And that is enough. Henry has reached his limit. He cannot bear the weight. His face is twisted with sorrow and shame. He supports himself against the table and looks straight at John, the leader.

‘John.’

‘What is it?’ asks John curtly.

‘I can’t do it!’ says Henry. ‘However it has to be done. I must tell you, I can’t.’

Silence. He has said it. This is a serious matter for the tight little group in its bitter and merciless struggle. Stig has been lost. And now this. If only Stig had – how futile! Nothing to do but face up to what has happened: Henry is knocked out of action.

John has to deal with it.

‘Oh?’ he says. ‘You can’t take an order?’

Henry is trembling with shame.

‘No, I can’t. I might well ruin everything for you too!’ he stammers, staring desperately at John. He dare not look at Peter.

Peter has put his hat down again.

Henry continues: ‘I must get away for a while and see if I can pull myself together. Then I’d like to join up with you again.’

The silent storm has been too much for him. John frowns at him. None of this is a game. And now he has the responsibility.

‘So you won’t do it?’ he asks.

‘I can’t do it. I must calm down a bit.’

‘Do you realize how serious this is, Henry?’

Henry nods. ‘I must get away –.’

John stares at him piercingly. ‘Are we going to be able to rely on you, then?’ he asks with a sneer, not as if speaking to a comrade.

Henry turns scarlet. ‘What can you be thinking?’ he asks fearfully.

‘We’re forced to rely on you,’ says John, in the same grating tone as before. ‘We’re utterly at your mercy and at the mercy of whatever you may decide to do. That’s not so funny. Will you remember that?’

‘Yes,’ says Henry in terror.

‘So you’d better keep well away. If you get into trouble in the state you’re in now, it’ll be up with the lot of us.’

Henry is trembling.

‘I didn’t know this was going to happen. I didn’t think I’d…’

‘We don’t want to hear any of this. We can see it for ourselves. All I asked you to do was to remember that we’re at your mercy now that you want to leave us.’

‘I don’t want to leave. I only want to rest for a bit and then come back again. Didn’t you hear me say that, Peter?’

He turns to Peter, who has not said a word.

‘Yes, we heard you,’ he says. ‘But I have to take a stand with John over this, you know. He’s not exaggerating; all he has said is that we’re at the mercy of whatever you may decide to do. We don’t think you’ll do anything you ought not to do, it’s not that. Nobody can help going to pieces when he’s involved in something like this. But we are at the mercy of anything you may do in the future, so you’d better not forget your responsibility.’