He was in the bed and she was in his arms and they were wrapped in warmth though the room lay cold about them. And except for the gleam of lamplight in their eyes and its soft illumination of their faces, they gave themselves over to other senses, to touch and taste and intimate murmured endearments. Quietly the room listened to their loving requests and appreciations of joys shared and discoveries made. To him she was soft and smooth and warm, deliciously and secretly scented: to her he was strong and firm, hard and protective, demanding and gentle. And luck was with them. Their bodies gathered momentum together. The woman was ready when the man, driven by his urgent need, loomed above her. Her cry of amazement and joy when she received him was made to his own searching mouth.

Twice more that night they sought each other in the act of love. Between times she lay in his arms, their breaths mingling, their eyes scanning each other’s face in the lamplight, their bodies warm together. Finally he got out of bed, put on his pyjamas, switched out one lamp and dimmed the other. Back beside her, he found her snuggled round with her back towards him.

‘Good night,’ he said, conscious of the word’s inadequacy.

‘Good night,’ she murmured. ‘Beats a hot-water bottle any time.’

He patted the soft, warm cheek of her hip under the thin nightie, marvelled at his lack of desire – a spent force, Wilson – turned round and within minutes was asleep.

He was awake, catapulted into instant alertness. He lay flat on his back, the ceiling dim above him. Beside him Carol slept on. For a minute he lay and listened. Was it the same as last night? Or were some of the others up there, in spite of their agreement not to set up a watching rota? He lay, straining his ears. It sounded just like the previous night, the tramp of a heavy man, measuring out the distance across the floor of the upstairs room. Again he noticed how cold the room was, how vapour condensed from his exhaled breath had dampened the sheet about his mouth.

He contrived to read the time on his watch. Ten past three. Later tonight. Or perhaps he had slept throughout most of it. A momentary warmth invaded him when he remembered that the earlier part of the night had not been uneventful, that sleep had been late in coming. And then the footsteps broke into his fond recollections.

He swung himself out of bed. Forgetting his dressing-gown, he put on socks and drew trousers and sweater over his pyjamas. Finding his slippers he padded to the window, pulled aside the heavy curtain. Tonight there were starlit patches amid broken clouds. But no other illumination. Blackness lay about the house, rendering the snow-covered countryside invisible.