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Echoing cries of birds. The grunts of the old man in front of her, bent nearly flat under a basket of ammunition and supplies. His scratched legs spattered in mud, wearing a too-large singlet and blue longyi, he prodded the ground with a bamboo pole, a spike and two claws on its end.

Voices in her head: the whiskey drinker’s as he escorted her to the truck where hollow-faced Karen captives – all of them male – waited in the back: ‘Consider yourself lucky. MI peels skin from people who’ve done what you’ve done. But you’ve been spared, for the present anyway.’ The officer’s voice in the darkness hours later, at the end of a rutted road, as captives and soldiers – faces painted in black streaks – prepared to move out, the former acting as porters for the latter: ‘Porters stay ahead of the soldiers. Do not stop and do not slow down unless you are told to. Break this rule and your ears will be shipped back in baskets to your families.’ The old porter’s voice after Mya had asked him why he tapped the ground: ‘We do not talk. We do not look at each other. We do not give each other any thought at all. Then, when one of us is killed, that person remains a stranger.’

Half the previous night and all morning on this windy, undulating track, past the burnt-out ruins of a village, embers still glowing in the ashes, the supply pack and her sling bag cutting like wire into her shoulders. Her longyi and shirt saturated, feet mud-heavy and blistered, leech-bitten legs trickling blood. She tried to lose herself in memory: getting up in the morning, breakfast waiting for her on the table, parting her hair into braids and tying them off with ribbons, taking the bus with Thant and walking the rest of the way to school. Then came the lessons she was missing, the last time her family was together, what her bed felt like when last she slept on it.

Mya drew up a vision of herself and her mother leaving the Soe Guesthouse together, walking through the bustling Hpa-an market and out to the bank of that wide brown river. So much space and privacy out there that she could walk for hours and rarely see another person.

When she lost that vision she diverted to English, describing the things she saw in that language: leaves crunching under her sandals, patches of light and pools of deep shadow, the steepness and exposed roots of the next climb. Mya used the descriptions to write a letter, pretending her mother understood English, until the old porter veered onto a smaller track, avoiding a crater half-filled with water. The purpose of his pole hit Mya like a slap. She hurried to catch up, then drew an imaginary line from his mine detection pole, through him to herself, and did not waver from it.

Another hour, maybe, descending through bush and a tunnel of trees before a soldier confronted the old porter and pointed. ‘That way,’ he ordered. He grabbed the porter’s pole and hurled it away.

Bush thinned, sunlight spread and soon they came to a large clearing – airless, hot and bordered by trees and jumbled rock. They were told to stop.

The officer came and ordered the loads to be dropped. Haggard looks soon turned desperate when soldiers pulled shackles and padlocks from three packs.

Minutes later, with all but one porter shackled together, including Mya, the officer spoke. ‘Fifty, maybe sixty metres. Not far. If there are mines out there, you’ll soon know. Respect them. Walk gently, avoid dips and stay close to bushes and saplings where the soil is root-filled. Do that and there’s a good chance you’ll get to the other side.’ He raised an index finger in the air. ‘But, though you’ll need to walk gently, you must also leave footprints deep enough to follow so you won’t have to return to get your packs. Our soldiers will carry them for you. And remember, if you stop or try to go beyond the clearing, you will be shot … Good luck,’ he added, in a false tone of concern.

The taste of bile in Mya’s throat, the air suddenly hard to breathe.

‘Fear is to be expected,’ the old porter muttered. ‘It sharpens the focus of your mind. The challenge is not to be overcome by it.’

He sounded educated. Her eyes lingered on him, his mouth hanging open, wet singlet stuck to his bones. He was no longer the indifferent stranger he had tried to be. ‘May the Buddha’s blessings stay with you,’ he added, looking at Mya now and smiling weakly.

Her voice quavered, ‘And with you.’

‘I am not here. The others are not here. Only you are. Keep your eyes on the ground and avoid any disturbed earth. Under it might be a landmine.’

Mya’s throat locked against a surge of nausea. Blood thudded through her veins. She felt light-headed and took several deep breaths. Then she braced herself and stared out at the hard earth in front of her, struggling to concentrate on the best route across. Hers was the driest, sparsest section of all: barely a shrub or a sapling, just stones sticking out of the ground and small dips and rises from start to finish.

She asked herself what it would be like to step on a mine out there. Instant nothingness if she were lucky. Or thrown into the air, collap­sing on the ground, feet gone, legs ripped apart, her screaming the last sound she’d ever hear. And away from this clearing, no one knowing why or when, only her mother and father at opposite ends of the country left to remember her name.

The order came: ‘Walk.’

A bird shrieked, ‘People coming.’ A vulture answered, its sharp eyes aimed, ‘I know. I am watching.’ And everything poured out of Mya – hope, spirit, self-control. She felt weightless, wet between her legs, her body’s betrayal no more than a passing thought. She stared at the ground – each crack, ripple, mound – and tried to lose herself in calculations. ‘Fifty metres,’ she mumbled, finding a strand of her voice, coaxing her muscles to do what her mind resisted, ‘a hundred steps, each touching the ground like a feather, toe to heel, before pressing down.’

Shackles tightened and she walked, counting the steps, heart pumping, barely able to breathe for fear of disturbing the ground.

The still air carried every sound: distant birds, twigs crunching, shackles clacking, porters sucking air, until at thirty-four: KAH-ROOOOM! Then again: KAH-ROOOOM! Mya jerked her head around to where a few porters stood still as statues. Beyond them, under thinning smoke, two more porters – barely adolescents, bloodied, clothes in shreds, screaming and flailing on the ground. A third lay motionless.

Shouts from the officer: ‘Get up, get up!’

How could they? Their legs were ragged flesh and exposed bones.

Shots rang out, puffs of dirt kicking up just short of the porters’ heels.

‘Go on!’ the officer shouted.

‘Concentrate,’ Mya heard the old porter say as she struggled to control herself.

All the other porters looked from side to side. No one wanted to be the first to move. Two quick shots sent them diving for the ground and ended the screaming. The porter not chained to the others, who had been kept back with the soldiers, dashed out to the dead porters and unlocked their padlocks, freeing the corpses. He shortened the shackles and locked them again.

‘Go on!’

The porters rose, Mya with them; heart and lungs doing their work, skin on fire, stomach ice. ‘Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty …’

The old porter joined in, his breath coming in short bursts.

‘Sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight …’

‘Life is short,’ the old porter gasped.

‘Yes.’

‘And death inescapable, and we have to accept that.’

‘Yes.’

‘I am Kho Noc.’

‘I am Mya Paw Wah.’

‘Eighty-two, eighty-three …’

A glimmer of hope that strengthened the closer Mya got to the trees. ‘We’re almost there, Kho Noc.’

‘Not far, not far.’

Mya’s shackles caught on something behind her. She moved her leg sideways to free it, glancing over at him, his head lolling, his feet dragging over the ground, leaving no prints at all.

‘Eighty-seven, eighty—’

A flash of bright white light, a blast, a whoosh of air, and Mya seemed to be floating, the sky swinging sideways, dirt like rain showering down on her, the air itself quaking, before she slammed into the ground.