Death in a High Latitude, page 17
Thus we owed our discovery to Ruth, who had the wits to look about her. I was stopped by a shout, ‘Peter! Over there!’
She was pointing to something on our right, a hundred yards or so below our line of march. My instinct was to slip the safety catch of the rifle as I turned, expecting to see a bear. But there was nothing obviously threatening us; indeed, for a moment or two I could not make out what was exciting her. Then I saw it, too – a marked change in the landscape, with what looked like a band of dark earth instead of rock, for some reason more or less clear of snow, falling away at a right angle to our route. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said, ‘but I’ve seen an exposed opencast seam before, and I think that might be coal.’
Carefully watching where we walked, we went over to have a look. The geology of the place was weird, but the whole wilderness was so bleak and dreary that local differences did not stand out unless you looked closely. Here it seemed in some remote past half a hillside had fallen away, exposing a lower stratum of the local structure. To get to the black band we had to climb down a steep cliff, not noticeable from where we were because we were on top of it. The cliff seemed to have sheltered the area immediately below it from snow, and also from the prevailing wind, for at the foot of the cliff it seemed slightly warmer than on top, though probably there was not much in it, and what we were noticing was the absence of wind. But the change in microclimate made a profound difference and there were tufts of a heather-like little plant growing here and there, the first green we had seen since our wreck. The black stuff certainly looked coal-like. In places the surface was broken, and there were some loose lumps. They varied in texture from a sort of hard peat to something more like coal. ‘It’s either coal or lignite,’ I said. ‘As far as we’re concerned it doesn’t matter which, for whatever it is it ought to burn. Let’s see if we can light a fire.’
While Ruth and I had been examining the black band Keller had been resting at the foot of the cliff. ‘There’s a good place here,’ he called to us. ‘It looks like a cave.’
It was. It was not a big cave, not much more than a dent in the cliff, but it was shelter, with sides and a roof, and there was room for the three of us inside. Ruth and I carried over several lumps of our coal, and piled them just outside the cave. Using the machete I broke some into small pieces for lighting, and poured a little of our precious fuel over them. Then I put a match to the fuel-soaked coal, and our spirits rose with the splendid tongue of flame the match produced. Ruth went back for more coal from the seam, while Keller and I carefully built up our fire. Soon we had a really brisk fire crackling away, lovely to look at, and giving out a generous warmth.
As soon as we had our fire going we began to think that the one thing we really wanted was a cup of coffee. You can’t have everything – we had a fire, but there was no handy snow. ‘I’ll go back up the cliff,’ I said. ‘It won’t take long, and the snow there will make better water than the thin stuff round here.’ Feeling that the cave was home I took off my bulky lifejacket to be freer to climb, collected three empty soup cans, and set off. The site of our residence, however, turned out even better than we could have hoped. I had barely started to climb when I saw an icicle, and below it was a small runnel of half-ice, half-water. Some drops of water were running down the icicle. It was a spring, and for short periods of the year it would probably be proper water. It was more ice than water now, but there was plenty of it, and it solved our water problem – it was like having piped water on the spot! I filled the cans with broken ice and went back to the fire. They boiled quickly, and the meltwater from the ice was a big improvement on melted snow, which, however clean it looks when you collect it, always seems to give a grudging, muddy fluid. It also gives very little – a full can of snow yields only an inch or two of water.
With really boiling water, and ice rather than snow as the source of it, our coffee seemed the best we’d ever tasted. I leant against the rock wall of the cave, stretched my feet towards the fire, and invited discussion of what we should do next. ‘My own view,’ I said, ‘is that we should stay here until tomorrow morning. We all need rest, and we’re not likely to find anywhere better than this. The coal is a godsend in itself, and it may also be a valuable leading mark. We know that in some places in the region there is coal near the coast, and we may be within a mile or two of the shore. I shouldn’t be surprised if this valley runs down to it.’
‘It doesn’t seem to run in the right direction, at least, not in the direction where we thought we’d reach the coast,’ Ruth said.
‘It may be too local for that to matter. We can’t see the end of the valley from here, and it certainly looks as if it curls round that shoulder about half a mile away, which would make it about right. But I’d like to leave exploring until tomorrow, and concentrate on rest.’
Neither Ruth nor Keller needed much persuading. ‘It’s just after midday, now,’ I went on, ‘and I think the next thing is some food. It’s a pity we’ve got nothing to cook, but at any rate we can be warm while we eat. After lunch, I think Rolf should turn in. We’ll set watches as usual, but we’ll leave out Rolf for four watches. I’ll take the first after lunch, then Ruth, then I’ll come on again, then another turn for Ruth. That will give twelve hours to see what rest can do for getting over that fall.’
‘I’m not going to let you take any extra watches – I’m quite fit to stand my watch,’ Keller said.
‘I know you’d do it, but it’s not necessary,’ I argued. ‘You’re a third of our total strength and we need you fit – apart from any consideration for you, our own survival may depend on your fitness.’
Keller still didn’t like it. ‘What about the lady?’ he asked. ‘She needs rest, too. Let me share the first watches with you so that she can have unbroken sleep.’
‘There is no lady here. I’m an Oxford professor,’ Ruth objected.
We laughed. ‘There’s no arguing with that,’ I said.
He gave up. I was not wearing my lifejacket, so we added it to his and Ruth’s to make slightly better cushions in the cave. He turned in against one wall, and his need of rest was apparent for in a couple of minutes he was asleep.
Ruth was nearly as tired, but before turning in for her three hours off watch she stood outside the cave with me for a little. ‘Do you think we shall get through, Peter?’ she asked.
‘God knows,’ I said. ‘What worries me most is the extraordinary lack of activity by the Gould Bay party. There are eight of them there, well equipped, with good communications. It seems unbelievable that they shouldn’t have sent up the plane to look for us, and if they did send up the plane it seems unbelievable that we didn’t see or hear it. Nothing I can think of makes sense. I mean, you can imagine things like total radio failure which may have happened, but it’s unlikely that radio failure, with skilled operators, would persist for more than a few hours. And even if they lost contact with the helicopter by radio they must have been alarmed when we became physically overdue. I sometimes wonder if there may be a traitor in the party, deliberately out to lose us. But I can’t consider that seriously. Like everything else it doesn’t make sense.’
‘No,’ Ruth said. ‘The party are all Air Force or police, and I don’t see how your traitor could have got into it. I agree it’s puzzling that they don’t seem to have looked for us, but I’m less worried about that than you are, perhaps because I think mathematically. If you have a problem in maths that you can’t solve with any known data, you proceed to look for something you haven’t noticed before. And if you can’t, because you haven’t access to any more facts, you put it at the back of your mind until you can get at some more facts. We know that there is an explanation for whatever may have happened at Gould Bay, and it’s no use being worried because we don’t know it. I’m much more bothered about whether we ourselves can ever get anywhere. And I’m bothered all the time about you, Peter. You’re nowhere near fit for this kind of thing.’
‘We weren’t a bad partnership in getting Rolf out of his hole, and it was sharp-eyed of you to spot this seam of opencast coal. If we can reach the coast we can probably get somewhere in time. We must concentrate on the practical side of life. And the immediate practical need is for you to get some sleep. I’ll keep the bears away, and look after the fire.’
I thought that one of the best things I could do during my watch would be to collect a good pile of coal. It did not have to be carried far, about sixty to seventy yards, but getting it from the seam was hard work. Without a pick it would have been hard to break into, but natural weathering had to some extent done this for us. Here and there, towards the edges of the seam, the surface was cracked and pitted, and lumps of coal could be pulled away by hand. With the machete to assist I could even be selective about the size of lump I took. I kept the rifle slung during my mining and coal carrying work. I didn’t want to find myself with a bear between me and the rifle.
No bear appeared, and after about a dozen trips I had a fine dump of coal beside the fire – enough, I thought, to last the night. In our present luxury there was no reason why the watchkeeper should not have a mug of coffee, so when I’d dealt with the fire I fetched another can of ice from the spring and brewed up. Another blessing of the fire was that you didn’t have to keep on the move the whole time. I sat on a rock in the pleasant lee of the fire and savoured my coffee.
*
Ruth’s dismissal of what I called the Gould Bay Problem was all right as far as it went, and was certainly a practical approach – why waste mental effort on a problem that you know you cannot solve? But my mind is not so disciplined as hers, and I couldn’t stop thinking round it. The only solution that made some sort of sense was my wild theory of a traitor in the party. This was the place for practising Ruth’s dismissal principle – if I couldn’t see how a traitor could have joined the party forget it, and just assume that he had. If so, I thought that one thing followed – we must be near the mark, and there might be a real chance of coming across Apfel. What the three of us could do then I didn’t know – time to meet that problem if and when it arose.
With coal-work, coffee and reflection my watch passed quickly. I was reluctant to wake Ruth and felt ready to extend my own watch, but she has a mind equipped with clocks as well as computers and within five minutes of the time my watch was due to end she woke herself and came out. I made some coffee for her, handed over the rifle, and took my turn on the lifejackets. With a slight warmth from the fire coming into the cave and a flicker of flame to look at, I felt that I had never been more comfortable in my life. I must have been more tired than I realised, for in spite of having so much to think about I was asleep almost as soon as my head touched the lifejacket, and it seemed only a moment later that Ruth was kneeling beside me, shaking my shoulder gently. ‘It’s horrid to wake you up, darling, and I hate doing it, but you’ve brought me up to obey orders,’ she said.
*
Ruth had made up the fire before calling me, and there wasn’t much to do. I was refreshed by my sleep, and I wanted to explore what I called Coal Valley, but my job was to guard the cave and it wouldn’t do to move away from it. The day had clouded over and we seemed to be in for another bout of mist: exposed in the wilderness it would have been miserable, but with the fire and our cave we were all right. At ground level visibility was still fair, and I was contemplating a trip to the spring for ice when I thought I saw something move on the far side of the coal seam. I felt automatically for the binoculars which would normally have been hanging round my neck – but they had not survived the crash. I edged round to the cave side of the fire, so that the fire was between me and whatever was in the valley. Yes, there was definitely something . . . A moment later I made out a monster of a polar bear, coming towards us. I slipped the safety catch of the rifle, and waited.
The bear did not seem to be put off by the fire, but he advanced cautiously. Probably he had never seen a fire before, and was curious about it. I wondered if he could scent us, and hoped that the rather acrid smoke from the fire might disguise whatever scent we gave.
Although frightening, he was a beautiful creature and I had no wish to kill him. I hoped he would go away. But he didn’t. He seemed in no particular hurry, and paused to sniff at a tussock of the heather-like plant growing near the coal seam. It was more or less on the line from the seam to the cave that I’d followed on my coal carrying job earlier, and I wondered if I’d left some scent on it. If I had he was encouraged rather than discouraged by it, raised his head in a determined fashion and came on.
I couldn’t let him get to the cave. And I couldn’t risk firing too soon for fear of wounding and not killing him, and having a maddened animal rushing at us and thrashing about. A big bear is well protected by his massive fur, and I didn’t know which part of his huge body to aim for. I decided that I’d wait until he got within certain range and aim for his head. But I still hoped that he would go away.
It was no good. He came on steadily, apparently determined to investigate the fire and the cave. When he was about a dozen yards away I aimed between his eyes and fired. He reared up in a kind of shocked surprise, stood upright for a moment, and then fell over on his side, to lie still.
The sound of the shot roused Ruth and Keller, and they ran out of the cave – at least one advantage of our state was that we never had to lose time in getting dressed, for we had nothing but the clothes we wore, and apart from the lifejackets it was too cold to take off anything. They didn’t see the bear at once. ‘What’s happening?’ Ruth asked.
I pointed to the bear. ‘I think it’s dead, but we’d better wait a little to make sure,’ I said. I could have pumped some more rounds into the body as we had into the bear that had attacked Ruth, but I didn’t want to. That earlier encounter was different. Then the bear was threatening Ruth, we were desperately afraid for her, and we fought in hot blood. Now I had killed because the bear could not be allowed to stay near the cave, and not knowing enough about polar bears I did not know how to drive him off. I had not wanted to kill him, I should have preferred him to live and leave us alone. I had no sense of triumph in the killing. I just felt sad.
The beast was dead when Keller saw it and he reacted differently. ‘Fresh food!’ he said. ‘I shall cook a splendid dinner for us all tonight.’
‘You’re supposed to be resting,’ I said. ‘We could certainly do with some fresh food, but Ruth and I will look after it’
‘No. I learned how to skin a bear on my Arctic course – it was not a polar bear, but I expect it’s much the same. Thank goodness we have the big knife. I’ve had five hours sleep, and I feel fine. What a marvellous place this is, house, fire, food and water all provided.’
There was no point in trying to make him go back to rest. He looked better, and it was probably good for him to have something practical to do. The shock of the past few days had been worse for him than for us. We had merely been in danger for ourselves, but Keller had lost fellow countrymen and loyal subordinates from his own force, for whom he felt responsible. He was a German policeman investigating a crime that seemed to have been committed in Germany, but it was part of a complex network of events, many of which had happened in England, and he had met disaster in the Arctic because of the theories of an English investigator whom he had tried to help. It would have been understandable if he had felt some bitterness, but if he did he did not show it. He was a fine man and a magnificent ally. He had a right to cook bear steaks if he wanted to.
*
They were certainly good eating, and I’m afraid we made rather gluttons of ourselves. Partly this was because although we had food and fire, the conditions were primitive. We had nothing to cook with, and the best we could do was to cook our steaks in the embers, turning them with the machete. Keller and I had pocket knives, but Ruth’s personal cutlery consisted of a pair of scissors and a nail file. Our meat was liberally coated with ash and we had to eat with our fingers, but with ration-biscuits to accompany it we made a princely meal. Keller cut a couple of big joints from the bear, and we put these to roast slowly in hot ashes, planning to take them with us cold next day.
Well-fed and comfortable we sat round the fire. ‘I’m much encouraged by the coal seam,’ Keller said. ‘It’s another piece of evidence that fits. When you hear of something thousands of miles away there’s an extraordinary sense of achievement in actually finding it. I feel hopeful about tomorrow.’
‘I feel less and less inclined to leave here. We could do worse than become settlers in the Arctic.’
‘It might be all right for you,’ Ruth said, ‘but I feel more and more that I want a bath. I wonder if I shall ever see a bathroom again?’
‘Be hopeful, like Rolf. Tell me, Ruth, what exactly does this coal seam indicate?’
‘I keep explaining that I’m not a geographer. You can work it out as well as I can. From very elementary knowledge one can say it proves that the whole of this region of the Arctic once supported extensive vegetation.’
‘That would require a completely different climate,’ Keller said.
‘Yes, but we know there have been huge climatic changes over geological time. There’s no doubt about that.’
‘The problem is the extent to which some residue of a past warm climate may linger on the seabed, or in certain warm currents,’ I said. ‘Do you think there’s anything in it, Ruth? We’re coming nearer to your own field in trying to assess mathematical probability.’
‘I can’t give you any assessment of probability without having more facts. What I can say is that a mathematician of the calibre of Adrian Stowe, who you think was murdered in Hamburg, wouldn’t have done as much work on the problem as he did if he hadn’t thought there was something in it.’
‘There’s very little doubt that he was murdered,’ Keller said. ‘The case was not really investigated at the time, for much the same reasons that the death of Dr Jackson in Cambridge was at first not thoroughly investigated. As soon as we reopened the Stowe case it was obvious that it was by no means the straightforward suicide that it was meant to look like. Somebody was sufficiently impressed by his work on the theory to murder him for it.’
