by Nevil Shute
She stared up at him, and the pieces of the puzzle fell together in her mind. So that was what it meant! She turned to Haki. “Are we married now?”
There was a great burst of laughter from the crew. She shrank down as the laughter roared and beat about her; her eyes filled with tears. “Why are they laughing, Haki? What is this all about?”
He touched her hand, and spoke to her quietly in Gaelic. “Don’t let them see you crying — they’ll only laugh more. I don’t think they meant it as a marriage.”
The Norsemen were still laughing; jokes as rich and rare as this one did not often come their way on board a ship. Hekja said, angry and half crying, “But that’s what he said! He said our names would be together as long as the stone lasted. That means forever. Stones don’t rot away.”
Haki said doubtfully, “I don’t think they meant it like that. I don’t believe that is the way they do a marriage.”
“It’s as good a way as any other.” They were still speaking in Gaelic. “Haki — I hate these people. I can’t make out their customs, and they’re always laughing at us. Can’t we get away?”
He touched her hand again. “Don’t talk about that now — someone may understand. Besides, Leif is a good man, and he’s promised that we shall be free.”
She said, “I hate them when they laugh.”
For the rest of the day she was tearful and upset, but she would not leave the stone alone. She sat crouched down in the bottom of the ship with her eyes fixed on it; when it grew dark she crept over to it and laid out her sleeping bag beside it, so that she could feel the indentation of the letters with her fingers in the night. It suddenly became her best thing, displacing all her few possessions in her preference. Her name and Haki’s were together on that stone, for as long as the stone should last. That meant forever. It was mystical, and wonderful, and comforting to her.
They sailed on for another day. Then in the morning they saw land quite close to them, a low-lying sandy point directly ahead. They sailed to the east of it and found that it stretched on ahead of them in the form of a continuous beach, uninterrupted for as far as they could see. At the head of the beach there was a sandy cliff a hundred feet or so in height that stretched along the shore indefinitely.
All day they sailed along this beach, mile after mile, hour after hour, marvelling at its continuity.
Leif said, “I will not go much further. Here is another land, and there may be another, and another, to the far end of the world, but we will not go further now. These beaches are a very great wonder. We will call them Wonderstrands.”
In the evening they came to a little sandy bay at a point where the beach seemed to divide, and anchored there for the night. In the morning they drove the ship on shore at half tide, and all got out upon the sand to stretch their legs. They soon discovered that they were on a small, low-lying island; the mainland seemed to be across half a mile of shallow water to the west. It was a still hot summer day. And here they found a curious phenomenon. The dew upon the grass, when they tasted it, was as sweet as honey, very wonderful to them. The warm climate, the quiet, and the shade upon the island, and the sweetness of the dew, induced in them a sort of awe. They had heard tales about the Islands of the Blest that lay beyond the sunset. Was it possible that they had come to them? And if so, what would they meet next? Would earthly weapons be of any use to them?
It was a thoughtful party that embarked again when the tide rose.
They anchored for the night again a little way from the land, and sailed southwards when dawn came. Soon the land turned westwards and they followed it; to the south of them there were islands clearly to be seen. They coasted along looking for a harbour; in the middle of the afternoon they found an entrance to the west of a low sandy spit that seemed to lead to an extensive stretch of inland water.
Leif said, “This is as far as we will go. We will go in here and make a camp and rest, and find out all we can about the country.”
They sailed in past the sandy spit, lowered the sail, and got out the great oars. They found themselves in a long stretch of inland water running roughly northeast; on each side of them was a wooded land, with little beaches on the shores beneath the shade of the fir trees. The water was calm and blue, the sun very warm.
None of them had ever been in such a place as that before. Essentially they were farmers, sailors only by necessity, and they were sick of the sea. They rowed on slowly into the heart of this magnificent new country, wondering, entranced. Presently the strait that they were in widened into a great bay; from this they saw a little channel leading northwards deep into the country, right away from the ocean. Leif steered his vessel into this. To the east of the little channel, hardly wider than a river, the land showed an open, park-like country of grass pastures and scattered trees; to the west low hills rose straight up from the channel, thickly clothed in firs.
They went on slowly, and in silence. Land birds swept around them; a herd of deer ran off across the pasture, startled by their approach. Presently the channel widened out again and they turned west, to find themselves in a still, inland lagoon, half a mile long and a little less in width, entirely surrounded by the wooded hills. The trees cast perfect reflections in the still water; it was very quiet.
Leif sighed deeply, looking round about. “Here we will rest,” he said.
They put the ship onto a sandy, shady beach beneath a little wooded knoll, and went on shore. Leif chose a site down by the beach to make a camp, and sent out parties to explore the country round about. Very soon they discovered that they were on a neck of land that ran roughly east and west, perhaps three or four miles broad from north to south. To the eastwards the land stretched out to the beaches they had known as Wonderstrands; to the west the country was unknown.
Leif said, “Here is all the wood we want; we will unload the ship. These trees will make a good cargo for us. We will cut some of them down and trim them into roof beams, so that we shall not have to carry useless weight back home with us.”
A party set to work upon the trees. Haki and Hekja were set to carry all the stores ashore up to the place selected for the camp. Suddenly Hekja dropped her load, caught Haki by the arm, and cried:
“Haki — look! They’re throwing the stones overboard!”
True enough, a party of men were tipping the flat rocks of the ballast put into the shallow water round the ship, preparing to receive the lumber. Haki said, “What about it?”
She cried, “Our stone! Our stone, with our names on it!”
She set off running at top speed down to the ship. Haki followed at a more leisurely pace; as he drew near the ship he heard a burst of laughter. He clambered in over the side and saw Hekja struggling with the heavy stone, tears streaming down her cheeks, while the Norsemen stopped their work to enjoy the joke again.
She cried, “Haki! Haki, come and help me with it.”
In the stern, old Tyrker turned to Leif. “Lord,” he said quietly, “is it your wish that there should be no fighting in this ship?”
The Norseman looked down at him in surprise. “Surely, my foster father.”
The old German said, “I think the men have laughed enough.”
Leif ripped out a sharp order and the laughter stopped; in silence the Norsemen stood watching the two runners as they struggled with the stone. They got it up to the bows of the ship and dropped it down on to the sand. Then they picked it up between them and staggered forward; sometimes carrying it and sometimes rolling it, they took it on shore with them.
Tyrker said, “Their ways are not our ways, and they don’t understand.”
Leif said, “They are poor, simple people, but I like them very well.”
In the ship the work went on again; on shore Hekja pointed to a little rising knoll. “I want to take it up there, Haki.”
With much trouble they got the stone up to the top of the little hill overlooking the lagoon. They arranged it with the utmost care on the exact summit; the letters showed up beaut
ifully, and they were very pleased with it. They chocked it up with other little stones to make sure that it could never roll about.
The girl sighed happily. “It will be quite safe there, Haki. Whoever comes up here will see our names together.”
The runner nodded. “That is very good.”
They went back and worked till nightfall at the preparation of the camp. In the evening Leif called them to him.
“We are staying here for several days,” he said. “Tomorrow morning, with the first light, I want you to set off and run to the west, to find out what sort of a country this is. You can be away for three days. Tomorrow you will run inland, and part of the next day, and on the third day you will come back by a different way, so that you give me an account of as much of the country as can be seen in the time. You understand what I want?”
Haki said, “Lord, I understand very well. On the evening of the third day you shall have our story.”
“Good. Will you take food with you?”
The runner shook his head. “Only a little tinder to make fire with, and a flint and steel. We will eat before we go.”
Leif gave him a long knife in a sheath. He strapped this round his waist; Hekja took flints and tinder in a little pouch. Then they ate a very large meal and lay down and slept at once before the fire. They were up before dawn, eating again; in the first light they trotted off together from the camp.
They travelled westwards. The first part of their journey was through a fairly thick forest of fir trees; after a few miles the country grew more open, with stretches of grassy meadow and a few beech trees. They skirted a lovely circular lake with fir trees all around and white, sandy beaches, and went on in a northwesterly direction. Presently they came to rising ground and went up to the top of it; from a height of about three hundred feet they were able to see the lie of the land.
They saw that they were on a cape. There was sea both to the north and to the south of them. Behind them, to the eastwards, the land stretched out into the ocean past their camp to Wonderstrands. Ahead of them there was a neck of land perhaps three miles across from north to south which joined the cape to what appeared to be the mainland; this stretched as far as they could see to north and south, and rose up to low hills on the horizon to the west.
They had been running for three hours, and had covered twelve or fifteen miles from the camp. They started off again and ran on to the west, passing on to the mainland from the cape.
After that, the character of the country began to change. The ground rose slowly, and the soil grew richer; the sea was now behind them and a considerable mass of land in front, how large they could not tell. The trees got larger. They knew pine trees, and beeches, and silver birches, but the cedars and the chestnut trees were new to them, and strange. Presently Hekja dropped upon one knee.
“Look, Haki — cranberries.” They ate a few of them; they were larger and better than the ones they knew.
They went on westwards into what seemed to them to be a fairyland. Woods of tall trees alternated with meadows beside rippling streams; they saw several herds of small wild deer which fled away before them. They saw a great number of wild birds, bitterns, and geese, and mallard, and teal, and a great many more that were strange to them. One sort that flew with great long legs stretched out behind amused the runners very much.
As they went on, the fruits grew plentiful. They knew strawberries and raspberries and gooseberries by sight; they found all these growing wild, but larger and more luscious than any they had known before. They found a number of wild fruits that they had never seen before and they refrained from most of these, fearing poison.
But one new fruit intrigued them very much. It was a climbing plant and grew up trees, and carried large, soft purple berries massed together in a bunch. The soft, purple skin covered a juicy, pale green flesh with little seeds in it. They saw the birds eating these berries and coming to no harm; they tasted them gingerly and found them sweet and delicious. Soon they were eating them freely.
Presently they found a grassy, seed plant very like the wheat they knew.
As the afternoon progressed they went slower and slower; there was so much new to be seen. In the end they quite frankly stopped travelling altogether and wandered about in the warm sun in the meadows and the woods, marvelling at all the new things in this wonderful country. They had only covered a mere forty miles or so, but Leif would never know.
Hekja said, “This is the best country I have ever seen, Haki. Better than Greenland or Norway, better even than our own country.”
Haki said, “There is no limit to the cows that a farmer could keep here. There is grass for all the cows and sheep in the world.”
Hekja sighed happily. “It is very good here, Haki. The land is beautiful, and it is very good to be alone together, and away from the Norsemen.”
Haki nodded. “Leif is kind and just,” he said, “but we have our ways and they have theirs, and the two are different.”
They may have been, but in many respects the ways of the Scots were not inferior. They found no difficulty at all in living in this fertile country. They could throw a stone with quite extraordinary accuracy and force, born of long practice at the quarters of the cattle that they herded. They gathered a few pebbles from a brook and wandered about until they saw a little deer; they stalked it carefully up wind till they were close enough, and threw their stones together. At twenty-five yards’ range both hit it on the head. It staggered and fell down; they rushed up and despatched it with the knife. Very pleased with themselves they carried it in turn till they reached a woody glade beside a stream; here they made a fire in a spot where bushes kept the draught from their backs.
As night fell, they cooked the meat on wooden skewers over a fire, and ate it with a quantity of the big purple berries. Presently, happy and amorous, they made a bed of twigs and leaves and grass beneath the bushes by the fire, and lay down and slept together.
They spent the next day wandering through that wonderful country, marvelling at everything they saw. They saw a scarlet tanager with brilliant red plumage; they both exclaimed at it, and tried various ways of catching it without success. They followed it for a long time; for them it was the high spot of the happiest day of their lives. They thought that they had never seen a bird so beautiful.
Presently, Hekja had a wonderful idea. She said, “Haki, don’t let’s go back to the ship. We can stay here, in this good land.”
The runner stared at her; new ideas came slowly to them both. “Not go back?”
She said earnestly, “We can stay here and be our own masters. They will never catch us again. We can go on into the country, away from the sea. They will not go far from their ship.”
He thought over her proposal. With anything abstract they had some difficulty, partly because their vocabulary was very small. But presently he said:
“Leif wants the story of this land. He is a good man, and we will go back.”
She sank down on the grass, and looked at him appealingly. “Haki, I don’t want to go back to Greenland with the Norsemen. They laugh at me, and this is a better land than any we have seen.”
He squatted down beside her, searching for the words that would express what he felt. “Leif has been kind to us,” he said with difficulty. “We have good news for him about this land. We must go back.”
She said a little piteously, “I don’t want to go back on the bitter sea with the Norsemen.”
He took her hand with awkward tenderness. “We must go back to Leif,” he said again. She could not move him from that.
They spent the remainder of the day wandering southwards through the land. They spent the night together by their fireside in a grove of cedar trees; far off on the horizon they could see the sea.
Next day they ran eastwards till they came to the coast at what was evidently the west shore of a large strait, or bay; they could see land on either side. They followed the coast northwards, swimming across two fair-sized tidal rivers,
and found at the head of the bay the neck of land that they had passed across two days before. They crossed it back onto the sandy, wooded cape and ran on steadily all day; at about seven o’clock in the evening they ran into camp.
Leif was waiting for them there, with Tyrker. They brought back with them a bunch of the great purple berries they had found so good, and a sheaf of the wild corn.
“Lord,” said Haki, “this is a good country, better than Norway or my own land, better than Greenland. All the cattle in the world can pasture here, and there is food for everyone. It is the best land in the world.”
They took the berries and the corn from him, and examined them. Haki said, “These fruits we found, and they are good to eat. There are many other marvels.”
Tyrker smiled. “Lord, I know these fruits. They grow in Germany where I was born. They are called grapes. You make wine out of them.”
Leif took them with interest, and tasted one. “So these are grapes. I have heard of them, but never seen them before. I have drunk wine, and it is good.”
Tyrker said, “Lord, if we get some more I will make wine, after the manner of my people.”
The Norseman said, “So. We will call this good land Wineland, Wineland the Good.” He turned to the runners. “You have done very well,” he said. “You shall be free people when we get back home, living on your own farm, with cattle of your own.”
They flushed with pleasure. Then they went over to the fire and ate a heavy meal; they had had nothing since the previous night, and they had covered forty-five or fifty miles. Presently, when they could eat no more, Hekja said:
“Haki, let us go and see if our stone is still all right.”
In the evening light they climbed up to the summit of the knoll. The stone was just as they had left it, safe and firmly planted in the turf. They fingered the lettering and admired it for a little while; it was their own wonder, theirs alone. Presently they sat down on the short turf in the setting sun, and stared out across the quiet meadows to the east.