A brief pause. Then they are at work again, with papers, with orders, with packages. It seems so futile when they think of the mighty forces towering outside, with everything at their disposal that power can command. The gilded, insolent arrows float everywhere. The darkness seethes in conditions of wretchedness and trembles in hands exhausted by work and hunger. And nobody expects this to change quickly. They are sustained more by the knowledge that the same desperate activity is going on in a hundred other cellars at this moment; that there are the same drawn faces on the young men.

Stig sits dreading the arrival of this man he has sent for, who ought not to have been included because he will defile something that may not be defiled. The stern light that shines in Peter’s face, and that they attempt to use as a guide, will be disfigured when Stein arrives with his reckless laughter and indifferent air.

There is a knock at the door.

There he is. Punctually at the prearranged time.

‘Open it,’ says Stig to Peter, who is nearest the door. ‘It’s Stein.’

Stein comes in, young and tremendously strong, but with something about him that one immediately takes a dislike to. A vulgar slouch. He stands in front of Peter and there is a great gulf between them. Something has just entered that does not belong. A kind of raw power that Stig has summoned up.

He is sitting here with a miserable conscience because of it, now that it is too late. He cannot send Stein away again and make a fool of him, he tells himself.

‘Morning, Stig, here I am.’

Stig looks at the clock. ‘You’re right on time, my boy.’

‘Yep,’ says Stein.

He laughs. Reckless laughter. This one won’t shrink from anything. Stig ought not to have sent for him but the temptation was too great. And savage daring is demanded, he excuses himself.

Henry and John and Peter get on with their work. They have not exchanged a word with Stein, whom they scarcely know and with whom they are not going to become acquainted so long as it is no concern of theirs.

‘I suppose you’ve got something for me to do?’ asks Stein.

Stig nods. ‘Come here.’

They go over to a corner, so that the others need not hear them and have to take any responsibility for something that does not concern them. They are not inquisitive about it either, but bend even lower over their own work.

Stig is standing with a piece of paper in his hand: the order that has arrived and must be obeyed without question.

Stein is initiated into the secret. Stig does so with a wretched conscience.

‘Right you are,’ says Stein in that rough, reckless tone of his, and learns the words on the piece of paper.

If people are involved he should never be used, thinks Stig. But this time I have no choice.

It is as if he dare not wait to listen for any contradiction. He turns to Stein.