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prodded it with his toe and turned away in disgust.
    'I never accept invitations from strange men,' he said.
    'Have a look in his pockets,' urged Barcelona.
    'Have a look yourself,' retorted Little John. 'I don't care for corpses.'
    Barcelona hesitated.
    'Well, go on, if you're so interested!'
    It was the Legionnaire who stepped forward. With a swift movement he took out his knife, bent over one of the bodies and slashed off a flask that was attached to the belt of the uniform. He tossed it towards Heide, who caught it awkwardly and stood for a moment with his mouth open, looking at it. Eventually he unscrewed the lid and held the flask beneath his nose. He twitched his nostrils delicately.
    'Smells like vodka.'
    He held it out to Barcelona, but Barcelona shook his head. Little John also declined the offer. It seemed suddenly that the whole group had turned teetotal.
    'Bloody idiots.'
    The Legionnaire stepped forward and snatched at the flask. We watched apprehensively as he raised it to his lips. We watched his Adam's apple rise and fall. Then we waited, expecting God knows what to happen. The Legionnaire wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.
    'Not bad,' he said. 'It's not vodka, but it's certainly alcohol.'
    At that, we reverted instantly to type. Porta and Little John soon had possession of the second flask, and amongst us we finished off both of them within a matter of seconds. Steiner thoughtfully removed the personal papers and identity discs from the two corpses, and we then retired into our roughly-built igloo, hudded together in a tight circle. Ignoring Alte's protestations, we were firmly bedded down for the night and had every intention of falling asleep on the spot. No one was anxious to stand guard duty. As Little John remarked shortly before I sank into unconsciousness, we had twelve able-bodied dogs to keep a watch-out for us.
    The Legionnaire mocked at everything, had pity for no one . There were but two subjects on which he felt deeply: one washis religion (he was a fanatical Muslim) and the other wasFrance. He himself, of course, was a German, but many yearsspent in the Foreign Legion had made a Frenchman of him.
    Beneath the black uniform of the tank regiment he wore the Tricolor, wrapped round him like a scarf. In his breast pocket, with his military papers, he carried a small yellowing photograph of the man he persisted in calling 'mon General'. Lt. Ohlsen told us one day that it was a photograph of a Frenchman, Charles de Gaulle, who was fighting with the Free French in Africa.
    Heide stored up this piece of information and made use of it at a later date, during the course of a violent disagreement with ' the Legionnaire, when he gratuitously referred to 'mon General' as 'a shit of the desert. Before any of us could move, the Legionnaire had whipped out his knife and scored a deep cross on Heide's cheek. The wound had needed several stitches and even now, whenever Heide grew angry, the shape of a cross appeared lividly on his face. The rest of us found it highly amusing, but both Heide and the Legionnaire took the affair very much to heart .
    'Say what you like about anyone else,' said the Legionnaire, 'but if I hear another word against mon General somebody's going to get this knife right between his ribs. I'm telling you.'
    We took note of his warning, even though we laughed. No one ever insulted mon General again - at least, not in the Legionnaire's presence.

CHAPTER THREE
    'O.K., take it easy. We'll break for half an hour.'
    Alte called the team to a halt. The rest of us thankfully unstrapped our skis and flopped down into the snow. The dogs lay panting, their breath forming clouds in the frosty air. Alte lit up a pipe, Barcelona gnawed on a frozen crust of bread. There was silence, comparative peace. And suddenly into this silence, Heide began to pour out the story of his life.
    The words flowed out of him, and to begin with we none of us paid any attention. It was not unusual for one of us