It started at the sawmill where a team cut timber into precise measurements, and the wood was hauled down to the shore. Sufficient pieces were doled out to the construction groups, each one a fair way from the next along the shore. Each team consisted of one Wyvern man, three Nyalan men and a few women, including even those with babies on their backs or toddlers at their sides.

The four men would each lay a beam on the ground, setting them between pegs driven into the sand so that they would be in exactly the right place. Meantime another force was rolling empty, tight-bunged drums along the shore from the compound and stacking them at each site, seven at a time. The four men would stand the drums on the crossbeams inside the circle of vertical stakes which formed the primitive jig. Little pegs were being whittled by some of the elderly folk, and these went into holes drilled in the ends of each crossbeam. The sidebeams would then be dropped to stand at right angles. to the bases, the pegs slotting into holes drilled close to the bottom. Another set of pegs at the top of each side beam held the top cross-members in position, and halfway up yet another set of horizontal struts completed the cage.

At this stage the 'A'-gon was held together only by the pegs and the jig in which it rested. Now the women bound it all together with cordage. This was the longest part of the operation so the men would move to a second jig.

Once the 'A'-gon was finished a strong-arm team would heave it out of the jig. It was here that the binding sometimes failed and had to be redone. They would dump it on a rubber car mat and drag it the short distance to the water to be floated off. Then the whole process started again. The guy called Taylor who pioneered the science of time and motion study would have approved.

In the water a bunch of teenagers, treating the whole thing as a glorious water carnival, floated the 'A'-gons to the 'B'-gon construction site. Four teams took about an hour to make enough basic components for one 'B'-gon. I reckoned that we'd have both 'B'-gons, plus a few spare 'A'-gons, finished before nightfall.

I went to visit Wingstead on the rig during the early afternoon. I filled him in on progress. He was wan but cheerful, and that description also precisely suited his nurse, Sister Mary, of whom he seemed in some awe. I also looked in on Lang and was saddened by his deterioration. All the nursing in the world couldn't make up for the lack of medical necessities. I found Grafton on the rig as well. He had broken his ankle slipping between two 'A'-gon drums, and this accentuated the need for decking our extraordinary craft.

This was solved by a trip to the logging mill. There were tall young trees which had been cut and trimmed for use as telegraph poles, and it was a fairly easy job to run them through the cutters so that the half-sections would form perfect decking. Getting them back proved simple, with so many hands avail able. This operation was in the hands of Zimmerman and Vashily, who had emptied enough empty drums for both 'A'-gons and the steel lashings. Zimmerman said that he never wanted to have anything more to do with oil for the rest of his life.

The day wore on. The Nyalan foragers had found some food for everybody. Teams of swimmers were lifting floating planks onto the deck of the first completed 'B'-gon. It was an ungainly structure, with odd scalloped edges and splintery sides, but it floated high and lay fairly steadily in the water. On measuring we found that we could get one truck of not more than an eight foot beam on to it. Provided it could be driven on board.

Zimmerman, still scrounging about the camp for useful materials, came to me for a word in private.

'Neil, you'd better know about this,' he said. 'I checked all the trucks including the Frog's.' Dufour had been careful with his truck, always driving it himself and parking it away from the others at camp stops.

'He's carrying a mixed cargo of basic supplies. Ben will be happy to know that there is some oxygen and acetylene and some welding rods. But that's not all. The guy is breaking the law. He's carrying six cases of forty per cent blasting gelignite and they aren't on his manifest. That's illegal, explosives should never be carried with a mixed cargo.'

'We ought to stop him carrying it, but what the hell can we do with it? Dump it?'

'Must we?' he asked wistfully. Explosives were his profession.

'OK, not yet. But don't let Dufour know you're on to him. Just make sure nobody smokes around his truck. No wonder he parks it way off.' It was a possible weapon with Zimmerman's expertise to make the best use of it.

Progress on the second 'B'-gon was going well, but I called a halt. We were getting tired and this was when accidents were most likely to occur.

It was time for a council of war.

After the evening meal the crew gathered round and I counted and assessed them. There were fifteen men but I discounted two at once.

'Geoff, you're not coming.' Wingstead had been allowed to eat with us and afterwards he must have given his watchdog nurse the slip. He was very drawn but his eyes were brighter and he looked more like the man I'd first met.

He said ruefully, 'I'm not quite the idiot I was a couple of days ago. But I can sit on your council, Neil. I have to know what you plan to do, and I might be able to contribute.'

'Fair enough,' I said. Just having Wingstead there was a boost.

'And Derek's also out of it. He can't walk, ankle's swollen like a balloon,' Wingstead said. 'He's pretty mad.'

'Tell him I'll trade places,' offered Thorpe.

I said, 'Not a chance, Ritchie – you're stuck with this. You should never have been around in Port Luard when I needed a co-driver.'

'Wouldn't have missed it for the world,' he said bravely.

I turned to the next lame duck.

'Dan,' I said gently, 'it's not on, you know.'

He glanced down at his still splinted arm and heaved a sigh. 'I know. But you take bloody good care of Antoine here, you hear me?' He and the Frenchman exchanged smiles.

'Bert, how's your leg?'

Proctor said, 'Good as new, Mister Mannix. No problem, I promise you,' for which I was grateful. He was one of the stalwarts and we needed him. Kemp's shoulder would not hamper him, and there were no other injuries among us.

I said, 'Sadiq has got twenty-one men. There's one down with dysentery. With twelve of us that makes thirty-four to their seventeen: two to one. With those odds, I don't see how we can fail.'

A figure slid into the circle and I made room for him to sit beside me. It was Captain Sadiq.

I said, 'Basically what we have to do is this. We're going downriver on the 'B'-gon. We get there before first light. We try to overpower them without much fighting. We've got a few weapons and we'll be able to get theirs if our surprise is complete. Ideally we don't want any shooting at all.'

'Squeamish, Mannix?' asked McGrath.

'Not at all,' I said coldly. 'But we don't know how near any reinforcements might be. We keep this as quiet as possible.'

There was a slight stir around the circle at our exchange.

'We have to get their radio under control, don't we?' Bing asked.

I had refrained, against my first instincts, from forbidding him to join the expedition. He was nineteen and by medieval standards a grown man ripe for blooding, and this was as near to medieval warfare as you could get. He was fit, intelligent and fully aware of the danger.

'Yes, that's going to be your baby,' I said. 'Your group's first priority will be to keep it undamaged and prevent their using it. The one in the car looks out of action but you'll make sure of that too. Brad, you run the interference for Sandy, OK?' He may not know American football terms, but the inference was obvious and he nodded fervently. Bing was his responsibility.