Sixty Days to Live (51 page)

‘What’s that?’ she cried. ‘What’s that?’

A faint, high, whining note came from the distance, gradually increasing to a roar.

‘God!’ shouted Hemmingway, struggling out of the bag. ‘It’s a plane! A plane!’

Next moment they saw it, flying at about 2,000 feet; a great, silver monoplane soaring through the blue sky southward down the Channel.

As it approached they stood on the cliff-top waving and shouting wildly. The plane passed almost overhead and they feared that its pilot had failed to see them but suddenly it curved out to sea, and, turning, came back towards them. It rose again, banked steeply, and turning into the wind, came gracefully down on to the flat surface of the hard-frozen snow at the base of the cliffs.

Frantic with excitement Lavina and Hemmingway waved to the occupants of the plane, who waved back to them from one of its windows. Stumbling from numbness but given new strength by their intense mental exhilaration they lurched along hand in hand seeking a way down to the sea-level.

After twenty minutes they found a gap in the cliff and scrambled down it. Lavina fell, staggered up, and fell again; she could go no farther. Hemmingway picked her up in his arms and stumbled across the snow towards two people who had got out of the plane to come and meet them. To their joy and utter amazement they recognised the man and woman as Rupert Brand and Conchita del Serilla.

Half-fainting Lavina collapsed in Conchita’s arms the moment Hemmingway set her down, while the two men crushed each other’s hands as though they meant to break every bone in each other’s fingers.

‘Lord knows what happened when the comet hit the world!’ said Rupert when their first greetings were over and the brandy from his flask was coursing through Lavina’s and Hemmingway’s veins, bringing them new life. ‘We decided to face the business in my stratosphere record-breaker just as I’d planned half-jokingly at that lunch-party of Sam’s where we first discussed the comet. We started out from central Spain, of course, and I took her up to
30,000; then just ran her round in wide circles. At the moment of impact we were chucked about as though the plane was a piece of paper in a high wind, but I managed to pull her out of it at about 9,000, and when we went down below the clouds to see what had happened we found that Spain had disappeared and we were in the middle of the ocean. I turned her then and headed her eastwards, but we had to fly nearly 400 miles before we came down and I landed her on a grassy plateau without having the faintest idea where we’d got to. After walking a few miles we struck a village and, would you believe it, I’m damned if we weren’t in Norway!’

Hemmingway explained Gervaise’s theory of the world having been thrown right off its axis, which would have flung Spain twenty degrees farther south while the plane had been bucketing in the air, and Rupert went on:

‘By the mercy of God I decided to fly home to England the following afternoon, so we were in the air again when that huge wave came crashing along but I succeeded in finding a high stretch of land that the deluge hadn’t submerged, somewhere up in the highlands of Scotland. It was only an island, but it was enough, and with the stores in the plane, some mountain-sheep that had escaped the deluge, and a crofter’s potato-field we were lucky enough to find, we managed to exist somehow until the flood went down. After that the problem was petrol, and for the last month we’ve had one hell of a time scouring frozen villages, getting a tin here and a tin there until we could collect enough to fly the plane down to a decent climate.’

He had hardly finished speaking when Gervaise, Sam and Margery appeared in the distance. From Calais, which they had found that morning, they had seen the plane come down and had hurried out across the frozen sea towards it.

Ten minutes later they were all taking off their furs in the glorious warmth of the big, engine-heated cabin of the plane. Sam and Hemmingway were smiling at each other unable to find words to express their joy at their reunion. Gervaise only stopped hugging his cherished Lavina to spread out a map on her lap so that they could choose an oasis on the coast of equatorial Africa where they would be able to live on fish and dates until the plague from the dead bodies of men and animals in the towns of the equatorial belt had abated.

Rupert wheeled the big plane and taxied it across the hard snow. With its burden of three gloriously happy pairs of lovers and the gentle, elderly man who had led those he loved out of the land of death towards a new beginning, it rose gracefully into the clear, bright sky and sped south—south—south—to the Sunshine.

DENNIS WHEATLEY
Dennis Wheatley (1897 – 1977)was an English author whose prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world’s best-selling writers from the 1930s through the 1960s.

Wheatley was the eldest of three children, and his parents were the owners of Wheatley & Son of Mayfair, a wine business. He admitted to little aptitude for schooling, and was expelled from Dulwich College, London. In 1919 he assumed management of the family wine business but in 1931, after a decline in business due to the depression, he began writing.

His first book,
The Forbidden Territory
, became a bestseller overnight, and since then his books have sold over 50 million copies worldwide. During the 1960s, his publishers sold one million copies of Wheatley titles per year, and his Gregory Sallust series was one of the main inspirations for Ian Fleming’s James Bond stories.

During the Second World War, Wheatley was a member of the London Controlling Section, which secretly coordinated strategic military deception and cover plans. His literary talents gained him employment with planning staffs for the War Office. He wrote numerous papers for the War Office, including suggestions for dealing with a German invasion of Britain.

Dennis Wheatley died on 11th November 1977. During his life he wrote over 70 books and sold over 50 million copies.

Discover books by Dennis Wheatley published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/DennisWheatley

Duke de Richleau
The Forbidden Territory
The Devil Rides Out
The Golden Spaniard
Three Inquisitive People
Strange Conflict
Codeword Golden Fleece
The Second Seal
The Prisoner in the Mask
Vendetta in Spain
Dangerous Inheritance
Gateway to Hell

Gregory Sallust
Black August
Contraband
The Scarlet Impostor
Faked Passports
The Black Baroness
V for Vengeance
Come into My Parlour
The Island Where Time Stands Still
Traitors' Gate
They Used Dark Forces
The White Witch of the South Seas

Julian Day
The Quest of Julian Day
The Sword of Fate
Bill for the Use of a Body

Roger Brook
The Launching of Roger Brook
The Shadow of Tyburn Tree
The Rising Storm
The Man Who Killed the King
The Dark Secret of Josephine
The Rape of Venice
The Sultan's Daughter
The Wanton Princess
Evil in a Mask
The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware
The Irish Witch
Desperate Measures

Molly Fountain
To the Devil a Daughter
The Satanist

Lost World
They Found Atlantis
Uncharted Seas
The Man Who Missed the War

Espionage
Mayhem in Greece
The Eunuch of Stamboul
The Fabulous Valley
The Strange Story of Linda Lee
Such Power is Dangerous
The Secret War

Science Fiction
Sixty Days to Live
Star of Ill-Omen

Black Magic
The Haunting of Toby Jugg
The KA of Gifford Hillary
Unholy Crusade

Short Stories
Mediterranean Nights
Gunmen, Gallants and Ghosts

This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Reader

Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square,
London WC1B 3DP

First published in 1939 by Hutchinson & Co. Ltd
Copyright © 1939 Dennis Wheatley

All rights reserved
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may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The moral right of the author is asserted.

eISBN: 9781448212866

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