Thou shalt have my livery strait.

and gusted through the wrecked control cabin. "Waste of a good blanket, I suppose," I muttered. "Butwell, it isn't pretty." "It isn't pretty," Jackstraw agreed. His voice was quite steady, devoid of all inflection. "How about this one?" I looked across at the left-hand side of the cabin. It was almost completely undamaged and the chief pilot, still strapped in his seat and slumped against his sidescreens, seemed quite unmarked. I stripped fur glove, mitten and silk glove off my right hand, reached out and touched the forehead. We had been out of doors now for over fifteen minutes in that ferocious cold, and I would have sworn that my hand was about as cold as the human flesh could get. But I was wrong. I pulled the gloves back on and turned away, without touching him further. I wasn't carrying out any autopsies that night. A few feet farther back we found the radio operator in his compartment. He was half-sitting, half-lying against the for'ard bulkhead of his shack where he must have been catapulted by the crash. His right hand was still clutched firmly round the handgrip of the front panel of his radio setit must have been ripped clear off the transmitter, which didn't look as if it would ever transmit anything again. On the bulkhead, behind his head, blood gleamed dully in the torch-light. I bent over the unconscious man -1 could see that he was still breathingremoved my gloves once more and gently slid my fingers behind his head. Just as gently I withdrew them. How the hell, I thought, part hopelessly, part savagely, am I to carry out a head operation on a person with a telescoped occiput: the state he was in, I wouldn't have given a fig for his chance in the finest operating theatre in London. At the very least he would be blind for life, the sight centre must have been completely destroyed. I reached for his pulse: racing, faint, erratic to a degree. The thought came to me, a thought compounded as much of cowardice as of regret, that in all likelihood the possibility of my having to operate on him was remote, very remote. If he were to survive the inevitably rough handling that would be needed to get him out of that aircraft and then the journey back to the cabin through that ice-laden sub-zero gale, it would be a miracle indeed. It seemed unlikely that he would ever wake again. But he might, he just conceivably might, so I broached the morphia kit. Then we eased his head and neck into a more comfortable position, covered him with a blanket and left him. Immediately behind the radio compare ultra compact digital camera compartment was a long narrow room which extended across two-thirds of the width of the plane. A quick glance at the two chairs and collapsible bunk was enough to show that this must be the crew's rest room, and someone had been resting there at the moment of the crash. That crumpled shirt-sleeved figure on the floor must have been taken completely unawares, before he had the slightest knowledge of what was happening: and he would never know now. We found the stewardess in the pantry, lying on her left side on the floor, the outspread black hair fallen forward over her face. She was moaning softly to herself, but it wasn't the moan of one in pain. Her pulse was steady enough, but fast. Jackstraw stooped down beside me. "Shall we lift her, Dr Mason?" "No." I shook my head. "She's coming to, I think, and she can tell us far quicker than we can find out whether there's anything broken. Another blanket, and we'll let her be. Almost certainly someone much more in need of our attention." The door leading into the main passenger compartment was locked. At least, it appeared to be, but I was pretty certain it would never be locked under normal circumstances. Perhaps it had been warped by the impact of landing. It was no time for half measures. Together, we took a step back, then flung all the weight of our shoulders against it. It gave suddenly, three or four inches, and at the same time we heard a sharp exclamation of pain from the other side. "Careful!" I warned, but Jackstraw had already eased his weight. I raised my voice. "Get back from that door, will you? We want to come in." We heard a meaningless mutter from the other side, followed by a low groan and the slipping shuffle of someone trying to haul himself to his feet. Then the door opened and we passed quickly inside. The blast of hot air struck me in the face like an almost physical biow. I gasped, fought off a passing moment of weakness when my legs threatened to give under me, then recovered sufficiently to bang the door shut behind me. With the motors dead and the arctic chill striking through the thin steel of the fuselage this warmth, no matter how efficient the cabin insulation, wouldn't last long: but while it did, it might be the saving of all those who still lived. A thought struck me and, ignoring the man who stood swaying before me, one hand clutching a seat grip for

"Why, who art thou?" said the old woman,

"Hundreds of Greeks in Macedonia died the same waybut usually alive when they were thrown in. Until you know how the Greeks hate the Bulgarians, you don't even begin to know what hate is. . . . Andrea shared a couple of bottles of wine with the soldiers, found out that they had killed his parents earlier in the afternoonthey had been foolish enough to resist. After dusk he followed them up to an old corrugated-iron shed where they were billeted for the night. All he had was a knife. They left a guard outside. Andrea broke his neck, went inside, locked the door and smashed the oil lamp. George doesn't know what happened except that Andrea went berserk. He was back outside in two minutes, completely sodden, his uniform soaked in blood from head to foot. There wasn't a sound, not even a groan to be heard from the hut when they left, George says." He paused again, but this time there was no interruption, nothing said. Stevens shivered, drew his shabby jacket closer round his shoulders: the air seemed to have become suddenly chili. Mallory lit another cigarette, smiled faintly at Miller, nodded towards the watch-tower. "See what I mean by saying we'd only be a liability to Andrea up there?" "Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do," Miller admitted. "I had no idea, I had no idea. . . . Not all of them, boss! He couldn't have killed" "He did," Mallory interrupted flatly. "After that he formed his own band, made life hell for the Bulgarian outposts in Thrace. At one time there was almost an entire division chasing him through the Rhodope mountains. Finally he was betrayed and captured, and he, George and four others were shipped to Stavrosthey were to go on to Salonika for trial. They overpowered their guardsAndrea got loose among them on deck at nightand sailed the boat to Turkey. The Turks tried to intern himthey might as weli have tried to intern an earthquake. Finally he arrived in Palestine, tried to join the Greek Commando Battalion that was being formed in the Middle East mainly veterans of the Albanian campaign, like himself." Mallory laughed mirthlessly. "He was arrested as a deserter. He was released eventually, but there was no place for him in the new Greek Army. But Jensen's bureau heard about him, knew he was a natural for Subversive Operations.. . . And so we went to Crete together." Five minutes passed, perhaps ten, but nobody broke the silence. Occasionally, for the benefit of any watchers, they went through the motions of drinking; but even the half-light was fading now and sony digital camera usb Mallory knew they could only be half-seen blurs, shadowy and indistinct, from the heights of the watch-tower. The caique was beginning to rock In the surge from the open sea round the bluff. The tall, reaching pines, black now as midnight cypress and looming impossibly high against the stardusted cloud wrack that scudded palely overhead, were closing in on them from either side, sombre, watchful and vaguely threatening the wind moaning in lost and mournful requiem through their swaying topmost branches. A bad night, an eerie and an ominous night, pregnant with that indefinable foreboding that reaches down and touches the well-springs of the nameless fears, the dim and haunting memories of a million years ago, the ancient racial superstitions of mankind: a night that sloughed off the tissue veneer of civilisation and the shivering man complains that someone is walking over his grave. Suddenly, incongruously, the spell was shattered and Andrea's cheerful hail from the bank had them all on their feet in a moment. They heard his booming laugh and even the forests seemed to shrink back in defeat. Without waiting for the stern to be pulled in, he plunged into the creek, reached the caique in half a dozen powerful strokes and hoisted himself easily aboard. Grinning down from his great height, he shook himself like some shaggy mastiff and reached out a hand for a convenient wine bottle. "No need to ask how things went, eh?" Mallory asked, smiling. "None at all. It was just too easy. They were only boys, and they never even saw me." Andrea took another long swig from the bottle and grinned in sheer delight. "And I didn't lay a finger on them," he went on triumphantly. "Well, maybe a couple of little taps. They were all looking down here, staring out over the parapet when I arrived. Held them up, took their guns off them and locked them in a cellar. And then I bent their Spandausjust a little bit." This is it, Mallory thought dully, this is the end. This is the finish of everything, the strivings, the hopes, the fears, the loves and laughter of each one of us. This is what it all comes to. This is the end, the end for us, the end for a thousand boys on Kheros. In unconscious futility his hand came up, slowly wiped lips salt from the spray bulleting off the wind-flattened wave-tops, then lifted farther to shade bloodshot eyes that peered out hopelessly into the storm-filled darkness

Is glittering Youth, which I have spent betimes--

nodded towards the tractor sled, visible through the gap in the canvas screen. "We're obviously carrying far too much fuel. Why don't you drop some off for Captain Hillcrest-why, in fact, didn't you drop some off last night, when you first heard of this?" I stared at him for a long long moment, then turned heavily for the door. "I'll tell you why, Mr Mahler," I said slowly. "It's because I'm the biggest damned prize idiot in this world, that's why." And I went out to tell Hillcrest just how idiotic I was. CHAPTER TENThursday 4 P.M.Friday 6 P.M. Jackstraw, Corazzini and I took turns at driving the Citroen all through that evening and the following night. The engine was beginning to run rough, the exhaust was developing a peculiar note and it was becoming increasingly difficult to engage second gear. But I couldn't stop, I daren't stop. Speed was life now. Mahler had gone into collapse shortly after nine o'clock that evening, and from the collapse had gradually moved into the true diabetic coma. I had done all I could, all anyone could, but heaven only knew it was little enough. He needed bed, heat, fluids, stimulants, sugar by mouth or injection. Both suitable stimulants and the heat were completely lacking, the lurching, narrow, hard wooden bunk was poor substitute for any bed, despite his great thirst he had found it increasingly difficult to keep down the melted snow water, and I had no means of giving an intravenous injection. For the others in the cabin it was distressing to watch him, distressing to listen to the dyspnoeathe harsh laboured breathing of coma. Unless we could get the insulin in time, I knew no power on earth could prevent death from supervening in from one to three daysin these unfavourable conditions, a day would be much more likely. Marie LeGarde, too, was weakening with dangerous speed. It was with increasing difficulty that she could force down even the smallest mouthfuls of food, and spent most of her time in restless troubled sleep. Having seen her on the stage and marvelled at her magnificent vitality, it now seemed strange to me that she should go under so easily. But her vitality had really been a manifestation of a nervous energy: she had little of the physical resources necessary to cope with a situation like this, and I had frequently to remind myself that she was an elderly woman. Not that any such reminder was needed when one saw her face: it was sdhc digital cameras supported haggard and lined and old. But worried though I was about my patients, Jackstraw was even more deeply concerned with the weather. The temperature had been steadily rising for many hours now, the moaning ululation of the ice-cap wind, which had been absent for over two days, was increasing in intensity with every hour that passed, and the skies above were dark and heavy with black drifting clouds of snow. And when, just after midnight, the wind-speed passed fifteen miles an hour, the wind began to pick up the drift off the ice-cap. I knew what Jackstraw was afraid of, though I myself had never experienced it. I had heard of the katabatic winds of Greenland, the equivalent of the feared Alaskan wllliwaws. When great masses of air in the heart of the plateau were cooled, as they had been in the past forty-eight hours, by extremely low temperatures, they were set in motion by a gradient wind and cascadedthere was no other word for itdownwards from the edge of the plateau through suitable drainage channels. Set in motion through their own sheer weight of cold air, these gravity or drainage winds, slowly wanned by the friction and compression of their descent, could reach a hurricane force of destructive violence in which nothing could live. And all the signs, all the conditions for a gravity storm were there. The recent extreme cold, the -rising wind, the rising temperature, the outward flowing direction of the wind, the dark star-obscuring clouds scudding by overheadthere could be no mistaking it, Jackstraw declared. I had never known him to be wrong about Greenland weather, I didn't believe him to be wrong now, and when Jackstraw became nervous it was time for even the most optimistic to start worrying. And I was worried all right. We drove the tractor to its limit, and on the slight downward slopewe had changed direction by this time and were heading due south-west for Uplavnikwe were making very good time indeed. But by four o'clock in the morning, when we were, I reckoned, not more than sixty miles from Uplavnik, we ran into the sastrugi and were forced to slow down. The sastrugi, regular undulations in the frozen snow, were the devil on tractors, especially elderly machines like the Citroen. Caused by raking winds, symmetrical as the waves in an eighteenth-century sailing print, hard on the crest and soft in the trough, they made progress possible only by slowing down to a disheartening crawl. Even so the Citroen and the