An Old Captivity

by Nevil Shute

  It was after midnight when they got back to the hotel, tired, overeaten, and stupefied with liquor. They parted from Sorensen in the lounge; on the stairs Lockwood said ruefully: “They certainly are most hospitable.”

  Ross said: “That’s the curse of trips like this. They can’t do enough for you.”

  He turned into his room, set his alarm clock for five o’clock, and sank into a drugged insensibility. Four and a half hours later the clamour of the bell woke him; he got up feeling tired and unwell. He had a bath and felt much better; then he dressed and went down to the lounge.

  Alix was there. “I had a lovely night,” she said. “What time did you get to bed?”

  The pilot smiled. “We weren’t so late. I think we’ve got a good day for our crossing.”

  Lockwood joined them, and they went in to breakfast. Then, while Alix paid their bill, Ross walked up to the Meteorological Office.

  He was told: “There is a little wind at Angmagsalik, and it is fine. Yesterday there was fog in the afternoon, but it is clear now. To-day there may be fog later.”

  Ross said: “It’s only five hours’ flight. If I take off now I ought to be all right.”

  “So. I have told Angmagsalik to listen for your messages, and to tell you of the weather as you go.”

  “That’s very kind of you. If it looks bad, we’ll come back.”

  “That will be safe. I think there will be wind here later, but not to stop you landing.”

  Ross left, and went down to the harbour. The Lockwoods were waiting for him at the boat, talking to Sorensen. He came out with them to the seaplane. Ross took him into the cabin and explained the machine and the controls to him; then he got down into the boat again, and they were ready to start.

  AN OLD CAPTIVITY

  V

  THE machine took off after a long run, with fuel for about thirteen hundred miles on board. Ross turned on to the course for Angmagsalik, a little to the north of west four hundred and eighty miles away. He let the machine climb slowly as she went, till they got up to about three thousand feet.

  The day was bright and sunny; there was no cloud in the sky. In spite of the sun it was much colder than in lower latitudes; they were all wearing flying clothing, and glad of it. The machine droned on over a steel-coloured sea; they settled to the familiar routine of a flight. Away to the north they could see a mountain with a white snow-cap, Snaefell, nearly seventy miles away on the north side of Faxa Fjord. Presently this was left behind, and they went on into the blue.

  They had left the water at about seven o’clock. At half-past nine Lockwood nudged the pilot and pointed to the sea ahead of them, now flecked with white. “What is all that?” he asked. “Is that ice?”

  Ross nodded. “It’s the pack ice just beginning. It’ll probably get thicker as we get towards the coast.”

  It may have done, but they were not to see it. As they crossed the beginning of the pack a mist formed low down on the water; as they went on this turned into a bank of cloud below them. Ross had spoken to Angmagsalik half an hour before; he now sent out another message asking what the weather was like there.

  The reply was to the effect that the sky was clouding over. Visibility was still good, but likely to get worse.

  Ross scribbled down the letters as they came upon the pad strapped to his knee; the message ended, he switched off the receiver, and considered the scrawled message. It would be over two hours before they could reach Angmagsalik; the question that he had to solve was whether visibility would be too bad to land when he got there. He showed the pad to Lockwood, and explained the position to him.

  “I think we’ll be all right,” he said, “It’s getting worse, but we ought to be there before it’s really bad.”

  The don nodded. “Do just as you think fit,” he said. “If you think we should turn back, do so.”

  The pilot shook his head. “We’ve got plenty of fuel on board. I think we’ll carry on for a bit, and see how it goes. We’ll never get there if we wait for perfect weather in these latitudes.”

  An hour later the clouds had risen close beneath them and they were climbing slowly to keep in the clear air. Angmagsalik reported a cloud ceiling at fifteen hundred feet, and visibility five kilometres. The pilot’s lips tightened; it was getting worse, but they were little more than an hour’s flight away. He decided to go on.

  Presently they were flying at five thousand feet just above the cloud, which stretched as a white, level plain upon each side of them, and rose to greater heights ahead beneath the clear blue sky. Ross was busy with the wireless, homing upon Angmagsalik. After a time he turned to Lockwood.

  “We must be just about on top of it now,” he said.

  The time was about noon. At five thousand feet the cloud plain was uninterrupted, brilliant in the sun. The pilot put the seaplane into a wide turn and peered around. “I don’t want to go down blind through all this muck,” he said. “It’s very mountainous around here. We’ve got to find a hole, or we may land before we want to.”

  Behind him the girl shivered a little.

  For a quarter of an hour they flew in circles, looking for a gap in the clouds. In one wide sweep the machine went further to the west than hitherto; the cloud plain in that direction rose considerably higher. The white surface approached the floats; the pilot, looking vainly for a hole, absently pulled the machine a little higher to clear the cloud.

  Quite suddenly, he knew that something was not right. He jammed the throttle open with a swift reflex action before he stopped to think, pulled on the wheel; the seaplane soared upwards in a steep climb. The sudden changes startled Alix and Lockwood; they grabbed hold of their seats and stared at the pilot. He was leaning his shoulder to the open window at his side, staring down intently. Presently he relaxed, and throttled down again.

  He turned to the don, his tanned face a little paler than usual.

  “Just look at that!”

  Lockwood could see nothing unusual. “The cloud?”

  Ross exclaimed: “It’s not a cloud. It’s snow! That’s the bloody ice-cap!”

  They stared down at the surface, fascinated. It merged into the cloud plain behind them, barely distinguishable at the junction. Presently Lockwood said mildly: “It’s a good thing you noticed it. I should never have known the difference.”

  The pilot smiled wryly. “We’d have known the difference quick enough if we’d tried to fly through it.”

  He turned again to the wireless; his face was set and anxious. From the strength of the signals Angmagsalik was evidently very close. They told him that the clouds had come down to a thousand feet, and visibility was not more than two kilometres. It had begun to rain. Up there, in the bright sunlight, with the blue sky and the brilliant clouds, it seemed incredible that it should be raining.

  Ross swung the seaplane round on to an easterly course and tried his petrol gauges very carefully. Then he turned to Lockwood; he had made up his mind.

  “It’s no good sir,” he said. “I’m going back to Reykjavik.”

  The don said quietly: “Have we got enough petrol?”

  The pilot nodded. “I think we’ll be all right. I wouldn’t have taken off without enough to get back with if this happened to us. I’m sorry, but it’s the only thing to do. We’ll break our bloody necks if we try going down in this.”

  Lockwood said: “Well, let’s have lunch.”

  Alix unpacked the sandwiches and passed them round. As she did so, Ross tapped out a message to Reykjavik to say he was returning. They acknowledged it, and gave him the weather report:

  “Wind here thirty kilos north-east probably going to east.”

  The pilot read this on his pad; his face was a mask. A twenty-mile-an-hour head wind meant that they would be the best part of six hours in getting back. He tried his petrol gauges again carefully; in theory, and if the gauges were correct, they should be just all right. He ate a couple of sandwiches and took the machine slowly up to seven thousand feet; there he weakene
d the mixture to the utmost that he dared, and set his course accurately for Reykjavik.

  Already they had been in the air for well over five hours. He turned in his seat and spoke to the girl. “I’m afraid this is going to be a long business,” he said. “Are you very tired?”

  “I’m all right, thanks, Mr. Ross. One gets a bit sore, sitting in the one position all the time.”

  “Why don’t you change places with Mr. Lockwood?” he suggested. “It makes it a bit less boring to move round now and again.”

  The don said: “That’s a very good idea.”

  They changed places. The movement made a diversion and the change of seat refreshed them for a time. The seaplane droned steadily across the sky. An hour or so later the clouds fell away beneath them and grew thinner; presently they saw a rough grey sea, thickly spattered with pack ice. The pilot sent another message to Reykjavik reporting his estimated position and asking for the wind strength; it was much the same.

  The steady, even droning of the engine, the high altitude, the warm sunlight, were all infinitely soothing. They had been in the air for about seven hours; the pilot’s eyes dropped from the gyro compass, lost their focus. Slowly the eyelids fell over his eyes, his chin sank slowly to his chest. For an instant he slept. Then, with a violent start, he was awake again.

  He shot a glance furtively at the girl beside him. She did not seem to have noticed anything. In a few minutes his eyelids dropped again. He jerked himself awake, moved in his seat, and stretched himself. He studied the clock, flogging his tired mind to concentrate. Cruising at his most economical speed, his ground speed was not more than eighty-five against this wind. That meant four hours more, at least.

  He turned to the girl, dozing beside him. “Miss Lockwood,” he said quietly, “would you mind talking to me? I’m afraid of going to sleep.”

  She roused, and realised the significance of what he had said. “Of course I will. I was nearly asleep myself. Are you very tired?”

  He shook his head. “Not tired. But it’s like driving a car on a hot afternoon.”

  She said: “I know. Look, tell me what some of these things are. What’s that?” She pointed to the directional gyro on the instrument board.

  “It’s the gyro. You use it to steer by. You see these figures on it? They’re degrees.”

  “Is it a compass?”

  “Not exactly. You set it by the compass.”

  “Why don’t you use the compass then?”

  Behind them Lockwood was sound asleep. The girl would have liked to sleep herself; she had sufficient wit to realise the danger. If she slept, Ross would sleep; then they would all sleep for ever in the Arctic Ocean. She opened the window at her side and let in a cold draught. She shifted in her seat, and forced herself to try to understand the instruments; on his side Ross exerted himself to explain to her in simple language how the things worked. Presently the craving for sleep left him.

  The instrument board and the controls, explained and demonstrated in every detail, lasted them for an hour. The seaplane droned on over the sea; for a short time they were silent. Alix glanced at the pilot, saw his gaze become vacant, and nudged him with her elbow.

  He turned to her. “It’s all right,” he said, smiling. “I wasn’t asleep.”

  “You’d have been asleep in a minute. Come on, let’s go on talking.”

  “All right. What shall we talk about?”

  “Tell me how you came to take up flying.”

  “I just went into the Air Force from school.”

  “Where did you go to school?”

  “At Guildford. I was a day boy.” She was absolutely right; they must keep talking. He began to tell her about his life as a boy. It didn’t matter what he said; the main thing was to keep talking. He told her about the little house in Guildford where he had been brought up. He told her about Aunt Janet who taught mathematics at the girls’ school for two hundred pounds a year, and how she had spent a good part of that upon his education. As they talked, the Arctic Ocean flowed slowly past beneath their windows. He told her how Aunt Janet had wanted him to go to Oxford, but there was no money. He told her how she had sent him into the Air Force as the next best thing. Alix said: “It may have been a better thing for you, Mr. Ross. Oxford isn’t the right place for everybody, you know.”

  The pilot said: “I suppose not. But I’d have liked to have gone there.”

  The girl said: “I think Aunt Janet sounds a dear. She must be very fond of you.”

  Ross frowned a little. The idea of Aunt Janet being fond of anyone had never really crossed his mind. He said slowly: “Yes, I suppose she must be. She’d never show it, though.”

  The girl laughed. “I’d like to meet her. Go on, Mr. Ross. What happened to you when you got into the Air Force?”

  He told her about his training time in England, and about his service years in Egypt and in Iraq. Then for half an hour he told her about Canada, about the Company and all they did up in the North. Presesently she stopped him for a moment, and pointed to the far horizon.

  “What’s that over there?”

  He followed her direction, and saw a very faint white peak. “Must be Snaefell. It can’t be anything else.”

  “It’s nice to see a bit of land again.”

  Rose swung the machine for a moment and took a bearing of it; then, working awkwardly with map and protractor on his knee, he laid off their position. “About a hundred and ten miles still to go.”

  He took another reading of the petrol gauges, and his lips tightened. There was nothing else to do. He throttled back a little more, and slowly opened the altitude control to its extreme limit. The engine immediately began to run very rough; the indicator of the cylinder-head temperatures went up fifty degrees. The pilot sat watching his instruments intently for the first sign of real trouble. He might be ruining his engine with the weak mixture; on the other hand, it should last them for an hour or so. The alternative was to come down in the sea before they got to land, a rough sea in which the seaplane could not hope to live for very long.

  He sent out another message to Reykjavik telling them his estimated time of arrival and asking for facilities to get the seaplane up on shore. He thought ruefully that there would be a lot of work to do upon the engine before the seaplane flew again.

  Still, it was no good worrying about that. He turned back to Alix by his side. “Tell me about yourself, Miss Lockwood. We may as well keep talking.”

  She said: “There’s nothing to tell, Mr. Ross. I was born in our house—the one you know—and I went to school near Oxford.”

  “Have you lived in Oxford all your life?”

  She nodded. “Yes—except for holidays. I’ve been to Switzerland for winter sports. And I went to Crete with Daddy once. I didn’t like it, much.”

  She paused, and then she said: “This is the biggest thing that ever happened to me.”

  The pilot smiled. “It’s the biggest thing that ever happened to me, too.”

  They talked on for a time about her school, and about her time at Somerville. On the horizon Snaefell grew rapidly larger. Lockwood woke up, and they showed him the mountain and the distant line of coast, clear in the evening sunlight.

  He said: “Isn’t the engine running differently, Mr. Ross?”

  The pilot turned in his seat. “I’ve had to put her on weak mixture, sir, to make the fuel last out. I think we’ve got enough to get us into Reykjavik, but I’ll have to have a good look round the engine after this. I’ve told them that I want to get her up on shore, so that I can get the cowling off and have a good look round.”

  In the end the town loomed up before them. The sea in the outer harbour was running fairly high; Ross decided to land in the confined space of the inner harbour. He rubbed a hand across his tired eyes, brought the seaplane low, rumbled in just above the breakwater, and put her down into an open lane between the trawlers. The quick reaction that made him a good pilot was killed by fatigue; the machine bounced heavily upon the
dirty water of the harbour, and rose into the air again. He caught her with a little burst of engine; she bounced down heavily again in a great shower of spray, lurched forward on the floats, and came to rest. Slowly she pivoted round into the wind.

  It was seven o’clock. They had been in the air for exactly twelve hours. There were five gallons of petrol left in the tanks, enough for about twenty minutes’ flying.

  The pilot sighed. He turned round in his seat and spoke to Lockwood. “Home again,” he said wearily. “I’m sorry about this, sir, but it really wasn’t fit to go down at Angmagsalik. It’s all in between the mountains—we must have decent weather to land there.”

  “I’m sure you did the right thing, Mr. Ross. What is the next move?”

  There was a fresh wind blowing in the harbour; the machine pitched slightly on the little waves, heading into the wind.

  “We’ll have to get the seaplane up on shore before to-night, sir. It may be going to blow hard.”

  A motor boat, the same that they had had before, came to them from the jetty; in it were Sorensen and a couple of dock hands. It drew up beneath the yellow wing. Sorensen beamed at them. “So—you have returned? The weather was not good at Angmagsalik?”

  The pilot shook his head. “I want to get the seaplane up on to the slipway for the night,” he shouted. “Can we do that?”

  “All is quite prepared. We have heard your radio. There is a slipway for the trawlers, which is good.” He held up a rope. “We will pull with the boat.”

  They nosed the boat up gently to the floats from behind; Ross stopped his engine, and they took the seaplane in tow. The pilot sat slumped down in his seat, tired to death; the silence closed in upon them strangely.

  Alix said quietly: “You’ll have to get to bed directly after dinner, Mr. Ross. No roistering with Sorensen to-night.”