The Carhullan Army

us, coldly on our legs and waists, and the sensation of it cooling the glaze where our hands moved was more erotic than anything I had ever felt. When I closed my eyes I could still see the white slit of moon in the violet sky.
    When we were finished we pulled up our trousers and walked back to the front of the building. No one else had emerged. I picked up the cups of water, passed her one and we drank. They were still warm.
    *

    The journey back up the pass seemed much shorter without the load of peat to carry. The light was fading fast, and the rust-coloured bracken on the banks looked like a tide of scrap metal. It was a clear evening and the starlight was bright enough to cast some illumination on the path. On the way the women joked about what they had done. Lillian, the girl who had gone upstairs with Dominic and Calum, laughed when Chloe asked her who she had ended up with this time. ‘Didn’t have to choose,’ she said. ‘These two girls were very generous and abstained. Want to know what it’s like being with two men? It’s like being with one man, only twice as good. Nothing has to wait its turn. Except for them.’ Her laughter tapered off into the twilight. Chloe seemed subdued. I had watched her and Martyn with curiosity as we left the settlement. He’d held her hand tightly, leant his face into her wheat-blonde hair, and asked her quietly to stay the night, but she had refused, and pulled away.
    Shruti and I were also quiet. I don’t know if she had been surprised by what had occurred between us. I don’t know if I was either. We walked together on the path and a couple of times our hands brushed and once she took my fingers briefly and squeezed them. ‘Look,’ she whispered. I directed my gaze where she pointed. An owl was flying over the grassland, sweeping down towards the ground and then up. Its white, clock-like face hovered gracefully, while its wings worked hard and silently in the air. For a second I caught a reflection in its eye, a weird flash of yellow-green, like a battery light flaring on then off again.
    My mind felt clearer and more focused than it had in months. I could see the details of the moor as we walked over it, the sprigs of heather and the pavements of limestone. I had not felt so sharp since the morning I’d left Rith. I was conscious of other life forces beyond us, out on the hillside, hunting with nocturnal vision, watching for movement.
    The ridge separated our group from the pass. The others had picked up their pace, trying to get to the farm before darkness overtook us and the last supper shift finished, but I stopped for a moment and let them go on ahead. I stood still as they walked away, willing them not to turn and call for me to hurry up. When they were far enough not to hear I turned and walked back the way we had come, keeping my tread light and rapid, watching the outline of ridge as I did so. After a few minutes I paused and knelt down in the coarse swathes and kept still. I heard the voices of the others getting fainter and then there was nothing, only the gusts of wind hawing through the grass and past rocks, the low hum emitted from the mountains. I flattened myself on the ground and waited.
    It was cold lying down but I did not move to get up. I pulled the hood of my jumper over my head and kept my eyes turned to the earth. Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen. The last blue smuts of light faded and in the murkiness the lamps lit in Carhullan gathered their energies and formed a beacon in the distance. Under my hands I could feel the beginning of a frost tautening the stems of grass, and the sting of thistles on my palms. I remained still.
    Then I heard gentle cracking footfalls on the ground nearby, snapping down the heather root, and the wisp of fabric rubbing against itself as the patrol stole past. There was a murmured command that was lost in the wind before it reached me. I waited another minute before moving. Keeping low on the moorland I crept after them, pausing every so often and hugging the earth. I strained to hear the slightest sound and if I heard nothing I stopped and extended myself in the foliage until I was sure that they had continued on. Wetness soaked into the fibres of my trousers and they began to feel heavy on me as I moved. The broom and gorse scratched me when I crawled beside it, but exhilaration pumped through me and the sensations felt exact and good.
    The patrol was only twenty feet ahead of me. The spines of a whin bush