by Betty Neels
‘The boss relies on your discretion, but unless you happened to be an electronics expert with a very inquisitive nose, I don’t think you would be any the wiser.’
‘Well, I’m not particularly interested,’ she said loftily, and he laughed. ‘You’re not bored?’
‘Bored? Heavens, no—how could I possibly be that? I don’t have much time for a start, do I? And there’s such a lot to cram into each day.’
‘And there’s a treat in store for you in a couple of days. Fetching the stores from Ny Aalesund. There’s one shop there and it stocks everything, although not all of it is on sale to the tourists from the cruising trips coming from Norway during the summer. The men will give you a list as long as your arm and you’d better make one for yourself. We only go once a month.’
‘Don’t you go on the Coastal Express?’
‘Sometimes, but the jetty isn’t any good and we have to go out to her by boat, and transferring the stuff from her on the return journey is quite a lengthy business.’
‘Then how do we go?’ Annis gazed round her. ‘There’s no road…’
‘We fly.’
‘Oh—does the plane come from Tromso?’
‘No—there’s one here, it’s in a boathouse on the other side of the radio station. I don’t suppose you’ve been as far.’
She shook her head. ‘No. It’ll be fun to go to Ny Aalesund.’
They went back presently and she went to the hut and joined Freddy, writing one of his rare, sketchy letters. He looked up when she went in. ‘Hullo—enjoy the seals?’
‘Enormously.’
‘Jake’s a good fellow to be with, never gets worked up about anything. I’m told that he’s much sought after by the birds.’
‘Don’t be vulgar, Freddy.’ She added carelessly: ‘He’s not so young, though, is he?’
Freddy grinned. ‘Thirty-five, very up-and-coming in his profession, too. A worthy target for your charms, love.’
She turned a wintry eye on him. ‘Freddy, I’ve already begged you not be vulgar. I’m sure Doctor van Germert is a very pleasant man, that’s all.’
He sighed loudly. ‘Don’t tell me that you’re pining for that dreary Arthur?’
Annis giggled. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! That’s why I came here—we weren’t getting anywhere and I’d discovered that I couldn’t possibly marry him.’
‘Bully for you, ducky. I found him a drip, not your sort.’
‘What’s my sort?’ She had sat down on a folding chair and had picked up the map she had been studying each day in the hope that she would know exactly where she was.
‘Jake.’
She put the map down carefully. Her voice was light and a little amused. ‘I’m waiting for a real charmer, Freddy—I’d like to be swept off my feet.’
Freddy turned back to his writing. ‘As long as you find them again,’ he warned her.
It was at breakfast the next day that someone asked: ‘Who’s going with you, Jake?’
‘Annis.’ The doctor didn’t even look at her as he spoke. ‘Have your lists ready by this evening, will you? We’ll leave early.’
‘And what is early?’ asked Annis sweetly. ‘I don’t seem to have been told much about this…’
He refused to be ruffled. ‘After the night shift’s breakfast,’ he told her blandly. ‘The second breakfast men can manage for themselves—we’ll be back in time for you to cook supper.’
She eyed him frostily. So she was to cook supper, was she, after a hectic day shopping in a strange language among strange people, not to mention the trip there and back. She only hoped whoever was to fly the plane was a nice levelheaded man who didn’t expect her to get thrilled every time they hit a pocket of air and dropped like a stone…
‘Will you have time to show Annis the hospital, Jake?’ asked someone.
‘I thought it might be an idea; I’ve a job or two to do there, anyway.’
Annis’s interest quickened. It would be fun to see a hospital so far from the rest of the world, and she began to wonder about it, not listening to the talk around her.
She would have liked to have worn something more feminine than slacks and a shirt on this, the highlight of her stay, but common sense warned her that the weather might change with a speed she hadn’t quite got used to, and probably the ground was rock. She wore sensible shoes, her new pale blue slacks and a white cotton blouse with a blue and white striped sweater to pull over it, and covered it with a pinny while she saw to breakfast.
She studied the lists she had been given while she ate her breakfast through a chorus of items which had been forgotten. She already had a list of food and necessities and how she was going to get the lot in a day was beyond her, although with only one shop it might be easier. She finished her meal and only then noticed that the doctor wasn’t there. Perhaps she was late—she got to her feet in a panic, gathering her plates and cup and saucer together. ‘I should go,’ she cried to those around her. ‘Who’s flying the plane?’
‘I am,’ said Jake, coming in through the door with maddening slowness. ‘And I haven’t had my breakfast yet, so don’t panic.’
‘I am not panicking,’ declared Annis crossly. She added: ‘Can you fly a plane, then?’
There was a chorus of kindly laughter. ‘It’s his plane, Annis,’ she was told. ‘He’s really very good at it, too, you don’t have to be nervous.’
‘I’m not in the least nervous.’ She shot a glance at the doctor, calmly eating his breakfast, taking so little notice of anyone that he might have been at his own table, quite alone. Not alone, she decided, her thoughts taking off as usual; he’d have a dog—perhaps two…
‘Have you a dog?’ she asked suddenly, and everyone looked bewildered. All except the doctor, who looked up, studied her face carefully and answered, just as though he had read her thoughts: ‘Yes. He sits with me while I eat my breakfast. If you’d like to collect your purse or whatever, I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes.’
The plane was moored to the jetty, a small seaplane, very spick and span, bouncing up and down in what Annis considered to be a quite unnecessarily boisterous manner.
‘It’s the wind catching her,’ explained the doctor, just as though Annis had spoken out loud. ‘Jump in.’
‘Isn’t there anyone else coming?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’ And because he obviously wasn’t going to say more than that, she climbed aboard and settled herself down.
She hadn’t expected to enjoy the trip because she had to confess to a secret fear that the small craft might drop like a stone on to the white wastes below them, or lose a wing or a vital bit of its engine, but presently her fears left her, probably because her companion exhibited much the same sort of calm as a bus driver going along a well-remembered country lane.
After a little while he began to point out various landmarks. ‘There’s Magdalena Bay straight ahead, and Konigsfjord is round the corner. The cruisers all go there and then on up to the ice barrier.’
They had been following the coastline for a good deal of the time, now he banked and pointed downwards. ‘There’s Ny Aalesund; we’ll come down by the pier—it’s quite a walk to the shop and the road’s a mixture of coal and lava. We’ll take a taxi if you would rather.’
‘A taxi? Here? Surely they can’t earn their living? Where are the roads?’
‘There are two, and they don’t go far, but all the same a car can be useful to get about. In the winter everyone has snow scooters.’
He came down some way from the shore and taxied slowly up to the pier, where several men appeared to make the plane fast. ‘Out you get,’ said the doctor. ‘We’ll go straight to the shop, though I suggest that we stop at the post office and have coffee.’
Annis could see no post office, no houses, for that matter, just a dusty track alongside a bridge being built over a rambling little river hurrying down to the sea. The track opened out on to a road once they had crossed the bridge and she could see it winding uphill
, past some wooden houses. The doctor took her arm. ‘It’s much nicer once we get to the top,’ he said reassuringly.
CHAPTER THREE
JAKE WAS RIGHT. They gained the top of the slope and found grass round its curve—rough, tough very short grass, it was true, but a welcome green. The tiny town before them stretched back from the sea, its houses built on either side of the tumbling, untidy little torrent they had already crossed further back, its origins lost in the massive glacier at the head of the valley, some miles away. Mountains towered in a great curve, their sides scarred by mine workings. The houses were wooden, as was the white-painted church, and on the far side of the stream there was a group of new houses, so modern and sedate they might have been in a London suburb instead of at the back of beyond.
The doctor had given Annis time to stand and stare, now he suggested that they should start their walk. ‘Though you can ride if you wish,’ he reminded her, ‘but there’s plenty to see.’
The houses were at first rather old-fashioned and weather-worn, but by the time they had reached the church they looked more modern and well-kept, and the church itself, with its own little house attached to it, was pristine against the dull rock of the mountains behind it. There was lichen beside the cinder road, and tiny flowers and a few patches of the same coarse grass, and there were people too. Annis was surprised to see two young women wheeling babies in prams, and the doctor laughed at her astonished face: ‘People have babies everywhere in the world,’ he observed. ‘The hospital here is more than adequate to deal with any kind of surgery; there are a doctor and a surgeon, midwives, nurses—you name it, they’ve got it.’
They passed a lonely little graveyard half way up the lower slopes of the mountains and Annis said soberly: ‘I suppose they must love being here—I mean, to live here all their lives and die here too.’
‘I think they’re very content and happy, and the children look beautiful—there’s a good school and they go to Norway for their higher education and come home for holidays. There’s a film evening, too, and dancing each week, and a library.’
The road forked presently, the fork crossing the stream and climbing along its other bank. ‘There’s the hospital,’ said Jake, ‘that long building built up from the road. We’ll keep straight on, though. The post office is at the end, you can see it now, then we cross a bridge and the shop’s on the other side.’
‘Where does the road go to?’
‘It doesn’t. There are a few houses beyond the shop, and it stops there; there’s no way through the mountains.’
It was a clear morning now, although every now and then the mountains disappeared in cloud, and it was warm walking. Annis was glad when they stopped presently and had their coffee, but she wasn’t allowed to linger. ‘I’m due at the hospital in half an hour; I’ll take you to the shop and leave you there and pick you up later.’
She looked at him in horror. ‘But you can’t—I won’t understand a word they say…’
He chuckled. ‘Don’t worry, they’ll understand you and speak English, too.’
The shop, when they reached it, didn’t look like a shop at all. There was no display window, only a side door opening out into a large hall, filled with counters displaying everything one could think of. Jake, having introduced her to the manager, took himself off, saying he would be back in two hours, and she was left to roam round with her list. Toothpaste, shaving soap, socks, sweets, notepaper and picture post cards; she collected them all and then went upstairs, where the tourists didn’t go, and bought her stores. And even then she had a little time to spare, so leaving the obliging manager to pack everything up and send it down to the plane, she went back to examine the trinket counter. There were some pretty things there; she was examining a silver bracelet decorated with blue enamel leaves which had taken her fancy when Jake loomed up silently beside her.
‘Ready?’ he wanted to know, and then: ‘Are you buying that?’
She laid it down with reluctance. ‘Not now—perhaps if I come again…’ She looked up at him. ‘Are we going back? I thought you would be here all day.’
‘So I am, but I need my strength kept up like anyone else. I usually eat at the hospital, but the pastor’s invited us both to lunch. I borrowed a jeep from the hospital, so you won’t need to walk.’ He led the way outside. ‘Did you get everything?’
‘Yes, it’s being sent down to the plane. What do you do at the hospital?’
‘Give the anaesthetics—fill in for whichever of the two wants a day off. I like to keep my hand in; there’s not enough to do at the station.’
‘Have you a large practice in Goes?’
He shot the jeep down the road and over the bridge. ‘So-so.’
Annis sighed; it was a pity he never talked about himself. She made a sedate remark about the weather and wondered why he smiled. She could have asked him that too, she supposed, and probably had no reply.
The pastor’s house was delightful; simply furnished but so comfortable that Annis could imagine that living there, even through the long dark winter, would be a pleasure. The pastor was a young man with a pretty, sturdy wife and three small boys, and she envied Jake’s knowledge of Norwegian, although they spoke English to her and the other girl lost no time in drawing her on one side to ask questions about clothes and what was fashionable.
They sat down to lunch almost immediately because Jake had to be back in the hospital within the hour; poached salmon and jacket potatoes and Lucullus cake and great cups of coffee. Annis was glad of the coffee; she had been invited to sample the Aqua Vitae and her head hadn’t felt quite right since.
Jake went shortly, and she felt a pang of disappointment that he hadn’t asked her if she would like to see over the hospital—indeed, she had felt sure he would, but he had gone with nothing more than a casual warning to be down at the plane by four o’clock. So she spent the afternoon with her new friends, and refusing their kind offers to walk down with her, left in good time. She had enjoyed her afternoon. She had been into the church, and most of her questions about the town and its inhabitants had been answered. All the same, she felt lingering regret at not seeing the hospital: after all, she was a nurse…
Jake overtook her half way there, driving the jeep and with a young man beside him, presumably to drive it back again. ‘Kai Dohlen,’ introduced Jake, ‘he’s the surgeon.’ He stuffed her between them and raced on down to the tiny harbour where they spent a few minutes talking before getting into the plane. As he taxied away across the water, Jake said: ‘Nice fellow, Kai. Sverre, the physician, is even nicer.’
‘It was nice meeting one of them, at least,’ observed Annis tartly.
‘Sore at me because I didn’t take you sightseeing at the hospital? I’ve been busy, there was a lot to do today and it would have meant a nurse staying on duty to show you round. Next time, I hope.’
‘Perhaps.’ She had her eyes shut, just while they took off, and it was annoying to be told that she might open them again, especially as he was laughing.
‘I’m only a little nervous,’ she explained haughtily. ‘The mountains look rather too close…’
His black brows rose. ‘Close? I find them magnificent.’
‘Well, so do I, but a bit overpowering. I’m not sure if I like mountains after all, especially when they’re at the top of the world.’ She stared out at the grim coastline. ‘I—I wanted to get away from hospital for a while…’
‘Ah—a love affair gone wrong.’ He sounded faintly mocking and she fired up immediately.
‘Nothing of the sort, it was just—just that I didn’t want to get married—not to him anyway.’
‘Let me guess. Shorter than you—you’re a big girl, aren’t you, Annis—very worthy, no sense of humour, good at his job and saves his money.’
Annis choked. ‘You have no right…’
‘None at all, that’s why…’ he broke off. ‘There’s something down there—I’m going lower to have a look.’
It was a sm
all motorboat, dangerously close to the rocks and drifting nearer to them at every second.
‘What will you do?’ cried Annis breathlessly.
‘Pick him up.’ The doctor sounded laconic, as though picking up people out of the sea was a daily occurrence.
The mountains looked more terrifying than ever now because Jake was flying so close to them, but Annis forgot her fear as she watched the figure in the boat waving frantically, although it all came back, half choking her as Jake brought the plane down several hundred yards from the boat and taxied towards it; the sea looked so dark and cold and the grey masses, with their remote snow-covered peaks, seemed to be closing in on them.
‘Get away from the door,’ advised Jake, ‘and go to the back; sit on the stores if you must. I shall have to take off again as soon as I can, so be ready to give first aid if you have to.’
His calm quieted her squeaking nerves and she did as he bade her, watching while he opened the door, sidling close to the boat and its occupant. He shouted something presently and a moment later a young man clambered clumsily into the plane. Jake leaned across him and shut the door and began to taxi away from the shore, and Annis, mindful of instructions, moved cautiously forward again. The man was wet and shivering but didn’t appear to be hurt. He grinned at her as she offered him a blanket and said: ‘To be rescued by an angel—I am indeed fortunate.’
Annis was rummaging round for something to use as a towel. ‘I didn’t rescue you,’ she pointed out matter-of-factly, ‘Doctor van Germert did.’
‘From the station?’ He glanced at the doctor. ‘Of course I have heard of you. I’m the replacement for Hagmann—Ola Julsen—I have also heard of the English nurse.’
The doctor nodded and said something in Norwegian and Julsen answered him. It gave Annis a moment in which to study the two men. The Norwegian wasn’t as big as the doctor, but he had blond good looks and fair curling hair and the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen. He looked romantic, even though he was soaking wet, and she was a romantic girl. She stole a look at Jake; he was good-looking too in a dark heavy way, a little forbidding too and overpoweringly large, and his eyes were dark, sometimes they looked black. He was treating the whole episode with a matter-of-factness which was the exact opposite of the romantic. She could easily imagine their unexpected companion remembering anniversaries with dozens of red roses; the doctor would most likely never give them a thought… He made matters even more prosaic now by saying: ‘Take those wet things off—there’s the blanket Annis gave you—don’t mind her, she’s a nurse, as you know.’