Henry tells them what he knows. Henry’s face is young and gentle, frank and mobile, and tired. It reminds you of other times and other worlds, of things that must surely come back when the storm is over. The others are glad to have him with them. Stig and John are the oldest, and the ones who have experienced the most. That shows too, in their distant expressions as soon as they are able to relax a little. This has been going on for years now, and they have been involved in it all the time. And the struggle becomes more and more bitter, while the darkness seethes more thickly and the house, with its thousands of souls, trembles in the storm.

Borne up by beautiful gilded arrows it stands here, on the brink of falling, an outcome that cannot be permitted. Tired people are toiling in its cellars to prevent it. Hidden rays go out from all these cellars, out into all the corners, and create the storm, the tension and the slow, incessant cracking that begins inside people or outside them, no one knows where.

In long, boring periods of duty work is carried out on details that do not require thought or are simply done to keep up morale, but which must be seen to because they are minute parts of a larger whole. And this is interrupted by demands for sudden all-out efforts which blaze up in a few breathless hours, and then are over, hours when they have to oppose the unknown, prepared to stake everything. A scrap of paper arrives: Go! They go, without knowing what the consequence will be. It may be the end. It may be a quick and merciful end, or it may be the terrible journey into the centre, to what is waiting there. That journey which haunts them in a red shimmer of fear. But if it goes well all they can do is return to the cellar, to the endless work, turning news reports out of a press, or running round the house like errand-boys, with papers, with food, with absolutely anything, but always doing it. Never free.

Always. They are responsible for seeing that the secret messages reach the furthest alleys and the deepest shadows, penetrating even the centre itself; that they reach all those who are waiting impatiently, those who are about to go under and value every morsel of encouragement they are given, and all those who are indifferent and cold and who must be roused if possible. No one is allowed to escape. The men in the cellars are responsible for that. And never a pause. The storm must strike through the house every hour, or a dead patch may occur somewhere and begin to drift towards collapse. Wherever it is quiet the avalanche will build up. Nor does anyone know where the avalanche may begin. Everything is uncertain. The house simply stands quivering in endless night.

Now something has happened once more. Christopher and the others have been lost. Now their course is uncertain. The four men pause briefly in their activity as they consider this. They knew Christopher well. If all he has been involved with is disclosed, he is probably finished. Now he is facing the test. They are thinking about it, but not with a lump in the throat as they did during the early period when something like this happened. It happens too frequently now. The struggle in the darkness has gradually become more bitter. They are thinking about Christopher’s companions. Will he manage to save them from the same fate? Impossible to tell. It depends on the strength of a single doomed person.