Sal

Mick Kitson

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Iworried about fire and people seeing it, not so much in the day but at night. If your wood’s dry there isn’t a lot of smoke from a small pyramid fire, it’s just smoky if the wood is wet or too new. And also the wind blows it away. And also we were in the Last Great Wilderness in The UK and we were exactly eight miles from the nearest human habitation and roughly four miles from a forestry track and five miles from a road. I chose this place very carefully using an Ordinance Survey map I nicked from the library where they have all the Ordinance Survey maps of the British Isles. We were exactly half a mile into the forest behind a ridge that runs up towards the top where it is just under 3000 feet. In fact another twentyeight feet and it would be a Munro and there would be all climbers and wankers in cagoules going up it.

There are no trees at the top but according to the map there is a stone circle. The hill is called something in Gaelic and when I asked Mrs Kerr she said it was pronounced Magna Bra. Magna Bra. I told Peppa and she wanted to go there because I told her Magna means big in Latin and she was delighted and skipped about going “Big Bra ... big bra”. She is a dirty minded wee bastard and she wants to watch her swearing.

But at night you could see the fire glow from a way off. Not on the tarp side but on the other side. So I thought if I build the barrier they talk about in the handbook it would block the light at night from the east. I don’t know what way they’d come if they came out here and looked for us but they might come from the east. The motorway is east of us and they’d use that if they came out here. But I don’t see how they can or how they’ll know we are here.

I decided after my worry to make the barrier today and then set snares. We had got enough food for another two days I thought. Or three if I don’t eat and Peppa does. So we needed to start trapping and hunting. I had Robert’s airgun. It was short and you pump it up. It shot .22 pellets and I got two tins of them. I wouldn’t let Peppa use it yet in case she shot herself or me by accident. But I am a good shot. I practised in the hall of the flat and I worked out the way to adjust the site for the parabellum at longer ranges. I watched a You Tube video about it too, three days before we left. On seven pumps it can go through a bit of 9mm plywood. I brought it there in a zip-up hockey stick case I found in the school changing rooms.