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I hurried towards the west of the city, where the bus station was, and where the convoy would arrive if it could get through. The curfew was to begin in less than two hours, and after that anyone found outside was liable to be shot on sight and questions asked afterwards. But, of course, that was another chance one had to take. If you wanted to meet anyone, or needed anything like a strip of painkillers someone might have, in return for a half-loaf of bread, darkness was the only time when you could do it. Barter was forbidden, and everything was supposed to be handed in to be shared equally out among everyone.

Lately there had been nothing even to barter, let alone share out equally. Lately, people had been ripping weeds out of cracks in the pavement and boiling them in water scooped out of puddles to eat.

Coming round a corner, I ran right into a patrol. They’d been standing silently, watching the shelling, which was why I hadn’t known they were there in time to take another way.

"Stop," one of them shouted in a high-pitched voice. "Where are you going?"

I looked at him, and at the others. There were only four or five of them, and they were all kids, of course. Their fathers, uncles and older brothers would be in the trenches outside the city.

"It’s not yet curfew time," I pointed out mildly. "There’s still well over an hour to go."

"You answer my question," the boy shouted. He couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen at the most. The uniform he wore was so large that the shirt hung almost to his knees, and the automatic rifle over his shoulder looked half as tall as he was. "Where are you going?"

I told him. He peered suspiciously into my bag, found only files there, and gave it back reluctantly. "Why are you not in the militia?" he demanded. "Everyone must be in the militia."

"I’m a government health worker," I said. "I’m exempt."

"No, new orders." He fished in his breast pocket and brought out a tattered scrap of paper. It was far too dark to read what, if anything, was written on it. "No more exemptions. Everyone to report for military training, right away."

"That’s right," another of them said. It was a girl, even younger than the boy. She had expressionless eyes that glittered in the light of the shell bursts, and her uniform looked as though it had been stitched out of a curtain. "Commander’s orders."

"So you go right now," the boy said. "Go and join militia."

"Go and join the militia where?" I asked.

"Central School," the boy replied. "You know where that is?"

"I know," I said. I passed it every day. The classrooms and playground, which once had echoed to the voices of children, and then fallen silent, now again echoed to the voices of children – learning to shoot rifles, to crawl along trenches, to take apart machine guns and put them back together again. "I’ll do it as soon as I’ve sent these documents back."

"You don’t forget," the girl said. I wondered how long she’d been a militia member, and how much training she’d got. The rumours were that they were only training the kids for two days now, barely enough to learn which end of the gun the bullets came out of. It made them a danger even to themselves. She went up on her sandal-clad toes to peer into my face. "Or I will be finding you myself and bringing you."

The rest of the kids laughed. "Will be good joke," one said. They were still chuckling as they wandered off the way I’d come.

Walking on, I began to feel dizzy and weak. This was something I’d been feeling increasingly frequently the last weeks, and there was nothing strange about it; I didn’t even remember when I’d last had anything to eat. Perhaps it was the half a slice of mouldy bread I’d found yesterday, which I’d chewed for half an hour before swallowing. Or was that the day before? I’d forgotten.

I leaned against a wall, waiting till the dizziness abated, and the hunger twisting my gut eased. Perhaps I should join the militia after all, I thought. At least in the ranks they got whatever food was to be had. Only when the fighters’ needs were met was anything handed out to the civilians.

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