The Night Is for Hunting Read Online Free PDF Page A

run out of choices. So with Lee by my side I slipped away into the darkness and headed straight to the shop.
    We got there six or seven minutes before the soldiers. I shudder to think what would have happened if we’d spent another five minutes arguing around the kitchen table at Grandma’s. But we came sneaking towards the milk bar, being shadows among the trees, something else we’d become quite good at. We stood behind a pine tree, silently watching. The shop was completely still. If you hadn’t known they were there, you’d never have picked it. But I was sure they were inside, and confident they’d have a security system. The previous experience I’d had with them, near the old stables where they’d been hiding, taught me that. They’d had a cute little booby trap there, a net of pots and pans that made almost as much noise as the airfield blowing up. So I scanned the street and the front of the building.
    After about four minutes I pinched Lee’s arm and whispered, ‘See that dark patch along there?’
    I was pointing to a part of the footpath about fifty metres from the shop.
    ‘What about it?’
    ‘There’s something shiny.’
    I strained my eyes, squinting, trying to work it out. It was such a dark night, and the area I was looking at was one of the darkest parts of the path, shadowed by an overhanging awning from another deserted shop. I thought Lee wasn’t interested because he didn’t seem to be looking at the place, but I was wrong, because after a moment he said, ‘There’s another one over there,’ pointing down the street in the opposite direction.
    I moved to get a better view, and it worked. Straightaway I could see what the shine was. Those cunning little rats, they’d put big sheets of galvanised iron in various places along the footpath, mainly around the front of the shop. It meant you couldn’t get to the shop without walking on the iron, or, if you wanted to be smart, without lifting it up and moving it Either way you’d make an awful noise, and they’d be warned you were coming. They’d only need one sentry to cover all the approaches to the shop. And they’d have an escape route too, no risk.
    But just as I figured the strategy I heard a faint humming noise, like a pump. We weren’t used to mechanical noises these days, so it stood out pretty strongly. I moved back next to Lee. I didn’t have to say anything: he obviously heard it too, because he turned his head towards it and listened with full attention.
    As it got louder I realised what it was: some kind of heavy truck, a diesel engine, but driven at low speed. Funny, because it didn’t sound heavily loaded. It wasn’t one of those grinding straining noises that you get from an engine having to work its big end off. I started getting really uneasy. This shouldn’t be happening here, in this suburb, at this time of night. If a truck can sound sneaky, this truck sounded sneaky.
    ‘What do you think?’ I said to Lee, urgently.
    ‘I don’t like it,’ he said, looking around a little wildly. ‘They might be coming here. Or to your grandmother’s.’
    I was horrified at the second half of what he said. It never occurred to me that they might be after us.
    But before I could do much with this new idea the truck suddenly sounded louder and closer. I lost any doubt that it was heading this way, and I’d underestimated how close it was. It still sounded sneaky, but it could have been just two blocks down the street.
    We peered anxiously through the darkness. Just as I thought I was going to see the truck itself, it stopped. One moment there was the quiet rumble of the engine, the next we were surrounded again by the silence of the night air.
    ‘What are we going to do?’ I whispered to Lee. He didn’t answer and I realised he had as little idea as me.
    ‘You try to warn the kids,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and check out the truck.’
    Again he didn’t answer but an instant later he had gone. He could move so quickly,