Sixty Days to Live (41 page)

‘Easy stages!’ echoed Lavina. ‘Hundreds of miles in an open boat! No thank you, Handsome, not for this child—at least, not till next summer anyway.’

‘There’s no point in trying to get to London,’ Margery put in. Everyone will have been drowned and the place will be a shambles. The land here looked good for cultivation and I can see no reason why happy homes could not be made here for those of us who’re prepared to work.’

‘I don’t think we have much choice,’ Gervaise announced dryly. ‘Now the flood has subsided, all the dead bodies of animals and humans will be decaying farther south, and the air will be full of pestilence within a week. Even if we could make a seaworthy boat, as Derek suggests, I wouldn’t dream of leading you there until the cold of another winter has killed off the bacilli. Here, we’ll at least be safe from plague, as the ice and snow will prevent the corpses rotting. I’m, er—not a religious man, as you know, but it almost seems as if a merciful Providence had ordained that we should land in a place where we could live without fear of being stricken down by some terrible fever.’

‘I suppose half a loaf’s better than no bread, dearest,’ sighed Lavina, ‘but I think it’s a pretty mean kind of Providence, all the same. Just think what we’ll have to go through stuck here during an Arctic winter.’

The thoughts of darkness, cold and discomfort which her words called up were so grim that none of them cared to discuss the prospect further and soon afterwards they went to bed.

The next morning it was a cold but sunny day again; so they decided to make another expedition towards the higher ground. Derek had now formed the conclusion that Finkie was no longer dangerous and, being fond of all dumb beasts, had come to regard him as a sort of tame animal. In consequence he insisted, rather against the wishes of the others, that instead of the imbecile being left a prisoner all day, he should be taken with them. When the whole party set out from the Ark soon after breakfast, therefore, Finkie shuffled along at Derek’s side like a morose Caliban.

The going was not easy because the snow was thick, they had no snow-shoes and they occasionally came into heavy drifts which delayed their progress; so they covered barely a mile an hour. Hedges and woods barring their paths at intervals also necessitated considerable detours and it was eleven o’clock before they came upon any other sign that the land had been inhabited by human before the flood.

This was an unnatural hump rising in a corner of one of the fields, and when Derek had knocked some of the snow off it with one of the spades they had brought, they discovered it to be a motor-tractor. The fact that it had been made in England, as they saw by the manufacturer’s plate, gave them a strange sense of comfort, and, as Gervaise remarked, since they still had a good
supply of petrol left in the Ark, the tractor might come in very useful to them later on.

It had taken them ten minutes or more to clear the snow away and it was only when they had finished that Derek suddenly said: ‘Where’s Finkie?’

Swinging round they saw that Fink-Drummond had disappeared.

Behind them in the snow his tracks showed that he had padded to the nearest bank, and the black small-wood and leaves of a hedge could be seen through the snow, marking the place where he had scrambled over it.

Derek and Hemmingway ran to the hedge and looked over, but Finkie was nowhere to be seen and his track led towards a small wood in which, if he had decided to hide from them, it was going to be very difficult to find him.

‘I shouldn’t worry,’ Gervaise called to them. ‘He’ll make his way back to the Ark as soon as he’s cold and hungry.’ So, for the moment, they abandoned any thought of trying to recapture him and continued their exploration of the country.

Scrambling up a smooth bank of snow an hour later Gervaise suddenly tripped and fell; burying his arms, which he had thrown out to save himself, in the snow up to his elbows. Picking himself up he began to kick round with his feet and soon discovered that the satin-smooth snow surface concealed something unusual.

‘This isn’t earth below here,’ he said, ‘it’s something jagged and uneven.’ Stooping down he pulled out a yellow brick; upon which they set to work clearing the snow in various places and soon found that the mound concealed the ruins of a modern cottage.

‘It was probably only a jerry-built place,’ Sam remarked, ‘and that’s why the flood bowled it over.’ His idea was confirmed a moment later when Margery gave a cry of dismay. In moving some bricks she had uncovered the sole of a boot and, on pulling at it, had suddenly realised that it had a dead foot inside it which was still attached to a leg and body buried deeper in the debris.

They covered the foot up again, left the mound and went on, still looking for the grey stone house; but they could not find it and at one o’clock sat down to the picnic lunch they had brought with them.

It was hard work ploughing through the heavy snow so they were a little tired after their ramble and, as sundown came far earlier in this high latitude than in mid-August in England, Gervaise suggested that when they had finished their picnic they should abandon their exploration for that day and return to the Ark.

On the way back they reverted to their discussion of the previous night about the hardships of being compelled to winter in the Arctic; but both Gervaise and Hemmingway were comparatively cheerful about it.

Gervaise pointed out that if they could not find better accommodation they still had the Ark in which to live. That would mean that they would have to continue living in rather cramped quarters but, in the Ark, they would have every reasonable comfort and would suffer no more from being thrown about in rough weather. As they had used hardly any of their petrol for propelling the sphere they still had the bulk of their supply which, used economically, should be sufficient to run the electric-light and heating plants through the winter. They would have to cut down their rations of food but there were ways in which these could be supplemented. The dead cattle they had come across had already decayed to such a degree through their forty-three days’ submergence in the flood waters that, although now frozen meat, they were no longer fit for human consumption. But there would be nuts on the trees, edible roots in the ground and seeds which could be crushed for life-giving substances.

Hemmingway took up the theme to add that if the supply of food looked like giving out before the spring came round they could eke out their tinned goods with stews of seeds and roots from their own stores of these, many of which were edible. Moreover, the fact that they had discovered a motor tractor that morning showed that the land was farmable; so, although it would mean hard work to clear the snow, there was no reason why they should not sow some patches of cereals and root-crops during the next few weeks before the land had frozen solid and the real Artic winter set in.

For the hundredth time they congratulated themselves on their forethought in stocking the Ark with so many items and implements which would now prove more valuable than gold and ensure their being able to maintain themselves even in such
a terrible climate. The Ark and its contents were their fortress and their salvation.

It was four o’clock when they came over the last crest and sighted it; a huge snowball in a flat field half a mile away. They were still a quarter of a mile off when a sudden cry of dismay burst from the whole party. A great tongue of flame, red, fierce and curling, had leapt from the doorway of the sphere, lighting up the snow all round with a lurid glare.

Instantly they began to run towards it. They had not covered a dozen yards when a human figure appeared right in the centre of the flame. It was Fink-Drummond. With a piercing scream he leapt down the snow-steps and raced away across the field.

His clothes were on fire and his shrieks of agony could have been heard a mile away as he floundered down the slope away from them.

Derek, who was leading the party, turned a little in his stride and raced after him while the others ran straight on towards the Ark. When they reached it they drew to an abrupt halt and stood there panting, their faces expressing every shade of fear, horror and distress.

Either deliberately in a fit of lunacy, or through some accident, Fink-Drummond must have set light to the petrol tanks in the bilge of the Ark. Its interior was now a white-hot furnace. There was no way in which they could enter it, except by the door, and that was a roaring sheet of flame so fierce that they had to stand twenty yards away to prevent themselves being scorched.

There was nothing whatever that they could do. They were compelled to stand there in helpless misery, watching while the angry fire devoured all their possessions and all those stores which meant their very hope of life.

Five minutes later, Derek came panting back to them. ‘He’s dead,’ he gasped. ‘He fell before I caught up with him. If only the poor fool had had the sense to roll in the snow instead of running away like that he might have saved himself; but every stitch he had on was burnt to a cinder. The shock must have killed him.’

The flames issuing from the Ark gradually grew less fierce. After a time they died down to a flicker and Gervaise, mounting the snow-bank which had only partially melted, peered over the charred platform into the Ark’s interior. The deck was gone, the
partitions had disappeared; all that was left was a heap of glowing ashes. He stumbled down the bank again and joined the others.

They were still standing there half an hour later, robbed of initiative, utterly stricken by this appalling catastrophe. The brief wintry afternoon was nearly over; night was approaching. They had nothing but the clothes they stood up in and they were alone, friendless, foodless, fireless, in the grim, snowbound Arctic.

They were at their wit’s end to know what to do. All Hemmingway’s academic knowledge was now completely useless. Sam’s flair for dealing with obstreperous shareholders of company meetings and shaking world markets left him with no more idea than a child how to cope with the situation. Derek’s knowledge of the countryside at home in England could not help him to maintain the party in this totally different climate. Margery could cook but she was helpless without food and fire. Even Lavina, whose presence would have cheered most people who were temporarily stranded, had not the power to raise their spirits now that it seemed that they were condemned to die there. It was Gervaise who showed his natural capacity for leadership.

‘Come,’ he said, rousing at last, ‘it’s no good our remaining here. We must seek shelter for the night.’

Margery shrugged despairingly. ‘What shelter is there? We’ve spent two days looking for the house Sam and Hemmingway saw when we first arrived here, but we haven’t found it; so we certainly shan’t be able to in the darkness.’

‘I didn’t suppose we could,’ Gervaise replied shortly; ‘but we still have an hour’s twilight and we’ve got to find shelter somewhere from this wind, even if it’s only under a hedge.’

Turning on his heel, he led them back towards the higher ground and selected a place half a mile from the burnt-out Ark where two snow-banks, covering high hedges, met at right-angles in the corner of a field. Derek and Hemmingway still had the spades so he set them to dig out the snow from the drift and pack it into a third wall. He then sent Sam and the two girls off to collect any broken branches or brushwood they could find by turning up the snow under the nearest large trees.

As they brought it in he arranged it just outside the opening
of the three-sided pen which the two younger men were forming. Soon there was a big enough pile and he managed to light some dead twigs from some old papers they had in their pockets and a petrol lighter. Even when the bonfire blazed up he would not allow the party to rest, but made them continue gathering wood so that they should have a sufficient supply to keep the fire going throughout the night.

Except for the wind, from which they were protected in their pen, the weather was clement. Darkness fell and the stars came out overhead, but Gervaise was still not satisfied. He made them strip the half-decayed leaves from the branches that had been brought in until they had two big piles apiece; one to use as a pillow on the snow-ledge that Hemmingway had fashioned, and the other, a much larger one, in which to bury their feet.

He then ordered them to take off their outer coats. Margery’s, Lavina’s and his own he spread on the ground, after which he said that they must lie down in a row as close as they could get to one another, spread the remaining three coats over them and pile up the heaps of leaves over their feet and ankles. Derek and Hemmingway took the two outside places in the row, as they had volunteered to watch alternately and keep the fire going through the night with fresh supplies of fuel. Gervaise and Sam came next, with the two girls in the centre.

As they had hollowed out places for their hips they were not uncomfortable and, crowded close together, they were surprised at the warmth they obtained from each other’s bodies when they were lying at full length under the shelter of the hedges and the wall.

Once they had time to think, their thoughts were chaotic. Nightmarish speculations about their impending fate through cold or starvation flickered through their brains. Unless they could find some human habitation it did not seem possible that they could manage to exist for long under such terrible conditions, and, even if they could find a house, where were they to get food with which to support themselves through the long Arctic winter? But they were very tired after their long day’s tramp, the shock of seeing their refuge and all it contained destroyed, and their recent labours, and, one by one, they dropped off to sleep.

When morning dawned the fire was still burning brightly.
Derek and Hemmingway had fulfilled their task and, waking each other at intervals, had kept it going. Having warmed themselves at it they decided to set off at once, as they had nothing to pack and only the two spades to carry with them. Every moment was precious as, if they failed to discover some place that they could make a permanent headquarters while they devoted their energies to searching for food, it was certain that cold and hunger would put an end to them within the next few days. Since they had not succeeded in locating the grey stone house on two previous expeditions it seemed foolish to expend further time in looking for it; yet they had no idea which direction would give them the best prospect of coming upon some distant habitation.