As if they had been threshing of corn.

out everything. I was trembling violently, and although Corazzini must have noticed it he affected not to. He stepped forward and handed me the Beretta, butt first. "You're a mite careless about where you stow your armoury, Doc. I've known for a long time where you kept this. But I guess it may have been fairly useful these last few minutes." "Butbut why-?" "Because I've got a damned good job and a chair behind a vice-president's desk waiting for me in Glasgow," he snapped. "I'd appreciate the chance to sit in that chair some day." Without another word, he turned away. I knew what he meant, all right. I knew we owed him our lives. Corazzini was as convinced as I that someone had engineered the whole thing. It didn't require any thought at all to guess who that someone was. My first thought was for Jackstraw. Jackstraw with a broken arm was going to make things very difficult for me: it might well make things quite impossible. But when I'd worked his parka off it required only one glance at the unnatural twist of the left arm to see that though Jackstraw had had every excuse for thinking his arm gone, it was, in fact, an elbow dislocation. He made no murmur and his face remained quite expressionless as I manipulated the bone back into the socket, but the wide white grin that cracked his face immediately afterwards was proof enough of his feelings. I walked over to where Helene Fleming sat on the sledge, still shaking from the shock, Mrs Dansby-Gregg and Margaret Ross doing their best to soothe her. The uncharitable thought struck me that it was probably the first time that Mrs Dansby-Gregg had ever tried to soothe anyone, but I was almost ashamed of the thought as soon as it had occurred to me. "That was a close call, young lady," I said to Helene. "But all's well.. . . Any more bones broken, eh?" I tried to speak jocularly, but it didn't sound very convincing. "No, Dr Mason." She gave a long shuddering sigh. "I don't know how to thank you and Mr Nielsen" "Don't try," I advised. "Who pushed you?" "What?" She stared at me. "You heard, Helene. Who did it?" "Yes, I -1 was pushed," she murmured reluctantly. "But it was an accident, I know it was." "Who?" I persisted. "It was me," Solly Levin put in. He was twisting his hands nervously. "Like the lady canon eos digital camera refurbished body said, Doc, it was an accident. I guess I kinda stumbled. Someone tapped my heels and" "Who tapped your heels?" "For cryin' out loud!" I'd made no attempt to hide the cold disbelief in my voice. "What would I want to do a thing like that for?" "Suppose you tell me," I said, and turned away, leaving him to stare after me. Zagero stepped in my way, but I brushed roughly past him and went up towards the tractor. On the sled behind I saw the Rev. Smallwood sitting nursing a bleeding mouth. Corazzini was apologising to him. "I'm sorry, Reverend, I'm really and truly sorry. I didn't for a moment think you were one of them, but I couldn't afford to take any chances back there. I hope you understand, Mr Smallwood." Mr Smallwood did, and was suitably Christian and forgiving. But I didn't wait to hear the end of it. I wanted to get through the Vindeby Nunataks, and get through with as little loss of time as possible, preferably before it became dark. There was something that I knew now that I had to do, and as soon as possible: but I didn't want to do it while we were all teetering on the edge of that damned crevasse. We were through without further incident and at the head of that long almost imperceptible slope that fell away for thousands of feet towards the ice-bare rocks of the Greenland coast, before the last of the noon twilight had faded from the sky. I halted the tractor, spoke briefly to Jackstraw, told Margaret Ross to start thawing out some corned beef for our belated mid-day meal, and had just seen Mahler, now semi-conscious, and Marie LeGarde once again safely ensconced in the tractor cabin when Margaret Ross came up to me, her brown eyes troubled. "The tins, Dr Masonthe corned beef. I can't find them." "What's that? The bully? They can't be far away, Margaret." It was the first time I'd called her that, but my thoughts had been fixed exclusively on something else, and it wasn't until I saw the slight smile touching her lipsif she was displeased she was hiding it quite wellthat I realised what I had said. I didn't care, it was worth it, it was the first time I had ever seen her smile, and it transformed her rather plain facebut I told my heart that there was a time and a place for somersaults, and this wasn't it. "Come on, let's have a look." We looked, and we found nothing. The tins were gone all