by Betty Neels
Her first impulse was to dismiss the whole thing as one of Freddy’s scatterbrained ideas. It was Nora Kemp, Sister on Women’s Surgical and a great friend of Annis, who asked her why she looked so surprised and when Annis told her, said at once: ‘But of course you must go! What a chance—you could always get taken back on the staff here, but I bet no one will ever ask you to go to Spitzbergen again. I wish he’d asked me.’
‘But they would want me at once—or in a week at most.’
Everyone was listening now and several voices joined in. ‘You’ve got holidays due,’ said someone, ‘three weeks, isn’t it? Well, you can give notice and leave at the end of the week. No reason why you shouldn’t—family matters, you know, and you’ve got Carol Drew as Staff, haven’t you? She’s quite able to step into your shoes.’
It was Peggy Trevitt, Junior Sister on Casualty, who offered slyly: ‘Perhaps Annis doesn’t want to go— Arthur might object.’
Annis shook her head. ‘Why should he?’ she wanted to know coolly. She didn’t like Peggy all that much.
‘Well, of course if you only went for a few weeks,’ conceded Peggy.
‘I’ve been thinking of a change, anyway,’ declared Annis, who hadn’t given the idea a thought until that moment. ‘I think perhaps I’ll go.’
That triggered off a lively discussion as to the clothes she should take with her and how she should get there.
‘By plane?’ asked Nora. ‘But is there anywhere where one can land up there? Surely it’s all rocks and mountains and ice…’
‘Boat?’ ventured Annis. ‘I don’t even know if people actually live there.’
‘Well, you soon will…’ There was a good deal of laughter. ‘You’ll need a fur coat, Annis, and those hideous boots that look like bedsocks—and thick woolly undies…’
‘It’s summer there,’ observed Annis. ‘Freddy said something about getting tanned.’ She got up. ‘Well, I shall sleep on it. Perhaps Miss Phipps won’t let me go in a week’s time.’
But Miss Phipps, surprisingly, did. She was reluctant to let Annis go, of course, for she would be losing a good nurse, but she had expected to do that anyway and she was only surprised that Annis wanted to leave for a reason other than marrying Arthur Potter. Like her lesser colleagues, she had watched the affair blossom, although she had considered privately that the parties concerned were taking far too long to make up their minds, and now, looking at the beautiful creature standing in front of her desk, she felt a vague relief. Annis Brown was far too good for him. Perhaps if she went on this expedition or whatever it was, she would meet someone who could match her in looks and not take her for granted like Mr Potter did. Miss Phipps thought that in Sister Brown’s place she would most certainly have gone herself—it sounded most interesting and a little unusual, and she was a sensible girl as well as being a beautiful one. Miss Phipps, conjuring up rather inaccurate mental pictures of the Spitzbergen landscape, felt a distinct touch of envy.
Having made up her mind, Annis didn’t waste time. She sent a radiogram to Freddy, asking for directions as to how to get there, bought slacks and an assortment of blouses and sweaters, a new anorak, some sensible shoes and a supply of cosmetics; Freddy had said that the country looked lovely, but he had never mentioned shops. She added a book or two, and obedient to the instructions which Freddy sent by return, booked on a flight to Tromso where she would be met. That left her with exactly a day in which to visit Great-Aunt Mary.
She left London very early in the morning, having said her goodbyes on the previous day, and that had included a rather uncomfortable ten minutes with Arthur. He had been rather superior about it all, treating it as a joke and declaring in his calm way that she would probably hate the whole set-up when she got there. ‘I might even renew our very pleasant relationship when you return, as most certainly you will.’ He had smiled at her and for a brief moment she wondered if she was being a complete fool, but she had pushed the idea away at once, feeling resentful at his smugness. And now in the train she wasn’t thinking about him at all, she was thinking with regret of the ward she had left; all the funny, noisy, pathetic children and babies who lived in it, however briefly. She would miss them; she would miss her friends too; she had made a great many during her years in hospital. She settled back in her seat and picked up the morning paper. There was no point in getting sentimental, she told herself firmly.
It was a two-hour journey to Gillingham, the nearest station to Mere. Only a handful of people got out there; a small, pleasant country town where the ticket collector had time to smile and say good morning as they filed out of the station. Great-Aunt Mary was outside at the wheel of the Morris 1000 which she had bought years ago and didn’t intend to change. ‘It will last as long as I shall,’ she had declared to a car salesman who had done his best to persuade her to trade it in for a more modern car, ‘and that’s more than can be said for a great many motor cars put on the market these days, young man.’
She waved to Annis now and then put her head through the window to say: ‘Put everything in the boot, dear, I shall need the back for the groceries.’
She offered a sunburnt cheek for Annis to kiss and took a good look at her. ‘London doesn’t suit you. I’m glad you’re going on this trip with Freddy, it sounds a most unusual set-up, but then I never have pretended to understand these modern atomic things…’
‘I think it’s electronics, too,’ murmured Annis.
‘All one and the same,’ declared Great-Aunt Mary largely, ‘but I should think that part of the world should be rather interesting.’
She was driving at a stately pace along the crown of the road, taking no notice of those who would like to overtake and couldn’t. ‘Who’s meeting you when you get there?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Annis. ‘I hope it’s Freddy, then he can tell me a bit about it. I don’t even know how long I’m to be there.’
‘A nice change from living to a timetable. It’ll do you good, my dear—another year or two at that hospital and you would have been an old maid, whether you’d married that Arthur fellow or not.’
Annis didn’t answer that, for it was very probably true; she said instead: ‘Well, I am looking forward to it. Are you stopping at Walton’s?’
‘Only to pick up a few things they’ll have ready for me. Do you really have to go back this evening?’
‘Yes, Aunt. The plane goes very early in the morning—I’m spending the night at an hotel close by the airport—my case is there already.’
Great-Aunt Mary had slowed down as they entered the village, swung round the corner between the two local pubs, and stopped before the grocer’s.
‘What clothes are you taking?’ she wanted to know. She was a poor dresser herself; she had a short, plump figure which she declared nothing off the peg fitted, and she was right, but that didn’t stop her loving clothes. They talked about them while the groceries were loaded, and didn’t pause when she drove on presently to stop a few hundred yards further, pull into a side road and stop.
They walked from the car to the cottage, carrying the groceries between them, down a narrow path running beside a clear stream and crossed at intervals by little bridges leading to the back gardens on the other side.
Great-Aunt Mary’s cottage had a bridge too, leading to a tiny triangle of grass and flowers which fronted her home: a red brick Victorian cottage, its side wall rising straight out of the stream with windows opening on to it. It was bigger inside than it looked from the lane—true, the hall was narrow but the staircase was nicely placed and the dining room and what its owner called the drawing room were a fair size, and to make up for the Lilliputian kitchen, there were innumerable cupboards, big enough to house a piano if needed. Annis loved it; she had lived there for a few years after her parents died, going as a weekly boarder to Sher-borne School for Girls while Freddy had gone to Bryanston, coming home for school holidays, and she had always returned for holidays all the time she had been at St Anselm’s. She looked arou
nd her now, at the white walls hung with a wide variety of pictures, some really good, some framed cards which her aunt had taken a fancy to, at the old-fashioned furniture which fitted so well into the Victorian appearance of the little place and the windows with their pretty chintz curtains. ‘It’s nice to be home,’ she said.
It was over lunch that Great-Aunt Mary remarked suddenly: ‘Of course, I should very much have preferred it if you had been getting married, though not to Arthur. You’re twenty-seven, aren’t you, Annis?’ she eyed her niece’s splendid figure across the table, ‘and there can’t be all that number of men in the world to match up to you.’
‘Match up to me?’ asked Annis faintly.
‘Looks, my dear, and height, and come to that, size. You’re hardly petite, are you? Perhaps there’ll be someone suitable among the Norwegians.’
Annis giggled. ‘I’ll keep an eye open,’ she promised.
She left early that evening with regret. The little house looked delightful in the late sunshine and the hills around were turning to golden. Snow and ice, she thought—I must be mad!
But due reflection made it obvious to her that it was rather less mad to go traipsing off to the top of the world than to continue the lukewarm and far too cautious relationship with Arthur. At least Spitzbergen was different, or she hoped it would be; indeed, the more she thought about it the better she liked the idea. She slept soundly on it, ate a good breakfast and arrived, unruffled and very neat, in good time for her flight.
She had flown before, but only short flights, and she was disappointed to find that the journey was over so quickly. She had expected that the six-hour trip would have given her plenty of time to look at the passing world beneath her, but what with take-off and coffee and then, just as she was picking out the coastline below, lunch, she had very little time to peer out of her porthole. They were landing before she had had more than a glimpse of Tromso, on the islands below her, hugging Norway’s rugged coast.
Freddy was waiting for her and although she was a girl well able to look after herself, she was more than pleased to see him. There were any number of questions she wanted answered too.
‘Not now, Sis, I’ve got a company plane waiting to take off.’
‘Oh, don’t we have any time at all here? A cup of tea…?’
He grinned. ‘They’ll wait that long. Come on, over here, just stand there while I get someone to take your luggage.’
It wasn’t tea, but coffee, strong and dark, accompanied by large, satisfying buns. ‘How long does it take?’ asked Annis, her mouth full.
‘It’s eight hundred miles—about three hours; as it doesn’t get dark at all we don’t have to worry about landing.’
‘Oh, but how shall we…?’
Freddy was on his feet. ‘We’ll have to go—there’ll be plenty of time to talk later.’
She had expected that they would return to the airfield, but Freddy got into a small Saab with the driver already at the wheel and she got in with him, prudently asking no more questions. There was plenty to keep her occupied. Tromso was delightful with the forest all around it, joined to the mainland by a long bridge, its wooden houses gay with flowers, and having an air of happy bustle. There were ships of all sorts in its harbour, too, and she looked at Freddy, a little puzzled; he had said a plane…
‘Out there,’ he said laconically, and nodded towards a seaplane a few hundred yards out. The Saab stopped and Annis found herself being ushered into a small boat, her luggage piled in after her and Freddy beside her while the driver started the outboard motor; she barely had time to take a last lingering look at Tromso before she was clambering on board.
There was already someone there, a slight young man, who grinned at her with an easy ‘Hullo—so Freddy found you.’ He whistled: ‘And aren’t you a lovely surprise—hefty,’ he added, ‘strong as a horse and never turns a hair.’ He put out a hand. ‘I’m Jeff Blake, I do the book work and sometimes I’m allowed to pilot the plane—this one, that is, not Jake’s.’
Annis laughed at him, told Freddy that he was a wretch and added: ‘But I am as strong as a horse, you know.’
Jeff gave her a wicked look. ‘Never mind the strength, just so long as you can bathe a fevered brow and cook.’ He turned to Freddy. ‘All set? Let’s go, then.’
The two men talked shop, quite unintelligible to Annis, but she didn’t mind. This trip was so much more exciting than the flight from London that morning; the Norwegian coast quickly disappeared and there was nothing but the sea below and the clear sky all around. She sat quietly, mulling over her day. It had all happened too quickly for her; she would have to go back to Tromso and take time to explore—which reminded her about things like days off…
‘Do I get any free time?’ she asked, ruthlessly cutting in on electronic jargon.
‘Lord, yes,’ Freddy assured her. ‘There are only twenty of us, you know, and most of the time we’re fighting fit; all we want are three good meals a day, some help with the books and a soothing hand if we’re ill.’ He turned to pick up a Thermos flask. ‘And Jake sees to it that we never are. He doesn’t mind the odd accident, but he draws the line at headaches and vague disorders.’
‘And who is this Jake?’
‘The doctor—the company needed one while we were at the radio station and he fancied a holiday.’ He grinned at her. ‘Wait till you meet him.’
‘Oh—why?’
But Jeff only laughed, it was Freddy who observed: ‘They’ll make a good pair.’
Annis forgot their remarks soon enough. Her first glimpse of Spitzbergen dispelled every other thought from her head; great grey snow-capped mountains on the horizon, a little frightening because suddenly she realised how far they were from everywhere else. ‘It looks bleak,’ she ventured.
‘It’s beautiful, so quiet you can hear the ice floes cracking on their way through the fjords down to the sea, birds of course and seals, and the odd whale.’
‘People?’
‘The odd thousand or so scattered between the three settlements. And us, of course.’
‘Are we very far from a—a settlement?’
‘An hour’s flight—someone goes once a fortnight to pick up provisions and post; the Coastal Express calls too with the odd crate.’
She had to be content with that. The men fell to talking technicalities once more, leaving her to contemplate the awe-inspiring landscape.
The sun was still shining brilliantly as Jeff brought the seaplane down close to a flat, lichen-covered tongue of rock, the mountains towered all round them with a narrow strip of rock between them and the sea, and scattered along it were wooden huts and what Annis vaguely supposed to be wireless stations; there was a round building too, standing well away from the rest. It looked remarkably lonely even in the late evening sun, but not for long. As they came to rest on the iron grey water she could see men emerging from the huts and running towards them. Two of them got into a small motorboat tied to a rickety pier and started towards the plane.
‘We’re here,’ said Freddy unnecessarily.
There was nothing lacking in her welcome; any doubts Annis might have still been harbouring were drowned in the enthusiastic greeting she got from the men. There were more than a dozen of them, shaking her by the hand the moment she stepped rather gingerly on the rock, telling her their names, declaring that she was the answer to a prayer—just what the doctor had ordered.
‘I wasn’t aware that I had done any such thing,’ drawled a voice behind her, and to the accompaniment of shouts of laughter Annis turned round, bristling a little because the voice had held mockery.
Its owner suited the scenery very well. He was large and rugged, with great shoulders and towering over everyone there. Good-looking too, only his dark eyes were cool and his mouth was a thought too straight for her liking. Not so very young either, she decided; his thick dark hair was grey at the temples.
She held out a hand. ‘How do you do?’ she said in her sweetest voice.
&
nbsp; CHAPTER TWO
THE HAND which grasped hers was hard and firm and cool, and when she looked at the doctor’s face she could see no trace of mockery there; she must have imagined it.
He said in a deep slow voice: ‘Hullo, Annis, I’m so glad you have come—we’ve been taking it in turns to cook and we’re all very bad at it.’
She said with a touch of frost because he had called her Annis without even asking: ‘I’m a nurse.’
He said gravely: ‘We have almost no sickness here and—we hope—only occasional accidents, but if there is a mass outbreak of measles I, and I’m sure the rest of the team, won’t grumble.’
There was general laughter at that and she laughed too, not because she found it very amusing but because it was so obviously expected of her. She looked up and saw the gleam in the doctor’s eye; probably he wanted to annoy her. ‘I don’t know your name…’ she reminded him gently.
‘Jake—Jake van Germert. I hope you’ll call me Jake—we’re all on the best of terms; you’ve met most of us, but there are several on duty. You’ll meet them in the morning.’ He looked over the men’s heads to speak to a short, fat man, a good deal older than the rest of them. ‘How about Freddy taking Annis to their hut, Willy, while we dish the supper.’