by Nevil Shute
He picked up the Brattalid print again. “And now we have this photograph. One little piece of evidence, taken almost by chance. It was by the merest chance it came to me. But there it is. It’s like a little chink of light in a dark room, seen through the crack of a door.” He eyed the pilot steadily. “I’m going to pull that door a little wider open, Mr. Ross. There’s something waiting here to be found out.”
There was a silence in the study after that. Absently the pilot took a cigarette packet from his pocket, pulled one out, and lit it mechanically. Suddenly he was confused. “I’m so sorry,” he said awkwardly. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“By all means.” The older man picked up a battered half-smoked pipe himself and lit it.
Ross said: “What do you want to do?”
The don blew out his match, and puffed a cloud of smoke from his foul pipe. Presently he said: “Archæology to-day depends upon air photographs. I want an air survey made of the entire Brattalid district—say, forty miles long by fifteen miles wide. While that is going on I want to spend a month upon the site myself.”
“I see. Where is this place Brattalid?”
“About seventy miles north-west of Julianehaab. Not far from Cape Desolation.”
“Oh.” There was a momentary silence. “That’s on the south-west coast, isn’t it?”
“That is so.”
They sat and smoked in silence for a time; the pilot stared at the books upon the wall in front of him. It was not the job that he had thought it would be. There would be none of the good young fellowship that he had looked forward to, nor would there even be the comradeship of a commercial company. It would be a lone-hand expedition; he would be a sort of private pilot, engaged for a relatively short job. But what a job! Already he could see that the whole work of the expedition would inevitably fall on him. He would have to do everything—organisation, flying, photography—every single thing except the archaeology. He knew from his experience that the work would be immensely hard, the responsibility enormous, and the danger to life quite considerable. He had too long an experience of the north to undertake this lightly.
His mind went off at a tangent, and he said: “Didn’t you say this was the Eastern Settlement?”
“Yes.”
“Cape Desolation’s on the west side of Greenland.”
“I know. But the early Norwegians called it the Eastern Settlement, all the same. There was another up the coast to the north-west, by Godthaab—they called that the Western Settlement.”
“I see.”
There was another silence. Presently Ross said: “When do you want to go?”
“This summer. I am told that August is the best month for weather. I want to be there for the whole of August.”
The pilot raised his eyebrows. “You’ve left mighty little time for preparation. It’s the middle of May now.”
“Is that so short a time? I should have thought that it was ample.”
The pilot shook his head. “It’s very short.” He thought about it for a minute. “How do you propose to get the machine out there? Put it on a boat, or fly it out?”
The don looked at him uncertainly. “I’m afraid I really hadn’t thought about it. The boats are so very irregular—I had assumed that we should fly out in the machine.”
Ross thought of the pack ice off the Greenland coast, and thought grimly to himself that this was going to be a lot of fun. He nodded slowly, and said aloud: “How many of us will there be?”
Lockwood hesitated. “I should like to take an assistant, but he isn’t really essential. The basic points are—I must go myself, and we must get a good set of photographs. Then, during the winter I can study the air photographs, in preparation for a digging party next year.” He paused. “This air survey is really a preliminary to the main work, which will be next year.”
Ross nodded. “I see.”
Presently he said: “Have you considered at all what a survey like this is going to cost?”
The archaeologist shook his head. “I really have very little idea. How much would it cost?”
Ross had to think quickly. He liked Lockwood, in spite of the fact that the don was grossly ignorant of what he was proposing. The pilot could see a mass of difficulties ahead already. Still, he liked the man and he liked the idea of the expedition; in spite of all the difficulties and dangers, he would like to have a crack at it. He did not want to kill the proposition at this stage by giving an inflated cost. What would it run out to, now? He would have to have a single-engined cabin seaplane. He could pick up a Bellanca or a Cosmos second-hand in Canada for five or six thousand dollars in that time of slump—not much to look at, but sound enough, Petrol, oil, shipping the seaplane and erecting it, moorings to be laid at all the harbours they would visit—the camera, and all the photographic gear; the making up of the mosaic from a couple of thousand photographs. He calculated quickly in his head.
“I think you’d have to reckon on at least four thousand pounds,” he said.
To his relief Lockwood smiled. “These expeditions always cost more than one thinks,” he observed. “You’ll have to talk it over with my brother.”
“Oh!”
The pilot ground his cigarette out in an ash-tray. “You won’t mind if I speak plainly?”
The other looked surprised. “Not at all, Mr. Ross.”
Ross said: “I’m not sure that you quite realise what it is that you’re proposing.”
The don nodded slowly. “Would the flight be so difficult?”
The pilot said: “It’s not impossible, but it’s very unusual. Only four or five aeroplanes have ever been to Greenland, and those have met with difficulties and troubles that you don’t get normally. Maintenance is difficult, because there’s literally nothing there at all. The ice is a devil, I believe. The machines that have been there have been taken by powerful and wealthy expeditions after six months of preparatory work. And even then they had difficulties, and crashes. You want to go without the backing of a ground expedition, and with only six or seven weeks from now before we have to start.”
Lockwood took off his glasses and polished them on his handkerchief. “There seem to be more difficulties than I had supposed,” he said mildly.
Ross smiled. “I think that is so. Don’t think I’m saying that the flight can’t be done, or that we can’t get your photographs. I think we probably can. But you’ll have to realise from the start that there’s a good bit of risk about it.”
The don said: “I suppose you mean—danger to life?”
The pilot shrugged his shoulders. “Well, of course, there’s that as well. It won’t be as safe as sitting in this chair. But I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking of the money risk. You may spend thousands of pounds, and still get no results. We may get out there, and lose the ship at her moorings in a gale of wind. We may crash her. Anything could happen on a flight like that, with any pilot that you like to give the job to. Then you’ll have spent your money, but you won’t have any photographs to show for it.”
There was a momentary silence.
“But is there any other way to get these photographs?”
The pilot laughed shortly. “No, there’s not. To get a survey of that district, somebody’s got to take a machine there and do the job.”
“Well, that’s what I want to do.” The don looked curiously at the pilot.
The pilot looked with equal curiosity at the don. “If that’s your angle on it,” he said, “it suits me. I’d like a job like that.”
“Would you say that there is a reasonably good chance of success?”
Ross sat silent for a minute or two, weighing up the conditions. At last: “I think so,” he said slowly. “August is the best month for a trip like that. We may make it very easily, or we may have a rough time. You want to stay there for a month and get the photographs. I should say it’s better than a fifty-per-cent chance.”
He turned to the older man. “When did you want to start?”
“I must keep it all within the Long Vacation. I could leave here at the end of July, and I must be back here at the end of September.”
The pilot smiled slowly: “It’s lucky your Long Vacation isn’t in the winter.”
The older man looked at him mildly. “I suppose that would make it more difficult.”
The pilot said: “Yes.” There seemed to be nothing else to say.
Lockwood got up and walked over to the french windows. He stood there looking out into the garden, eye-glasses in hand, deep in thought. At last he said: “You’ve given me a good deal to think about, Mr. Ross. What are your movements? You’ll stay here for the night?”
“I will if you want me to.”
“Good. I have to dine in Hall—you might care to come along. Then, perhaps, we can talk about it again in the morning.”
Ross said: “There’s just one thing about it. If we’re going to go this summer, we’ve got to make a snap decision—now. To-morrow, at the latest.” He turned to the older man. “Don’t think I’m trying to rush you into this, but time is really very short indeed. I’ll tell you what we’ve got to do, if you like.”
The other said: “I don’t suppose that I should understand you. But I see what you mean. I will make up my mind to-morrow, Mr. Ross. Then if I decide to go, you must go and talk the details over with my brother.”
“Where is that?”
The don looked at him curiously. “In Coventry. You’ve heard of the Lockwood Tube and Wire Company?”
The pilot blinked. “Is that the same?”
“Certainly it is. Sir David Lockwood is my elder brother.”
For the second time that afternoon Ross had to rearrange his ideas. He knew that Lockwoods were the largest makers of high-grade steel tube in the kingdom; they had an enormous business in aviation. He knew a good deal about the tubes. He knew a little about Coventry, too; they were hard nuts up there. Instinctively he knew that they would scrutinise his record and his competence. They would make enquiries at the Air Ministry; the pilot for Sir David Lockwood’s brother would have to know his stuff. Well, he was not afraid of that. Much more important was the money side. While he had been talking to the don he had been desperately afraid of that. The flight would be a difficult and an exacting one; to enter into it without sufficient money would be a nightmare. But with Lockwood Tubes in the background the flight became a different proposition altogether. Immediately it seemed to him to be considerably safer.
They talked for a little longer about archæology, of which Ross knew nothing; then Lockwood showed the pilot to his room. It was a large and comfortable bedroom on the first floor, furnished in Victorian style with heavy dark mahogany chairs and wardrobes. The linen on the bed was very soft to the touch and smelt of lavender; there were little lavender sacks in the empty drawers. The old parlourmaid carried up his bag; presently she brought him hot water in a polished brass can. Ross changed into his dinner jacket, moody and a little depressed. It seemed to him that there was nothing in that house in keeping with a Greenland expedition.
He went down to the study; the deep carpet on the stairs made no sound. Lockwood was there before him; on a side table there was a decanter with glasses.
“A glass of sherry, Mr. Ross?”
“I should like one.”
The older man poured out the sherry. “My daughter is dining out,” he said, conversationally. “It’s the Bach Choir to-night.”
Ross said: “Oh, really?”
For the first time he wondered what the family consisted of. It was a curious un-lived-in house, apart from the study. Probably, he thought, the wife was dead, and this girl kept house for her father.
“Are you interested in music, Mr. Ross?”
The pilot shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about it.”
“My daughter is a great musician. They’re doing Beethoven to-night—the Fifth Symphony.”
Ross said again: “Oh, really?” and drank his sherry. He felt awkward and tongue-tied, out of his depth. He was powerless to keep his end up in this sort of conversation, and he looked forward apprehensively to dinner in college.
However, the evening passed off better than he had expected. They walked down to the college in the mellow evening sunshine, and drank another glass of sherry with the dons in the Senior Common Room. Presently Ross found himself seated at dinner at the high table in Hall above a crowd of two or three hundred undergraduates. On his right hand was a young don much the same age as he was himself, who was an officer in the Royal Air Force Reserve, and who talked of the games system in Canadian high schools. Ross got on all right with him, and appreciated Lockwood’s tact in making the arrangement. On his left was an elderly man whose subject seemed to be wood. The pilot was able to maintain a short discussion on the trees of Northern Canada. He got on better than he had expected, but it was a relief to him when it was over.
He walked back in the twilight with Lockwood to the house in Norham Gardens. The streets were very quiet; the whole town seemed to be at peace. On the way the don said: “I have been thinking about our talk this afternoon. It’s evidently more of an undertaking than I had supposed. But I see no reason why we should not go.”
Ross said: “Apart from the money side of it, there is no reason. We should be able to do what you want. If we fail, I think it will be because of something that we can’t provide against—blizzards, or a bad season for the ice or something like that.”
They walked on in silence for a time. “We’ll talk about it again to-morrow morning after breakfast,” said Lockwood. “I shall have made up my mind by then.”
They went into the house; a light showed beneath the study door. “My daughter is home before us,” said the older man. They passed through the hall into the lit room.
“Alix,” said Lockwood. “This is Mr. Ross, who has come to talk to me about Greenland.”
The girl got up, and held out her hand. “Good evening Mr. Ross.”
She was a girl of medium height with grey eyes and pale yellow hair, worn long and arranged in two coils at the sides of her head. She had a high forehead accentuated by the style of her hair, and a long serious face with rather a determined chin. She had a good figure concealed and stultified by an unpleasing purple dress with a little frill of lace arranged around the throat. She had slender legs encased in grey cotton stockings; on her feet she wore black buckled shoes, plain, sensible, clumsy and very ugly. She had been sitting in a deep armchair and drinking Ovaltine; a violin in a case lay on the floor beside her.
Lockwood said: “Whisky and soda, Mr. Ross?”
“Thanks.”
The don crossed to a side table and began manipulating the decanter and siphon. Over his shoulder he said to the girl: “How did the Symphony go?”
She said: “Oh—all right, but for the third movement, I wish he’d do something about the ’cellos.” She brushed the hair back from her forehead. “We did the Sibelius thing afterwards.”
“Was the Master there?”
“I didn’t see him.”
She turned to Ross, faintly hostile. “Do you play any instrument, Mr. Ross?”
He had once played drums, cymbals, and triangle in the jazz band of his Wing in Iraq, but he did not dare to say so. Instead he felt awkward and said: “I’m afraid I don’t.”
She smiled, a little frigidly. “We’re both very keen on music. My father finds it a great relaxation.”
The pilot took the glass handed to him and held it tight. There at least was something that he understood. “I’m sure it must be.”
Lockwood said. “Mr. Ross is a flying man, my dear. We’ve had a very interesting talk this afternoon.”
She said coldly: “I hope you aren’t going to fly over Oxford, Mr. Ross. There was a wretched aeroplane this evening—right in the middle of the second movement. We were all furious.”
She hated aeroplanes and motor bicycles. She could remember a time, when she had been a little girl after the war, when you h
ardly ever heard an aeroplane, and motor bicycles were few and far between. Then you could really listen to music, lose yourself in it, become submerged in it entirely. Now, that was hardly possible. You were roused from the dream sharply, irritatingly, by the infernal clamour of an engine in the air or on the road. In summer-time, by day or night, it was now impossible to listen to music without interruption from the skies. Only in winter, in the windy rainy nights, when even the big bombers stayed on the ground, was it possible to lose yourself in music, as it had been when she was a child.
Ross said: “It must be a frightful nuisance in a place like this.”
Lockwood asked: “Isn’t it possible to silence aeroplanes like motor-cars?”
The pilot shook his head. “It’s the prop that makes the noise—the thin sections buzzing round. It’s like a siren. It’s not easy to see how you can deal with that. Nobody would like to see them silenced more than the pilots.”
The girl said irritably: “If they can’t keep them quiet, they might at least keep them away from civilised places.”
She got to her feet and picked up her violin case. “I think I’m going up,” she said. “It’s been a bit tiring.” She went over and kissed her father; then she turned to Ross. “Breakfast at nine, Mr. Ross. Daddy will show you your bathroom.”
She turned away. “Good night. Don’t sit up too late, Daddy.”
Lockwood said: “Good night, my dear.”
She closed the door behind her. A feeling of constraint was lifted from the men; to Ross her departure was a conscious relief. “Keeping the aeroplane away from civilised places comes rather appropriately,” he said, smiling. “There’s not much civilisation where you think of going.”
The other shook his head. “I imagine not.”
The pilot considered for a moment. “That’s another aspect of it,” he said. “I don’t suppose we should find any buildings out at this place Brat—Brat——”
