An Old Captivity

by Nevil Shute

  Alix said: “Apart from the actual work of doing it, is there anything in the photography that we can’t learn?”

  Ross shook his head. “No. I’ve done plenty of survey flying in my time. I’ve never done the photography, but I know what the camera looks like, and I know more or less how it works.”

  Lockwood said: “You mean we can tackle the job by ourselves?”

  The pilot said cautiously. “I’d like to answer that this evening, sir.”

  It seemed that Jameson had had some such idea in his mind. He had caused the whole of the expedition gear to be unloaded from the ship; it had been put into an empty two-roomed house. The governor suggested that they should rent this little wooden shack and make it their headquarters in Julianehaab; he could provide an Eskimo woman to cook for them, and look after it while they were away. Lockwood agreed to this arrangement on the spot.

  They left the governor, and went to look at their new dwelling. It was a simple wooden building built with double walls and windows; it was painted white with a roof of red wooden tiles. Inside it was divided into two unequal portions by a matchboarding partition that ran most of the way across the hut; there was no door to cut off one room from the other. There was a cooking stove in the larger room, and a great pile of the photographic gear and camping kit that Ross had shipped from Copenhagen.

  Lockwood looked around. “I should think this will do.”

  Ross turned to the girl. “I’m afraid it’s a bit matey,” he said. “You’d better have this inside room, and I’ll rig up something for a curtain.”

  She smiled. “I’ll be all right.”

  They decided to stay there till the ship returned in three days’ time, and spent the remainder of the morning settling in. Ross went out to the seaplane again, moored her more securely, and came back with their luggage and their sleeping-bags. Lockwood spent the morning unpacking and sorting out their camping gear and food supplies. The Eskimo woman turned up and announced herself as Gertrud; she spoke a little Danish and one or two words of English. Alix made her light the stove, and set to work to organise a meal.

  They lunched on bully stew and biscuit. Then Ross opened the packing-case that contained the camera, and spent some time studying it and the mass of photographic gear. He was fortunate enough to find a little book of maintenance instructions with the camera; he settled down to read this carefully. By tea-time he was ready to report to Lockwood.

  “The way I see it is like this, sir,” he said. “There’s no doubt that we can take photographs of a sort. But they may not be very good ones. I’m not much worried about getting the strips lined up right. I’ve done that often enough before—I don’t think there’ll be many gaps when we come to make up the mosaic. I can teach Miss Lockwood how to change the film chargers on the camera. We can do the actual photography all right, I think.”

  “I see. But the quality may be rather poor?”

  The pilot nodded. “There’s that risk. I don’t say that they’ll necessarily be bad, because we shall all do our level best to make them good. But, frankly, sir, I know very little about the exposures and the apertures to give. Then there’s the developing—we must do a percentage of check developments to see that we aren’t wasting all our time and film. I don’t know a thing about that. Jameson can tell us a good bit when he comes through on his way home. It’s just a question if he can tell us enough.”

  Alix said doubtfully: “I used to develop my own Kodak films, in the holidays.”

  Ross said: “So did I. But this is a bit different to that.”

  The girl stared at the mass of equipment. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t have a go at it,” she said. “After all, it can’t be so very different. Mr. Jameson ought to be able to tell us about the developing. And as for the exposures, we’ll just have to learn how much to give. There seems to be plenty of film.”

  The pilot looked at the heaped piles of aluminium canisters. “There surely is. I should think he’s brought three times what was needed.”

  “Well, that’s a good thing in itself,” said Lockwood.

  The pilot sat for a few minutes, deep in thought. “Jameson will be back in three days’ time,” he said. “If we’re going to have a crack at this I’d like to make a flight to-morrow. I’d like to take a trial set of photographs with different exposures and apertures, and get them developed before the ship arrives.”

  The don said: “Why not wait till he comes?”

  “The ship only stays for a few hours. I think we’d better have a trial first to find out the difficulties. Then he can tell us where we’ve gone wrong. We don’t want to find our difficulties when he’s gone for good.”

  Lockwood nodded. “That’s good sense. Would you like to get the camera on board and do a flight to-morrow?”

  “I think so. We can make a flight out over Brattalid, and perhaps pick out a decent site to camp.” He looked at his watch. “Six o’clock. If we’re going to do that, I’d better get the machine fuelled up this evening.”

  Alix said: “Can’t that wait till the morning?”

  The pilot got to his feet. “I think I’d better get on with it to-night. To-morrow morning we’ll have all that we can do to get the camera rigged up and make the flight before the fog comes down. We don’t seem to be able to count on flying after noon, these days.”

  “I’ll come along and help.”

  He smiled at her. “Don’t do that. You stay and get the place cleared up and make up beds of some kind for us. I’ll get a couple of the Eskimos to help. I may be a couple of hours.”

  “All right. I’ll have something hot for you when you get back.”

  He went out to find the boatman, and to locate the petrol store. In the hut the girl turned to her father. “He won’t rest,” she said.

  Lockwood frowned. “I don’t think he’s looking very well. It’s bad luck about this fellow Jameson.”

  The girl stood at the window, staring at the figure of the pilot going down the hill. “The work all falls upon his shoulders,” she said quietly. “There’s so very little we can do to help.”

  Her father said: “We’re definitely ahead of time. Do you think I ought to make him take a rest? Do nothing for the next three days?”

  She rubbed her finger on the window-sill. “It’s so difficult, because he’s always right. It’s obviously sensible to have this try-out of the photographic stuff, Daddy, before the ship arrives.”

  The don nodded. “There’s the weather, too. I think he’d take it badly if we tried to make him rest while the good weather runs to waste.”

  “I’m quite sure he would.”

  In the end they decided to do nothing.

  Ross went and found the Danish trading manager, and opened up the petrol store. It was three hundred yards from the jetty; he got a couple of Eskimos to help and carried a hundred and twenty gallons of petrol in two-gallon cans down to the boat. They rowed out to the seaplane and began to put it into the big tank.

  It was nine o’clock when he got back to the hut, tired, sick and dizzy with the petrol fumes. Alix had hot soup waiting for him; while he was eating that in the dim light of a paraffin lamp she cooked him bacon and eggs, with fried potatoes and coffee. Presently he leaned back and lit a cigarette, rested and refreshed.

  “Well,” he said, “I got her filled up. To-morrow we’ll get up early and take the camera on board, and fix that up. Who’s going to work it?”

  He explained. “It goes in the cabin, at the aft end. There’s a round patch in the floor that comes away, and it goes vertically over that, with the lens looking out downwards. It’s semi-automatic, but it needs attention all the time. Would you do that, sir—or Miss Alix?”

  The girl said: “I’d better do that, Mr. Ross. Daddy wants all the time that he can get upon the ground at Brattalid.”

  Ross nodded. “That suits me all right.” He turned to the girl. “Look, we’ll just wash up these dishes. Then I’ll run over the camera with you, and show you what you’l
l have to do.”

  Half an hour later he settled down with Alix and the camera, and began to explain the rather complicated mechanism to her. He found that she had little mechanical aptitude. She was immensely willing to be taught, but she found it very difficult to grasp the principles involved.

  After half an hour she said despairingly: “I see why it has to make a record of the time and the height and the serial number on the edge of each negative. But I can’t see what the spirit levels are for, Mr. Ross.”

  He went back and explained to her again the rectification for tilt. Then he glanced at his watch. “It’s nearly half-past eleven. We’d better go to bed if we’re going to be up early in the morning. I think you’ll manage it all right now.”

  She looked very doubtful. “I hope so.”

  Lockwood asked: “What time do you want to start, Mr. Ross?”

  “I want to get off the water by nine at the latest, so that we can fly the seventy miles or so to this place Brattalid and start photography by ten. I want to be back here by twelve, on account of the fog.”

  “What time ought we to get up?”

  The pilot said: “There’s no reason for you to get up early, sir. I told the boatman to meet me down at the slip at six o’clock. That gives me about two hours to get the camera installed before breakfast. Let’s have breakfast at eight o’clock, sharp.”

  Alix said: “I’d like to come with you and see you fit the camera, Mr. Ross. I don’t feel that I know it properly yet.”

  He smiled. “I’m setting the alarm for half-past five. If we get up then we’ll have heaps of time.”

  The girl made a few arrangements with her father about breakfast; then they went to bed. She had made her own bed behind the matchboarding partition, where she had some privacy in spite of the absence of a door. The men slept in the living room, at the far end.

  Ross did not sleep very well that night. He had taken his sleeping tablets for four nights in succession; he thought that it was likely that he would have to take a lot of them in camp. The day that was now over had been quite an easy one; the next day would not be very strenuous. He felt that he could sleep without a tablet; after all, he was quite tired.

  But he did not sleep. His restless active mind kept running over the new problems that were thrust upon him by the removal of Jameson. They would camp with a couple of Eskimos with them to do the heavy work, but the responsibility for the smooth running of the camp would fall on him; Lockwood had no experience of camping in the North. Clearly, he would have to adjust his work to the bare minimum of effort in order to get through what he would have to do. He would have to run the camp, do the flying, do the refuelling, maintain the engine and the airframe, superintend the photography, do most of the test developing, and stand watch over the machine in case of trouble. It was the last aspect of his duties that worried him most. They would have to take an anchor with them to Brattalid to make a mooring; the Eskimos could bring that with them in a motor boat. But what would happen if the wind got up, and the seaplane began to drag its anchor?

  He tossed restlessly from side to side. If only he had someone with him who knew seaplanes, who knew when trouble was likely to arise; someone who could keep a watch on the machine for him while he got some sleep.

  In any case, they would be too shorthanded to cope with the machine if it began to drag its anchor. That must not happen. They must get it off the mooring and bring it up on shore if the wind were likely to get up.

  It might be better not to have a mooring at all. The other way would be to pick a sheltered, sandy little cove and beach the seaplane after every flight. If she were half-way up the beach on a receding tide she would be safe on shore for six hours while the tide went out and rose again, and he could sleep with a quiet mind. He had operated like that once or twice before when he had been shorthanded, and it had worked all right. True, it meant that you never got more than a few hours’ sleep at a time, and that time came at odd periods of the day. But the seaplane was quite safe like that, and you could sleep in peace. That was the main thing, after all.

  He lay revolving all these matters in his tired mind, while the others slept quietly. After a time he fell into a doze, and slept for about three hours till the alarm clock woke him.

  He called to Alix as he got up; she joined him in a few minutes. Lockwood was awake; he lay in his bag and watched them as they went out, carrying the camera in its wooden case between them. When they were gone he dozed again in his sleeping-bag. He was fit and well, but for the last day or two he had begun to realise that he was nearly sixty years of age. The hard pace of the expedition was telling on him, as it was upon them all.

  Ross and Alix found the boatman, went out to the seaplane, and unpacked the camera in the cabin. They fitted it into the emplacement that had been prepared for it, and spent some time adjusting it and making the connections to the power supply in the machine. Then Ross settled down upon the floor with Alix to coach her in the job she had to do in the air. They went at it quietly and patiently; at the end of an hour it seemed to the pilot that she knew her duties perfectly.

  “It’s really not so very difficult,” she said in the end. “I think I’m beginning to see what it’s all about.”

  He nodded. “We’ll see how it pans out to-day. I think you’ve got it, now.”

  They went back to the house for breakfast. The pilot did not eat much; he was feeling tired and stale. He drank a cup of coffee and smoked several cigarettes; then they went down to the machine again. Shortly afterwards they took off for Brattalid.

  In contrast to the east coast, the sea here was practically free from ice. They flew for a short time towards the north; the coast consisted of a succession of long fiords running deep into the land between considerable hills. There was not a great deal of flat country. Between the fiords the hills were covered with short pasture grass and a low scrub; there were no trees of any size. From the air it seemed to be a barren, desolate expanse of country, habitable, perhaps, for a short time in summer, but not, in fact, inhabited.

  Lockwood was studying his map, culled from the pages of an archaeological review. “This must be it,” he said. “Fly up that fiord there.” He pointed to the east.

  They were cruising at about two thousand feet. Ross leaned across, and looked at the map. “That’s it,” he said. “Tunug-something.”

  The don said: “Tunugdliarfik is the name of the fiord. The mountain over there—the big one—must be Igdlerfigsalik.”

  The fiord was about twenty miles long. It ran northeastwards into the land; at places it was two or three miles wide. They flew on up it at two thousand feet; near the end it split in two by the mountain of Igdlerfigsalik towering above them, apparently a good six thousand feet in altitude. On Lockwood’s instructions they took the fork that trended to the north. A couple of miles further on he said:

  “This is it. Brattalid was on the west shore, here.”

  The pilot put the seaplane into a wide turn. The place the don had indicated was a neck of land between two fiords, fairly flat, but rocky, barren ground. They stared down at it, circling around. It was clear that there had been some habitation there in the far past; the ground was seamed with lines and little rectangles that must once have been stone houses. “That’s it, all right,” said Lockwood.

  They circled round that district for a quarter of an hour. On the other side of the neck of land, in Sermilik Fiord, the pilot saw two little coves, either of which might do for sheltering the seaplane. Both were about two miles from the centre of the Brattalid site. They were so far up the fiord that there could be no swell, and one of them at any rate had a sandy beach. Ross explained what he wanted to Lockwood and showed him the coves. “I don’t want to land to-day,” he said, “I’d rather wait till we get a party out here with a boat. But I’d like to go and have a look at them.”

  They swept low over the site, and circled round the little coves at about two hundred feet. The one with the sandy beach had a stream run
ning down into it. “That one would do us fine,” the pilot said. “We can make our camp there by the stream and get the seaplane up on shore any time we like.”

  They went up to five thousand feet and began the photography. Ross had arranged with Alix to take a trial strip of the coast, varying the shutter speeds and apertures according to a programme which he had written down for her upon a pad. She got out of her seat and crouched down beside the camera, troubled and apprehensive. She took the shield from the cabin floor, exposing the lens; a strong draught whistled up around her. The clamour of the engine and the cold rush of air confused her mind; she could remember very little of what she had known perfectly that morning.

  Ross turned in his seat and shouted back at her: “I’m just coming on the line now. Are you all ready?”

  She was not, but she nodded her head.

  “O.K. Start her up now.”

  She switched on the current to the camera and hoped for the best. The pilot flew a steady course, his eyes sighting a corner of the windscreen on a far mountain peak. He could not turn his head without spoiling his line, but he said to Lockwood, “How is she getting on?”

  The don screwed round in his seat and shouted to the girl: “All right?”

  She looked up unhappily. “Yes … no. It isn’t working properly. The film doesn’t seem to be going on.”

  Lockwood repeated this to Ross. The pilot turned in his seat, and saw her in distress. “I can’t make it work at all,” she shouted. “The film won’t go—it’s stuck, or something.”

  He could do nothing to help her while they were in the air; he could not leave his seat. He said: “All right. Switch it off, and put the cover back over the hole. We’ll land now and have a look at it.”

  He brought the machine low; circled once above the water of the fiord, and landed about a quarter of a mile from the shore. The machine pivoted round into the light wind and lay there rocking gently, with the engine ticking over. The pilot got out of his seat, went aft in the cabin, and bent over the camera with the girl.

  He smiled. “Look, you’ve got it set for manual working. This little catch wants to be over this way.”