Sun at Midnight. Rosie Thomas

As Rook stood there, three apparently unmated birds marched across the snow to investigate him. They came fearlessly up to the toes of his boots, then stood with their flippers slightly akimbo. They turned their heads to gaze at him, their white-ringed eyes unblinking. After a minute one of them sank down on to its front as if exhausted by the effort of curiosity.

      Laure and Jochen unpacked the equipment. At this stage the task was to map the nest sites and ring-mark some of the birds. Later in the season, once the chicks were hatched and established, Laure would take feather and blood samples from her ringed birds for DNA analysis back in Paris. One of her studies, Rook had learned, related to the amount of heavy metals and toxic elements accumulated in the birds’ feathers. The annual accumulation of pollutants could be measured and so provide a precise bio-indicator of new pollution levels on the subcontinent.

      This was the gist of what she had told him one night at dinner, in her perfect English. In spite of himself he was interested. To emphasise something about penguin behaviour that particularly intrigued her she would rest her hand lightly on his arm.

      It had become accepted that everyone sat in the same places every night, so now Laure was always on his right and Phil on his left. Shoesmith presided at the table’s head, of course.

      Laure had her net. She made a quiet circuit past the nests of birds she had already marked, then deftly swooped on a bird quietly sitting with its back to her. Once it was netted, she slipped a hood over its head. The extinguishing of daylight fooled it into lying still, she had explained to Rook, and she could either ring its leg or fire a microchip into a flipper. Jochen followed behind her, an eager assistant, and they moved deeper into the penguin universe.

      Rooker would have liked to stay longer out here, watching the birds, but there was the ship and the new arrival. Of course, Russ or Shoesmith himself could have taken the Zodiac out, but whereas Shoesmith was flexible with the other members of the expedition he seemed to expect Rooker to do everything that fell within his area of responsibility, without assistance from anyone else. So he checked the radio link with Jochen and then left them to their work.

      As he came over the headland, Rooker saw the supply ship already gliding towards the mouth of the bay. It was only a small cargo vessel with an ugly high prow and a squat bridge tower, but it looked huge against the black water and the white-draped cliffs. The cabin and mast lights made a glittering garland in so much emptiness.

      The sea was getting choppy in the wind, with ice rattling and churning in the swell. It wouldn’t be an easy journey in the inflatable. It would have been much better if the ship could have come closer in to shore, but the bay was too shallow. It was one of the reasons why the British had withdrawn from Kandahar. There was no deep-water landing in the summer season, and in winter the sea froze and the base became inaccessible by ship.

      Either he made the pick-up right now, Rook thought, or the new arrival would have to stay on the ship until after the storm.

      As he passed the radio room at one end of the lab hut he heard Niki’s voice.

      ‘MV Polar Star, MV Polar Star, this is Kandahar Station. Do you read me? Over.’

      The laconic voice of the ship’s radio op crackled back. Rook waited until Niki pushed his headset aside and gave him the thumbs up.

      ‘The lady waits for you.’

      Rook tramped to the main hut and exchanged his parka for a huge orange float suit. To fall into these ice-bound waters without protection would mean death within minutes. As he zipped himself in he saw that the table was laid for tea with Russell’s fresh loaf, jam and a plate of chocolate cupcakes. Shoesmith was hovering nearby while Russ and Arturo, the precise little Spanish climatologist, pulled on chest-high waders.

      ‘We’ll give you a hand, mate,’ Russ said.

      Rooker took a spare life-vest. The three of them scrambled down the rocks to the shingle beach and ran over the jumble of ice and snow to the floating jetty where the Zodiac was tethered. It strained against the moorings as waves smashed around it. With Rook aboard, Russ and Arturo waited for a lull, then rushed the black inflatable out into waist-deep water. Rook lowered the outboard and to his relief it fired at the first pull. He was already broadside to the waves racing into the bay. A big one rushed at him and almost tipped the Zodiac over. He brought the boat round into the wind and opened the throttle. The inflatable roared forward, the prow lifting as high as his head as it breasted the waves, and ice and scudding water punched the rubber floor as he headed for the bay mouth.

      The air was thick with spray and sea mist and gouts of snow. He turned on the powerful lamp he had brought with him and scanned the mass of heaving water for the ship. He caught sight of the masts pitching in the distance and drove steadily towards the lights.