From the darkness, beyond the cars, a scarlet flash streaked into the air, and even as Majendie gasped the marsh turned chalk white. In the middle of a glaring lake of artificial light the machines stood up like rocks. Between them, a knot of men held for a couple of seconds the frozen poses of a tableau. Then they scattered like dropped peas, some to the cars, a couple to the helicopter.

“Police!” cried Majendie in exultation. “My dear boy!”

“Too late,” whispered Brett. The blades were spinning, the engine broke into its clattering roar. The two men were barely at its side as the end-heavy creature lifted itself with a little jerk off the ground.

“Too late?” shouted Majendie.

“It’s up,” Brett bawled back. “We’re all right, though.”

He looked at the helicopter. The beam of a searchlight clung to it relentlessly. He frowned. The helicopter was not rising, nor flying forward, nor hovering, but bucking about as if caught between the gears of all three motions. An abrupt leap carried it in their direction. Brett bumped back to his corner and pressed his face against the window. What else was happening he didn’t know. He had eyes for nothing but the helicopter. It was low, very low. He could only suppose that it was trying to dodge out of the searchlight. But why not get away? Registration letters—

With a sudden lurch it swung out of his sight. He glanced quickly back at the marsh. One car was gone, the second, incredibly slow, was only now moving away. All at once he was aware that Majendie was shouting with a new note into his ear.

“What?”

He turned. The inside of their cabin was bright from snow and the lights. The din of the helicopter was deafening. Brett looked into Majendie’s stricken face, and without hearing, knew what would happen. For an instant he felt a presence overhead, crushing and inimical. It struck, a punching downward blow on the front of the car, smiting its nose into the dirt. The rear lifted and bounced back. Brett and Majendie were flung from the seat against the division and collapsed helplessly over Stephanie. The car slithered, rocked, and was still.

Brett, propped at an angle with the floor by the heap that was Majendie and Stephanie, bent his knees, pushed with his feet, arched his back, and thus managed to stand upright, at least, as upright as was possible in the car. Tears streamed down his face. His nose was running, warm and fast. He had hit it on the division as he fell. He licked his upper lip, and recognised the tinny taste of blood. He shook his head, blinked, and looked out. The helicopter was going away over the marsh, barely clearing the ground, in a series of hesitant leaps, like an old lady jumping puddles. Out of the corner of his watery eye Brett saw the flicker of a distant bonfire. He looked round, straight ahead, through the driver’s compartment. The flames were darting not from the horizon but from their radiator.