The lieutenant beamed happily. "Ah, you've come just in time. Roast horse. Think of it! Brown, sizzling, dripping, juicy horse!"

"Horse?" said Bulger, instantly alert although he had been a hundred feet and more away.

The brigade itself looked hopeful; they moved about through the naked starkness of the trees and tried to catch sight of the Russians on the heights.

The event was, to say the least, unusual. And the thought of food momentarily clogged Malcolm's wits. In light of what he was trying to do, he would never have made such a statement. "It's been a long time since I've had a decent meal of anything. Much less horse."

The lieutenant caught at the remark. There was no sympathy between field officers and staff officers, for, while the former fought and starved, the latter skulked in the protection of impregnable G.H.Q. and received occasional rations from England, existing between times on condensed food stored in times past for many more men than were now left alive. That a staff officer had risked this trek in the first place struck the lieutenant as being very odd.

"What's up?"

Malcolm realized then, possibly from the sharpness of the tone, that he had done wrong.

"What's up?" repeated the lieutenant insistently.

Malcolm put a good face on it. "I shouldn't tell you, but we're out of touch with England. There's been no food for three months."

"That isn't all you can tell me."

Malcolm squirmed. "Well, if you'll have it. G.H.Q. is recalling all field troops. General Victor is thinking of withdrawing from our present base into the south where there may be some fertile area. It will be better for all of us." Sycophant that he was, he sought to allay further questioning. "I was sent expressly to get you. Your ability is well known and appreciated, and Victor feels that, with you guiding operations, we cannot fail."

The lieutenant brushed it aside. "You're telling me that England—no, not England but those damned Communists there—have forbidden us ever to return."

"Well—the quarantine did that."

"But it left room for hope," said the lieutenant.

Malcolm was silent.

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