An Old Captivity Page 16

  The girl said gently: “Thank you, Mr. Ross. It’s been good of you to take so much trouble. You’ve made me a lovely bed.”

  The pilot said: “I hope you have a decent night. Good night, Miss Lockwood.”

  “Good night.”

  He went out, closing the door behind him. In the attic the girl stood deep in thought, looking after him. Then she roused herself, took off her overalls, and got into her sleeping-bag in her underclothes.

  In the other attic Ross found the don laying out his bed upon the floor, methodically and efficiently. Ross joined him; they contrived to make good beds upon the trade goods. They took off their outer clothes, wriggled into their bags, and lay for a time before sleeping.

  Lockwood said: “I suppose this represents the most difficult part of the flight, Mr. Ross?”

  “That’s so,” said the pilot. “After this, we shouldn’t get any more ice. Julianehaab’s a bigger place than this, too. And at Brattalid we’ll have a proper camp. No, this is the really tricky bit. Taking off to-morrow in all that ice is going to take a bit of doing. I may have to dump a good deal of fuel to get her off the water in the space we’ve got.”

  “I suppose you must have done a lot of flying in this sort of ice?”

  “Not more than I could help.” The pilot yawned. “Hudson Bay gets a bit like this at the break-up. But there it’s all in slabs—you don’t get bergs like these.”

  The don nodded sleepily. “Because there are no glaciers.”

  “I suppose so.”

  They lay silent; presently the even breathing from the other bag told Ross that Lockwood was asleep. He lay wakeful, with an active mind. It was odd that Jameson had not been in touch with them. With wireless communication all along the coast, he must surely know where they were. But it was probably all right.

  He thought of the take-off in the morning. It would need the greatest care. Any damage to the seaplane here would end the trip, and mean the charter of a special ship from Reykjavik to get them home that year. Otherwise they would spend a year of their lives in that attic. He’d have to play very, very safe. He must balance the safety factors. It would be safer to make sure of the take-off even if it meant starting with fuel for only eight or nine hundred miles.

  He thought of Alix in the next room, wondered if she was asleep. She was helping him enormously with her Danish, and in the refuelling. It was panning out much better than he thought it would when he first met her in Oxford. Far, far better …

  Alix, Jameson, the ice-pack, the fuel, the fog, Alix … His mind ran slowly round in circles as he dozed in the bag.

  Presently he stirred and looked at his watch. He had been in bed an hour, and was no nearer sleep. This wouldn’t do at all—at all costs he must have a decent night. He reached out for his pack and took a tablet of Troxigin. Soon he was sleeping quietly, his steady, even breathing joined with Lockwood’s.

  He slept till his alarm clock went off; yet, on awaking, it seemed to him that he had not slept very well. He had been dreaming. He could remember nothing of his dreams, but he knew that they had been very vivid. The fact impressed itself upon his memory because he seldom dreamt at all. Still, he awoke refreshed, and rolled over and wriggled out of his bag. He went over to the window and wiped the condensation from the glass.

  Lockwood asked: “What’s the day like?”

  “Fine. There must be a fearful fog in here.”

  There was a stir of movement in the lower parts of the house, showing that the governor and his wife were about. Lockwood called to Alix, and got a sleepy reply that she was getting up. Presently they were all downstairs, eating a meal of porridge and jam washed down with hot coffee.

  Outside, the day was bright. They walked up to the wireless station; the operator was receiving and they waited till he had finished. Presently he came out to them.

  He told them that the weather was good at Julianehaab, but there was fog about. It would probably stay clear till noon.

  Ross thought about it for a minute. “It’s another of these touch-and-go ones,” he said irritably. He turned to the operator. “Is that a good report? Do you ever get a report of settled, clear weather in these parts?”

  The man shrugged his shoulders. “This year there has been fog part of all the days. It has been very calm.”

  The pilot hesitated, irresolute. “What’s it going to do here?”

  The wireless operator looked around. “I do not know. It is calm. I think it will remain calm. If I were sending a forecast, I should say there would be fog here later.”

  “Will it be better to-morrow, or the next day, do you think?”

  The man said: “For Greenland, this is good weather. There is no storm. Sometimes here the wind blows two hundred, two hundred and fifty kilometres an hour. The weather now is very good.”

  The pilot turned to Lockwood. “I think we’ll go, sir. I’ll keep in touch with Julianehaab on the wireless; if it gets thick there while we’re on the way we shall have to come back. You’ve got to take a bit of a chance in this sort of place, or you’d never get anywhere.”

  They went and said good-bye to the governor and his native wife; then they went with Thomas to the seaplane in a boat. They took an empty petrol drum with them; Ross worked for some time down on the floats draining off forty gallons from the big tank in the cabin, to lighten their load for the take-off. Then they dropped the mooring, and the boat took the machine in tow towards the entrance of the inner harbour.

  Presently they cast off, started the engine, waved goodbye to Thomas, and taxied out towards the ice-pack.

  It took them a quarter of an hour of taxiing among the ice to find a suitable lane. At last they found one about three-quarters of a mile long. Ross cruised over it at a slow speed on the water, keeping a sharp look-out for floating ice, and returned to the leeward end. He swung round into the wind, and opened the throttle.

  The take-off was an anxious time for them all. The seaplane was nearly half-way down the run before she was riding smoothly on the step; the floating ice raced by them on each side at a great speed. The pilot sat tense and motionless, waiting for the last moment to try to pull her off the water. With a hundred and fifty yards of their clear water left ahead of him he eased the wheel back firmly, prepared to throttle down at once if she did not respond. She left the water, however, touched again lightly; then she was two feet up and gaining speed. He slewed her gently to avoid a peak of ice ahead of them; white ice flashed past immediately beneath the floats. Then they were clear and climbing slowly out over the pack. Ross sighed a little, and relaxed.

  At five hundred feet he turned, and began to fly westwards, following the coast. Soon the coast turned south and they turned with it, flying at about three thousand feet above sheer desolation. The coastline stretched rocky and indented for as far as they could see. In shore, the white line of the ice-cap bordered the sky; from it the glaciers ran down between rocky outcrops to the fiords running deep into the land. There was no sign of habitation or of life of any kind.

  The pilot reeled out his aerial, and sent a message to Julianehaab asking for the weather. The reply was much as it had been before. The weather at Julianehaab was fine, but there was fog about and it was expected to be foggy later later on.

  They droned on steadily down the appalling coast, making good about a hundred miles an hour. At the end of the first hour Ross again spoke to Julianehaab. He was told that there were banks of fog out at sea.

  He showed this message to Lockwood. “It’s one of those bloody tip-and-run days,” he said discontentedly. “We can’t land if it’s foggy there. Would you like to play safe, and go back to Angmagsalik?”

  “How much petrol have we got?”

  “We took off with enough for ten hours. Say nine hours more.”

  “Suppose we go on for another hour, and make our decision then?”

  The pilot thought about it for a minute; the weather all around them was quite clear. If the worst came to the worst they could
land anywhere upon the coast, beach the machine, and spend a cold night in the cabin. “All right,” he said at last. “We shall be nearly half-way by that time.”

  They flew on steadily along the coast. Three-quarters of an hour later the don said: “There’s a little house down there, Mr. Ross.”

  Alix and Ross leaned over to look. It took them a little time to see what Lockwood meant. Then they saw a long hut, built of rough blocks of the local stone and roofed with turf, merging in colour with the hillside. It was near the edge of the water. Drawn up on the beach in front of it were one or two skin-boats, and a few kayaks. Several people were outside it, staring up at the yellow seaplane.

  Immediately Ross throttled down, and made a note upon his pad. The machine sank towards the hut in a great circle. “It’s an Eskimo house,” he said. “Let’s have a look at it.”

  They flew past at about three hundred feet. There was a beach there, free from ice; on it they seemed to be skinning a seal. There were windows to the hut, glass windows in frames roughly chocked into the piled stone work. There were about fifteen or twenty people, some of them children. They saw all this as they passed; then it was left behind and they rose slowly on their course to three thousand feet again.

  At the hour, Ross sent another message for the weather report. Julianehaab replied:

  Fog coming in from sea expect visibility less than five hundred metres in an hour.

  Ross passed his pad across to Lockwood with a shrug, and swung the machine round till they were heading back for Angmagsalik. “That’s no good to us,” he said. “We must go back.”

  The don said: “It seems the only thing to do.”

  The pilot set the course and busied himself upon the wireless again, transmitting to Angmagsalik. Then he switched over, and wrote down the letters of the reply as they came to him.

  Visibility three kilometres getting worse do not advise you return here.

  He passed it to Lockwood without a word. Then he began transmitting again to Julianehaab.

  Fog at Angmag present position 220 miles south Angmag request governor’s permission to land Eskimo settlement here.

  The reply came at once.

  Permission granted do not give natives firearms or intoxicants.

  He transmitted again.

  Can make safe landing no need search or relief party will fly to-morrow weather permitting and communicate you by radio.

  He got an acknowledgment, reeled in his aerial, and turned to Lockwood. “It’s the only thing to do, sir,” he said. “We’ve just got to park here and wait for the weather.”

  Alix asked: “Isn’t there anywhere else to go?”

  He smiled at her over his shoulder. “I’ve got enough petrol to get back to Reykjavik.”

  She laughed. “I don’t want to spend my life flying in circles round the Arctic, Mr. Ross. I think I’d rather go down here.”

  They reached the little house and made a wide turn over it, staring down pensively. “It’ll be a funny sort of night,” the pilot said. “But they’re quite all right; they’re friendly people. You’ll just have to look after your things, that’s all. They’ve got so little—they’ll probably pinch everything they can get hold of. That’s if they’re anything like the ones in Hudson Bay.”

  He throttled, brought the machine down to the water, and landed near the beach. The seaplane swung round into the wind and came to rest.

  They stared at the shore. A little crowd of people had assembled on the beach; one or two men were getting into kayaks. Lockwood said: “I don’t think they’re afraid of us.”

  The pilot said. “I don’t think they are. Look, I’m going to go right in and beach the machine straight away, sir. If we let them come around us we shall have to stop the prop or we’ll be cutting their heads off, and I don’t want to do that. We’ll go straight in. Keep an eye open on your side for shoals.”

  He opened his throttle, swung the seaplane round, and taxied in towards the beach. Twenty yards out he throttled down and let the seaplane carry her own way; as they approached the kayaks he cut the switches and the engine stopped. The machine slid in between the boats and grounded gently on the sand.

  The natives surged around the bows of the floats upon the beach. “Better stay here a minute,” said Ross. “I’ll get hold of the chief.” He slipped out of his seat, pressed past Alix, opened the door, and got down on to the float. He made his way along the float, taking the mooring cable with him, and jumped ashore. A horde of dogs immediately set up a violent barking; the natives surged around him, chattering and fingering his clothes. From the cabin window Alix watched him apprehensively.

  He smiled, and raised his hand above his head. There was a silence, but for the children and the dogs. He said: “Chief. Bestyrer. Governor.”

  A man pressed forward; the others drew aside. He pointed to himself. “Luki,” he said.

  Gravely the pilot pointed to himself. “Ross,” he said. The dirty, copper-coloured face beamed with pleasure. “Rogg,” he repeated. Then they shook hands.

  The pilot said: “Do you speak any English, Luki?”

  The man thought for a moment, and said something. Ross shook his head.

  Alix leaned from the window of the machine. “I think that’s Danish, Mr. Ross.” The crowd stared at her; there was a busy chattering from the women.

  The pilot turned to the machine. “It’s quite all right for you to come down now, sir—and you too, Miss Alix. If he speaks Danish we’re in luck.”

  He helped the don down from the float on to the shore, and then the girl. She had taken off her flying suit, and was wearing the white overall. “Look, Miss Alix,” he said. “They’ll want to know about your clothes—the women will. Be decent to them, but don’t let them maul you about. Give them a slap if they get too inquisitive. They understand that.”

  “All right. Don’t get too far away from me, Mr. Ross.”

  They turned and faced the chief. The girl said: “Taler De Dansk—eller Engelsk?”

  The man answered with a few single, isolated words. Alix turned to Ross.

  “It might be Danish,” she said hesitantly. “I don’t know that it’s going to get us very far.”

  “Never mind. Can you ask him if the tide is going out or coming in?”

  This was important, with the seaplane on the beach. From the look of the shore it seemed to be about half-tide, Alix looked very doubtful, thought for a time, and spoke a sentence laboriously to the chief. It had no effect at all.

  The pilot smiled. “Never mind. I believe I can get it through to him with signs. Hey, Luki!” He led the man down to the water, and went through a pantomime. The Lockwoods watched his gestures, quick and expert. The copper-coloured face brightened with intelligence, a few more gestures, and the pilot stood erect.

  “Going out,” he said. “She’s all right where she is. It’s nice soft sand for her to rest on.”

  Indeed, the sea had already receded a little since they landed. Ross got up on to the float and locked the cabin door; then he came back to the little crowd upon the beach. “Luki,” he said.

  He pointed to the sun and traced its passage down to the horizon, made gestures of sleeping and gestures of awakening. Then he pointed to the seaplane, and up into the sky. The man smiled and nodded, and said: “Sove her inat.”

  Alix said quickly: “That’s Danish all right, Mr. Ross. He said: ‘Sleep here to-night.’” She repeated the Danish words to him; the man nodded emphatically and said them again, beaming with pleasure.

  Ross went back to the machine, and fetched a light coil of rope to moor her with when the tide rose again. Returning, he saw the girl surrounded by a crowd of women. They were fingering her white overall, touching her hair, examining her fur-lined flying boots. Then they discovered the zip fastener upon her chest. A dirty hand gave it a little downwards tug; there was a squeal of delight.

  Ross said sharply: “Luki!,” pointed to the girl, and frowned. The man said something and the women drew ba
ck, still staring avidly. Alix laughed breathlessly. “I don’t mind a bit, Mr. Ross, but let them look one at a time.”

  “Ask him which one is his wife.”

  The girl spoke to the chief in Danish, and a brawny copper-coloured matron came forward shyly. She wore a chequered jumper of rough cloth, a dirty cloth skirt, and sealskin boots; her hair was piled up curiously upon her head in a great ornamental curl. Ross said: “Be nice to her, Miss Alix. Then she’ll keep the rest of them away.”

  “All right.” The girl patted the woman’s arm, and they began examining each other’s clothes.

  Luki smiled broadly and said something interrogative. Ross turned to Alix. “I didn’t get that one.”

  She said, a little shortly: “Nor did I.”

  Luki repeated his question. Alix hesitated, and then shook her head.

  Her father asked: “What was that?”

  She forced a laugh. “He was asking if I was married to Mr. Ross.”

  The pilot said: “Of course he would ask that.” He turned to the man and smiled. “No,” he said, shaking his head.

  Luki did not seem to think this very satisfactory, and was inclined to pursue the subject, but abandoned it after a time. Instead, he led them into the house, crawling through the narrow stone tunnel which served as a door.

  Inside the hut, the smell hit them like a blow in the face, a mixed smell of rotten meat, urine, dogs and babies. For a moment or two it was nauseating; Alix drew back in disgust. Ross touched her arm.

  “It’s pretty foul,” he said quietly. “Stick it out if you can. These people are very sensitive, and I don’t want to seem rude.”

  She stuck it out, and after a time ceased to notice the odour. The house was quite a long building, of one single room. Half a dozen posts standing in the middle of the floor supported the roof; from these posts hide-thongs were stretched to the walls and hung with garments, making the place crowded and untidy and providing a small measure of privacy for the different families of the community. The floor was divided by a raised platform two feet high that ran for the whole length of the house. This was the sleeping bench, and on it the entire life of the community was carried on. The lower portion of the floor was used for dogs, cutting up meat, and repairing the hunting gear and sledges. Upon the edge of the sleeping bench two or three soapstone blubber-oil lamps burned with a wide, low flame under blackened cooking-pots. There was soot everywhere.