The grass was soaked through, and every step James took left a dark print in it that the next man behind him stepped in.
They had come off the trucks four kilometres back, south of Collooney, and walked the rest. Collooney had been given up two nights before, when the line pulled back to Castlebaldwin. Now it was the British side of the line, and the strike force went round it to the east in the dark, across fields and through gaps in hedges, along the edge of a forestry plantation, keeping off the N4.
Ahead of them, past the trees, something was running. It was a generator, and further off the sound of a vehicle reversing, its beeper going.
The British were awake. They were getting ready.
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