SOME YEARS AGO I came upon the historical story of the discovery of America by Leif Ericsson in A

Introduction

Some
years ago
I came upon the historical story of the discovery of America by Leif Ericsson in
a.d.
1003. I think this is one of the most fascinating adventures in history. This was no grandiose expedition of great people setting out in pomp and dignity from all the splendour of a Spanish royal court. This was a journey by the common man, a farmer, seeking to get a load of lumber to build cowhouses and discovering America on the side. I prefer that sort of story myself.

I put a very little of it into a novel which was published in 1939. During the war years the story stayed in my mind as one of the best I knew; I told it many times in wardrooms and in messes, and many times I kicked myself for only having written a small part of it. At the end of 1944 I was demobilized, and filled in time while waiting to go out to Burma on another job by writing the whole story out in full. I did not want to write it as another novel on the same subject, so I wrote it as the treatment for a film. That is the story in this book.

All the historical characters that I have named were real people, and their actions were substantially as I have described them. I have deviated from history in one very small particular at the extreme end of the story; the student may have fun in finding out this liberty. Apart from that, the story is as true a representation of what happened as any novelist can be expected to produce.

I could not have written it without great help from Mr. Edward F. Gray, both in person and through his book
Leif Eriksson.
I have also used
The Norse Discoverers of America
by Gaythorne-Hardy,
In Northern Mists
by Nansen,
The Viking Age
by Du Chaillu,
The Vikings of Britain
by D. P. Capper, and
The Voyages of the Norsemen to America
by Hovgaard. To all these authors I tender my thanks for much that has amused and interested me, but especially to Mr. Gray whose book constitutes the most modern research into this old story.

Nevil Shute

VINLAND THE GOOD

(The story opens with a scene in the masters' common room of an English public school. The
Headmaster
is talking to two of his senior assistant masters; they are between sixty and seventy years old. There are several other masters in the room; all are elderly because the time is immediately after the European war, and the young masters have not yet returned from service. These elderly masters should be serious types; they must not be farcical.)

(
The room should be a high, bare room, sparsely furnished with little more than a long table and a few hard chairs. There should be a picture of the Colosseum and several group photographs of the staff in bygone years upon the walls.
)

HEADMASTER Now about this period of American History for the Lower Fifth. It won't do them much good to know about the History of the United States, but there seems to be a demand for it from the parents, and we must move with the times. I should like one of you to take that on.

FIRST ASST. MASTER Which period had you in mind?

HEADMASTER Monday, ten to eleven.

SECOND A. M.
(Quickly)
But that's when they do their Greek Testament! Surely you aren't going to give the History of the United States precedence over the Greek Testament?

HEADMASTER How stupid of me. Well, it will have to be Thursday between three and four. We could start them off to-day.

SECOND A. M.
(Ponderously)
I'm afraid it's hardly in my line. I know nothing about America, except that their police force seems to be remarkably inefficient. Keystone Police, I think they call them.

FIRST A. M. I take the Upper Fourth for grammar in that period. If we've got to teach them all this modern nonsense you'll have to find someone else. Isn't anybody joining us this term at all?

HEADMASTER Well, there's Callender— he's coming back today. I had a telegram. We might try him with it. After all, it isn't very important.

FIRST A. M. Young Callender, who went off to the war in 1939?

HEADMASTER That's the one.

SECOND A. M. I don't remember him. What was he like?

HEADMASTER He's in this group.
(Turns to a framed group of masters as in
1939,
and points out an undeveloped, weedy young man to them.)
That's Callender.

SECOND A. M. I don't know that I think much of him. Could he keep his form in order?

HEADMASTER No.

FIRST A. M. After six years in the Army he may have learned to manage a few boys. Anyway, he's six years older now. Wasn't History one of his subjects, by the way?

HEADMASTER Now you mention it, I think it was.

SECOND A. M. Was he a good scholar?

FIRST A. M. Good enough to take this nonsense off our shoulders.

HEADMASTER He took a Second at Oxford, but he was always very eccentric. (
The others nod with understanding.
) I remember when he put the Lower Sixth to writing an account of Mae West taking tea with the Archbishop of Canterbury, in Greek Iambics. I had to speak to him quite sharply about that.

[ DISSOLVE TO:

School Entrance

(
Major Callender
is driving in to the school grounds in a very old taxi driven by a very old man.
Callender
is a vigorous man of about twenty-seven, sunburnt, with a slightly whimsical expression. He is dressed in very new civilian clothes but his luggage is all service—bedding roll, kitbag, etc.; he carries a service waterproof with the major's crown still on the epaulette. He sits upright on the edge of the seat, looking keenly and enthusiastically at the familiar school grounds
—
mown lawns, tall elm trees, etc. The taxi draws up at the Headmaster's house, and
Callender
gets out.
)

[CUT TO:

Headmaster's Study

(
This is a well-furnished, comfortable room, lined with bookcases. There is a bust of Plato, and a large picture of the Acropolis. The
Headmaster
is seated at his desk. A very old
Butler
opens the door.
)

BUTLER Major Callender is here, sir.

HEADMASTER Major . . . Oh, of course. Show him in.

(He gets up from his desk to greet
Callender,
who comes in to the room enthusiastically.)

HEADMASTER My dear boy, it's a very great pleasure to see you here again, after all these years.

CALLENDER I'm terribly sorry to arrive so late, sir. There was
some
bloody muck up—
(The
Headmaster
winces.
)—about my demobilization, and I didn't leave Palestine till Monday, and then there was a balls about my transport. But I managed to cadge a lift in a Beaufighter that was going down to Cairo, and there I said I had despatches for the War Office—you've got to say something, you know—and I got a ride in a Dakota. We put down at Athens and Rome and got in yesterday morning. I got myself some civvy clothes and came straight here.

HEADMASTER (Glancing
at the print of the Acropolis)
Athens —Palestine. I have always wanted to pay a visit to the Holy Land.

CALLENDER
(Frankly)
I wouldn't go there if I were you—it's a stinking bloody place. Nothing but a pack of lousy Jews and Arabs slitting each other's throats. I'm damn glad to be out of it.

HEADMASTER
(Studying him thoughtfully)
Sit down, my boy, and tell me all about yourself. What have you been doing all these years? (
They light cigarettes from a silver box upon the desk.)

CALLENDER Well, I was an Ack-Ack gunner in the Battle of Britain, and then they sent me to Libya. I was in Tobruk all the siege. When we got relieved they kept me there, so that I got captured with the second Tobruk party. I was in a prisoners of war camp near Pisa for fourteen months, but I walked out of that when the Italians signed their Armistice. Five weeks after that I managed to get down and join up with our party at Anzio.

HEADMASTER But do you mean that you were wandering about behind the German lines?

CALLENDER That's right. It was bloody good fun.

HEADMASTER But could you talk Italian?

CALLENDER I can now. Anyway, after
that I turned over to the Parachute crowd. We dropped near Oustrehem the night before the Normandy show opened and managed to hold on until the Pongos got to us; that was a good party. Then I got in to another one that wasn't quite
so
hot, at Arnhem. I got taken prisoner when we had to pack up, but I got away. It's pretty easy to do that in the first few hours, you know.

HEADMASTER
(Faintly)
I suppose it is.

CALLENDER Well, after that they sent me out to Palestine, and here I am.

HEADMASTER Do you know, that's a very wonderful story of adventure.

CALLENDER Is it? I suppose it might look like that to you. It's six wasted bloody years to me. When you're in the Army you've just got to do your best with the next thing that turns up, and chance it. Thank God it's all over.

HEADMASTER Do you think that after all this roving about you'll be able to settle down to our quiet life here, and our rather humdrum affairs? They are very important to us, you know. I have known the most bitter feuds arise among the staff over a minor alteration in the timetable, or the allocation of an hour to chemistry.

CALLENDER Don't worry about that. All the time that I've been roving about, as you call it, I've been thinking of this place, and wanting to get back here to the dear old school. All through, when everything has been thoroughly raw and stinking, I've thought that I'd be coming back here one day, if I didn't buy it first. It's—it's quiet here, and dignified, and serene.

HEADMASTER You felt like that about it?

CALLENDER It's meant a great deal to me, while I've been in the Army, having something like this to look forward to.

HEADMASTER I'm glad of that. You don't think that it will prove to be too gentle a life for you now?

CALLENDER No. I've been offered a lot of jobs in the last few months, but I turned them all down because I wanted to come back here.

HEADMASTER What sort of jobs?

CALLENDER
Commercial things. The best of them was a chap who wanted me to start a Continental selling agency for an electric razor—absolutely cracking job, half the cost of the American ones and a better article. He offered fifteen hundred a year and commission—live in Paris. But I turned it down. I wanted to come back here.

HEADMASTER (A
little uncertainly)
Well, money isn't everything.

CALLENDER Damn right, it's not.

HEADMASTER Well now, as you know, term started yesterday. I take it that you've come prepared to start work at once?

CALLENDER Any time you say, sir. The sooner the better. I shall be a bit rusty on some subjects, I'm afraid, but I expect I'll get by.

HEADMASTER Well, I was thinking that we might break you in gently. History was your special subject, so far as I remember. How would you like to concentrate on teaching History for this first term? I could arrange for you to take the Upper Fourth, and the Upper and Lower Fifth, and the Remove, and the Lower Sixth —all in History. And perhaps Latin for the Third Form, the very little boys.

CALLENDER
(Gratefully)
That's awfully kind of you, sir. That would give me time to get settled down and mug up all the subjects I've forgotten.

HEADMASTER You're fairly sure about your History, are you?

CALLENDER Oh, yes. I read a lot when I was in the prison camp in Italy. I was allowed to use a library in Pisa that had some good stuff in it.

HEADMASTER Splendid. The Lower Fifth are starting on the History of the United States this term. You could start them off on that this afternoon, if you feel up to it at such short notice.

CALLENDER That's all right by me. Just general, introductory stuff, I suppose?

HEADMASTER That's it—just a general introduction to the subject for this first lesson. We can plan a detailed syllabus to-morrow.

(
Outside the school bell begins to toll, and there is the sound of shuffling boys' feet. The
Headmaster
and
Callender
leave the study and walk through typical outdoor school scenes to the classroom block and upstairs to a classroom, passing through and mingling with the crowds of boys. All through these short scenes the bell is tolling. In the classroom the boys settle at their desks. They are about sixteen years of age, typical English schoolboys, interested in the sight of a new master and resolved to make his life a burden if they can get away with it. The
Headmaster
and
Callender
mount the dais and face them; the boys become quiet, and the bell stops.
)