An Old Captivity
Authors: Nevil Shute
This book is a work of fiction. None of the modern characters have any existence except in my imagination, and no reference to any living person is intended.
But Haki and Hekja were real people, the first explorers of a great country.
N
EVIL
S
HUTE
T
HIS case came before me quite by chance in the spring of last year. I was travelling out to Rome for a consultation. I might have saved time and fatigue if I had gone by air, but it was early in the year and I had decided against it on account of the high winds and rain. Instead, I booked a sleeper in the first-class
wagon-lit
, and left Paris on the midday train.
The journey was a normal one as far as Dijon, and a little way beyond. But as the darkness fell and the line began to climb up into the Jura mountains the train went slower and slower, with frequent stops for no apparent reason. It was that difficult hour in a railway train, between tea and dinner, when one is tired of reading, reluctant to turn on the lights and face a long, dull evening, and conscious of no appetite at all to face another meal. It was raining a little; in the dusk the countryside seemed grey and depressing. The fact that the train was obviously becoming very late did not relieve the situation.
Presently we stopped again, and this time for a quarter of an hour. Then we began to move, but in the reverse direction. We ran backwards down the line at a slow speed for perhaps a couple of miles, and drew into a little station in the woods that we had passed through some time previously. Here we stopped again, this time for good.
I was annoyed, and went out into the corridor to see if I could find out what was happening. There was a man there, a very tall, lean man, perhaps thirty-five or thirty-six years old. He was leaning out of the window. From his appearance I guessed he was an Englishman, so I touched him on the shoulder, and said: “Do you know what’s holding us up?”
Without turning he said: “Half a minute.”
There was a good deal of shouting in French going on outside between the engine-driver, the guard, the head waiter of the restaurant car, and the various station officials. I speak French moderately, but I could make nothing of the broad, shouted vowels at the far end of the platform. My companion understood, however, for he drew back into the corridor and said:
“They’re saying up there that there’s a goods train off the lines between here and Frasne. We may have to stay here till the morning.”
I was irritated and concerned, and immediately thought, of course, that I must telegraph to my colleague in Rome to tell him that I had been delayed. I exchanged a few remarks about French railways with my new companion, and then said:
“You must speak French very well. I couldn’t understand a word of what that fellow was shouting.”
He nodded. “I worked for some years in the French part of Canada, in Quebec. I got used to queer sorts of French out there.”
Presently the conductor came down the corridor and repeated to us the substance of what we had already learned. He passed on, and we stood chatting together for a few minutes. Then I said:
“If you’re travelling alone, we might have dinner together.”
He smiled. “I’m all by myself; I should like to. It seems about the only thing to do—to have a damn good dinner and make the best of it.”
I nodded. “Well, I’ll join you presently. I must see if I can send a telegram.”
He said: “They’ll send it from the booking-office for you.”
I went and sent my telegram, and came back to the train. My new acquaintance was still standing in the corridor; from a distance I had time to make a quick inspection of him. He was dressed quietly and well, in a dark suit. He was a tall man, six feet or six foot one in height, of rather a
slender build. He had black hair, sleek and brushed back from a high forehead. His face was lean and tanned, and rather pleasant. I judged him to be of a highly strung, rather sensitive type, probably with a very short reaction time. I took him for an officer on leave, possibly in the Air Force. It was no surprise to me when I heard later that he was of a Scotch family.
We chatted for some minutes in the corridor; then they came to summon us to dinner and we went through to the restaurant car. Darkness had fallen; there was nothing to be seen from the windows of the train but the little station platform on one side, and the swaying of the branches of the trees on the other. We were marooned right in the middle of a forest, miles from anywhere.
I pulled down the blind beside our table, and turned to the wine list. “It’s a great nuisance, sticking here, like this,” I said absently, studying the card. “I ought to have gone out by Imperial Airways.”
“So ought I.”
There was a turn in his voice that drew my attention from the Burgundy and made me raise my head.
“Do you usually go by air?”
He hesitated. “I ought to explain. I’m one of the Senior Masters in Imperial Airways. I’m going out to pick up a flying boat at Brindisi.”
I said: “Indeed? I should have thought you would have flown out.”
“I would have done normally, but all the boats this week are leaving with full loads. We’re doing a lot of business these days.” He paused, and then he said, “I don’t suppose you know my name. It’s Ross—Donald Ross.”
I smiled. “My name is Morgan. I’m going out to Rome.”
The waiter came to my elbow, making an interruption; I turned again to the wine list, consulted Ross, and gave our order to the waiter. Then I turned back to the lean tanned man opposite me. “That’s really very interesting. Were you with Imperial Airways when you were in Canada?”
He shook his head. “They don’t operate in Canada. No,
that was with a much smaller concern, some years ago. In Quebec. We used to run down as far as Rimouski, and up to Eastmain and Fort George in Hudson Bay, and on to Churchill. Those were the regular routes. On special trips, of course, we used to go anywhere—all over the north.” He smiled. “That’s where I learnt my French.”
“But were there many passengers up there?”
“Not many. Trappers and prospectors, mostly, and hunting parties in the summer.” He paused. “But then, we carried everything they needed: kerosene, mining machinery, sacks of flour, tinned foods, petrol, dresses for the squaws, pigs and goats—everything you can think of.”
“Extraordinary.”
“It’s cheaper to take those things in by air than by canoe, with a portage every ten miles.”
The waiter came and took away the soup plates, and brought the fish. We ate in silence for a time. I was thinking, not for the first time, of the wide lives open to the young men of to-day. With their experience behind them, the world should be well governed when they come to power.
In the end I remarked: “I’ve lived a very different life to you. I’m a psychiatrist—a doctor, of a sort.”
He said hesitantly: “That means a brain specialist, doesn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“I suppose you’re on holiday now?”
I said: “Not a bit. I’m on my way to Rome for a consultation.”
He digested that in silence for a time, probably wondering how much I got for going out to Rome. The fish plates were taken away, and they brought the gigot. When the waiter had gone, he said:
“You’ll forgive me, but I don’t know much about these things. Do you do dreams, and all that?”
I smiled. “To some extent. Dreams are useful, if you don’t try to read too much into them.”
“I see.”
We went on with the meal in silence. From time to time I shot a glance at my companion; he now had something on his mind. I was convinced of that; he was in a brown study. The courses came and went; he ate them mechanically, and several times refilled his glass with Burgundy. He was not the type to grow irresponsible or excited under liquor, but presently I knew, he would begin to talk. He did.
Over the dessert he said suddenly: “Would you say that dreams—exceptionally vivid dreams—meant that a chap was mentally unstable?”
I was very cautious in reply. I know that method of approach so well. I said: “It depends. If a patient reaches a condition when his dreams have more reality for him than his waking state—then, of course, he may be getting to a point when he will want some help.”
For all my care, I could see that he was worried by my answer. He was silent for a minute, and then he said:
“This only happened once. But it was all so real and vivid that the chap thought it was true, although, of course, it was really only a dream.” He paused, and then he said: “Would that mean that the patient was abnormal mentally?”
I replied: “Not necessarily. Many of us have strange experiences once or twice in our lives, and we don’t call ourselves abnormal. When did this thing happen?”
“Nearly five years ago.”
“And since that time, has the patient been quite normal?”
“Absolutely.”
“No other realistic dreams, or delusions?”
“Nothing at all.”
I smiled. “Then he should set his mind at rest. Whatever his dream was, he’s quite all right.” I paused, and then I said: “The mind heals like the body, you know.”
He stared at me across the table; there was a strained look about him, and I knew we were coming to the root of things. “You don’t think he’d be likely to go crackers as he got older?”
I met his gaze. “Not in the least.”
“I see.”
I said gently: “We’ve got a long evening before us. Would you like to tell me about it?”
Donald Ross is the son of a solicitor of Scotch descent, who was killed in 1915 at the battle of Loos. His mother was an Irish girl, from somewhere in the neighbourhood of Athlone. She did not survive her husband very long, dying of influenza in the epidemic of 1918. The young man therefore is of Celtic ancestry on both sides of the family, and he was left an orphan at an impressionable age, facts which may be significant.
He was brought up by his aunt, Janet Ross, a tall gaunt spinster who lived at Guildford and eked out a tiny income by teaching mathematics at a girls’ day school. She made great sacrifices for him, being Scotch. Out of her small means she gave him a good education, keeping him at school till he was nineteen years of age. It was not possible for her to find the money to send him to a boarding school; during his adolescence they lived together in a small house in a row upon the outskirts of the town. He seems to have been fond of her, so far as was permitted by so bleak a character as hers.
She would have sent him on to Oxford had the funds permitted, but that was quite impossible. So she did what seemed to her to be the next best thing, and one which coincided with his own desires. She sent him into the Royal Air Force for five years, on a short-service commission.
“Ye’ll live with folks of your ain station in life,” she said, “which ye’ll nae do if you bide with me in Guildford. And mind ye make gaid use of the time, for it’s costing a mint of money.”
He passed into the Royal Air Force without difficulty, for he was intelligent and well educated, and superbly fit. He became a pilot officer and learned to fly; after a year or so he was promoted to flying officer and sent to Egypt. He spent practically the whole of his service in Egypt and Iraq. During this time he flew about a thousand hours. He had one or two small accidents, but nothing serious; he suffered
no injuries. He had one slight touch of sunstroke at Basra due to going out without his topee; with this he was in hospital for about a week. He had no malaria. Being of so spare a build, he was not much worried by the heat.
He left the Royal Air Force with a small gratuity early in 1929. At that time aviation was booming in the United States and Canada. The rise in stock values brought a great flood of money to the speculative aviation market, and enterprises were promoted and subscribed for companies and air lines of all sorts, the majority of which had very little hope of making profits. This flood of money meant the purchase of new aeroplanes in great numbers; with that there came the need for men to fly them. For a few months there was an acute shortage of experienced pilots in the States and Canada.
