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Baz caught a glimpse of Preacher John’s beaming face through the smoke, and heard him give the order to dismiss. Not a moment too soon. Hurrying along the jetty with the rest of the boys, Baz was forced to let out his breath at last, and so take another. The smoke was still all around them, following them, teasing them with the smell that it carried. It was a smell that was simultaneously delicious and disgusting: that of roasting meat.

*  *  *

Halfway up the hill Baz realized that he was being summoned.

“Oi – Cookie!”

Cookie. He would never get used to that.

It was Isaac, roaring up at him from below. The divers and capos had walked the length of the jetty and were just beginning their ascent of the pathway. Preacher John remained by the altar, gazing out to sea.

“Oh, hell,” said Baz. “Now what?” There was no choice but to go back down again.

“Bad luck,” said Ray. “Catch you in a bit.”

“Yeah. Actually, no. I’m gonna have to start cooking, aren’t I? Go on, though. Get to the playing fields, quick as you can.”

Down the hill went Baz, meeting Isaac and the crew coming up.

“You forgot the cat box.” Isaac’s voice was sour.

“Oh. Right. Sorry.”

“Keep it in the kitchen. We might need it again. And another thing – we’ll have wine with our meal tonight. Red.”

“Yes, OK.”

Isaac and the divers strode on, the capos close behind.

Baz took his time retrieving the cat box. He didn’t want to run the risk of bumping into the capos if he could help it. When he got back to the school building, all was quiet, but as he came to the main entranceway he paused. Isaac was just down the corridor, standing outside the open storeroom door, the black plastic fuel can in his hand. He was in conversation with one of his brothers, Amos.

“Do you reckon?” Isaac said. “Hang on.” He thrust the fuel can through the gap in the storeroom door and pulled it closed. “Well, let’s get the maps out and have a look. Soon see if you’re right.” He put his hands in his pockets and strolled down the corridor, side by side with Amos.

Baz waited until the low voices faded into the distant darkness. He had stopped in the entranceway simply because it was generally wise to avoid contact with Isaac if at all possible. But he had remained there for another reason.

As he walked past the storeroom, he glanced at the door. The padlocks were hanging open on their bolts. Isaac had forgotten to snap them shut! Baz kept on going for a few more paces, wondering what he should do. Dare he go back and take a look in there? No, that would be suicide. But perhaps he could improve matters a bit. He turned round and walked back to the main entrance, once again taking note of the padlocks as he passed by. Yes, definitely undone.

Baz closed the glass door of the main entrance so it looked as though this had been his reason for coming back. There was still nobody about, as far as he could see. But the end of the corridor was obscured in darkness, and one of the divers or capos might appear from the gloom at any moment. Or Preacher John might return from the jetty...

As Baz walked down the corridor, he glanced with feigned surprise at the storeroom door. He paused in his stride, took a step backwards and casually put out a hand. Pretending to examine the padlocks, he squeezed the hasp of first one and then the other until both were just short of clicking shut. To the passing eye they now looked as though they were locked as usual.

There were no sudden shouts or accusations, no sounds of running footsteps. Baz continued on his way to the kitchen, a hundred ideas bouncing around his head.

The Sunday meal that he cooked was a success in as much as nobody actually threw it back at him. Isaac’s only grumble was that five bottles of wine as an accompaniment seemed over-generous.

“Garn – the old man can afford it, Isaac. Cheers!” Amos raised a glass and took a noisy slurp.

“I’m not worried about him, or what he thinks. But we’ve got things to do tomorrow.”

“What, the dentist?” Amos attacked his glass again. “We’re just taking our anesthetic in advance, that’s all.”

The general mood was good, despite Isaac’s warnings, and the divers made the most of it. They got through their five bottles with no trouble and Isaac didn’t object when another was called for. Consequently it was a very mellow and relaxed crew that finally staggered off to bed, and a very late hour by the time Baz had finished clearing up in the kitchen. He was pleased with himself, though. Thanks to his generosity with the wine, he didn’t expect any of the men to have much trouble sleeping.

It didn’t sound as though the capos were having much trouble sleeping either. As he left the divers’ quarters and approached the main corridor, Baz could hear loud snoring coming from Steiner’s room. Good. Perhaps Ray had managed to keep out of their way once again.

Moonlight shone through the glass entrance doors at the far end of the corridor – enough to see by – and down there lay the unlocked and unguarded storeroom. To Baz it seemed too good an opportunity to miss, although there was still one danger from which there could be no protection: Preacher John. Was the preacher likely to be up and about at this hour? Wandering the corridors, perhaps, alone in the darkness... silently watching over his domain, while all around him slept... Baz shivered at the thought. He would get a second opinion on it. Gene.

The atmosphere inside the slob room hit him in a warm fetid wave. God, it stank in here. Baz knelt by Gene’s mattress and put out a fumbling hand in the semi-darkness.

Gene responded instantly. “Who’s that? What is it?”

“Gene – it’s Baz. Wake up!”

“I’m already awake. What’s happened?”

“The storeroom’s unlocked,” Baz whispered. “The divers are drunk, and so are the capos – sparked out, the lot of ’em. And the storeroom’s been left unlocked. Can’t tell about Preacher John, but what do you reckon? Worth a look?”

“Unlocked? You sure?” Gene threw back his blanket and scrambled to his feet.

“Definite.”

“Hang on, then.” Gene padded down towards the sink area, rummaged around in the cupboard for a minute and returned carrying some chunky object.

“What’s that?”

“Wind-up torch. Clockwork thing.”

“Brilliant.”

“Hey...” Another shadowy figure was up and about, appearing from the other end of the room. It was Ray. “You going somewhere?”

“Yeah,” whispered Baz. “Storeroom’s unlocked. Me and Gene are going to take a look in there.”

“Wow. Want me to keep a lookout?”

“Yeah,” said Gene. “Good idea. Just stay here by the door, Ray.”

He took a quick glance up and down the passageway. “Come on, then.”

They were off, Gene leading, Baz following, and in a few seconds were outside the storeroom. Baz gently drew back the bolts, pushed at the door, and slipped through the gap.

The room was big. Baz could see tall dark columns – stacks of pallets, he would guess, their outlines broken up by thin vertical strips of moonlight. These faint illuminations fell from above, perhaps from windows covered by closed blinds. Other heavy silhouettes that he couldn’t make out. Machinery? The place smelled airless, musty...

“OK. Here we go.” Gene stopped winding the torch, and a broad beam of light shot through the darkness. He swung the torch around, just to get a quick impression of the place – floor, walls, ceiling – and then did a slow-motion replay, allowing the beam to pause here and there. It looked as though this might once have been a sports hall or gym. There were wall barsalong one side, and the remains of painted markings on the wooden floor, high windows protected by closed metal shutters.

And the place was packed full, a warehouse of spoils. Rows of pallets filled the major part of the room, each of them stacked three high. Baz couldn’t even estimate how many thousands of tins of food this represented. The stacking work had apparently been achieved by use of a small fork-lift truck, the piece of machinery he’d seen. It stood on the window side of the room, a bright yellow object in Gene’s torch beam.

“Electric,” whispered Gene. “Charge it from the generator probably.”

Then there were bottles and bottles of water, still shrink-wrapped in their plastic packaging, crates of wine, beer-packs, soft drinks. Baz could see piles of cardboard boxes, dry foodstuffs, gardening tools – seeds, even. Bags of cement. Electrical stuff, cables, light bulbs. Furniture. Chairs, tables, new mattresses... bedding... Preacher John’s superstore.

How many diving trips, Baz wondered, had it taken to accumulate this lot? How many trading deals with the mainlanders? The two boys wandered around in awe, pointing out to each other this object and that, surrounded by wealth that was barely imaginable.

And yet amongst all this treasure there seemed to be hardly anything worth the risk of stealing. A few tins of food perhaps, the luxury of a bottle of Coke, but nothing to actually aid their cause. Gene picked up a couple of spark plugs, still newly boxed, but that was all. Baz stole a penknife. It was nothing special, just a cheap single-bladed knife, and so the kind of thing that would probably not be missed. But there were no real weapons here, no explosives, and certainly nothing that looked like a bomb casing.

“Damn,” said Gene. “You’d have thought there’d have been 
something.”

“Well, where do they keep the guns?” whispered Baz. “And the petrol? And the ammo?”

“Dunno.”

They found a galvanized metal door at the far end of the room, heavily fortified with solid-looking bolts and padlocks to the top and bottom. Whatever lay beyond there was obviously thought precious enough to require a lot of extra security.

“Bet that’s the armory,” said Gene. “Where the weapons are. Gotta be. Look at those locks.” He gave the door a cursory push, just to check that by some miracle it hadn’t been left open. No such luck.

Baz rested his forearm on a metal shelving rack to the right of the door. “Yeah. And even if we had a crowbar or something, it wouldn’t be any good. Too much damage. They’d know we’d been in there.”

“Unless we found the guns. Then it wouldn’t matter whether they knew or not.”

“We can’t use guns, Gene. You said so yourself.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re right. The thing is – we got rumbled today. Steiner came up to the playing fields just by himself, looking for Ray. Shouting and carrying on.”

“Oh my God,” whispered Baz. “Did he get him?”

“No. We heard him coming and ran round the sports center. Just managed to keep out of his way. But he’ll have found all the food tins and everything – so now that little secret’s out. We’re not gonna be able to smuggle anything much from now on.”

“Ohhhh... no.”

They stood there a little longer. Gene wound the handle of the torch a few more times to keep the light going. Baz idly tapped his fingernails against a cardboard carton that stood on the shelving rack. He imagined himself – him and Gene – walking down the corridor with machine guns... bursting in upon the capos and the divers... mowing them down...

Baz chopped angrily at the carton with the edge of his hand. The box didn’t move – a surprise, considering that it wasn’t very big. Baz closed his fingers over the box and tipped it sideways. The solid weight of the thing was familiar. He’d seen it before.

“Gene! Look at this. Cartridges!”

“What?” Gene shone the light on the shelving.

The same two boxes of shotgun cartridges that had bought Baz his passage to the island were here right next to him, stacked on the shelf. Eley Imperial.

“Shotgun cartridges,” he said. “Fifty of ’em. It was me that brought them here! Gunpowder – that’s gotta be worth nicking, yeah?”

“Woo! Too right,” said Gene. “We’re having those. Hey – and what’s that other box?”

Next to the Eley cartons stood another container. It was military looking, green-painted metal, with a carrying handle on the top. In white lettering on the side were stencilled words and numbers.

“Christ,” said Gene. “It’s an ammunition can! M sixty? That’s machine-gun bullets! Is it full?” He reached out for the carrying handle. “Yeah – result! Come on, Baz – that’ll do us. We’re out of here.”

They gathered up the heavy boxes, excited now, and headed back to the entrance. Gene fumbled at the door, and quickly stuck his head out to make sure the coast was clear. A mistake. In his haste, he’d forgotten to switch off the torch, and the light beam flashed across the corridor.

“Wassat? Who’s there?” They heard a mumbling voice from just a few meters away.

“Oh, God... no!” Gene whipped his head back into the room and switched off the torch. “Hutchinson!” His voice was a hiss of panic. “He’s out there!”

“Jesus...” Baz felt a cold wave of fear at the back of his neck. That was it. They were dead.

More voices. They could hear Hutchinson’s slurring mumble, but now there was someone else speaking as well.

“Hey – are you OK?” It was Ray.

Baz pushed his head past Gene’s and peeped round the door, desperate to know what was happening. He saw that Ray had come out of the slob room and was now talking to Hutchinson, standing in front of him, trying to divert his attention.

“You don’t look so good. You want a hand?”

“Wha’? Summat... down there... summat going on...” Hutchinson leaned heavily against the wall. His shoulder slipped forward and Ray put out a hand to try and steady him.

“Hey, you need to lie down, mate. Let’s get you to your room, yeah?”

Hutchinson reeled backwards, obviously struggling to stay upright. He seemed to focus on Ray for the first time. “Hey – itsh you... Yeah. We been looking for you. “S you, innit... yeah...”

“Yeah, it’s me. Come on, then. Better get you back to bed.” Ray was trying to turn Hutchinson round, to get him facing in the other direction.

“Ughhh...” Hutchinson got an arm around Ray’s shoulder, almost falling on top of him. “Back to bed... yeah. Goo’ idea. But you’re... you gotta help me. Come an’ have a drink.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I’m coming with you. We’ll have a drink.”

And then Ray was leading Hutchinson away, keeping him upright somehow, the two of them weaving and staggering back down the moonlit corridor. Baz peered round the door, watching. Thank God for Ray. 
Get him out of here, Ray. Just get him out
.