save ourselves from relating them together, from thinking of their cause.

We were too greedy to let the salmon lie in cure. But we split trout and pike open and sprinkled them with salt and laid them out in the sun; in a few days they were kippered, ready to hang in the cave beside our fire.

16 SEPTEMBER

WE WAKENED EARLY on the morning of the 10th with the feeling that something uncommon had disturbed us. I opened my eyes to find Terry sitting bolt upright in the hammock beside me.

‘What was that?’ she demanded. ‘Did you hear anything, Hugh?’

‘I thought I did,’ I answered.

I had scarcely spoken when the noise that roused us repeated itself.

‘What noise is that?’ Terry whispered.

‘Guns,’ I said.

‘Guns! then they are shooting grouse somewhere.’

‘Not with rifles,’ I told her grimly.

‘I didn’t know it was rifles, Hugh,’ she said in a constrained voice and became silent. I began to fling off the bedclothes.

‘Where are you going, Hugh?’ Terry asked in the same forced voice.

‘To put on my clothes.’

‘Hugh—’ She caught my arm and clung to it. She was still sitting upright. I could sense her rigid expectancy though I could not see her features in the dim light of the cave.

‘I’ll cook breakfast,’ I told her gently, laying my free hand on the hand that gripped me to disengage it. Her fingers clutched me, resisting my efforts to loosen them.

‘Let me go, honey,’ I said. ‘Lie down and wrap yourself in the blankets. It must be frosty—there’s a keen air—’

‘Are there deer-forests over there?’ she asked, ignoring my words. ‘Would they be shooting deer? Hugh! speak to me! is it deer they’d be shooting?’

‘Not with volleys,’ I said, laying aside pretence.

‘Volleys!’ Her voice rose and she cried, ‘Hugh! Hugh! don’t leave me! stay with me, I’m frightened.’

‘There! there!’ I said, going back beside her and taking her in my arms. ‘Don’t you be frightened, honey, I’m with you, nothing can hurt you.’