The night that Wally planned the raid on the Ramsays, Doreen and Kathy were both at their listening-posts.

'Jake, you've recced the ground,' they heard Wally say. 'Let's have your report.'

'The site's fourteen and a half kilometres from here,' Jake replied. 'No occupied houses within a kilometre of it. You can't mistake their caravan – it's a car-trailer one lashed on to a flat-topped farm cart. The field's triangular, with a river along two sides and a small wood along the third. The road runs behind the wood. If we come at them through the trees, we've got ' em trapped. The stream looks too deep to wade and anyway we could pick 'em off while they were trying.'

'Any firearms?'

'I couldn't see – but they might have ' em hidden. Our contact didn't think so.'

Wally considered for a moment, and then asked: 'Any gradient on the road?'

'Enough to coast the bikes for the last kilometre to the wood. But not for the van, I'd say. She doesn't coast easy, that thing.'

'She's noisy, too… Right, then, we'll do it the simple way. Beaver, you'll take the van, leaving here five minutes after us. We'll go ahead with the bikes, quietly for the last couple of kilometres to the top of the hill, then coast. We'll take up our positions in the wood. When we hear the van coming down the hill, we attack. If the noise brings them out to look, so much the better; we pick them off at a distance… How far's the caravan from the edge of the wood?'

'Eighty metres. Hundred, maybe.'. 'Just right. And how wide's the wood, between the road and the field?'

'Fifty metres, say. Easy to move through but plenty of cover.'

'Good… Now remember, everybody – this is a quick kill. No hanging about, no "trials", no lectures. There's no point, because there's no audience. Only the two of them and the kid, so we kill 'em on sight. Lay out the bodies where they can be seen. As soon as we've got 'em, I'll blow my whistle and Beaver will bring the van round. Loot what we need, fire the caravan and leave. The shooting will bring snoopers when it's all quiet and the message will get around. The Ramsays are known as witches. Their bodies will be our lecture. Any questions?'

Garry asked: 'What if others have joined them, since Jake did his recce?'

'The plan's the same. Get them too. Guilt by association.'

'What about the horse?'

'Shoot it… Anything else?' Nobody spoke, so Wally went on: 'Give the girls a yell. I want a drink.'

Quickly, Doreen and Kathy replaced their floorboards and rugs.

Later, when they and Miriam were alone together washing-up, Doreen said: 'This is it, I think. It'll be the first time the van's left after the others. Now here's what we'll do…'

It was hardly surprising, when the girls served breakfast an hour before dawn, that Beaver was still a little besotted with his 'wife'. She had given him astonishing cause to when they went to bed, playing on everything she had learned about him till he fell asleep in an erotic daze. She was still giving him meaningful glances as he ate his breakfast and Beaver glowed. That was women for you. Show 'em who's boss and before you know where you are they're begging for it.

As the bikes left, all the 'wives' were out there to see them off. Doreen chatted with Beaver while he timed his five minutes, and when he said it was time to go, she put her arms round his neck, said 'Good luck, Beaver' and kissed him powerfully.

His grunt of pleasure changed to a brief scream as the well-honed kitchen-knives were driven into his back by Kathy and Miriam. Then he was dead.

It took less than a minute to distribute the arms and ammunition from the cab. Doreen, Kathy and Miriam were the only ones with knowledge of firearms, so Doreen drove with Kathy beside her, while Miriam rode in the back with the other three, teaching them all she could about loading and firing in the quarter-hour they had available. Kathy navigated from the marked map Beaver had 'prepared.

'I just hope nothing holds them up,' Kathy said. 'We don't want to overtake them on the road.'

'When Wally plans an operation,' Doreen told her, 'that's the way the operation goes. Only this time, he doesn't know about us.'

Jack and Philip were backing the horses into the shafts as the sun cleared the eastern horizon; apart from that, everything was ready to move. Philip had allocated rifles to Jack, himself, and Tonia who was the best shot of them all, and pistols to Betty and Sue. Until they were well clear of the Mob's area, each of them was to keep his or her weapon ready to hand. The three children had been given clear instructions; at the first sign of danger, they were to shelter among the piled bedding in the covered wagon and keep low. They had accepted the drill, though Finola was furious at not being given the shotgun.

Jack's harnessing was finished first and he crossed over to help Philip.

'Healthy-looking old mare, your Bunty,' Jack said. 'She's in as good shape as our Viscount, even though he's younger.'

'Not bad,' Philip agreed. 'I think she…" He broke off, cocking his head. 'Did you hear something?'

'What?'

'Car, or van… Over there, beyond the wood.'

'Oh Christ – yes!' Jack snatched up his rifle. 'It can only be them. Tell the women – I'll see to the kids. Then firing positions, quick. They'll be coming from the wood, there's no other way.'

They only just made it before the firing started. Prone behind a bush, Philip was firing every time he saw muzzle-smoke; the raiders could not have expected them to be armed, because two or three of them had emerged from the trees, firing as they came, and had only run back when they met the answering fire. Philip thought Tonia had got one, but could not be sure; the man had fallen out of sight into a dip in the ground.

After the first exchange, both sides seemed to have found cover, because the firing settled down to sporadic sniping with no observable hits. Stalemate, Philip thought; someone's going to have to make a rush and it'll have to be them because we can't leave the kids.

When the rush came, Philip's heart sank for an instant; four men, and the two wingers had light machine-guns. We shan't have a hope, unless we get them now… He fired at the man on his right, and missed, dropping his head flat as a burst zipped over him.

This is it. Oh, Betty, my darling…

There was a sudden crescendo in the firing, which puzzled Philip though he had no time to analyse why. He aimed again at the wing machine-gunner but somebody else got him first; he flung up his hands and crumpled half a second before Philip pulled the trigger. Without pause, he changed targets, and got a man himself. Then he realized what had puzzled him: too many rifles…

The firing stopped.

In the silence, he could hear one of the women whimpering in smothered pain. Tonia? Sue? He would have known if it were Betty… Why had the firing stopped?

A girl's voice called from the wood: 'Are you all right down there?'

For a moment the defenders were all too astonished to answer. The girl's voice came again: 'You're safe. They're all dead. We're coming out and so can you.'

Philip could hardly believe his eyes. From the edge of the wood, holding rifles above their heads to show they came in peace, six girls walked out in line abreast. All of them looked like teenagers and one couldn't have been older than twelve or thirteen.

Jack came to his senses first. 'Come on down,' he called. 'My wife's got a flesh wound, otherwise we're all right. And thanks for your help, whoever you are!'

Round the relit camp-fire – for it was a chilly morning -the schoolgirl Amazons told their story. 'Once we'd dealt with Beaver and got the van and the guns, it was easy, really,' Doreen said. 'We knew what the plan was, so we just came up behind them through the wood, and as they started advancing we got them. At least, we got the three you hadn't got. One of you hit Fatso before we opened fire, then I think it was you who got Jake while we were all firing… I'm sorry we didn't start a minute earlier. Then maybe you' – to Sue – 'wouldn't have got hit.'