A halt was called when they judged themselves to be still about two miles from the French coast, but they could no longer see it as the evening was drawing in and the nightly snowfall now obscured everything more than a few yards distant.
Next morning they crawled out of their tents to find that their camp was half-buried in a drift and that it was still snowing. As Gervaise had taken a compass bearing of the French cliffs the previous afternoon they were able to continue their journey, but they had to pause every hundred yards to restore their circulation by flapping their arms and stamping their feet or taking a sip of brandy.
They could not see more than ten yards ahead, and lugging the sledge over mounds of snow sometimes fifteen or twenty feet in height was desperate, gruelling work. At midday Sam suggested that they should camp again and hope that the next day would bring better weather; but Gervaise would not hear of it. The blizzard might last for days, and unless they could reach a place within the next twenty-four hours where there were materials to make a fire so that they could again warm themselves thoroughly, he felt that there was a serious danger that they might die of cold and exhaustion.
It was shortly after they had moved on again that a major catastrophe befell them. The weight of the two girls, who were plodding on together a few yards ahead, was not sufficient to test the snow-crust and it suddenly gave way under the sledge. Sam and Hemmingway, who were drawing it at the time, were nearly jerked off their feet by the pull of the harness as the front of the sledge tilted up and the back end disappeared into the mouth of a deep crevasse. There was a loud report as one of the cords which secured their stores to the sledge snapped under the strain. Next moment the things upon which their very lives depended were slipping and falling into the icy crack.
In a desperate effort to stop them Derek and Gervaise, who were walking behind, flung themselves on their knees and, leaning over the narrow gulf, grabbed at the slipping packages just as Sam and Hemmingway gave a terrific heave and hauled the sledge into safety,
Panting with anxiety they hurriedly examined the remaining contents of the load and peered down the fissure in the frozen snow to see what they had lost. It was about four feet wide at the top but some twenty feet in depth and narrowed till the sides met at its bottom; so many of the packages had stuck about halfway down.
Their tents were safe, as these were stacked on the forepart of the sledge, and so were three of the sleeping-bags, but the others had fallen into the crevasse. Gervaise had caught their drum of paraffin as it fell and Derek one of the primus stoves; but all their stores, medicines and scientific instruments were gone; and many of the cases having burst on hitting the sides of the cleft, most of their contents were now scattered right at its bottom.
It was vital that they should retrieve everything possible so Derek was lowered on a rope. He managed to fish up the sleeping-bags, a case of maps, and a brazier bucket into which were packed candles and some food; but he could not get far enough down to reach the tins and flasks or their picks and shovels, and half a ton of snow suddenly falling in a few feet farther along the top of the crevasse buried the rest of the goods beyond hope of recovery.
Almost overwhelmed by this stroke of evil fortune they examined the contents of the brazier. In addition to candles it contained salt and some tins of Camp coffee but barely enough food to suffice for a full day’s ration for the six of them. From standing about inactive while the men endeavoured to salvage the stores the girls had become half-frozen. As they clung together the biting wind tore at their clothing, the snow stung their faces and their lips were blue. Neither of them were fit to go further yet they knew that they must force themselves to another effort.
It had now become imperative that they reach Calais or they would surely die, so the party staggered on again, making a little better progress owing to the decreased load which the sledge now carried. But a few moments later they became aware of another bitter blow which their recent accident had caused them. As Gervaise had flung himself forward to save the drum of paraffin his prismatic compass had been jerked out of the small leather case in which he carried it on his belt.
They returned to look for it but after a quarter of an hour they gave up the search, concluding that it had fallen into the crevasse; and as the spare compass was buried there with their other instruments they had now no means of finding their direction.
As they knew that they must now be very near, if not actually on, the coast of France and would certainly be able to see it once the snow-storm ceased, they decided that it would be better to camp where they were in the hope that the next day would bring clear weather, rather than risk losing themselves and, perhaps, marching out to sea again. Pitching their camp in miserable silence they ate a small evening meal from their now incredibly precious stock of provisions, and turned in to an uneasy sleep harassed by fears of what fresh trials of their endurance the morrow might bring.
Peering fearfully from their tents when they woke they saw with sinking hearts that the blizzard was still raging. But they had to go on now, or die. Calais, the Mecca of their nightmares, could not possibly be more than a morning’s trek distant, yet they only had food for two more snack meals, or three if they cut themselves down to starvation rations. They decided to do without breakfast and, unrefreshed by their troubled sleep, set off once more.
The cold was so intense that it seared their lungs with every breath they drew as they fought their way through the blinding curtain of whiteness which seemed to dance before their eyes. They were now chilled to the marrow and felt that they would never get properly warmed through again. Even their furs could not protect them from the icy wind which drove the snow against them and pierced their clothing, making their limbs ache with every step they took; but with clenched teeth and straining muscles they forced themselves forward from sheer desperation.
Two hours after they set out they got clear of the broken surface, which cheered them a little, but by that time Margery was so done that she broke down and declared she could not go any farther. Sam gave her the last mouthfuls of brandy from a private flask he was carrying and Gervaise said that, as they dared not stop, she must ride on the sledge. They tied her on it a sobbing, unprotesting bundle and again lurched forward.
It seemed by this time that unless they were moving in circles they positively must be over the French coast. The cliffs they had seen before the blizzard had not been high ones, as the new level of the sea and twenty feet of snow had concealed their base; so it was possible that they had passed through a gap in the cliffs without knowing that they had done so.
At midday, after they had eaten another small portion of the remaining food and drank some coffee that Sam had made for them, Gervaise decided that they should take a new direction. Feeling certain that they must now be above French soil and knowing that Calais lay a little to the north of the cliffs for which they had been making, they now headed left.
Heartened a little by their few mouthfuls of food and the coffee, they trudged on looking like snow-men from the flakes that clung to their clothing. Even the small portions of their faces which they had to leave exposed, in order to see their way, were powdered with it. Their snow-goggles were rimed with frost as their steamy breath turned to ice almost as they exhaled it, and although they constantly rubbed them their noses ached intolerably.
Lavina was no longer strong enough to concentrate on finding the easiest track for them so Sam led the party. Margery, half-comatose, still lay on the sledge. After half an hour Lavina began to lag behind. Gervaise took her arm and urged her to get on the sledge beside her sister, but she mutely shook her head so he tied round her waist a cord which was attached to the sledge and, jerked along by it, she managed to blunder onward.
In the mid-afternoon Sam gave a sudden cry of warning. He had almost stumbled over a forty-foot precipice. The party halted and joined him to examine it, walking some way in each direction along its brink. But the fall was sheer and there was no way down. They knew the
n that they must have crossed the coast-line earlier in the day or the previous afternoon and had since made a semicircle, returning to it on higher ground, as the place where they were standing could only be the summit of the cliffs of France.
It was now a gamble as to whether Calais was on their left or on their right as they stood looking out through the whirling snow towards the frozen sea. If they chose rightly there was still a chance that they might save themselves, but if their choice was wrong there were only fishing villages along the coast and by this time these would be buried in the snow-pack.
Gervaise decided to turn right, but his heart was sinking. The ground had become uneven again and their progress was intolerably slow, so he feared now that, even if they managed to find Calais with so little food left and no shovels, they might be too exhausted to dig round until they struck the roof of one of the snow-covered houses.
At four o’clock they could lurch no farther so they started to pitch their camp about sixty yards from the cliff edge. While they were struggling with half-frozen fingers to erect the tents in the usual three-sided ‘square’ Derek missed Lavina and, looking round, found her sitting in the snow a little apart from the rest. Her head was bowed and she was weeping bitterly.
Sitting down beside her he put an arm round her shoulders and drew her muffled head on to his chest.
‘Oh, Derek darling,’ she sobbed, ‘I’ve stuck it all day but I’m so cold; so cold I think I’m going to die.’
‘Nonsense,’ he whispered, with his lips beside her ice-cold cheek. ‘We’ll make Calais yet—if only the food hangs out.’
‘That’s just it,’ she moaned. ‘If we had another day’s rations we’d do it, but now we’ve lost the spades we’ll have to dig down to the houses with our hands, and mine are frost-bitten already, I think.’
Quickly he undid his coat, jerkin and shirt, then drawing off her gloves, placed her frozen hands flat against his chest so that they might receive the warmth of his body.
‘That’s sweet of you,’ she smiled up at him in the semi-darkness. ‘But it’s no good, my dear. You couldn’t warm my body even if you stripped to do it, as long as this wind lasts. There’s not much of me and I’m chilled all through.
‘You’ll be all right again once the tents are up and you’ve had some coffee.’
‘Yes, I’ll be better then, and through the night I’ll be warm enough in my sleeping-bag. But to-morrow! Some of you may get through but I won’t. I’m the weakest and I’ll never be able to stick another day of it without a decent meal to keep up my strength.’
Derek was hungry too, yet he would gladly have given his share of the remaining food to Lavina. The trouble was that he knew she could never be persuaded to take it. He knew, too, that she had never once complained in the whole grim journey so now that she had at last broken down she must really be at the end of her tether, and that the flame of her life would flicker out unless she had enough food to sustain her next day during their last desperate bid to find Calais.
That the rest of them, with Margery riding on the sledge, could reach Calais he did not doubt. If the snow ceased they would probably wake to see its remaining spires within an hour’s march and, even if the blizzard continued, now that they had the line of the cliff-top to guide them they could hardly fail to strike it if only they had chosen the right direction. He thought of carrying Lavina to conserve her ebbing strength when they set off next morning, but knew that he could not do so for any distance. With frequent halts he might have done so for a mile or two over firm ground but even the strongest man cannot carry a woman any distance over snow.
‘You must ride on the sledge with Margery,’ he said suddenly.
Rather disconcertingly, Lavina laughed, and withdrawing her hands, put on her gloves again. ‘Thanks for my hands,’ she said. ‘They won’t go bad on me until to-morrow now. But you can’t pull two of us with this blizzard raging. No, Derek, no. I was in the dumps just now but there’s no need to worry about me. I’ll manage somehow.’
‘I’ll see you do,’ he said slowly. ‘You’re more than life to me. You know that. Even if all of us don’t reach Calais you’ve got to.’
‘Why me?’
‘Because you’re the best of us. I can’t tell you why I know that, but I do. It’s not just because I’m nuts about you, and your beauty is only a sort of bodily expression of it. There’s a kind of spirit in you which I can’t define, but it’s something that’s the salt of the earth and the champagne too. God knows, humanity’s suffered a bad enough set-back but there are probably countries that escaped the flood and other little groups of survivors like ourselves. Life’s darned hard to kill, you know, and it will struggle on somehow but it can’t afford to lose its finest elements. That’s why you owe it to yourself, and to us, to reach Calais and keep the old chin up until you can find a better land to live in.’
‘A better land,’ echoed Lavina. ‘That’s it, with sunshine and flowers and things. I’ll get there, darling, but I’m worried about you.’
‘Oh, I’m a tough guy,’ Derek laughed.
‘I know, but I do worry,’ she sighed. ‘You’ve been so marvellous all this time. You’d melt a heart of stone, and mine’s only flesh and blood. Take me in your arms a moment.’
He put his arms round her and they sat there silent for a little time in the snow.
She lifted her face and kissed him, then drew away as she said: ‘Look, they’ve got the tents up; let’s get inside.’
All of them crawled into one of the tents and lay for an hour huddled together in their sleeping-bags, until their mutual warmth had restored their circulation. Margery, who was the least fatigued of the party from having ridden most of the day, then got up and crossing to her own tent began to heat some coffee on the primus. As they had been so economical with their remaining food they had enough left for a small evening meal and for one more on the following day.
A few minutes later Lavina entered the tent carrying her sleeping-bag. She got one of the maps, crawled into the bag, and turning over on her tummy, began to write in pencil on its back. When she had done, she took some items out of the pockets of her coat and folded the map round them. They were a one-pound tin of marching chocolate, two small bottles of Brand’s Beef Essence and a good-sized flask of brandy. She had selected them herself before they left Selfridge’s and carried them with her through the whole journey as an emergency-ration in case she got separated from the party at any time and was temporarily lost.
Having made up her package she turned over and said to Margery: ‘Do you know what to-day is?’
Margery looked up quickly. ‘Yes, it’s the 7th of September.’
‘I expect Sam told you,’ Lavina went on, ‘that I promised to give him a decision on the 7th about our matrimonial tangle.’
‘Yes, he told me that,’ Margery replied, trying to still the sudden beating of her heart. ‘But hadn’t we better leave things now until we, er—well, you know what I mean?’
‘No, I made a promise so I’m sticking to it. Whether any of us will live to cross the Straits of Gibraltar is pretty uncertain, but I see no reason why those of us who survive the next forty-eight hours shouldn’t do so. This blizzard has been raging for over two days now and it can’t go on for ever. Once it lifts, we’ll be able to see a church tower or something sticking up out of the snow which will show us where Calais lies; and once the party’s restocked from the food that must be in the houses there, it can begin the long trek south. Things should improve from then on with every stage of the journey, and even if some of the villages are buried completely it shouldn’t be difficult to identify others from towers and gasometers, so there’s quite a decent chance of getting through.’
‘Yes, I feel that too,’ Margery nodded. ‘If only we can hang out for another forty-eight hours; but can we? With no fires, no brandy, and so little food?’
‘Well, whether we can or not; as to-day’s the 7th I’ll tell you my decision. I believe you think that you
’re a better woman than I am because Sam’s fallen for you; but that isn’t true. You may be a very good cook and housewife but don’t kid yourself that those things make you so very marvellous.
‘You’ve never earned a penny in your life. If we were back in normal surroundings you couldn’t hold down a job at more than a couple of pounds a week, however hard you tried; whereas I am an artist. People who know have even said that I’m near-great as an actress and you can’t achieve that sort of thing without working for it. While you sat at home I slaved in the studios to make a career for myself. It isn’t easy to do that and keep your self-respect, if you happen to be good-looking, in a game where all the strings are pulled by men; but I did it, and I did it by sheer hard work. When I threw up my job to marry Sam I was earning as much money as a Cabinet Minister, and I did that without any help or favours from anybody.
‘What’s more, you threw your hand in to-day but I didn’t; and as woman for woman, you wouldn’t stand an earthly chance against me. If I wished, I could get Sam back from you before to-night is out. But, as it is, I’m very fond of Sam and I believe that he’ll be happier with you than he would with me.’
Margery’s hands trembled and she drew a sharp breath as Lavina went on quietly:
‘And I’m not thinking only of Sam. Although we’ve never been great friends I’m fond of you in my own way, because you are my sister and I haven’t forgotten the good times we had together as children. We’ve grown apart a lot, but now we’re up against it those sort of memories come back. It wasn’t always my fault that every man we knew always fell for me, but I’d like to make it up to you a bit, now I have the chance.
Sixty Days to Live Page 38
