Sixty Days to Live (40 page)

‘Well, as it happens, Sam, I’m rather fond of you and, as I
am
your wife, I have first claim to your protection and support in this lousy dead world that is all that’s left to us. You took me on knowing my qualities and I’m still good entertainment. I suppose you agree that by all the laws of God and man, and all the decencies, it’s still up to you to fend for me even if I refuse to do a hand’s turn?’

‘Yes, I quite agree about that.’

‘Then I think we’d better leave things for a month. During that time I can make up my mind as to whether I want to keep
you; and, since you say you
do
still love me, you’ll have a chance to decide if that’s really true. You’ll be able to say definitely by then if Margery’s good-womanishness and Victorian morality are quite enough compensation for all you’d lose if you lost me.’

‘That’s very sound,’ Sam agreed, ‘and damned decent of you. I think you’ve behaved frightfully well about this and I’m more grateful than I can say; but then, you never were a mean-spirited person. I don’t think you’ve ever done a mean thing in your life.’

‘Thanks,’ said Lavina calmly, standing up. ‘Anyhow, we know where we are now and I’ll let you know my decision on the 7th of September. In the meantime, though, I shall consider myself perfectly free to amuse myself, if I wish, with Derek—or Hemmingway.’

She had already turned her back as she uttered the last words, and before Sam could say anything further, she had closed her cabin door behind her.

As Sam moved over to the table to mix himself a drink, he was thinking that Lavina had really behaved very fairly. The interview that he had been dreading so much all day was over and there had been no fireworks or bitter recriminations. But then, he had been unjust to Lavina in even thinking that there might be. In any emotional crisis she could always be counted upon to preserve her dignity, which was one of the reasons why her father referred to her as The Princess.

How damnably attractive she looked, Sam thought, in that old dressing-gown she had dug out before leaving Stapleton Court. He had long ago decided, in fact, that she was even more bewitching in the oddest garments than when wearing the most expensive clothes; with the exception, perhaps, of evening dress, in which she became breath-takingly lovely.

He dismissed her mention of Hemmingway without a second thought but her statement that she would consider herself free to amuse herself with Derek gave him much food for uneasy speculation. Although he had always tried to regard their casual intimacy as the natural outcome of a very old friendship he had never liked it, and now, here was Lavina threatening to ‘amuse’ herself with Derek. What sort of amusement could Lavina have in mind in which she did not already indulge with her good-looking friend? Too late, Sam saw that, owing to his own action, he had put himself in a situation in which he could no longer complain about their friendship. Margery, of course, was a wonderful woman but Lavina had a lot of things that no other woman he’d ever met had got, and he had not yet entirely lost her. By the time he went to bed the wretched Sam was as miserable as he had been an hour earlier, and hopelessly undecided as to which of the two sisters he wanted to have as his constant companion for the rest of his life.

When morning came the snow was still falling, the sphere
was high and dry and the edge of the flood had receded a mile or more southwards. The whole landscape was now a wintry scene of ice and snow.

The change in the weather provided them with one advantage: they would no longer have to plod about in ankle-deep mud as Sam and Hemmingway had had to on the previous day. The land was now frozen, so after breakfast, having wrapped themselves in their warmest garments, the whole party were able to walk across it with comparative ease as they set out to explore the surrounding country.

On the other hand the snow limited their range of vision, and although they spent the whole morning trying to find the grey stone house that had been sighted on the previous day, they were unable to locate it. By midday they had decided to give up the search and turned back along their tracks in the snow towards the Ark.

It seemed, however, that in their attempts to find the house they had covered more country than they remembered. The tracks meandered all over the place and gradually became fainter until, after half an hour’s walk, they gave out altogether, having become filled up with fresh snow. This placed them in an extremely serious predicament as it meant that if they could not find the Ark they would have to remain out all night. Their only indication of the Ark’s direction was that it must lie on lower ground, so they trudged down a slope hoping eventually to come to the water, which would give them the line of the shore. But the slope ended in a valley-bottom which rose to a steeper hillside, so, now silent and anxious, they turned back and tried the other way.

Lavina, who loathed the cold, was feeling absolutely desperate and cursed herself for having allowed her curiosity to overcome her reluctance to accompany the others on the expedition. But she knew no good purpose could be served by worrying the men, who were doing their best to find the way, so she said nothing. It was Margery who began to complain and irritated the others by nagging at them until Gervaise abruptly told her that she would do better to save her strength for further walking than to dissipate it in pointless criticisms.

For three hours they wandered, first in one direction and then in another, their spirits sinking lower and lower, until at last Hemmingway stumbled over the dead horse. They knew from
its colour and position that it was the one which they had seen on first landing, so the Ark could not be very far away. While the rest remained near the horse, Derek set off at a brisk walk down the gentle gradient and kept in touch with the others by yodelling to them every few minutes. His first cast took him too far to the right; but when he felt that he must have passed his objective he turned back and began to move in a constantly increasing spiral, until he eventually came upon the giant snowball that the sphere had become in their absence. He then returned to the others and led them in along his last tracks.

It was past four in the afternoon when they wearily dragged themselves up to the door of the Ark, and as they had left it at nine o’clock in the morning they had been out in the snow for over seven hours, walking nearly the whole time; and for four of those hours they had been lost. In consequence they were frozen to the marrow, ill-tempered and thoroughly tired out. It was not until they had drunk some hot tea laced with rum that any return of cheerfulness manifested itself among them and they all agreed that never again would they leave the Ark during a snow-storm.

Even the tea and rum failed to warm Lavina. She sat shivering in a chair, her small face pinched and miserable until Derek, who thought of little else but her well-being, suggested that he should get her some hot bottles and that she should go to bed.

She thanked him with a pale smile and agreed that would be best; but she had a bad night and was feverish when she woke the following morning, having caught a nasty chill.

Gervaise doctored her and said that she had better stay in bed until she felt all right again, so she did not get up for the next three days; but she did not miss anything by remaining in her cabin as the snow continued to fall without interruption and the others did not leave the Ark except to stretch their limbs in its immediate vicinity.

The fact that they were now able to get away from each other by going outside their steel home enabled Sam and Margery to have some long talks while walking up and down in the snow. Sam reported the conversation he had had with Lavina and Margery derived much secret satisfaction from the way things had gone. She was surprised and pleased that Lavina had made so little trouble but gave her sister little credit for the fact that it
was her direct mind and generosity which really formed the basis of the agreement.

In Margery’s eyes, Sam had done the right and manly thing in tackling Lavina without delay, and she felt sure that it must have been Sam’s own firmness which had carried the tricky interview through to a successful conclusion. The very fact that Sam insisted on giving Lavina full marks only made Margery admire him the more for his strength and modesty, and she felt that her sister, although impetuous and self-willed, must be a weak creature underneath to have surrendered her man with hardly a struggle. Margery had no doubts in her own mind that with Lavina nominally out of the way she could now safely count on having Sam to herself; but then, she did not really know Lavina.

Being able to leave the sphere made a great difference to Derek as he was able to get as much exercise as he wanted without being dependent on the weather, and whenever he was not engaged trying to amuse the sick Lavina in her cabin, or asleep in his own, he was out in the frosty, snow-filled air which he thoroughly enjoyed.

As he soon grew tired of walking up and down within sight of the Ark he decided to employ himself in banking the snow up under its platform and cutting a set of steps in the bank up to its door. Some of the others helped him in his shovelling from time to time and the business was completed by the end of the second day of Lavina’s indisposition.

It then occurred to him that it would be a good thing for Fink-Drummond, too, to have some exercise, so he brought the madman up from his prison, muffled him in a warm coat and, taking him outside, walked him up and down. As he could only take very short paces, owing to the chain which linked his ankles, the experiment did not prove very successful and such slow-going was anything but pleasant with the thermometer well below zero.

It was a long time now since Fink-Drummond had had one of his fits of insanity, although he still remained apparently dumb; so, having decided that there was little risk of trouble as long as he was in this quiet mood, Derek borrowed Hemmingway’s loaded crop in order to defend himself if he was attacked and undid the padlock which secured the chain round the prisoner’s legs. The result justified his humane gesture as the lunatic seemed
delighted at the chance to stretch himself properly, and behaved quite perfectly, even when he was led back to his cell afterwards and had the chains replaced on his feet.

It was on the fifth day after they had been lost that the snow at last ceased falling. White clouds heavy with it still lingered overhead, but once again they were able to see the surrounding country. To the south of them the great flood had disappeared but the five days’ fall of snow had been so heavy that it was impossible to pick out the characteristics of the landscape in detail. On every side they could see long, rolling slopes of snow running into other slopes until these gradually faded into the distance, while in the foreground the universal whiteness was broken here and there by a hedge or coppice that had not been completely covered. They had just decided to set out on another expedition to try and find the grey stone house when the clouds parted and a pale sun shone through.

It was ten days since Gervaise had had a chance to shoot the sun so he immediately got out his sextant, and so eager were the others to know in what country they had come to earth that all thought of the expedition was abandoned while he took an observation and worked out their position. At last he said:

‘Our latitude is now 71 degrees 26 minutes north.’

‘Then we’re still right up in the Arctic Circle,’ Hemmingway said at once, ‘and much farther north than Iceland.’

‘I think we must be in Greenland,’ Gervaise replied, ‘although I’d never imagined that its scenery looked anything like that which we saw here on the day we were washed ashore.’

‘I hadn’t, either,’ Hemmingway agreed, ‘but the scenery of the world doesn’t vary quite as much as most people are apt to think. I’ve seen photographs of parts of semi-tropical Africa which look very like England; and in winter, when there’s plenty of snow on the mountains, distant views of Greece might be mistaken for Norway later in the year. Still, if only the sky keeps clear you’ll be able to get some altitudes of the stars to-night and fix our longitude; then we’ll really know where we are.’

As the weather remained good, Sam and Hemmingway made an expedition that afternoon to try and find the house, but the snow had obliterated such features of the landscape as they remembered so they had to return without having had any success. Derek, meanwhile, exercised Finkie, this being his
third outing, and he continued to behave like a model prisoner.

At sundown they watched the sky anxiously but luck was with them. A large section of it remained unclouded, so Gervaise was able to take another observation of the sun at its setting, and an hour later he took the altitudes of some of the principal stars which they were able to identify from their celestial charts. After a couple of hours’ work with Oliver’s books of logarithms Gervaise gave them their exact position on the earth’s surface. It proved to be 71 degrees 25 minutes north and 9 degrees 10 minutes west.

‘That settles it,’ said Hemmingway, pointing to a spot on the map. ‘We’re on Jan Mayen Island, up on the edge of the Ice Barrier—about 280 miles east of the coast of Greenland.’

‘The hell we are!’ exclaimed Lavina, who was with them, having now recovered from her chill.

‘Not a very jolly prospect,’ agreed Sam. ‘I don’t suppose the place was ever inhabited except by a few fisher-folk; and we won’t find much to start life with again in any of their cottages. It would have been a much better outlook if the Ark had beached itself somewhere within reasonable distance of the great cities.’

Gervaise had been looking over Hemmingway’s shoulder at the map. ‘I suppose you’re right about our being on Jan Mayen, as it’s the only land anywhere within several hundred miles of the position I worked out. But, actually, the most northern point of the island barely touches the 71st parallel and we’re 25 minutes north of that.’

‘I know,’ Hemmingway nodded. ‘But you must remember that the chronometers may be a little out.’

‘Anyway, there’s plenty of timber,’ remarked Derek. ‘If we put our backs into it we could build a seaworthy boat, get down to Iceland, re-fit, and make our way by easy stages through the Hebrides to Scotland and so to London.’