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would also be charging you with possession of an illegal and criminal weapon, for which you will both receive an extra six months.’
    He glanced at the lock-up sergeant, nodded towards the bayonet, and walked out.
    The lock-up sergeant took the bayonet from Otton, walked to the doorway and paused.
    â€˜What you tried to do for them poor Poms,’ he said to me, ‘I take my hat off to you for that.’
    He held up the bayonet.
    â€˜But this, you mongrel. For this you deserve everything you’re gunna get.’

Otton slept that night, I didn’t know how.
    Sick of the sound of me saying sorry to him, probably.
    I sat on the floor of the cell, trying to write a letter to Joan in my head.
    Gave up. What was the point?
    Tried to sleep. Couldn’t.
    But being awake didn’t stop me having a nightmare.
    Not about hard labour. I’d done hard labour all my life. Not even about the sneers on the faces of the folks back home. Sneers only hurt you if you go back home.
    My nightmare was about Daisy.
    She’d have to stay behind when I was taken away.
    Some officer who could spot a top horse would grab her for himself. Have a first ride on her. Get thrown off, which is what she did to everyone who wasn’t me.
    Others would try. Same result.
    Unrideable horse, they’d say.
    Dangerous creature.
    The army didn’t have feed, or space, for a dangerous creature.

    The court-martial next morning wasn’t like I’d expected.
    No lawyers, no military police, no handcuffs. Just a tent with the sides rolled up and the major sitting at a table.
    â€˜At ease,’ he said.
    Me and Otton tried to stand at ease. But I could see from the major’s face we didn’t have much reason to.
    The major spent a few minutes reading papers in a folder.
    Then he gave me a long hard look.
    â€˜Trooper Ballantyne,’ he said. ‘Before we go to the trouble and expense of a full court-martial, I want to give you a choice.’
    He paused.
    I wasn’t sure if I should say anything.
    I didn’t.
    â€˜Your choice is this,’ said the major. ‘Eighteen months in the military prison in Cairo. Where you will be starved, beaten and worked to within a worm’s whisker of your life.’
    He paused again. I had a wild thought.
    Run for it.
    Grab Otton and Daisy.
    Ride off into the desert.
    I glanced towards the horse lines. And saw I’d been wrong about no military police.
    A couple of them, the jacks who’d jumped on my head, were sitting in an armoured car, watching us, rifles on their laps.
    â€˜Or,’ said the major, ‘you can spend the next eighteen months using your special abilities.’
    I stared at him.
    Special abilities? That could only mean one thing.
    Water.
    I jumped in too quick. Dad would have gone at me with a bucket.
    â€˜I’ll do it,’ I said.
    The major frowned. He was probably wishing he had a bucket himself.
    â€˜On two conditions,’ I said.
    The major gave me a look that said I was lucky to have the use of my head, forget conditions.
    â€˜You don’t even know what I’m offering,’ he said.
    â€˜I don’t care,’ I said. ‘As long as I can do it with my horse.’ I glanced at Otton. ‘And my mate.’
    The major sighed.
    â€˜Oh, how I wish,’ he murmured, ‘the army still allowed flogging.’
    He closed the folder.
    â€˜You start tomorrow,’ he said.

‘We’re not plumbers,’ I said bitterly. ‘We’re troopers.’
    Otton groaned and pushed up his welding mask.
    â€˜Will you stop saying that,’ he said. ‘You’ve been saying that for a month. If I have to spend the next fifteen months listening to you whingeing I will weld you inside this infernal thing and that’s a non-revisable promise.’
    I pushed my own welding mask up and squinted at the pipeline snaking across the desert. And at the Egyptian workers toiling on it, supervised by