An Old Captivity (8 page)

There was a little pause.

“If only I could feel that he’d be well looked after if he did get ill …” she said.

“Well, that’s a real point, I admit. Let’s see now if we can’t get over that.”

On Monday morning Ross left Guildford by an early train. He was depressed about the whole affair, but he had heard nothing from Lockwood and so his arrangement to go to Coventry held good. He got to the works at about half-past eleven and was shown into Mr. Hanson’s office.

The secretary met him with a smile. “I think you will
be able to go straight ahead to-day, Mr. Ross,” he said. “I have drafted this letter of engagement. If you would read it through now, I will have it re-typed for Sir David to sign.”

The pilot sat down with the letter. A flood of relief swept over him; it was quite all right. He had got the job. Now he had a straight run of well-paid, interesting work to get his teeth into—a hard job, maybe, but not more than he could manage. He would increase his reputation if he pulled this off successfully.

He read the letter carefully. “That’s quite in order,” he said. “That covers everything.”

“All right. Sir David will sign it this afternoon.” The secretary put it with the other papers on his desk. “Now you will want to get to work, I expect. I hear you’re going to have another passenger.”

The pilot stared at him. “Who’s that?”

“Miss Lockwood. I understand she’s going with her father.”

F
OR a minute the pilot sat silent, stunned by this announcement. He had the good sense to say nothing till he had reflected a little. He did not want to lose a good job, but he couldn’t possibly take that infernal girl in the machine with them. The flight would be difficult enough in any case; with her nagging at his elbow all the time it would become impossible.

He said quietly at last: “I hadn’t reckoned on that. That makes it very difficult.”

The secretary was genuinely surprised; he took off his eyeglasses. “Why is that? I understand that the machine was to be a seven-seater.”

Ross was accustomed to dealing with the uninformed.
He said patiently: “It’s designed to carry seven people on short hauls, when you don’t have to lift much fuel. But this is different. I shall have to carry petrol for fifteen hundred miles on some of these hops, if we’re going to be safe. There’s going to be mighty little load to play about with when you’re carrying that weight of fuel. An extra passenger means you can take less petrol.”

“I see. I hadn’t realised that there would be that difficulty.”

The pilot bit his lip. “It’s not the only one.”

“What other difficulties are there, Mr. Ross?”

“There’s the accommodation. I’d only reckoned to take one tent.”

“But you can take another tent?”

“Surely, but it all weighs more. There’s her emergency rations, and her sleeping bag and luggage, and her seat. They all put up the weight, and that means less fuel still.”

He paused. “I’d like to think this over, Mr. Hanson, before deciding one way or the other. It’s a pretty serious thing to have to take a passenger upon a show like this who can’t do anything to help. It’s all adverse, if you understand me. You add to the risks without getting anything for it.”

The secretary said: “I understand what you mean. Let me have a talk with Sir David, Mr. Ross. It may be that she could go out by boat.”

The pilot nodded. “That would be much better, if she’s got to go at all. The photographer will have to go by boat in any case, even if it means he’s got to stay there all the winter till the next boat comes to fetch him home. After all, Mr. Lockwood is the only one who’s really pressed for time.”

“I don’t suppose Miss Lockwood could stay in Greenland all the winter, Mr. Ross.”

The pilot thought that that would be the best thing that could happen to her, but didn’t care to say so.

Hanson picked up his papers and went through to the inner office to consult his chief; presently Ross was called in. Sir David looked him up and down. “Mr. Hanson tells me that there’s a difficulty about Alix,” he said.

Ross said: “Taking her makes the flight a good deal more difficult, sir. It adds to the load, and so cuts down the fuel that I can take off with. And on this job I’ll want all the range I can get.”

The manufacturer stared at him. “Do you mean the aeroplane won’t be big enough to do the job?”

The pilot hesitated. “That’s more or less what it comes to.”

“Well, get a bigger aeroplane.”

Ross was at a loss for a moment. Sir David saw his difficulty, and leaned forward on his desk. “See here, Mr. Ross,” he said. “You’ve just got to revise your plans, and that’s all there is to it. There was one passenger—now there are two. I’ve decided that Alix is going with her father, and that’s all about it. If the alteration means I’ve got to spend more money, work it out with Mr. Hanson and let me know how much more. But don’t come up with any silly nonsense that it can’t be done, or I’ll get another pilot. I tell you that straight.”

The pilot met his eyes. “It’s making a difficult job more difficult,” he said. “You’d better realise that, sir. It’s not altogether a matter of the weights, nor the size of the machine.”

The secretary shifted slightly.

Sir David said: “I see. You mean it’s Alix herself.”

Ross nodded. “I don’t think Miss Lockwood is very well fitted to go on an Arctic expedition, sir.”

“In fact, you won’t take her?”

“I’d like to think that over for a bit. It’s going to add to my difficulties to take any girl on the trip. If you pile too much on me the flight may be a failure, and we’ll all be sorry then.”

“She gave you a bit of the rough side of her tongue, I suppose?”

The pilot smiled. “She did, but I wouldn’t let that worry me. The trouble is, she doesn’t believe in the flight at all. She thinks it’s useless and extravagant. As a matter of fact, she thinks I’m doing all I can to swindle you. And I tell
you straight, sir, I don’t much fancy having that at my elbow all the way.”

“I see.” The manufacturer was silent for a minute. “Why didn’t you talk like this at first, instead of coming out with all that stuff about the aeroplane not being big enough?”

The pilot smiled. “I didn’t know how you’d take it,” he said simply.

The older man grunted. He eyed the pilot for a minute. “I want Alix to go on this trip,” he said. “My brother’s not a young man, and the girl’s offered to go with him. She’s got a good heart, Mr. Ross.” The corners of his mouth twitched ever so slightly.

The pilot considered the position for a moment. He wanted to be reasonable. “I’ve told you that I’d like to have a bit of time to think it over,” he said. “Would you agree to leave it open for a week or so? I’ll go ahead and make my plans upon the basis of two passengers. If I find it’s really going to make things too difficult to take Miss Lockwood, I’ll come and tell you so in good time. Then you can get another pilot, or send a man with Mr. Lockwood instead.”

Sir David thought about it for a minute. “I’ll give you this next week. You’ll be seeing Alix again, Mr. Ross. Try and get alongside her. I want her to go, and I’d just as soon you had the job as anybody else.”

Ross nodded. “I’ll do my best, sir. I’ve only spoken to her twice, but each time we had a bloody row.”

“Well, see you don’t have a third.”

Ross went back into Hanson’s office and began upon the preparations for the flight. That afternoon they put in a transatlantic telephone call to Johnnie Finck, in Detroit. It came through at about four o’clock, clear and distinct.

“Hey, Johnnie,” said the pilot. “This is Ross—Donald Ross, used to be with Cooper in Quebec. That’s right. How are you keeping? How’s Rosie? Fine. Look, Johnnie—I want a ship, a new ship for delivery at once.”

The secretary listened on another receiver as they talked.
“I want the wings and the fuselage all chrome,” the pilot said. “That’s important. Tell Edo that I want the colonial-type pontoons, the strongest he can build for beaching. They’ve got to be able to take it, where I’m going to.”

They talked for a quarter of an hour. When he put down the telephone Ross had placed his order for delivery on the quayside in New York, crated and packed for shipment, in three weeks’ time.

“It’s the best I can do,” he said, a little ruefully. “And that’s better than I hoped for. Add a fortnight for the crossing—that means we’ll have it in Southampton by June 25th. Then it’s got to be erected and tested, and have the camera and wireless installed. We shan’t get away before the first week in July.”

The secretary nodded. “Still, that leaves three weeks before you want to be in Brattalid.”

“And that may not be too much, either. We may be later starting or we may get stopped by weather.”

They worked together till six o’clock upon the programme of arrangements for the flight. Then they got on the telephone to Lockwood in Oxford. Ross left Coventry shortly before seven, and was in the study in Lockwood’s house by half-past nine. Alix was there; over a whisky and soda the pilot outlined to the don what had happened in Coventry. The girl sat quietly in a chair, saying nothing.

Presently Ross turned to her. “Sir David told me that you had decided to come with us, Miss Lockwood,” he said pleasantly.

She said, a little primly: “We decided that my father ought to have somebody with him.”

“Of course.” He turned again to the don. “Have you got a map of Brattalid? I want to get an accurate idea of the area to be surveyed, so that we can get quotations for the job.”

Lockwood raised his eyes. “Quotations?”

The pilot explained. “I talked this over with Mr. Hanson. If you agree, we thought it would be best to put the photographic work with a firm of repute who are used to this
sort of thing. You couldn’t go to better people than Photowork—they do this all over the world. I’m going to see them to-morrow. I was going to try and fix that they should send out a photographer ahead of us by one of the boats from Denmark, to meet us in Julianehaab. He’ll probably have to start within the next fortnight to get there in time.”

“That seems to be a very good arrangement, Mr. Ross.”

“I think it will be, if I can get them to take the job upon those lines. I can get a man who’s used to aero engines, too—most of their photographers are ground engineers as well. He’ll be able to give me a hand with the maintenance of the machine.”

“Is that a very big job?”

“There’s a lot of work in it—more than I’d care to tackle single-handed for any length of time. You must have help with a machine like that.”

The don got up and poured him out another whisky and soda. “Have you made out a route yet, Mr. Ross?”

Ross took the glass. “We’ll have to go by Reykjavik and Angmagsalik,” he said. “I’d really rather have started from the other side—from Halifax in Nova Scotia, or Quebec. I believe it would be easier that way. But it wouldn’t be practical. Hanson or somebody would have to come over there with me right away, and you’d have to join us over there later. I’m afraid that’s all too difficult. It’s not practical to organise a flight over here and start it from America. Not in the time.”

“I suppose not.”

“I decided against that. In July we should be quite all right, going from here through Iceland. There’s really only the pack ice at Angmagsalik—that’s going to be a worry, but we’ll have to take our chance of that.”

“Do you mean that there won’t be water for the seaplane to land on?”

The pilot shook his head. “There should be plenty of water at that time of the year. But as I understand it, the sea’s never quite free from little bits of floating ice at
Angmagsalik, even in the middle of the summer. If we hit one of those and rip a float up taking off, that finishes the expedition for this year.”

The don nodded without speaking.

Ross hesitated. “I wish we hadn’t got to go so far up north, but I can’t see any way out of it. There’s one thing, though. If you agree, I’d like to lay down fuel supplies for us to come back home the other way. Over to Hopedale in Labrador, down to Halifax, and finish up at New York.”

“By all means, if you prefer it. Why do you want to do that?”

“I think it might be easier. The middle of September; that’s the equinox. It’s three months after mid-summer—getting a bit wintry up in those parts, Mr. Lockwood. I don’t much like the thought of going up so far as Angmagsalik and Reykjavik so late in the season. We might run into trouble, and we don’t want that.”

He paused. “There’s another thing. We’d sell the machine second-hand more easily on that side than on this.”

Lockwood opened an atlas on his desk. The pilot crossed the room and bent over his shoulder. “There you are,” he said. He traced the route with his finger. “Over to Hopedale—after that we’re practically back in civilised parts.” He stared at the map reflectively. “Battle Harbour might be better.”

The don smiled. “Hopedale,” he said thoughtfully. “I like your idea of civilised parts.”

The pilot nodded. “It’s only about 600 miles from there down to Halifax. They’ve got everything you want there.”

From the atlas they turned to a study of the land round Brattalid. The only map they had was a very sketchy one forming part of an archæological paper, which was at pains to indicate that it was not guaranteed. “I’ll have to see if they can help me at the Danish Legation,” said Ross. “But very probably there is no map. They may come and ask for the loan of our photographs when we get back, to make a map from. I’ve known that happen before now.”

They talked far on into the night. The pilot went to bed a very tired man.

Again he woke up early, and went down into the garden before breakfast. The girl was there before him; he approached her cordially. “I’m glad you’re coming with your father, Miss Lockwood,” he said. He must try and make the best of it. “It’s going to be quite a strenuous trip, and it’ll help him to have you there.”

She nodded. “It wouldn’t be possible for him to go alone,” she said a little coldly. “There’s one thing, Mr. Ross. Most people say ‘Sir’ when they speak to my father. Now that he’s engaged you, I think you ought to do the same.”