‘It was completely flat all around the station,’ August continued. ‘Everywhere you looked, you saw snow reaching to the horizon. At night, the Northern Lights would wave and shimmer across the sky. They looked like billowing wreaths of smoke, or searchlights. It was quite magical.’ His smile turned to a grimace. ‘But March was disastrous. A gale blew, the snow drifted and the hole I used to crawl out of the tent was covered. There was so much frozen snow on top, I couldn’t dig myself out. I was sealed in and buried alive.’

A shudder went round the table.

‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like,’ said David.

August paused before answering, ‘At first, it was pretty unpleasant. My heart was beating very fast and I felt rather faint. I was forced to lie mostly in darkness, in a space not much bigger than a coffin. I had only a daily plate of porridge for warmth and nothing to do except listen to the wind roar and the tent creaking and groaning under the weight of ice, hoping it wouldn’t cave in on me.’ A candle sputtered, dripping wax onto the tablecloth, but nobody paid it any mind.

‘I was scared that I might be poisoned by fumes from the stove,’ August went on. ‘And in my darkest moments, I imagined all the things that could go wrong to stop the relief party reaching me. Perhaps they would fall into a crevasse, or the dogs would catch distemper, or a fire at the base camp would consume the sledges. Perhaps they wouldn’t find the buried station. I couldn’t help thinking I might die.’ He shook his head, as if trying to dispel the memory. ‘I hoped my end would be peaceful. I had saved four slabs of chocolate to eat before that eventuality.’

Mollie shuddered and Ginie gave her a sympathetic look. The poor girl must have been in hell for all those months, not knowing whether August was dead or alive.

‘But the tent didn’t collapse,’ he said, with a small smile, ‘and the air stayed breathable. I began to hope that as God had looked after me this far, perhaps He would see me the rest of the way.’

There was something electric in the air around the table. They were sitting very still, transfixed by August’s low, unassuming voice.