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they made an error at Winnipeg and hitched us up to a through train. But how did we get unhitched here? That was deliberate.’
    ‘Someone,’ said Johnson, ‘wants a corner on Eskimos. What are you worth, Professor, in ransom money?’
    The Professors weren’t worth a button, and neither was Vladimir or the Eskimos or, he swore, Johnson. But Grandmother, we all knew, would come up with the odd million if need be for Rosamund Booker-Readman’s life. The discussion petered away at this point, especially as Johnson had cleared the windows and we all sat looking at one another in the eerie blue light from the snow. It stretched unbroken for miles and miles and miles.
    Rosamund Booker-Readman’s voice called, ‘I can’t find the bottles, but I’ve filled a thermos flask. Simon? The battery’s nearly done.’
    She must have kept the torch on all the time. I said, ‘I’ll come,’ and felt my way into the passage just as the German Professor was saying, ‘It may, of course, be the work of a band of deviationists. Or nationalists. Or those who do not approve of mixed races . . .’
    ‘Or quilting,’ said Johnson seriously. He had got out and lit an old pipe, which illuminated the underside of his unremarkable nose, and his hair and his eyebrows, and nothing else whatever of his physique or his intentions. His Christian name, I forgot to say, is also Johnson, which results in a certain formality, even if you were as friendly with him as my father was.
    I struggled through to where Rosamund had indeed parked the flickering torch on a bed, shut it off and pulled back all the curtains. She had found some blankets already. Working partly by touch I managed to locate the hot water bottles while she picked up and joggled the unfortunate Benedict. I used the torch a moment while I filled them and wrapped them in towels, then packed them with blankets into the carrycot. I retrieved the pan of feed from the fridge where I’d jammed it, filled the bowl of hot water and used it to warm up a cup of the mixture. The cup wasn’t scalded, but that couldn’t be helped.
    Mother Booker-Readman was sitting down in the bedroom with her offspring, largely unfurled, yelling into her bosom. I draped them both with a fresh towel, shoved Benedict back into the crook of her arm and handed her the cup of feed with the spoon in it. She tilted the edge of the cup against the baby’s pursed mouth, and half the feed ran down his face, while the spoon missed his eye by a fraction. They both opened their mouths and screamed with frustration.
    I took Benedict from her while she went to get the milk off her skirt. There were only two ounces left in the cup, and he was as full of air as a bubble bath, but we managed. I had him hitched on my shoulder and was massaging his round shoulders absently, when I happened to gaze at the window.
     
    It was still dark, and snowfilled, but the plain was no longer empty.
    Instead, like the teeth on a snowman, a line of minute black dots had appeared in the distance, enlarging second by second. Dots which, in the dimness, might have represented very large men very far off on skis, or very small men rather close to on skis but which, since the ground appeared flat, were probably travelling much too rapidly to be manpowered at all. I yelled ‘Johnson!’ and Johnson’s voice said peaceably from the sitting-room, ‘I see them.’
    I could hear everyone saying ‘What?’ and the coach trembled as the complement lunged for the windows. It was not the moment to go into the matter of whether or not Benedict should have a dry nappy. I planted him down, to his annoyance, among the blankets and bottles and joined everyone else in the sitting-room, which was reeking of alcohol. One of the Professors was saying, ‘Snowmobiles! Thank God they’ve found us!’ As he was saying it, one of the Snowmobiles, which are sort of powered toboggans, gave off a burst of red sparks followed by a succession of reports.
    The Eskimos all