They left the port before noon. The sun was hot and the white walls of the town shone, blindingly, like bleached bones on a white sand strand. He’d rowed the boat out past the harbour wall and the girl sat at the stern with the basket and the two rifles wrapped in oilcloth. She wore a red scarf and the wind lifted it now and again so that the ends slapped against her shoulder.

He looked at her and then at the sea.

“You should drink something,” he said.

“I will,” she said. She touched the scarf, smoothed it. “Later.”

The tide ran steady and there was little swell. The men they hunted were likely three miles north, maybe four. That was what the fisherman had said in the bar. A small cove with a stone shack. A smuggler’s place. They would come by sea at dusk and would be bringing arms. The rifles were better for them rather than reaching either side in the fighting.

“You could stay with this boat,” he said.

“And you?”

“I go anyway.”

“Then I stay with you.”

They did not speak much after that. The oars dipped and rose, the sound steady and, somehow, clean. The sun flashing from a thousand coruscating ripples. Gulls wheeled and cried over the scene.

When the sun lowered and the rocks showed black against the light he beached the boat in a cut of sand. He unwrapped the rifles. One for him, one for her. She took it without looking at him. She actioned the bolt. Her hands were sure.

They climbed the path and lay among the scrub above the cove. The shack stood below, made of stone and driftwood, smoke rising in a thin line above a hole in the roof. They waited. He felt her shoulder against his arm. It was warm.

“You are not afraid?” he said.

“Of dying?” she said.

“Of any of it.”

“No.”

He believed her.

The light went. A motor came low from the south. They saw the boat round the point. It was heavy in the water. Men sat low in the boat. With their rifles in their hands.

She touched his arm. “Now?”

“Wait.”

The boat drew in. The men shouldered their rifles. A man jumped out with a rope. Another carried a crate. They moved fast, working as men do who know the place. The sea pushed against the boat and its waves slapped it playfully.

“Now,” he said.

They fired together. The first man fell as his cheek detached from his face. The others shouted and ran for the rocks. In seconds, a shot cracked and a chip of stone cut his cheek. He fired again and another man went down. Gut shot and screaming. She fired and one of them fell face first into the water. The boat drifted. The men were shouting in another tongue. One of them fired and although she flinched momentarily, she did not cry out.

“Are you hurt?” he said.

“No.”

They fired again. It was quick, businesslike and hard and then it was done. Three lay by the rocks. One floated out in the tide. The motorboat, a much better boat than the leaking, rotting old row boat they’d arrived on, rocked. Empty.

He looked at her. She looked back. There was a mark of blood at her temple where a stone chip had grazed her. Her eyes were bright.

“It is finished,” she said.

“Yes.”

They went down the path. He pushed the bodies into the sea. They watched them drift out. The motorboat was theirs now. The rifles too. He un-tied and held the painter and she stepped aboard.

“You did not have to,” he said.

“I did.”

“It is not just for you.”

“It is,” she said.

He looked at her hands on the rifle. He looked at the scarf, dark in the dusk. He thought of the town, the bar, the talk of fighting far inland. He thought of her walking there, alone, without him. He didn’t like the idea.

“You are stubborn,” he said.

“Yes.”

He started the motor and they swung out into the tide. The wind was cool and the night came quick. He felt the spray on his face and he felt her hand, warm on his arm. It was light but it was there.

She did not speak and he did not speak. The sea was dark and the boat cut clean through it. He knew she was a stayer. He knew she would fight. He knew she would love him until she did not. He knew he would love her as long as he could.

The lights of the town showed far ahead.

“Tomorrow?” she said.

“Oh yes. Definitely tomorrow.”