I turned and leaned out the windscreen. Jackstraw was directly below, cupped gloved hands shielding his eyes against the flying ice spicules as he stared upwards.

"Bring a blanket," I shouted. "Better, bring a full gunny sack.

And the morphia kit. Then come up yourself."

He was back in twenty seconds. I caught both sack and morphia box, placed them on the twisted cabin floor behind me, then reached out a hand to help Jackstraw, but it wasn't necessary. Athleticism wasn't the forte of the short arid stocky Greenlanders, but Jackstraw was the fittest and most agile man I had ever met. He sprang, caught the lower sill of the left windscreen in his left hand, the central pillar in the other and swung legs and body through the centre screen as if he had been doing this sort of thing all his life.

I gave him my torch to hold, rummaged in the gunny sack and dragged out a blanket. I spread it over the dead co-pilot, tucking the corners down among twisted and broken ends of metal, so that it shouldn't blow free in the icy wind that swirled and gusted through the wrecked control cabin.

"Waste of a good blanket, I suppose," I muttered. "But—well, it isn't pretty."

"It isn't pretty," Jackstraw agreed. His voice was quite steady, devoid of all inflection. "How about this one?"

I looked across at the left-hand side of the cabin. It was almost completely undamaged and the chief pilot, still strapped in his seat and slumped against his sidescreens, seemed quite unmarked. I stripped fur glove, mitten and silk glove off my right hand, reached out and touched the forehead. We had been out of doors now for over fifteen minutes in that ferocious cold, and I would have sworn that my hand was about as cold as the human flesh could get. But I was wrong. I pulled the gloves back on and turned away, without touching him further. I wasn't carrying out any autopsies that night.