“How do you know they’ve asked him for a report?” His voice was suddenly different, the softness gone out of it.
“Somebody told me,” I said vaguely. But he was curious now and it made me nervous. “I’m sorry to bother you with this, but when I saw you in here I thought perhaps if you could have a word with Ledder …”
“You could write to him,” he said. And then, when I didn’t say anything, he added, “Hadn’t you better tell me a little more—why you’re so interested in this report, for instance?”
He was still watching me curiously, waiting for me to explain. And suddenly I knew it was no good. I’d have to tell him the whole story. “G2STO was my father,” I said. And I told him about the wire I had received from my mother and how I’d gone home to find my father dead. I told it all exactly as it had happened to me, but when I came to my discovery of the message from Briffe, he said, “From Briffe? But Briffe was dead days before.”
“I know.” My voice sounded suddenly weary. “That’s what the police told me.” And then I got out the notes I’d made in the train and handed them to him. “But if Briffe was dead, how do you explain that?”
He smoothed the sheet of paper out on the bar top and read it through slowly and carefully.
“They’re all references from my father’s radio log,” I said.
He nodded, frowning as he read.
I watched him turn the sheet over. He had reached the final message now. “Does it sound as though he was mad?” I said.
He didn’t say anything. He had read through the notes now and I watched him turn the sheet over again, staring down at it, still frowning.
“That’s what the authorities think,” I added. “They’re not going to resume the search. I had a letter from them this morning.”
He still didn’t say anything and I began to wish I hadn’t told him. The men were reported dead. That alone would convince him that my father had imagined it all. And then his blue eyes were looking straight at me. “And you think the search should be resumed—is that it?” he asked.
I nodded.
He stared at me for a moment. “Have you got the log books or do the police still hold them?”
“No, I’ve got them.” I said it reluctantly because I didn’t want him to see them. But instead of asking for them he began putting a lot of questions to me. And when he had got the whole story out of me, he fell silent again, hunched over the sheet of paper, staring at it. I thought he was reading it through again, but maybe he was just considering the situation, for he suddenly looked across at me. “And what you’ve told me is the absolute truth?” He was leaning slightly forward, watching my face.
“Yes,” I said.
“And the log books look crazy unless all the contacts are isolated, the way they are here?” He tapped the sheet of paper.
I nodded. “I thought if I could find out a little more about the three direct contacts my father made with Ledder … what Ledder’s reaction to my father was …”
“The thing that gets me,” he muttered, “is how your father could possibly have picked up this transmission.” He was frowning and his tone was puzzled. “As I recollect it, all Briffe had was a forty-eight set. I’m sure I read that somewhere. Yes, and operated by a hand generator at that. It just doesn’t seem possible.”
He was making the same point that the Flight Lieutenant had made. “But surely,” I said, “there must be certain conditions in which he could have picked it up?”
“Maybe. I wouldn’t know about that. But the old forty-eight set is a transmitter of very limited range—I do know that.” He gave a slight shrug. “Still, it’s just possible, I suppose. You’d have to check with somebody like this guy Ledder to make certain.”
He had picked up the sheet of paper again, and he stared at it for so long that I felt sure he wasn’t going to help me and was only trying to think out how to tell me so. He was my only hope of making effective contact with Ledder. If he wouldn’t help, then there was nobody else I could go to—and I felt I had to settle this thing, one way or the other. If my father had made that message up—well, all right—but I had to know. I had to be absolutely certain for my own peace of mind that those two men really were dead.
And then Farrow put the sheet of paper down and turned to me. “You know,” he said, “I think you ought to go to Goose and have a word with Ledder yourself.”
I stared at him, unable to believe that I’d heard him correctly. “Go to Goose Bay? You mean fly there—myself?”
He half smiled. “You won’t get into Goose, any other way.”
It was such an incredible suggestion that for a moment I couldn’t think of anything to say. He couldn’t be serious. “All I wanted,” I murmured, “was for you to have a word with him … find out what he thought of my father, whether he considered him sane. You can take those notes and—”
“Look,” he said. “If you’re convinced your father was sane, then these notes”—he tapped the sheet of paper—“all the messages, everything—including that final message—are fact. They happened. And if that’s what you believe, then you must go over there yourself. Apart from the question of whether Briffe’s alive or not, you owe it to your father. If I go to this guy Ledder, he’ll just answer my questions, and that will be that. You might just as well write him a letter for all the good it’ll do.” And then he added, “If you’re really convinced that your father did pick up a transmission from Briffe, then there’s only one thing for you to do—go over there and check for yourself. It’s the only way you’ll get the authorities to take it seriously.”
I was appalled at the way he was putting the responsibility back on to me. “But I just haven’t the money,” I murmured.
“I could help you there.” He was watching me closely all the time. “I’m checking out on a west-bound flight at O-seven hundred to-morrow morning. We’ll be into Goose around four-thirty in the afternoon—their time. I might be able to fix it. You’d have about two hours there and I could radio ahead to Control for them to have Ledder meet the plane. Well?”
He meant it. That was the incredible thing. He really meant it. “But what about my job?” I was feeling suddenly scared. “I can’t just walk out—”
“You’d be back on Friday.”
“But …” It was all so appallingly sudden, and Canada was like another world to me. I’d never been out of England, except once to Belgium. “But what about the regulations and—and wouldn’t the extra weight …” I found I was desperately searching for some sort of excuse.
He asked me then whether I had a British passport. I had, of course, for I’d needed one for my holiday in Bruges and Ghent the previous year, and it was at my lodgings, with the rest of my things. And when he told me that my weight wouldn’t make any difference to the safety margin and that he was good friends with the Customs and Immigration people both here and at Goose, all I could think of to say was, “I’ll have to think it over.”
He gripped my arm then, and those baby blue eyes of his were suddenly hard. “Either you believe what your father wrote, or you don’t. Which is it?”
The way he put it was almost offensive and I answered hotly, “Don’t you understand—that message was the cause of my father’s death.”
“Okay,” he said tersely. “Then it’s time you faced up to the implications of that message.”
“How do you mean?”
He relaxed his grip on my arm. “See here, boy,” he said gently, “if Briffe really did transmit on September twenty-ninth, then either there’s been some ghastly error or—well, the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.” His words reminded me of the shocked expression on the Flight Lieutenant’s face when I had suggested the pilot might have made a mistake. “Now do you see why you’ve got to go over and talk to Ledder yourself? What that message says”—and he jabbed his finger at the sheet of paper he had laid on the bar counter—“is that Laroche was wrong when he said Briffe and the other guy were dead. And I’m warning you,
it’s going to take a lot to persuade the authorities of that.” He patted my arm gently and the blue eyes were no longer hard, but looked at me sympathetically. “Well, it’s up to you now. You’re the only man who’s going to be really convinced about that message—unless they find somebody else picked it up. If you’ve the courage of your convictions …” And then he added, “I just thought you’d better be clear in your mind about what you’re up against.”
It was odd, but now that he’d put it to me so bluntly, I no longer felt out of my depth. I was suddenly sure of myself and what I should do, and without any hesitation I heard myself say, “If you can fix it, I’d like to come with you tomorrow.”
“Okay, boy. If that’s what you’d like.” He hesitated. “You really are sure about this?”
In a sudden mental flash I saw my father as he had been last Christmas when I had been home, sitting up there in his room with the headphones on and his long, thin fingers with the burn marks playing so sensitively over the tuning dials. “Yes,” I said. “I’m quite sure about it.”
He nodded his head slowly. “Queer business,” he murmured. A perplexed look had come over his face and I wondered whether, now that I had agreed to go—wanted to go—he was going to back down on his offer. But all he said was, “Meet me down at our freight office—that’s the end of the block, next to Number One hangar—say, about a quarter before six to-morrow morning. Have your passport with you and an overnight bag. Better pack some warm clothes. You may be cold back in the fuselage. Okay?”
I nodded. “But what about the other end?” I murmured. “Surely it isn’t as easy as that to fly somebody into another country?” It was an automatic reaction. Now that I’d said I’d go the difficulties seemed insuperable.
He laughed and patted my shoulder. “Canada isn’t the States, you know. It’s still a Dominion—no fingerprints, no visa. I’ll just have to clear you with Immigration and Customs, that’s all.” He stared at me a moment as though weighing me up and then he said, “Don’t forget about the warm clothes.” He turned then with a quick nod and walked slowly back to join his group at the other end of the bar.
I stood there, the drink I hadn’t even started clutched in my hand, and a feeling of intense loneliness crept over me.
III
I didn’t sleep much that night and I was down at the Charter Company’s freight office by five-thirty. Farrow wasn’t there, of course, and I walked up and down in the grey morning light, feeling cold and empty inside. The office was locked, the tarmac deserted. I lit a cigarette and wondered, as I had done all night, whether I was making a fool of myself. A plane took off with a thunderous roar and I watched it disappear into the low overcast, thinking that in little more than an hour, if Farrow kept his word, I should be up there, headed west out into the Atlantic. I was shivering slightly. Nerves!
It was almost six when Farrow drove up in a battered sports car. “Jump in,” he shouted. “Got to get you vaccinated. Otherwise it’s all fixed.”
We woke up a doctor friend of his and half an hour later I had got my certificate of vaccination, had cleared Customs and Immigration and was back at the freight office. I signed the “blood-chit” that absolved the Company of responsibility for my death in the event of a crash, and then Farrow left me there and I hung about for another twenty minutes, waiting for take-off. There was no turning back now. I was committed to the flight and because of that I no longer felt nervous.
Shortly before seven the crew assembled and I walked with them across the tarmac to a big four-engined plane parked on the apron opposite the office. Inside, it was a dim-lit steel shell with, the freight piled down the centre, strapped down to ring bolts in the floor. “Not very comfortable, I’m afraid,” Farrow said, “but we don’t cater for passengers.” He gave my shoulder a friendly squeeze. “Toilet’s aft if you want it.” The door of the fuselage slammed shut and he followed his crew for’ard to the flight deck. I was alone then.
We took off just after seven, and though I had never flown before I could sense what was happening—the sound of the engines being run up one by one on test at the runway-end and then the solid roar of all four together and the drag of the airscrews as we began to move, the dim-lit fuselage rocking and vibrating around me. Suddenly it was quieter and I knew we had left the ground.
The exhilaration of the take-off gradually faded into the monotony of the flight as we drove smoothly on, hour after hour. I dozed a little and now and then Farrow or one of his crew came aft. Shortly after ten the navigator brought me sandwiches and hot coffee. An hour and a half later we landed at Keflavik in Iceland and I clambered stiffly out, blinking my eyes in the cold sunlight.
The airport was a featureless expanse, the buildings’ modern utilitarian blocks without character. The whole place had the crisp, cold, lifeless air of outer space. But the cafeteria in the main building yielded eggs and bacon and hot coffee, and the echoing hall was full of transit passengers passing the time by sending postcards and buying Icelandic souvenirs from counters gay with northern colours. We had over an hour there in the warmth whilst the plane was refuelled and a quick check made on one of the engines which was running rough. They found nothing wrong with the engine and by twelve-thirty I was back in the hollow roar of the fuselage and we were taking off on the last lap.
We flew high to clear a storm belt off the Greenland coast and it was cold. I dozed fitfully, the monotony only broken by an occasional cup of coffee, the lunch pack and brief talks with the crew as they came aft. It was nine-twenty by my watch when the flight engineer finally roused me. “Skipper says if you want to take a look at Labrador from the air you’d better come up for’ard right away. We’ll be landing in fifteen minutes.”
I followed him through the door to the flight deck. To my surprise it was daylight and, because I could see out, the long, cold hours spent huddled amongst the freight in the fuselage were suddenly forgotten. Not that there was anything to see … just the grey of cloud through the windshield and Farrow’s head outlined against it. The wireless operator gripped my arm as I passed, pulling me down towards him. “I’ve radioed the Tower to have Ledder meet you,” he shouted in my ear. “Okay?”
“Thanks.”
Farrow half turned his head and indicated the flight engineer’s seat beside him. “Going down now.” He jerked his thumb downwards. The engines were already throttled back. “We’ll come out of the cloud at eight thousand.” He tapped the altimeter dial where the pointer was dropping slowly. And he added, “You’ll have plenty of time to talk to Ledder. Another engine check. Port outer packed up a while back.” He nodded towards the left-hand wing-tip where it wavered gently in the turbulent cloud mist. The outboard engine was lifeless, the propeller feathering slowly. “We’ll be there the night. Get away sometime to-morrow—I hope.”
I wanted to ask him whether we’d get down all right, but nobody seemed worried that we were flying on only three engines and I sat down and said nothing, staring ahead through the windshield, waiting for the moment when I should get my first glimpse of Labrador. And because there was nothing to see, I found myself thinking of my father. Had his flying duties ever taken him to Labrador or was I now doing the thing he’d wanted to do all his life? I was thinking of the books and the map, wondering what it was that had fascinated him about this country; and then abruptly the veil was swept away from in front of my eyes and there was Labrador.
The grimness of it was the thing that struck me—the grimness and the lostness and the emptiness of it. Below us was a great sheet of water running in through a desolate, flat waste, with pale glimpses of sand and a sort of barren, glacier-dredged look about it. But what held my attention was the land ahead where it rose to meet the sky. There were no hills there, no mountain peaks. It rose up from the coastal plain in one black, ruler-straight line, utterly featureless—a remote, bitter plateau that by its very uniformity gave an impression of vastness, of being on the verge of land that stretched away to the Pole.
; “There’s Goose now.” Farrow was shouting in my ear and pointing. But I didn’t see it. My eyes were riveted by the black line of that plateau and I held my breath, strangely stirred as though by some old challenge.
“Sure is a pretty country,” Farrow shouted to me. “You can get lost in there just like that.” And he snapped his fingers. “Nothing but lakes, and every one the same as the next.” He was suddenly grinning. “The land God gave to Cain—that’s what Jacques Cartier called it when he first discovered it.”
The land God gave to Cain! The words mingled with my thoughts to trickle through my mind in a cold shiver. How often I was to remember later the aptness of that description!
We were coming in now, the water of Goose Bay rising to meet us, the airfield clearly visible. The flight engineer tapped me on the shoulder and I clambered out of his seat and went back into the dimness of the fuselage. A few moments later we touched down.
When we had come to rest with the engines cut, the navigator came aft and opened the freight door. Daylight entered the fuselage, bringing with it warmth and the smell of rain, and through the open door I looked out across wet tarmac to a line of green-painted, corrugated iron buildings. A man stood waiting on the apron, alone, a tall, dark-featured man in some sort of a plastic raincoat.
I gathered my things together, and then Farrow came down through the fuselage. “I’ll fix you up with a room at the T.C.A. Hotel,” he said. “You can get a meal there. The time, by the way, is …” He glanced at his watch. “Five twenty-two. There’s four and a half hours difference between Goose and England.” And he added, “There’ll be transport to run us down as soon as I’m through with the maintenance people and we’ve cleared Immigration.” He had moved on to the door by then and I heard a voice say: “Captain Farrow? My name’s Simon Ledder. I was told to meet your flight.” It was a slow voice, puzzled and a little resentful.
And then I was at the door and Farrow said, “Well, here you are. Here’s the guy you wanted to talk to.” And as I jumped out on to the tarmac he was already walking away with a casual lift of his hand.
The Land God Gave to Cain Page 4