He knew he was staring at them, but they paid him no attention. What struck him hardest was the growing suspicion that these three had once been similar to the wretches he had seen in the villages, and that by being brought to the city they had been restored temporarily to an approximation of the health and beauty that might have been theirs had they not been born into poverty.

The woman administrator gave him a brief description of their background. Their names were Rosario, Caterina, and Lucia. They spoke a little English. Each had been in the city for more than forty miles, and each had given birth to a baby. There were two boys and a girl. Lucia — who had given birth to one of the boys-did not wish to keep the child, and it was to stay in the city and be brought up in the crèche. Rosario had chosen to keep her baby boy, and it would be going with her back to the settlement. In Caterina’s case there had been no choice… but in any event she had expressed indifference about losing her baby daughter.

The administrator explained that Rosario was to be given as much of the powdered milk as she asked for, because she was still suckling the baby. The other two would have the same food as himself.

Helward tried a friendly smile on the three girls, but they took no notice of him. When he tried to look at Rosario’s baby, she turned her back on him and clutched it to her possessively.

There was nothing more to be told. They walked along the corridor towards the elevator, the three girls carrying their few belongings. They crowded into the car and Helward keyed the button to take them to the lowest level.

The girls continued to ignore him, and spoke to each other in their own language. When the car opened on to the dark passageway beneath the city, Helward struggled to remove the equipment. None of the girls helped him, but watched with amused expressions. With difficulty Helward picked up the various packs and staggered towards the southern exit.

Outside, the sun was dazzlingly bright. He put down the packs and glanced round.

The city had been winched since he was last outside, and now track-crews were taking up the rails. The girls shaded their eyes, and looked about them. It was probably their first sight of the outside since coming to the city.

The baby in Rosario’s arms began to cry.

“Will you help me with this?” Helward said, meaning the stack of food and equipment. The girls stared at him uncomprehendingly. “We ought to share the load.”

They made no reply so he squatted down on the ground, and opened the pack containing the food. He decided it would not be right to expect Rosario to carry any extra weight, so he divided the food into three packets, giving one each to the other two and returning the rest to his pack. Lucia and Caterina reluctantly found room for the food packets in their holdalls. The length of rope was the most unwieldy part of the load and so Helward contrived to wind it into a tighter roll, and stuffed it into the pack. The grapple and pitons he managed to get into the pack containing the tent and the sleeping-bags. Now his load was more manageable but not much lighter, and in spite of what Clausewitz had said Helward felt tempted to abandon most of it.

The baby was still crying, and Rosario appeared unconcerned.

“Come on,” he said, feeling irritated with them. He set off, walking southwards parallel to the tracks, and in a moment they followed him. They stayed together, keeping a distance of a few yards between them and him.

Helward tried to set a good pace, but after an hour he realized that his calculations about how long the expedition would take had been over-optimistic. The three girls moved slowly, complaining loudly about the heat and the surface of the ground. It was true that the shoes they had been given were unsuited for walking over this rough terrain, but he was afflicted no less by the heat. In fact, in his uniform and weighed down by the bulk of the equipment, he was most unpleasantly warm.

They were still in sight of the city, the sun was still only approaching its midday heat, and the baby had not stopped crying. His only relief so far had been a few moments speaking to Malchuskin. The trackman had been delighted to see him — still full of complaints about his hired labourers — and had wished Helward well in his expedition.

True to form, the girls had not waited for Helward, and he had spoken to Malchuskin for only a minute or two before he hurried after them.

Now he decided to call a rest.

“Can’t you stop him crying?” he said to Rosario.

The girl glared at him, and sat down on the ground.

“O.K.,” she said. “I feed.”

She stared at him defiantly, and the other two girls waited at her side. Taking the point, Helward moved some distance away, keeping his back turned discreetly while she fed the baby.

Later, he opened one of the water-canteens and passed it round. The day was impossibly hot, and his temper was no better than that of the girls. He took off the jacket of his uniform, and laid it over the top of one of the packs, and although this meant he felt the bite of the straps more deeply, it helped him keep a little cooler.

He was impatient to move on. The baby had fallen asleep, and two of the girls made a makeshift cot out of one of the sleeping-bags, carrying it slung between them. Helward had to relieve them of their holdalls, and although he was now overburdened with things to carry he gladly exchanged the extra discomfort for the welcome silence.

They walked for another half an hour, and then he called another halt. By now he was drenched with sweat, and it gave him little comfort to realize that the girls were no cooler.

He glanced up at the sun. It seemed to be almost directly overhead. Near where they were standing was an outcrop of rock, and he went over and sat down in the shade. The girls joined him, still complaining to each other in their own language. Helward regretted he had not taken more trouble to learn the language; he could pick out one or two phrases, but only enough to discover that he was the butt of most of their complaints.

He opened a packet of the dehydrated food, and moistened it with water from the canteen. The resultant gray soup looked and tasted like sour porridge. Perversely, he derived pleasure from the girls’ renewed complaints… here was one occasion they were justified, and he wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of letting them see he agreed.

The baby was still asleep, but fretting in the heat. Helward guessed that if they moved again it would wake up, so when the girls stretched out on the ground for a nap he made no effort to dissuade them.

While they were relaxing Helward stared back at the city, still clearly visible a couple of miles away. He realized that he had not been taking note of the marks left by the stayemplacements. They would have passed only one so far, and now he thought about it he saw what Clausewitz had meant by saying they left clearly distinguishable scars in the earth. He recalled that they had passed one a few minutes before they had halted. The marks left by the sleepers were shallow depressions some five feet in length by twelve inches across, but where the cable-stays had been buried were deep pits, surrounded by upturned soil.

Mentally, he marked off the first one. Thirty-seven to go.

In spite of their slow progress he still saw no reason why he should not be back in the city in time for the birth of his own child. After he had seen the women back to their village he could make good progress on his own, however unpleasant the conditions.

He decided to allow the girls an hour for their rest, and when he estimated that it had passed he went and stood over them.

Caterina opened her eyes, and looked up at him.

“Come on,” he said. “I want to move on.”