The Land God Gave to Cain

by Innes, Hammond;

  “What about Paule?” Laroche said.

  “I’ll tell her women aren’t allowed in the helicopter. It’ll make her mad and she’ll chew my head off, but I’m not having her risk her neck in that thing.”

  “It’s safe enough,” Laroche said.

  “Maybe. Well, good luck, Bert. I hope you find the place.” And he got into the jeep and drove off up the camp road.

  We went down to the grade then and waited for the helicopter. It came from the north with an ugly buzz-saw of sound, looking like some huge gad-fly, silver against the dark cloud. All along the grade heads lifted and turned to watch it, fascinated; it had an eerie quality about it, like a visitant from another planet, but I suppose the men saw in it tangible evidence that other parts of this wilderness were occupied. It plumped down on a flat section of the grade not far from us and the rotors slowed and stopped.

  It was my first flight in a helicopter, and as I climbed in, I thought it was an odd place to make it. It was a small machine, so finely balanced that the pilot had to transfer the battery aft to its fuselage seating in order to compensate for my additional weight. It had one of those Perspex curved fronts so that there was nothing to obstruct the view. I was squeezed in between Laroche and the door, and as we rose vertically into the air, it was like being borne aloft in an armchair. The pilot shifted his grip on the juddering control column and we slid off sideways along the grade, gaining height all the time until even the big yellow tumble-bugs looked like toys and the grade, running away to the north, was just a slender, broken ribbon of yellow, a frail line scored by ants across the fir-black face of Labrador.

  We followed the grade almost as far as the trestle, and then we turned east and went riding high over country that was nothing but jackpine and lake. The sun had gone and the land was a black plateau shot with lakes, dozens of little lakes that all ran north-west south-east, the way the glaciers had scoured the rock base, and the water was steel-grey.

  Laroche had the map Mackenzie had drawn for Paule open on his knee and after about ten minutes he signalled the pilot down. The noise of the rotors made it quite impossible to talk. We hovered at almost tree-top height, and after peering closely at a lake a little ahead of us, Laroche nodded his head and we went on.

  Just beyond the lake was a clearing. The pilot shouted something and then the machine was hovering over it and we began to descend. We touched down light as a feather amongst the jackpine and the pilot got out, ducking beneath the gently turning rotor blades. “What have we stopped for?” I asked.

  Laroche smiled at me. “I think Len has been drinking some beer,” he said, and the smile smoothed the lines out of his face so that he looked almost boyish.

  It was the first time it ever occurred to me that you could put a plane down in the middle of nowhere just to relieve yourself. It was so sublimely ridiculous that I found myself laughing. Laroche was laughing, too, and in the moment of sharing the joke, the tension between us was temporarily eased.

  After that we stayed close above the trees, for the map showed a trail running north and south. It was an old trail and difficult to distinguish. But Laroche seemed to have an instinct for the country, so that I began to think that perhaps we would find the lake that afternoon. He sat hunched forward, his eyes peering down at the ground, and every now and then he’d signal with his hand and the stunted tops of the trees would slide away beneath us.

  We reached the end of the trail and there was the next lake marked on the map, a long, narrow sheet of water trailing away to muskeg at the farther end. Laroche pointed to the map and nodded, and he shouted something in the pilot’s ear and made a quick urgent movement of his hand. I had a feeling then that he was in a hurry, as though he wanted to get it over. The map showed only three more lakes, but no distance was given. “How much farther?” I shouted to him.

  He shrugged his shoulders and I sat back, staring at the bleak loneliness of the strip of water that was coming towards us, praying to God that we’d find Lake of the Lion and not have to do all this again on foot. All the brightness seemed to have gone out of the sky and the land had a stark look, as though suddenly deadened by the fear of winter. The joke shared in the clearing seemed a long way back, and as we skimmed the surface of the lake, little cat’s-paws of wind ran away from us on either side.

  Laroche turned his head, craning his neck to peer up at the sky behind us. The pilot glanced back, too, and when I looked back out of my side-window, the lake behind me had almost disappeared and the country beyond was blurred and indistinct, the sky above it frozen to a grey darkness. And then the storm caught up with us and everything was blotted out by driving sleet that rattled on the Perspex with a hissing sound that could be heard even above the noise of the engine. All we could see was the ground immediately below us, the trees whipped by the wind and slowly greying as the sleet turned to snow and coated them.

  I glanced at the pilot. His lips were tight-pressed under the beaky nose, and his hands gripped the control column so tight that the knuckles showed white. He didn’t say anything, and nor did Laroche. They were both leaning slightly forward, their eyes straining to pierce the murk, and their tenseness was instantly communicated to me.

  I had seen it snow the night before, but not like this, not with this cold, malignant fury. And though I had been alone then, I had still been close to the grade so that I had felt no sense of danger. But now it was different. The grade was miles behind and we were being tossed about in a land devoid of humans. This, I knew, was the real Labrador and, shivering, I thought of that lonely voice calling to my father out of the ether.

  The trees vanished and there was another stretch of water below us. Little white caps danced on the ridged surface. And then it was gone. And after that there were more lakes, small grey patches of water that came up one after another and vanished abruptly, and then a big sheet of water and a pebble bank—the third lake marked on the map. The helicopter dropped like a stone, plummeting down on to the grey back of the pebble island, and as the skids touched, the pilot and Laroche jumped out, holding the fuselage down until the rotor stopped and then piling stones on to the skids.

  We sat in the helicopter and time dragged by whilst a rime of white gradually covered the bank and the spray froze on the shelving pebble beach. And then the storm passed and the wind subsided. But the cold remained, striking through the Perspex as though we were all locked in a deep-freeze. Laroche looked at his watch and then at the pilot, who climbed out and stood looking up at the sky. “Well?” Laroche asked.

  The pilot shook his head doubtfully. “Looks bad,” he said.

  Laroche got out then and the two of them stood together, staring up-wind and talking quietly. The pilot looked worried and he, too, glanced at his watch, and then he said something to Laroche, who nodded and gave a little shrug of the shoulders. It was a gesture of acquiescence and I watched him deliberately fold the map and put it away in his pocket. They removed the stones from the skids then and the pilot climbed back in. “We’re going back,” he said.

  I couldn’t believe it. The storm had passed and we were half-way there. “Surely having come this far—” My words were drowned in the roar of the motor as Laroche swung the rotor blade.

  “Sorry,” the pilot shouted in my ear. “But my orders are not to risk the machine. It’s about the most vital piece of equipment we’ve got.”

  “Men’s lives are more important than a helicopter,” I said.

  “Sure.” He nodded sourly. “But if you want to get caught out here in a blizzard, I don’t. Anyway, Bert agrees with me, and he knows more about this country than I do.”

  So it was Laroche who had finally decided the matter. “Surely it’s worth taking a chance on it?” I said as he squeezed in beside me and slammed the door.

  “You want to go on?” He looked at me quickly, a nervous, unhappy glance. And then he leaned across to the pilot. “It’s up to you, Len—you understand that?”

  “Sure. And I’m going back ju
st as fast as I can.” He was revving the engine. “We’ll be lucky if we make it back to the grade before the snow starts again,” he shouted as he lifted the machine off the ground, slipping sideways across the leaden surface of the lake. “As for those two guys, they’ll be dead anyway by now. If they were ever alive,” he added.

  “But I told you—”

  “It’s for Len to decide,” Laroche said sharply. “He’s the pilot, and he says we’re going back—okay?”

  I left it at that. I couldn’t argue with them. And anyway, now that we were headed into the wind I wasn’t too happy about the position myself. We were crossing the little lakes again and all ahead of us the sky was dark and louring, black with cold. Visibility was steadily decreasing and a few minutes later we flew into more snow. At least we’d reconnoitred the route as far as the third lake marked on the map and had got about half-way to our objective. We’d proved that the map could be followed, and that was something.

  We struck the grade only a few miles north of the camp, and if it hadn’t been for the blaze of a fire fed by a work gang, I think we’d have overshot it, for the snow was like a solid grey wall and the white carpet of it on the ground almost obliterated the line of the grade itself.

  We landed at the same spot, and as we got out I saw Paule Briffe get up from a pile of gravel where she had been keeping a lonely vigil. She watched us for a moment, and then she turned abruptly away and began walking slowly back towards the camp. Laroche had seen her, too, and the lines of strain were back on his face and his eyes had a haggard look as he watched her go.

  The helicopter took off again immediately, heading north and hugging the grade, and as it disappeared into the snow, a mood of extreme depression took hold of me. I knew we shouldn’t get the use of it again and that our last chance of flying in had been lost on account of the weather.

  This was confirmed by Lands that evening. He called us into Darcy’s hut immediately after the supper meal and told us bluntly that if we still intended to try to reach the lake, we’d have to make it on the ground. “I had the General Manager and one of the directors through here to-day,” he said. “And they made it plain to me that the helicopter was not to be used for anything but supervising the construction of the grade. Well, that’s that, I guess.” He gave a little shrug. He was looking at Paule.

  “But surely,” I said, “if it were explained to them—”

  “If what were explained to them?” he demanded harshly. “They know all there is to know.” He hesitated, and then said awkwardly, “They don’t believe Paule’s father is alive. Anyway,” he added quickly, “they have a lot on their plate. There’s more than a thousand men working on the grade north of here, and a hell of a lot of machinery, and that helicopter is the only means the Superintendent has of keeping them driving.” And then he was staring at me. “Well, you’ve seen a bit of the country, you know what it’s like now. Do you still say that your father was sane and that message a genuine transmission?”

  They were all staring at me, and I suddenly realised that this was the moment of decision. I had only to say I wasn’t sure and Lands would veto any further attempt. His eyes were fixed on me and I could almost feel him willing me to say it. Laroche was watching me intently, too, his long fingers nervously running the zipper of his parka up and down. Darcy’s expression was one of curiosity, an artist watching human behaviour. And Paule, she was staring at me, too. But I couldn’t see what she was thinking. Her face was a sallow mask, the features fine-drawn, the mouth a tight line. And then I heard myself saying in a flat, colourless voice, “I’m quite satisfied my father was sane and I’m perfectly certain he received that transmission.”

  What else could I say? If there’d been a way out, then I think I’d have taken it. But there wasn’t. I’d gone too far to turn back now.

  In the sudden silence I heard the girl’s breath expelled in a little hiss of sound, and then Laroche said, “How can you be certain?” The words seemed dragged out of him.”

  “Because my father had been a radio operator all his life,” I told him. “A man doesn’t make a mistake like that when his whole life has been given to one thing.” I hadn’t meant to emphasise the word “mistake,” but as I said it, it seemed to hang in the air, and I felt Laroche withdraw into himself.

  “Okay,” Lands said. “That settles it, I guess.” But he sounded uneasy about it. “It’s up to you now, Ray,” he added, turning to Darcy. “You willing to go in?”

  “I guess so.” Darcy’s voice was flat, matter-of-fact.

  “And you, Bert?”

  Laroche glanced at Paule Briffe. “If that’s what you want?” And when she nodded, he said, “Okay then.” But, like Lands, he didn’t look happy about it. And the girl, aware of his reluctance, said impatiently, “What else is there to do—if we cannot have the helicopter again?” She looked across at Lands and he shook his head. “There’s no question of that, I’m afraid.”

  “Then it is agreed?” She was looking round at the rest of us. “We will start at dawn, yes?”

  And so it was settled. We came down to the details, then and there was a long discussion as to whether or not we should take a canoe with us. In the end it was decided we should. From what we had seen of the country from the air, there was as much water as land ahead of us, and though the portageing of a canoe would slow us up on the land stretches, it was felt that we should more than make up for it by avoiding the long detours necessary in skirting lakes and muskeg. It could always be abandoned if it didn’t work out as we hoped.

  The task of getting together all the things we needed for a bare existence in the bush took us about an hour and a half. We collected them in Darcy’s hut—food, cooking utensils, clothing, packs, a gun, axes, fishing gear; a great pile of equipment that had to be sorted and divided into loads for portageing. We finished shortly after nine and then I asked Darcy to take me down to the radio shack.

  I had already raised with them the question of the transmitter Briffe had used. It seemed essential that we should be able to make use of it if necessary and I thought Laroche would say he could operate it. But all he said was, “The transmitter went down with the plane. I told you that already.” He said it flatly, with an insistence that carried conviction, and though it made nonsense of the whole basis of our expedition, I could see that the others believed him.

  Trudging down through the frozen camp, I wondered if I could persuade, the operator to keep a regular watch for us on Briffe’s frequency. “I suppose the radio operators here are kept pretty busy?” I said to Darcy.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he answered. “There’s not all that traffic. Mostly they’re brewing coffee or reading paperbacks.”

  The dark shape of a hut loomed up behind the blazing eyes of its windows. Darcy went to the far end of it and pushed open the door. The heater was going full blast, the small room oven-hot, and a man in a T-shirt raised his eyes reluctantly from the magazine he was reading. His face looked pale behind a straggling beard and his body lay slack against the tilted chair. Even when I explained what I wanted, and why, his tired eyes showed no flicker of interest. Yes, he knew how a 48 set worked, and when I insisted that he explain it to me in detail, he grudgingly drew it out for me on his pad.

  I couldn’t help comparing him with Ledder. Simon Ledder had been like my father, an enthusiast. This man was just an employee doing a routine job. As soon as he had finished explaining the workings of the set to us, he tilted his chair back again and picked up the magazine.

  I hesitated then, unwilling to commit ourselves to him. Our lives might depend on radio contact, and I thought of Ledder again. “Could you contact a ham radio operator at Goose Bay for me?” I asked. “The call sign is VO6AZ.”

  He shook his head. “I got to stay tuned to our own frequency.”

  “You expecting news of world-shaking proportions?” Darcy asked. I think he realised what was in my mind.

  The operator stared at him with a puzzled look, not und
erstanding the sarcasm. “My orders are—”

  “To hell with your orders!” Darcy exploded. “You’re here to operate a radio service. Now get your fat arse off that seat and see if you can raise this ham. And hurry—it’s urgent.”

  “Okay, Mr. Darcy. If you say so.” He hitched his chair forward. “What’s the frequency?” he asked me.

  I told him and we stood and watched him as he fiddled with the dial settings. He tried Voice first and then Key, and as the minutes slipped by on the clock above the transmitter I knew it was no good. I’d either have to trust him to get a message through or … “Could you get Perkins down at One-three-four?” I asked him, wondering why I hadn’t thought of it before.

  He lifted one of the earphones. “What was that?”

  “Perkins at Camp One-three-four. Could you get him?”

  “Sure. If he’s on duty.” He shifted the dials and began to call: “CQ—CQ—CQ. Two-six-three calling One-three-four. Come in One-three-four. Over.” And then Bob Perkins’ voice was there in the room, the solid North Country accent sounding homely and reliable. The phone was put in my hand and when I told him who I was, he cut in immediately with the information that a cable had come in for me from Farrow. “Arrived shortly after midday, but I decided to sit on it. There’s been a proper flap on about you and I was afraid if I started radio-ing messages to you at Two-six-three, it’d give the game away like. You’re at Two-six-three now, are you? Over.”

  “Yes,” I said, and flicked the switch back to receiving.

  “Aye, I thought you’d make it all right. But I suppose they’ve caught up with you now. Are they sending you back to Base, or what? Over.”

  “No,” I said. “We’re to make one more attempt to locate Briffe. I’m leaving in the morning with Laroche and Darcy.” And I explained then that I hoped to find Briffe’s old transmitter still serviceable. “Will you do me a favour and keep a radio watch for us on Briffe’s old frequency. Any time you like, but I must know that I can rely on somebody to pick up any message. Over.”