Five minutes passed, and nothing happened -if, that is, the freezing of my ears and forehead could be called nothing. Still no sound, still no sight of anything: the strain, the nerve-racking expectancy could not be borne for much longer. Slowly, with infinite care, I moved off in a circle of about twenty yards diameter, but I saw nothing, heard nothing, and so well adjusted now were my eyes to the darkness, so well attuned my ears to the ice-cap’s mournful symphony of sound, that I would have sworn that had there been anyone there to be seen or heard, I would have seen or heard them. It was as if I were alone on the ice-cap.
And then the appalling truth struck me – I was alone. I was alone, I realised in a belated and chilling flash of understanding, because shooting me would have been a stupid way of disposing of both myself and my dangerous knowledge – the discovery of a bullet-riddled body on the ice-cap during the brief hours of daylight would have provoked a hundred questions and suspicions. Much more desirable, from the killer’s point of view, would be my dead body without a trace of violence. Even the most experienced man can get lost in a snow-storm on the ice-cap.
And I was lost. I knew I was lost, I was convinced of it even before I got the wind on my left and walked back to the line of bamboo poles. The bamboos were no longer there. I made a wide circle, but still found nothing. For at least twenty yards back in the direction of the plane, and probably all the way towards the cabin, the poles had been removed, that slender series of markers which alone meant all the difference between safety and being irrecoverably lost on the ice-cap, were no longer there. I was lost, really and truly lost.
For once, that night, I didn’t panic. It wasn’t just that I knew that panic would be the end of me. I was consumed by a cold fury that I should have been so ignominiously tricked, so callously left to die. But I wasn’t going to die. I couldn’t even begin to guess what the tremendously high stakes must be in the murderous game that this incredibly ruthless, wickedly-deceptive gentle-faced stewardess was playing; but I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to be one of the pawns that were going to be brushed off the table. I stood still, and took stock.
The snow was increasing now, thickening by the minute, building up into a blizzard with visibility cut down to a few feet: the yearly precipitation of the ice-cap was no more than seven or eight inches, and it was just my evil luck that it should fall so heavily that night. The wind was southerly, or had been, but in that fickle Greenland climate there was no knowing what minute it might back or veer. My torch was failing: continual use plus the cold had left it with a pale yellowish beam that reached not much more than a few yards: but that was the limit of visibility, anyway, even downwind. The plane, I calculated, was not much more than a hundred yards away, the cabin six hundred. My chances of stumbling upon the latter, flush as it almost was with the surface of the ice-cap, were no better than one in a hundred. But my chances of finding the plane, or what came to the same thing, the great quarter-mile trench that it had gouged out in the frozen snow when it had crash-landed, were far better than even: it was impossible that it could have already been filled in with drift. I turned until I had the wind over my left shoulder and started walking.
I reached the deep furrow in the snow inside a minute – I’d switched off my torch to conserve the battery but my stumble and heavy fall as I went over the edge was intimation enough -turned right and reached the plane in thirty seconds. I suppose I might possibly have lasted out the night inside the wrecked fuselage, but such was my singleness of purpose at the moment that the thought never occurred to me. I walked round the wing, picked up the first of the bamboos in the dim beam of my torch and started to follow them.
There were only five altogether. After that, nothing. Every one of the others had been removed. These five, I knew, pointed straight towards the cabin and all I had to do was to keep shifting the last of the five to the front, lining it up straight with the others in the light of my torch, and it would be bound to bring out to the cabin. Or so I thought, for perhaps ten seconds. But it was a task that really required two people to achieve anything like accuracy: what with that, the feebleness of my rapidly dying torch and the hopeless visibility, I couldn’t be accurate within two or three degrees at the least. That seemed a trifle, but when I stopped and worked it out I discovered that, over the distance, even one degree out would have put me almost forty feet off course. On a night like that, I could pass by the cabin ten feet away and never see it. There were less laborious means of committing suicide.
I picked up the five sticks, returned to the plane and walked along the furrowed trench till I came to the depression where the plane had touched down. The 250-foot line of the antenna, I knew, was roughly four hundred yards away, just a little bit south of west – slightly to my left, that was, as I stood with my back to the plane. I didn’t hesitate. I strode out into the darkness, counting my steps, concentrating on keeping the wind a little more than on my left cheek but not quite full face. After four hundred long paces I stopped and pulled out my torch.
It was quite dead – the dull red glow from the filament didn’t even register on my glove six inches away, and the darkness was as absolute as it would ever become on the ice-cap. I was a blind man moving in a blind world, and all I had left to me was the sense of touch. For the first time fear came to me, and I all but gave way to an almost overpowering instinct to run. But there was no place to run to.
I pulled the drawstring from my hood and with numbed and clumsy hands lashed together two of the bamboos to give me a stick seven feet in length. A third bamboo I thrust into the snow, then lay down flat, the sole of my boot touching it while I described a complete circle, flailing out with my long stick into the darkness. Nothing. At the full stretch of my body and the stick I stuck the last two bamboos into the snow, one upwind, the other downwind from the central bamboo, and described horizontal flailing circles round both of these. Again, nothing.
I gathered up the bamboos, walked ten paces more, and repeated the performance. I had the same luck again – and again and again. Five minutes and seventy paces after I had stopped for the first time I knew I had completely missed the antenna line and was utterly lost. The wind must have backed or veered, and I had wandered far off my course: and then came the chilling realisation that if that were so I had no idea now where the plane lay and could never regain it. Even had I known the direction where it lay, I doubted whether I could have made my way back anyway, not because I was tired but because my only means of gauging direction was the wind in my face, and my face was so completely numbed that I could no longer feel anything. I could hear the wind, but I couldn’t feel it.
Ten more paces, I told myself, ten more and then I must turn back. Turn back where, a mocking voice seemed to ask me, but I ignored it and stumbled on with leaden-footed steps, doggedly counting. And on the seventh step I walked straight into one of the big antenna poles, staggered with the shock, all but fell, recovered, grabbed the pole and hugged it as if I would never let go. I knew at that moment what it must be like to be condemned to death and then live again, it was the most wonderful feeling I had ever experienced. And then the relief and the exultation gradually faded and anger returned to take its place, a cold, vicious, all-consuming anger of which I would never have believed myself capable.
With my stick stretched up and running along the rimed antenna cable to guide me, I ran all the way back to the cabin. I was vaguely surprised to see shadows still moving in the lamp-lit screen that surrounded the tractor – it was almost impossible for me to realise that I had been gone no more than thirty minutes – but I passed by opened the hatch and dropped down into the cabin.
Joss was still in the far corner, working on the big radio, and the four women were huddled close round the stove. The stewardess, I noticed, wore a parka – one she had borrowed from Joss – and was rubbing her hands above the flame.
‘Cold, Miss Ross?’ I inquired solicitously. At least, I had meant it to sound that way, but even to myself my voice sou
nded hoarse and strained.
‘And why shouldn’t she be, Dr Mason?’ Marie LeGarde snapped. ‘Dr Mason’, I noted. ‘She’s just spent the last fifteen minutes or so with the men on the tractor.’
‘Doing what?’
‘I was giving them coffee.’ For the first time the stewardess showed some spirit. ‘What’s so wrong in that?’
‘Nothing,’ I said shortly. Takes you a damned long time to pour a cup of coffee, I thought savagely. ‘Most kind, I’m sure.’ Massaging my frozen face, I walked away into the food tunnel, nodding to Joss. He joined me immediately.
‘Somebody just tried to murder me out there,’ I said without preamble.
‘Murder you!’ Joss stared at me for a long moment, then his eyes narrowed. ‘I’ll believe anything in this lot.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I was looking for some of the radio spares a moment ago – a few of them seem to be missing, but that’s not the point. The spares, as you know, are next to the explosives. Someone’s been tampering with them.’
‘The explosives!’ I had a momentary vision of some maniac placing a stick of gelignite under the tractor. ‘What’s missing?’
‘Nothing, that’s what so damned funny. I checked, all the explosives are there. But they’re scattered everywhere, all mixed up with fuses and detonators.’
‘Who’s been in here this afternoon?’
He shrugged. ‘Who hasn’t?’
It was true enough. Everyone had been coming and going there all afternoon and evening, the men for a hundred and one pieces of equipment for the tractor body, the women for food and stores. And, of course, our primitive toilet lay at the farthest end of the tunnel.
‘What happened to you, sir?’ Joss asked quietly.
I told him, and watched his face tighten till the mouth was a thin white line in the dark face. Joss knew what it meant to be lost on the ice-cap.
‘The murderous, cold-blooded she-devil,’ he said softly. ‘We’ll have to nail her, sir, we’ll have to, or God only knows who’s next on her list. But – but won’t we have to have proof or confession or something? We can’t just—’
‘I’m going to get both,’ I said. The bitter anger still dominated my mind to the exclusion of all else. ‘Right now.’
I walked out of the tunnel and across the cabin to where the stewardess was sitting.
‘We’ve overlooked something, Miss Ross,’ I said abruptly. ‘The food in your galley on the plane. It might make all the difference between life and death. How much is there?’
‘In the galley? Not very much, I’m afraid. Only odds and ends for snacks, if anyone was hungry. It was a night flight, Dr Mason, and they had already had their evening meal.’
Followed by a very special brand of coffee, I thought grimly. ‘Doesn’t matter how little it is,’ I said. ‘It might be invaluable. I’d like you to come and show me where it is.’
‘Can’t it wait?’ The protest came from Marie LeGarde. ‘Can’t you see that the poor girl is chilled to death?’
‘Can’t you see that I am too?’ I snapped. It was a measure of the mood I was in when I could bring myself to speak like that to Marie LeGarde. ‘Coming, Miss Ross?’
She came. I was taking no chances this time, so I carried with me the big searchlight with its portable battery and another torch, and gave the stewardess an armful of bamboos. When we had reached the top of the hatchway steps she waited for me to lead the way, but I told her to walk in front. I wanted to watch her hands.
The snow was easing now, the wind dropping and visibility just a little improved. We walked the length of the antenna line, angled off a little way north of east, setting down an occasional bamboo, and were at the plane within ten minutes of leaving the cabin.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘You first, Miss Ross. Up you go.’
‘Up?’ She turned towards me, and though the big searchlight lying on the ground was no help in letting me see the expression of her face, the puzzled tone of her voice was exactly right. ‘How?’
‘Same way as you did before,’ I said harshly. My anger was almost out of control now, I couldn’t have restrained myself any longer. ‘Jump for it.’
‘The same way—’ She stopped in mid-sentence and stared at me. ‘What do you mean?’ Her voice was only a whisper.
‘Jump for it,’ I said implacably.
She turned away slowly and jumped. Her fingers didn’t come within six inches of the sill. She tried again, got no nearer, and on her third attempt I boosted her so that her hands hooked over the sill. She hung there for a moment, then pulled herself up a few inches, cried out and fell heavily to the ground. Slowly, dazedly she picked herself up and looked at me. A splendid performance.
‘I can’t do it,’ she said huskily. ‘You can see I can’t. What are you trying to do to me? What’s wrong?’ I didn’t answer, and she rushed on. ‘I -I’m not staying here. I’m going back to the cabin.’
‘Later.’ I caught her arm roughly as she made to move away. ‘Stand there where I can watch you.’ I jumped up, wriggled inside the control cabin, reached down and pulled her up after me, none too gently, and without a word I led her straight into the galley.
‘The Mickey Finn dispensary,’ I observed. ‘An ideal quiet spot it is, too.’ She had her mask off now, and I held up my hand to forestall her as she opened her mouth to speak. ‘Dope, Miss Ross. But of course you wouldn’t know what I’m talking about.’
She stared at me unblinkingly, made no answer.
‘You were sitting here when the plane crashed,’ I went on. ‘Possibly on this little stool here? Right?’
She nodded, again without speaking.
‘And, of course, were flung against this front bulkhead here. Tell me, Miss Ross, where’s the metal projection that tore this hole in your back?’
She stared at the lockers, then looked slowly back to me.
‘Is – is that why you’ve brought me here—’
‘Where is it?’ I demanded.
‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head from side to side and took a backward step. ‘What does it matter? And – and dope – what is the matter? Please.’
I took her arm without a word and led her through to the radio cabin. I trained the torch beam on to the top of the radio cabinet.
‘Blood, Miss Ross. And some navy blue fibres. The blood from the cut on your back, the fibres from your tunic. Here’s where you were sitting -or standing – when the plane crashed. Pity it caught you off balance. But at least you managed to retain your hold on your gun.’ She was gazing at me now with sick eyes, and her face was a mask carved from white papiermâché. ‘Missed your cue, Miss Ross – your next line of dialogue was “What gun?”. I’ll tell you – the one you had lined up on the second officer. Pity you hadn’t killed him then, isn’t it? But you made a good job of it later. Smothering makes such a much less messy job, doesn’t it?’
‘Smothering?’ She had to try three times before she got the word out.
‘On cue, on time,’ I approved. ‘Smothering. When you murdered the second officer in the cabin last night.’
‘You’re mad,’ she whispered. Her lips, startlingly red against the ashen face, were parted and the brown eyes enormous with fear and sick despair. ‘You’re mad,’ she repeated unsteadily.
‘Crazy as a loon,’ I agreed. Again I caught her arm, pulled her out on to the flight deck and trained my flashlight on the captain’s back. ‘You wouldn’t, of course, know anything about this either.’ I leaned forward, jerked up the jacket to expose the bullet hole in the back, then stumbled and all but fell as she gave a long sigh and crumpled against me. Instinctively I caught her, lowered her to the floor, cursed myself for having fallen for the fainting routine even for a second, and ruthlessly stabbed a stiff couple of fingers into the solar plexus, just below the breastbone.
There was no reaction, just no reaction at all. The faint had been as genuine as ever a faint can be and she was completely unconscious.
The ne
xt few minutes, while I sat beside her on the front seat of the plane waiting for her to recover consciousness, were some of the worst I have ever gone through. Self-reproach is a hopeless word to describe the way I swore at myself for my folly, my utter stupidity and unforgivable blindness, above all for the brutality, the calculated cruelty with which I’d treated this poor, crumpled young girl by my side. Especially the cruelty in the past few minutes. Perhaps there had been excuse enough for my earlier suspicions, but there was none for my latest actions: if I hadn’t been so consumed by anger, so utterly sure of myself so that the possibility of doubt never had a chance to enter my mind, if my mind hadn’t been concentrated, to the exclusion of all else, on the exposure of her guilt, I should have known at least that it couldn’t have been she who had jumped down from the control cabin half an hour ago when I had rushed up the aisle, for the simple but sufficient reason that she had been incapable of getting up there in the first place. Quite apart from her injury, I should have been doctor enough to know that the arms and shoulders I had seen while attending to her back that evening weren’t built for the acrobatic performance necessary to swing oneself up and through the smashed windscreen. That had been no act she had put on when she had fallen back into the snow, I could see that clearly now; but I should have seen it then.
I still hadn’t got beyond the stage of calling myself by every name I could think of when she stirred, sighed and straightened in the crook of the arm with which I was supporting her. Her eyes opened slowly, focused themselves on me, and I could feel the pressure on my forearm as she shrank away.
‘It’s all right, Miss Ross,’ I urged her. ‘Please don’t be afraid. I’m not mad – really I’m not – just the biggest blundering half-witted idiot you’re ever likely to meet in all the rest of your days. I’m sorry, I’m most terribly sorry for all I’ve said, for all I’ve done. Do you think you can ever forgive me?’