‘I want…’

‘We all want, mate,’ Ben said softly. ‘Let’s just do what comes next.’

What came next-treating him for shock and dressing a jagged cut across his elbow that the man hadn’t noticed until Ben helped him off with his shirt-took time. Then, just as he’d settled Henri’s dad into a chair by Henri’s bedside and wondered who’d sleep the deepest, a private came to find him.

‘One of our men’s got a flash burn to the arm,’ he told him. ‘They’re chucking out Molotov cocktails and he got hit.’

‘From where?’

‘From that place they call the council compound.’ He shrugged. ‘We’re mopping up now-there doesn’t seem to be any aggressive fire from anywhere else on the island except from there. Paul was just real unlucky to be hit.’

‘So what’s happening?’ Ben asked. ‘Did our guys storm the place?’

‘Dunno about that,’ the private told him, leading the way back to his friend with the burns. ‘They’re saying there are hostages. The sergeant reckons when they saw how many of us had arrived they took fright, grabbed as many people as they could and barricaded themselves in. The powers that be have had us fall back out of range. My mate here’s the last one injured. We sit and wait, Sarge reckons.’

They’d reached his mate now, a lanky corporal with an arm that was blistered and raw. ‘Ouch,’ Ben said. ‘You’ve been playing with matches?’

The corporal gave him a sickly grin and Ben looked round to find Pieter, anyone, to prepare him a syringe of morphine.

Pieter appeared as if he’d known he was being looked for. His face, though, was more grim than the last time Ben had seen it.

‘What’s up?’ he asked.

‘I hope not much,’ Pieter said. ‘My wife and daughters are OK. Word is that order’s being restored, except at the council compound.’

‘Do we know how many people are in there?’

‘I have no idea,’ Pieter said brusquely. ‘Lily’s gone to find out.’