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“It’s like I’m... like I’ve changed sides or something. It’s horrible. I’ve got to wear this stupid white jacket – look like a prat – and you know what’s worse? I don’t even get Sundays off. The divers need feeding whatever day it is. While you’re all up at the sports center this afternoon, I’m gonna be strangling rabbits.”

Ray laughed at that, and it made Baz madder than ever.

“Listen, it’s not funny, OK? It’s all right for you – tucked away for the afternoon. I’m still gonna be hard at it, 
and
 doing some pretty nasty work, and getting treated by everyone like I’m a traitor or something.” Baz looked around the room as he said this, making sure that those nearby were fully aware of his grievances.

“Nobody thinks you’re a traitor.” Ray got serious. “And don’t forget the rest of us are having a pretty hard time too. I am, anyhow. That Hutchinson, he keeps needling me. And once Steiner gets per mission to smash that drain cover – which could easily be today...”

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry.” Baz immediately backed down. Ray had more problems than he did, that was for sure. A lot more. “I just... oh, I just wish I didn’t have to do this. And I don’t want you – anyone – I don’t want to be treated like Cookie was, that’s all.”

“Hey, don’t worry.” Ray stood up and pulled at the waistband of his shorts. “I still love you.” He smiled, dark eyes looking down at Baz for a moment. “Come on. We’d better get lined up for chapel.”

He wandered off down the room, hands in his pockets. Baz stared after him. Then he realized that Dyson was looking his way, and he quickly returned his attention to the split in his shoe.

The boys were all standing outside the slob room, lined up and ready for chapel, but for some reason they were being made to wait.

“Just shut up and keep still,” was Steiner’s only comment. The two capos moved further away, standing by the main entrance and looking out through the glass doors. They muttered to each other in low voices.

Eventually there was some activity down at the dark end of the corridor, and Preacher John appeared, striding towards them, followed by the diving crew. They were all dressed in their Sunday suits – suits that Baz had watched Cookie pressing only a few days ago. That job would be his now, he supposed.

The capos quickly returned to take up positions at the head of the line of boys.

“Send somebody for the hymn books.” Preacher John spoke to Steiner as he marched by.

“You’ – Steiner nodded at Ray – ‘run down to the assembly hall and get the hymn books.” After a blink of hesitation Ray was off.

Isaac stopped outside the storeroom door. He undid the padlocks, drew back the bolts and pushed the door open. Then he reached round it, picked up some object and stepped back into the corridor. Fuel can? Yes, it looked like a plastic fuel can – black, with a red screw-on spout. Isaac snapped the padlocks back into place and then turned to face the line of boys.

“Get down to the jetty,” he said.

As the bewildered boys began to shuffle off, following the capos’ lead, Isaac spoke again.

“Oi, you – Cookie.”

It took Baz a moment to realize that Isaac was addressing him. He came to a halt, stumbling slightly as Dyson bumped into him.

“Me?”

“Yes, you. Where are those rabbits? I told you to look after them.”

“Rabbits? Uh... they’re in the kitchen.”

“Well, go and get them, then. No use to us there, are they?”

Baz stared up at Isaac’s black-bearded face, trying to find some connection, some meaning to what was being said. “You want me to bring them down to...?”

Isaac wasn’t going to ask him again, that much was plain. Baz hurried away.

There was a definite atmosphere to the kitchen now, the smell of living creatures overlaying the everyday staleness of food scraps and cooking oil. It reminded Baz of Saturday morning trips to the petshop when he was little – buying food for his guinea pigs, or a new water bottle to strap to the side of their cage...

Baz peered into the cat box and watched the rabbits for a few moments, their pink noses snuffling around the few limp scraps of greenstuff he’d provided. Then he grabbed the carrying handle. Better go.

The school building was eerily quiet as Baz hurried along the corridors. He had to hold his arm out at an angle in order to keep the cat box from banging against his legs. This took effort and concentration, and so the sudden sound of a voice made him jump.

“Baz!”

It was Ray, entering the main corridor from another direction, and struggling to stay in control of the hymn books that he carried, his chin resting on top of the tall pile. “Where is everybody?”

“Down at the jetty,” said Baz.

“Well, I wish someone’d told me. I’ve been wandering about like an idiot. What’ve you got there?”

“Rabbits,” said Baz.

“
Rabbits?
”

“Yeah.”

It was a strange cargo they carried between them, hymn books and rabbits. But it was also a rare moment of peace, to be the only ones in the building. They walked side by side along the empty corridor towards the light of the main entrance.

“Hang on,” said Baz. “I’ll get the door.”

As Baz and Ray rounded the bend in the steep pathway, the jetty below came into view. Gene’s wooden cross stood tall and imposing behind the stone construction of the altar, making the jetty itself look vaguely like a boat being launched into the waves. The boys were throwing wood onto the altar, piling up logs and twigs and branches under Preacher John’s direction.

Baz and Ray reached the jetty and hurried along it as quickly as they could. Preacher John stood on the concrete platform before the altar. His congregation were now arranging themselves into their usual rows, boys at the front, then the two capos, then the divers. There were no chairs.

Baz and Ray hovered to one side of the gathering, uncertain as to what they should do next. Preacher John looked at Ray and said, “Hand out the hymn books.” Then he pointed to the concrete platform, indicating to Baz that he should lay down the cat box beside him. “Take your places.”

Baz added himself to the end of the second row, and Ray stood directly in front of him.

“Hymn number three-three-three. ‘Lord Behold Us with Thy Blessing’.”

Preacher John waited for the hurried flipping through of pages to die down, and then he began to sing, his voice deep and powerful on the muggy air.

“
Lord behold us with thy blessing
,
Once again assembled here...”

The ragged crew joined in, uncertain of the tune. Baz was glad to be hidden away in the second row, where he hoped that his feeble mouthing of the words would go unnoticed.

The last line of the hymn was ‘With thy choicest gifts array’, and Preacher John took this as the first line of his text.

“
With thy choicest gifts array,”
he said. “Aye. To us the choicest gifts are given. But God expects gifts in return...”

Baz avoided looking directly at Preacher John. He was wary now of that all-seeing gaze, but also horrified by the thought that whatever had happened to Cookie would have been on Preacher John’s orders. The man was a monster.

Instead Baz stared up at the cross that Gene had made, and studied its construction. The cross-piece itself had been fashioned from one of the round fencing posts they’d used as rollers, split in half and then let into the upright. His eyes dropped to the pile of brushwood that festooned the top of the altar. There was something vaguely Christmassy about this – bits of holly and ivy poking out here and there, as though someone in the local church had gone a bit overboard with the festive decorations.

Finally he looked down at the cat box, standing at an angle on the concrete platform, a meter or so away from Preacher John...

“... the Promised Land!” Preacher John swung his arm out in a broad and dramatic gesture towards the seascape behind him. Baz was dragged from his thoughts as all turned their heads to where the preacher was pointing.

“There it lies, within our grasp, a clear and visible sign from God. What must we do to bring it closer?”

Was he talking about the line of blue water? It seemed further away than ever now, a glimpse of brightness on the horizon, fading before the overwhelming force of a murkier tide.

“God has given us a sign that we are doing right in His sight, and shown us what our reward might be. Clear blue water. Aye. In clear blue water are God’s choicest gifts arrayed. No more shall we be left to grope in the darkness, but shall see our way to all that God has in store for us, his chosen people.”

He was talking about 
diving
, Baz realized. Preacher John wanted the waters above the cities to clear so that he could find more supermarkets! He was bargaining with God for the chance of another warehouse or two.

“And on this spot we shall light our beacon. Here we shall guard our altar’ – Preacher John raised his arms as he spoke – ‘and thus we shall make our sacrifice – whatever God shall ask of us – until the waters become clear or draw back altogether.”

Before the silently watching congregation the preacher stepped to the side of the altar and picked up the black plastic fuel can. He unscrewed the lid and began to pour the contents over the piled-up brushwood that festooned the giant slab. Up and down he walked, and when the last few drops were shaken from the can, he took a cigarette lighter from the pocket of his long black coat.

Baz instinctively braced himself for an explosion of fire, narrowing his eyes, head turned to one side. If it was petrol that had been poured onto the brushwood, then those nearest might do well to shield themselves.

Preacher John flicked the lighter and held it to the pile of wood. Was he crazy?

But nothing seemed to be happening. Again and again the lighter clicked, and still there was no sign of fire.

Eventually there came a wisp of smoke – a crackling of twigs – and the brushwood began to catch. There was more smoke than flame at first, thick white plumes that swirled up towards the cross. Perhaps the wood was too damp, or too green, or perhaps it was diesel rather than petrol that Preacher John had doused the altar with. Either way, it took a while for the fire to get going properly.

Baz was caught up in the hypnotic effect of the rising smoke, the sinuous forms that grew and intertwined. With no breath of air to break it down, the smoke wreathed itself into a single corded column, a gently twisting tornado, rising from the altar to reach for the heavens.

When Baz lowered his gaze again, still in a half-trance, he saw that Preacher John had hold of one of the rabbits. There was barely time for this to register, or to question why this should be. The preacher’s stooping bulk was turned away from the congregation, so it was difficult to see exactly what was happening. He appeared to be holding the rabbit across his knee. His elbow gave a sudden jerk, a sharp backward movement, and he straightened up. The rabbit dangled lifelessly in his grasp. Preacher John dumped it on top of the cat box as casually as if it had been a scarf or a tea-towel, then he leaned forward again and reached inside the open flap...

This time Baz knew what to expect, and so did those around him. He saw Ray turn his head to the left, obviously intending to look away, and heard Robbie’s gulp of dismay at his shoulder. Baz shifted his own focus, concentrated on Ray’s yellow T-shirt in front of him, the raised bumps of vertebrae showing through at the base of his neck. But still he caught that quick jerk of movement at the corners of his vision, the twitch of Preacher John’s dark bulk, and he knew that the second rabbit was dead the instant it happened. The merciful crackling of the fire hid any sound there might have been, but as Baz continued to stare at Ray’s slim neck, he imagined how easily such bones would separate, how frail was the cord of life within.

They were hardened to the sight of sudden and unwarranted death, all of them, though not yet immune. The revulsion that Baz felt in the pit of his stomach was less a horror of the two dead creatures before him than of Preacher John himself. In his long black suit, and with a white rabbit dangling from each of his beefy hands, he looked like some monstrous conjuror. He might have pulled the rabbits from the flames that now roared behind him.

As if in contradiction to this thought, a final twist to his performance, the preacher turned and tossed the rabbits onto the fire. In lazy swinging arcs their extended bodies rose and fell, graceful dancers, momentarily silhouetted against the blaze. They disappeared into the brushwood and the smoke thickened around them, veiling them from sight.

Preacher John raised his arms high once again and threw back his mane of hair. “O Lord,” he cried, “here is a token of our faith, a sacrifice to thee! Give us a sign that we do right, and lead us forward from this new beginning. Clear our path and let us see the bounty that you have given, the world that you have created. And we will give in return whatever you ask, all that you think fit, until our debt is paid. Amen.”

“Amen.”

The response came automatically, a collective and embarrassed mumble.

Preacher John lowered his arms and said, “Hymn number three-three-two. ‘We Give Thee But Thine Own’.”

Another long and unfamiliar hymn, but in it Baz thought that he could see the message that Preacher John was trying to get across.

“
We give thee but thine own
,
What e’er the gift may be:
All that we have is thine alone
,
In trust, O Lord, from thee
.
May we thy bounties thus
As stewards true receive
,
And gladly as thou blessest us
,
To thee our first fruits give.”

As the last line died away, Preacher John turned towards the far horizon. If he had been wearing long robes and carrying a staff he could not have looked more like a prophet, his great beard jutting out, long red hair lifting slightly in the onshore breeze...

The breeze. How strange that this should suddenly have sprung up, when a few moments ago the air had been so thick and still. From the bright line of the horizon the cooling vesper blew, playful as a kitten’s paw, batting the smoke from the fire into wispy clouds and rolling them down among the congregation.