Complete Works of Nevil Shute

by Nevil Shute

  She nodded. “I think you might write and let her know how we’ve got on.”

  He said, “I’ll send her a cable tonight.”

  “Write her a letter, too. She’ll like to have that, and there won’t be any opportunity in Greenland.”

  “All right.”

  He locked up the machine and saw that everything was snug for the night. They walked back to the hotel, tired and dirty. Lockwood had not returned; presently they were sitting together in the lounge for tea.

  The girl got up presently and went and fetched a pad of cable forms. “Here you are,” she said. “Write it out now, and we’ll walk out and send it off.”

  He smiled, and took the forms. “Anyone would think she was your aunt, not mine.”

  “Well, if it wasn’t for me she wouldn’t be getting a cable tonight, Mr. Ross.”

  “Shall I tell her that?”

  She laughed, “If you like.”

  Two hours later the messenger delivered a telegram at the little house in Guildford. Aunt Janet took it into the kitchen, put on her spectacles, and opened the buff envelope. The message read:

  ARRIVED REYKJAVIK WEDNESDAY GOING TO ANGMAGSALIK TOMORROW ALL WELL MISS LOCKWOOD SENDS REGARDS.

  DONALD

  She read this in silence with pursed lips. It was good news that all was well, and they had got to Iceland safely. But why did the lassie send her regards, and above all why did Donald waste good money in saying so in a cable at sevenpence or eightpence a word, maybe more? It seemed a wicked waste. She put the cable on the mantelpiece, and set about making a little milk pudding for her supper. Presently she picked the cable up again, and stood it up so that she could see it.

  “He never was one for saving money,” she muttered to herself presently. “I doot he’s getting fond of her.”

  That night Ross went to bed early, soon after dinner, having posted a short letter to Aunt Janet. He opened the bottle of Propylin in his room and took one of the tablets with a glass of water. He got into bed, not feeling very sleepy, but within ten minutes he was sound asleep. He slept quietly and well the whole night through, and did not wake until the morning call.

  He lay awake for a few minutes before getting up, luxuriating in the feeling of freshness that he had gained by his sleep. He really had had a wonderful night, the best night’s sleep that he had had for months. He realised that it was wholly due to the Propylin, and was grateful to the drug. These German chemists knew their stuff, all right. . . .

  That day was not a hard one. He was down at the machine by half past eight; by eleven o’clock he had finished his assembly work, put in a hundred gallons of fuel, and sponged out the bilge water that had leaked into the floats. Then he started up the engine with the seaplane still lashed down upon the slipway, ran it for twenty minutes, stopped it, and made a careful inspection. Finally he put on the engine cowling and made all ready for flight. Then he went back to the hotel for lunch.

  “I’ll take her up for a short test this afternoon, sir,” he said to Lockwood. “Then I’ll put her back on the mooring and fill her up with gas. Would you like to come up with me?”

  “I think Mr. Sorensen has something that he wants to show me at a place called Keflavik.”

  Alix said, “I’d like to come with you, Mr. Ross. I don’t want to go to Keflavik.”

  “All right.”

  They got the seaplane down into the water at about half past two, and took off shortly after that. Ross did a short test of the wireless with the Reykjavik station, then reeled in his aerial again.

  Alix asked, “That lever that you’ve got your hand on is the throttle, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. The little one is the mixture.”

  “And then you steer it with the wheel?”

  He shook his head and explained the rudder to her; for a time they flew erratically round the sky as she felt the controls. “Beautifully balanced, isn’t she?” he observed.

  She did not know exactly what he meant. “It must be rather fun flying her,” she said, relinquishing the wheel.

  He glanced at her quizzically. “Nasty, noisy things. Particularly when they’re flying over Oxford.”

  She flushed. “They’re beastly in Oxford. But it seems more suitable up here. I mean, they’ve got some purpose.”

  He nodded.

  They landed after about forty minutes’ flight; the motorboat met them and towed them to the mooring. They spent the rest of the afternoon filling up with fuel, hot and stifled by the fumes.

  In the evening Ross went up alone to the broadcasting station. The report for the next day was good, with a light following wind and probably good visibility. He went back to the hotel and found Lockwood in the lounge, and told him about it.

  The don looked at him keenly. “How do you feel yourself, Mr. Ross? I know you haven’t had a lot of sleep recently. If you’d like to stop another day and have a real rest, I think we’ve got plenty of time.”

  The pilot smiled. “That’s very kind of you, sir. I appreciate it. But I’m quite all right now. I had a fine sleep last night — nearly twelve hours.” It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Lockwood about Propylin, but he did not do so. “I’d really rather get along, if that suits you. The weather’s very chancy in these latitudes. I think we should go while the going’s good.”

  “You wouldn’t make a final decision tonight?”

  Ross shook his head. “I’ll go up to the wireless station in the morning, before we take off.”

  “All right, then. We’ll all go to bed directly after dinner.”

  “That suits me.”

  They did so. Ross was not particularly tired as he undressed; in fact, he was less tired than he had been for many days. That, he thought, was because they had had a relatively easy day, and because of the long sleep that he had had the night before. Tomorrow would not be so easy; it would be prudent to ensure another good night’s sleep before they flew back to Angmagsalik. He took another tablet of his Propylin, set his alarm clock for five, and got into his bed.

  He slept beautifully, a quiet, dreamless sleep till the alarm woke him in the morning. He got out of bed at once, feeling well and strong; as he shaved in the morning sunlight he was humming a little tune. He dressed and went down to the dining-room, and began his breakfast.

  He had nearly finished by the time the Lockwoods joined him, the girl in her white overalls. “I made a start,” he said. “I thought I’d just nip up to the wireless station while you’re eating your breakfast, and get the weather report. It’s a grand morning for us, here. If it’s like this at Angmagsalik we’ll be all right.”

  Alix said, “You’re very full of beans this morning, Mr. Ross. Did you sleep well?”

  “Never better in my life.”

  Lockwood said, “It’s fine here, but we may run into cloud again in Greenland, like we did before.”

  The pilot nodded. “I’ll get off with every pound of fuel we can lift. But it’s going to be all right this time, sir — you see.”

  He got up and left the room confidently. Lockwood turned to his daughter. “He seems a different man,” he said mildly.

  “I know. I believe he was terribly worried about his engine, although he didn’t say so.”

  Her father said, “Of course, it’s a very anxious time for him.”

  The weather report was still good. They took off at about half past seven from the outer harbour, having drained off fifteen gallons of fuel after an unsuccessful run. There was a thin layer of nimbus cloud at a great height; the day was cold but visibility was good.

  Again they climbed to about three thousand feet, and went droning out over a grey, unpleasant sea. After a time Snaefell sank below the horizon; an hour later they came to the first pack ice. Ross had been in touch with Angmagsalik on the wireless since the take-off; the weather report there was clear weather and little wind.

  There was a cloud over the pack, a thick mist that went right down to the water. In spite of his previous experienc
e, Ross chose to fly above it, depending on his wireless reports of clear weather ahead. For an hour they flew on at about four thousand feet over a sea of cloud; then suddenly the clouds came to an end. Before them, a great distance off, they saw a long line of jagged mountains running down into the sea, with glaciers winding down the coast in furrows, and a mass of pack ice at the foot.

  Ross caught his breath. “Well, there it is, sir. It looks a pretty ghastly place.”

  Lockwood said, “It’s very inhospitable.”

  In that clear air they could see for well over a hundred miles. Above the jagged mountains the white line of the icecap was distinct. The sea was thick with pack ice for as far as they could see. The coastline was evidently rocky and indented; along its edge there seemed to be a wild mix-up of icebergs and rocky islands. They looked at it with awe.

  “I believe the southwest coast, at Brattalid, is very different,” said Lockwood. “There is no pack ice there.”

  Ross nodded. “It’s a different sort of place altogether. They have pastures there, and cattle, so they told me in Copenhagen.”

  Alix stared ahead. “It doesn’t look as if there’s anything of that sort here.”

  Homing upon the Angmagsalik wireless signals, in three-quarters of an hour they were over the estuary. Ross switched off his receiver and stared down intently, glanced at his map, and stared down again. “There we are,” he said. “That’s it. See the wireless masts? Along by the water, where the river runs into the sea. There.”

  The Lockwoods followed his direction. “I see them,” said the don. “There’s a little house there with a spire, like a church.”

  Alix stared down incredulously. “But is this all of it?” she asked. “Seven or eight tiny wooden houses, like that?”

  The pilot nodded. “That’s it all right.”

  “But it’s not even as big as a village!”

  Her father said, “It’s the biggest place in East Greenland. You’d have to go five or six hundred miles to find a bigger one.”

  The girl said nothing.

  Ross wound in the aerial, and circled low for a landing. The inner harbour was dotted with moored rowing boats; in the outer harbour the pack was thicker than he cared about at all. When they had told him that there was little ice at Angmagsalik the term must have been purely relative; there was plenty there to impede the landing of his seaplane. For a time he flew in circles at about a hundred feet, choosing the lane between the icebergs in which he would land. Then he went up a little, and turned to the Lockwoods.

  “I’m going to put her down in that lane — there,” he said. He showed it to them. “I’m going to fly over it first, about ten feet up. Would you keep an eye open for floating lumps of ice on your side, sir — and you on your side, Miss Lockwood? Especially the little black ones in the water, that don’t show up much. I don’t want to rip a float up in this place.”

  The seaplane swept down towards the lane and flew along at slow speed close above the surface; they scanned the water carefully. Then she went up again and circled round as they exchanged impressions.

  “Right you are,” said the pilot cheerfully. “Down we go.”

  He rumbled in very slowly over a floating berg, throttled, and let the machine sink down to the water. Then a quick, short burst of engine, the floats touched and sank down in the water, and the machine pulled up with a short run. Ross swung her round and taxied in towards the settlement, threading his way between the lumps of floating ice.

  He turned to the girl beside him. “I’ll go straight to the mooring. It ought to be a red buoy, like the others. Would you mind hooking on?”

  “Of course.”

  She got into the back of the cabin and took off her flying suit and sheepskin boots; then she took off her stockings and put on rubber shoes. Finally she put on the lifebelt over her white overalls. As she was doing this, Ross taxied round the island at the harbour mouth and saw the red buoy on the water. On shore, some men were getting into a boat.

  He turned round. “Right you are. There’s the buoy straight ahead.”

  The girl opened the cabin door and got down on to the float with the boathook; a wave washed suddenly across her feet. For a moment she gasped, stunned by the cold of it. Then as the seaplane moved forward the buoy came to the float, she reached out and grabbed it, pulled it up, and snapped the cable hook into the ring. Ross, watching her from the side window, cut his switches and the engine came to rest.

  Alix turned forward to him, catching her breath and laughing. “This water’s simply freezing, Mr. Ross.”

  “I’m sorry — did you get wet?”

  “My feet did.”

  “Give them a rub, quickly. I wouldn’t fall in here, if I were you.”

  “I won’t.”

  She got back into the cabin, pulled off her wet shoes, and began massaging her feet. The boat pulled from the shore with three men in it, Eskimos, with merry Mongolian faces. It came alongside the float; Ross jumped down quickly onto the float, and held it off from bumping. One of the men shipped his oar, stood up, and said, “Me Thomas.”

  He wore a very old seaman’s hat, a dirty white jumper of sailcloth, serge trousers, and homemade sealskin knee boots; his face was copper-coloured and dirty, with a cheerful smile. The pilot said, “My name is Ross. Is the Shell representative here?”

  The Eskimo beamed at him. “Me Thomas. Me Shell representative.”

  The pilot said gravely, “I’m glad to meet you. Have you got my petrol here?”

  The man nodded emphatically. “Plenty petrol. Plenty gasolene, plenty oil. Plenty in store.” He pointed to the shore.

  “That’s fine. We’ll come on shore with you and have a look at it.”

  They collected their luggage, left the machine, and got into the boat. As they approached the shore a man came down to meet them, a white man dressed in a seaman’s jersey and top boots like the rest.

  “Good morning,” he said, speaking in English with a strong accent. “I am the governor. Have you had good flying?”

  They went up to his house and trading post. He called his wife, an Eskimo, who greeted them shyly and took them upstairs to the attics. There were two rooms. In one there was a bare camp bed with no mattress or bedding; the only other furniture was a couple of dead ducks hanging by their feet from the roof. In the other there was no bedstead, but a miscellaneous heap of pelts and woollen trade goods. The woman pointed to these hospitably. “Bed,” she said.

  Ross said quickly, “It’s very good of you to let us stay here.”

  She grinned and shook her head. Alix produced a laborious sentence in Danish; the woman grinned again, and made a deprecatory gesture. Then she said, “Vi vill spise snart,” and went down the steep ladder staircase to the room below.

  Lockwood asked, “What did she say then?”

  Alix said, “Dinner before long, Daddy.” She stared around her at the attics.

  Ross turned to her, “I’m afraid it’s very rough,” he said. “I’ll get our sleeping bags up from the seaplane after dinner, and we’ll be able to fix up something comfortable. But it’s not just like the Savoy, is it?”

  Lockwood said, “Don’t worry about us, Mr. Ross. It’s very kind of them to take us in at all, in a small place like this.”

  The girl said slowly, “I believe it’s going to be fun.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” said the pilot. “Which room will you have?”

  “I think I’d like to have the bed.”

  “All right. After we’ve got the fuel on board we’ll bring the bags up here, and see what we can make of it. It’ll only be for one night, I expect.”

  Alix asked, “Is Julianehaab like this?”

  The pilot shook his head. “It’s a much bigger place. There are over twenty white people living there.”

  They went down to a meal of pickled vegetables, bread and butter, and home-brewed beer. They found the governor to be a cheerful, hospitable man, much looking forward to his retirement in Den
mark. His English was not so good as they had first supposed, and they very soon found that a combination of English with Alix’s Danish dictionary served them best.

  The meal over, they went with Thomas to the fuel store. Ross was surprised at the amount of aviation fuel and oil of various brands that was in store at Angmagsalik. It seemed that every Greenland expedition using aeroplanes habitually left a quantity of petrol behind, having brought with them fuel for flights that never came off, for aircraft that were quickly crashed. In this way a great quantity of petrol had accumulated in the store and, what was even more important to Ross, one or two pumps of highly efficient design for putting the fuel into aeroplanes.

  They found refuelling at Angmagsalik absurdly easy. With two or three men to assist they rolled down two drums to a large rowboat, got them on board, and rowed out to the seaplane. With a length of hose and one of the expedition pumps from the store they put a hundred gallons into the machine in half an hour. Ross checked the filters and the sumps, and passed down the sleeping bags into the boat. In very little more than an hour they were on shore again, with the machine ready to start off in the morning.

  They went up to the wireless station. The pastor was there with the wireless operator; they had then met the entire non-Eskimo population of Angmagsalik. Ross asked the operator for the weather reports from Julianehaab.

  They were not very encouraging. There had been fog at Julianehaab the day before. That morning had been clear but there was fog there now. The weather was settled; tomorrow it would probably be clear in the morning and foggy in the afternoon.

  “There has been much fog in Greenland this year,” the man told him. “The ice broke early, but there has been much fog.”

  It proved to be impossible to get a morning weather report before seven o’clock, and that only by a concession on the part of the operators, who had regular hours of watch. As they left the wireless station Ross discussed it with the don.

  “We’ve got to watch our step here, sir,” he said. “It’s a bit over five hundred miles. It’ll be some time before we can get into the air after getting the weather report, especially if the ice is like it was today. If we don’t get off the water before eight o’clock, it will be one by the time we get to Julianehaab, and by that time there may be fog down there.”