Stonemouth

We weren’t generally invited into the rest of the house, though I’d been a bit further in after cutting my knee and having Mrs Ancraime herself clean and dress it for me in the main hall. She was a sturdily well-built woman with unkempt brown hair and a quiet voice with soft traces of her native Skye in her accent. A pair of glossy-coated red setters came snuffling, noses high, briefly inquisitive, then skittered off again. The house was dark and gloomy, contrasting with the bright high-summer sunlight blasting down outside. I’d been impressed by the ancient shields, pikes, swords and maces decorating the walls between the stag heads and age-brown family portraits, but still; getting outside again with a bandaged knee had felt like escape.

Later, thinking about all that wall-mounted weaponry, I’d suggested to Hugo we could try taking some of the swords and pikes and stuff and use them to restage battles or something. Hugo had looked pained and said maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea. Anyway, they were almost all too well secured to the walls; you’d need a hacksaw.

The paintball gear was kept in an outhouse cluttered with all the rusting farm equipment of yesteryear. We were introduced to George, who proved to be big and heavy-looking, with a shy smile.

‘Now, boys, this is George,’ his mother told us, leading him by the hand. Mrs Ancraime was dressed up very posh. ‘I hope you’ll take good care of him and play nicely. Do you promise?’

We all agreed that we did. ‘Don’t you worry, missus,’ Wee Malky said.

‘You can depend upon us, ma’am,’ Ferg told her.

‘How-ja do?’ George asked us each in turn, seemingly not really expecting an answer. He was probably small for his age but he still towered over each of us, especially Wee Malky, obviously. His voice was adult-deep, booming in his big chest. He shook our hands. His hands were massive but his grip was gentle. He wore comedically wide khaki shorts and a worn brown tweed jacket over a farmer’s shirt.

‘Thank you, boys,’ Mrs A said. ‘Have fun.’ Then she wafted out.

‘Right,’ Hugo said, rubbing his hands. ‘Teams.’

‘But I would like a gun,’ George said sadly to Hugo when he was told he could tag along with Hugo’s team but only to carry extra ammunition.

‘Sorry, George,’ Hugo told him.

‘Oh,’ George said, and sounded like he was about to burst into tears.

‘But you can carry all this stuff!’ Hugo told him, loading him up with mesh bags full of paintballs.

‘Ah-ha,’ George said quietly, lifting them like they weren’t there and looking better pleased.

‘He’s like Mongo,’ Phelpie said. Our team was hunkered down in a hollow on the side of a wee overgrown glen, waiting for Hugo and his lot to show on a path below. ‘Ah’m callin him Mongo.’

‘Well, just don’t,’ Ferg told him.

‘Naw, dinnae,’ Wee Malky agreed.

‘Who the fuck’s Mongo anyway?’ Fraser Murston asked.

‘From Blazin Saddles?’ Phelpie said. Ryan Phelps was another slightly daft, borderline nutter kid in the Dom Lennot style.

‘What the fuck’s Blazin fuckin Saddles?’ Fraser Murston said; at the time Fraser was the acceptable face of the Murston clan, being more outgoing than his shy twin, Norrie, and a little less aggressive — or at least younger and less sure of himself — than his year-older brother Callum, who was on Hugo’s side in this afternoon’s first skirmish. The brothers’ respective placings on the aggressiveness ladder were, it is fair to say, set to change in the future.

‘It’s a fillum!’

‘Zit in black an fuckin white, aye?’

‘Naw!’

‘Do not call him Mongo,’ Ferg said.

‘Stu, you callin the big guy Mongo?’ Wee Malky asked.

‘No. I agree with Ferg.’ I looked at Phelpie. ‘Don’t call him Mongo.’

‘But he needs a name an he’s a fuckin monster. That boy is pure Mongo.’

‘Yes, but you might upset him,’ Ferg explained, obviously exasperated. ‘Worse than that, you might upset Hugo.’

‘Ah, fuck him,’ Phelpie said.

Ferg and I exchanged looks. Of the dozen or so kids involved, we two seemed to be the most aware that this new venue for fun was entirely at Hugo’s disposal. Not letting nutters come along who’d spoil it for everybody had already been talked about.

‘Hugo’s allowed to use a shotgun,’ Wee Malky said, looking solemnly at Phelpie, who might have said something more, but then Fraser spotted the enemy force, sneakily using the hillside rather than the road, and we had to redeploy quickly.

The sun was still high over the hills as the afternoon started to draw to a close and we set up for the last game of the day. A complicated arrangement of scoring across the various skirmishes and the different team combinations had resulted in Wee Malky coming out last, so he had to be the prey.