The staff-officer's obvious reticence combined with the scrutiny to which he had been subject to awaken suspicions in Wilson's mind. Kalitkin's flippant allusions to espionage had been initially attributed to the subconscious reaction to excessive centralisation that Wilson had encountered in his dealings with the Russians. Watching the staff-officer's face he was aware of a quickening interest in this man.

'Come, sir,' he prompted, 'you have the advantage of me.'

'I am Captain Ostroff, Colonel Wilson, aide-de-camp to Prince Vorontzoff and presently attached to Count Kalitkin's squadrons of the Hetman's Don Cossacks.'

But Wilson paid little attention to the details of the staff-officer's status. What interested him far more was the way in which this Ostroff had pronounced Wilson's own name. For the first time since his secondment to the Russian army Wilson had heard his surname without the heavy, misplaced accent upon its second syllable. In a flash of intuition he realised he was talking to a fellow Englishman.

'Your servant, Captain Ostroff,' he said, bowing a little from the waist and holding the other's eyes in a steady gaze. But Ostroff's expression did not alter, not even when a sharp crack at their feet ejected another sliver of wood from the bivouac fire.

'How interesting,' went on Wilson with the smooth urbanity of the perfect diplomat, 'I have not had much opportunity to study the Russian tongue of your muzhiks, but if I am not mistaken, your name is the Russian word for ...'

'Island,' snapped Ostroff suddenly and it was not the abruptness of the interruption that surprised Wilson but the fact that where he had been about to employ the French noun, Ostroff had chosen to head him off with a sideways glance at Kalitkin and the use of a definition in plain English.

As the two men strolled with an affected nonchalance away from the recumbent Kalitkin and his bivouac, the Count lounged back on his sheepskin. 'Spies,' he muttered to himself, 'spies, the pair of them ...' and he stared up at the stars shining through the rents in the clouds, aware that their motion had become suddenly irregular.