An Old Captivity (35 page)

He had not finished with the seaplane. He went out to
her again upon the mooring in the afternoon to grease and look over the controls, and to make a succession of small jobs that would keep him busy until evening, that would keep him with the machine and away from the girl. In the shack Alix went and lay down for a time; presently she fell asleep, and woke after an hour hot and muzzy, with a slight headache.

Lockwood was in the main room of the hut, the pilot was still out upon the seaplane. She made her father a cup of tea and had one herself; then they went for a short walk.

He asked her about the survey. “It’s practically done,” she said. “In fact, I think it is done, but Mr. Ross thinks that we left a strip gap on the first day. He wants to go out again to-morrow morning and take some of it again, just to make sure.”

Her father nodded. “He’s very thorough.”

She said: “I wish he wasn’t. We could get away to-morrow, really.”

“To Battle Harbour?”

“That’s where we’re going, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” He paused. “You want to get away as soon as possible, don’t you?”

She said quietly: “Yes please, Daddy. I want to get back to Oxford. A Cunard boat leaves New York each Saturday. It’s Wednesday the day after to-morrow. If we start then we could catch the one this week.”

“Don’t you want to stop and see America?”

“Not this time, Daddy. I want to go home.”

He changed the subject, and they talked of other things. In the hut that evening he proposed to Ross that they should leave on the Wednesday morning.

“Suits me, sir,” said the pilot. “Soon as the job’s done I’ll be glad to see the last of this place. It’s been a miracle the weather’s lasted like it has. Once we get over on the other side, to Labrador, I don’t care if it snows ink. We can go home by boat. But if we pile her up in this place we might spend the winter here, likely as not.”

They flew again next day and finished off the survey, finally and without ambiguity. They were back at Julianehaab by half-past twelve. After lunch Ross made a check development of the two sets of exposures in the dark room at the governor’s house; the girl did not offer to help him, but he found a willing assistant in the governor. The films were satisfactory; he returned to the machine and began refuelling for their departure, helped by Ajago.

Once as they rested, the Eskimo said: “Go to-morrow?”

“That’s right,” said the pilot.

The man pointed to the north-east. “Angmagsalik?”

Ross shook his head, and pointed to the west. “To Labrador.”

The man understood. “Good.” He leaned over to the pilot. “For you”—he leaned further and tapped Ross on the chest—“for
you
, Greenland not good place. For others, Greenland good. Not good for you.”

The pilot nodded slowly. “Maybe you’re right.” He eyed the Eskimo curiously. “What’s wrong with Brattalid?”

It is doubtful if the man understood him properly. He made a gesture of distaste. “Brattalid no good,” he said. “Alle ved det.”

They got up, and went on with the refuelling. In the hut Lockwood and his daughter were sorting out their stores. They packed the camera to be shipped back to England at the next opportunity, whenever that might be. They took with them in the seaplane only the sleeping-bags, the emergency provisions, and the films of the survey.

When Ross came back to the hut, they began an orgy of giving things away. They gave their surplus photographic supplies to the governor, most of the medicine chest to the doctor, and the surplus of tinned foods to Ajago. He received them with delight. “It is too much,” he said in Danish. “These foods cost many krone.”

Alix said: “Take them all, Ajago. You’ve been so good to us.”

He went and got a sack and took them away.

Next day, early in the morning, they left Julianehaab.
The governor and the doctor and the pastor all came down to see them off. For the last time Ajago took them to the seaplane in the motor boat; they said good-bye to him, and got in. Ross and Lockwood swung the inertia starter together and the engine fired; Ajago cast off the mooring for them, and they taxied out into the fiord.

The first attempt to take off was unsuccessful. They had a very heavy load of fuel on board; the machine ran for two miles up the fiord, but failed to leave the water. They taxied back again and hung on to the motor boat while Ross drained off some fuel into the sea; at the next attempt they left the water after a long run. Ross climbed the machine slowly to about three hundred feet; then he turned and passed over Julianehaab at about nine o’clock, letting out his aerial as he passed the settlement. He got on to his course, out over the sea.

Presently Julianehaab faded into the mists behind. There was a visibility of about fifteen miles; the sky was partly overcast at seven or eight thousand feet. They flew at about two thousand feet over a dappled leaden sea, transmitting on the wireless each half-hour. They sat in the machine, bored and motionless, for five hours. At two o’clock they saw the loom of land, very far ahead.

They held on the same course, and presently made out the entrance to Hamilton Inlet. Then they turned, having established their position, and flew southwards down the coast for another hour or so. Presently the pilot pointed to a few wooden houses scattered on a little island.

“That’s Battle Harbour,” he said. Peering down, they saw the masts of the wireless station.

He throttled down and put the seaplane into a wide gliding turn above the little settlement; presently they saw the red buoy on the water. They landed near it and Ross taxied up to it; Alix standing on the float, hooked on. The pilot cut his switches, and the engine came to rest. “That’s that,” he said, a little wearily.

They studied Battle Harbour from their seats, tired and reluctant to move. It looked very like Julianehaab, but not
so big and not so well arranged. There were the same little wooden houses, a hospital, and a wireless station standing on the bleak, bare ground. “What will you do about the fuel?” asked Lockwood. “Will you fill up to-day?”

Ross said: “I think we’d better, sir. The weather is good at the moment. I’d like to make the most of it, and get along to-morrow down to Halifax.” He stared at the shore. “I don’t suppose you want to hang about here any longer than we’ve got to.”

A motor boat came out to them, and took them ashore. In half an hour Ross was back with the petrol, and was filling it into the machine with the assistance of a couple of men, trappers in the winter. By half-past six the work on the machine was done, and they were ready to go on next day.

The nurse in charge of the hospital provided a bed for Alix for the night; Ross and Lockwood slept in their bags in a loft over the Hudson Bay Company’s store. They had little time to explore Battle Harbour. They took one short walk after supper and found the place alive with sledge dogs; then they returned and went to bed at nine o’clock, in preparation for an early start next day. They were disappointed, for there was a morning mist. They were up at five to peer out into an iridescent, pearly fog with a pale sun above; they hung about disconsolate for hours. Shortly before ten o’clock a little breeze got up and blew the mist away; the pilot decided to make a start.

“We may have to come back again, if we don’t like the look of it,” he said to Lockwood. “But I think we’ll have a stab at it!”

They thanked their hosts and said good-bye, and went out to the seaplane in the motor boat. By half-past ten they were in the air and on a course for Halifax in Nova Scotia, flying above wreaths of the low mist that hung about the coast. Soon they came to the Straits of Belle Isle and crossed over them.

The northern part of Newfoundland was barren and low, lying, dotted with water lying on the land in lakes like puddles in a street. They followed down the western shore;
slowly the land grew fertile, till it became thickly wooded. Presently Ross touched Lockwood on the elbow, and turned to draw the girl’s attention. He pointed downwards; below them there was a winding track cut in the pine forest, and a puff of steam. Presently they saw the little engine and the trucks. “This is the Bay of Islands,” he said, smiling. “You can go home by train now, if you like.”

The girl said: “I don’t want to go by train—it’s getting interesting now. Something to look at, instead of just sea. I never knew a forest looked so much like a game of spillikins.”

Her father said: “I noticed that. There seem to be fallen trees everywhere you look.”

Ross nodded. “It’s always like that, but you only see it from the air. Any untouched, virgin forest looks like that.”

They followed the coast on down to Cape Ray, eating a lunch of bully beef and biscuits in their fingers. They crossed Cabot Strait and passed over the collieries and steelworks of Sidney; in the warm afternoon they followed down the east coast of Nova Scotia. At half-past five they came in sight of a large town upon the south shore of a wide, extensive harbour.

The pilot said: “Halifax.” He put the seaplane into a wide turn above the town. “That’s where we land—that oil wharf—where the ferry’s going in.”

Lockwood said: “Do you know this place?”

Ross nodded. “I came here several times, in the old days.”

The machine swept low beside an island opposite the docks and landed in front of the town; the pilot turned and taxied in towards the oil wharf. A flat-bottomed motor dory with a couple of men in it came out to meet them and took them in tow; presently the seaplane was securely moored by bow and stern between two wharves, floating safely and sheltered in the bay between.

They got down into the dory for the few yards to the wharf; Alix stared around. She had never been in North
America, and it had a foreign air to her. The piles that the wharves were built upon were just the rough-trimmed trunks of trees; in England the timber would have been squared off. Everything on the water-front was built of wood and corrugated iron, severely practical and rather shabby. The signs upon the buildings in themselves seemed strange, RAKWANA TEA and THE SCOTIA FLOUR AND FEED LTD. A little crowd of men upon the wharf contained three negro labourers.

One of the men in the dory turned to Ross.

“You come from Battle Harbour to-day?”

The pilot said: “That’s right.”

The man turned the chew in his cheek, spat into the water, and said: “Why do them letters start with G? All the ones I ever seen begin with C.” He indicated the registration letters painted on the yellow fuselage.

Ross said: “It’s a British registration. G means England. C is for Canada.”

“Uh. Quite a ways from home, aren’t you?”

The pilot said: “That’s so.”

They clambered up a rickety ladder on the oil wharf; the manager was at the top to meet them. “’Evening, Jimmie,” said the pilot. “How’ve you been keeping? Guess you’ve put on weight since I was out here last.”

The manager said: “Hi-ho, Donald—you don’t alter much. Still going around in airplanes? Tell me, before the hands go home—what octane gas do you use in this thing?”

They talked about the details of the refuelling for a few minutes; the manager arranged to keep some men on overtime to fill the seaplane up for them. Ross turned to Lockwood. “We can leave it all to them, sir,” he said. “They’re used to handling ships here. I’ll come down after dinner and just look her over; then we can get along to-morrow bright and early.”

They went up to the red stone Customs House carrying their tiny baggage. At the desk the officer looked at their passports deliberately, slowly, and with some interest. At
last he said: “You’ve come all the way from Southampton, then, by way of Iceland and Greenland?”

The pilot said: “That’s right.”

The man considered the position for a minute. Then he said: “You made quite a flight.”

Ross said: “Yes. We’re not stopping in Canada. We’re going on down into the States to-morrow—to New York.”

“Yah. I guess I’ll have to see the boss. We don’t get many Atlantic fliers in these parts.”

He took their passports off into an inner room; at the desk Alix turned to Ross in wonder. “He said we were Atlantic fliers. Is that what we are?”

He smiled down at her. “More or less, Miss Lockwood. We’ve flown it in a sort of way.”

The don said: “I never realised that we were putting ourselves into that distinguished category.”

The pilot said: “Well, sir, that’s what you hired me for. And I remember showing you the map before we started, so you can’t blame me.”

Lockwood said quietly: “Yes, and you told me it was going to be a tough trip. You’ve done a very good job, Mr. Ross.”

The pilot said: “It’s been the weather. We’ve had awful luck with that.”

The girl said nothing. The reference to Atlantic fliers and the memory of the journey they had made were bringing home to her the magnitude of the task that the pilot had achieved. Each step of the journey, considered at the time, did not seem very difficult or very arduous; it was only when you came to look back upon it as a whole that you saw what a job it had been. Her father was right. They had never realised in Oxford what the journey would be like; if they had had the knowledge then that they had now, they might never have started at all. But the pilot, with his experience, had known all about it. He had known the difficulties that they would meet, and had not been afraid. She did not quite know if she was in love with Ross. She did know that she respected him enormously.

Presently the formalities were completed; they left the office and took a taxi up to the hotel. It was a fine, modern and luxurious hotel facing a park on the high ground behind the town. They marched in, carrying their little linen kit-bags, and registered at the desk.

In the spotless elevator, going up, Lockwood said diffidently: “I’m not sure that we’ve got the clothes for a place like this, Mr. Ross.”

“We’re quite all right, sir. Nobody changes for dinner here.”

Alix said: “It will be nice to have a bath. I haven’t had a bath since Reykjavik.”

Ross said: “I’m afraid I had my last in Invergordon, Miss Lockwood.”

The memory of the hotels that they had stayed in came back to her. “Shall we meet for a drink before dinner, Mr. Ross?”