Midnight Sun's Magic
Betty Neels
Mills & Boon presents the complete Betty Neels collection. Timeless tales of heart-warming romance by one of the world’s best-loved romance authors.How to convince Jake – Annis needed ideas! Finding romance didn’t seem likely in a place like Spitzenbergen, so close to the North Pole. But when Annis went there for a short time to work, she found herself falling in love with a handsome Norwegian, though the affair was brief and disappointing.So when Dutchman Jake van Germent, asked her to marry him, Annis was more than pleased to accept. He wasn’t handsome, but he had everything else she could possibly want! He knew about her Norwegian, too, and Annis found that she couldn’t make Jake believe that she had married him for love…
It was a bit off-putting to be asked to marry someone because his sister had left him to get married, and he needed someone to cook and clean.
“Not a very romantic proposal, I’m afraid, Annis, but I don’t pretend to compete with Ola—I don’t intend to, either.”
He bent over the sink so that she couldn’t see his face. “Do you believe in romance, my dear?”
“Not anymore.” She managed to make her voice light and when he looked at her, she smiled as well. “I’d rather be like us—good friends.” And because that didn’t seem quite enough she added, “And—and fond of each other.”
He didn’t answer, but presently, when he said good-night to her at her hut door, his kiss, quick and hard, made her hope—foolishly enough she had to admit—that perhaps in time he might grow more than fond.
Romance readers around the world were sad to note the passing of Betty Neels in June 2001. Her career spanned thirty years, and she continued to write into her ninetieth year. To her millions of fans, Betty epitomized the romance writer, and yet she began writing almost by accident. She had retired from nursing, but her inquiring mind still sought stimulation. Her new career was born when she heard a lady in her local library bemoaning the lack of good romance novels. Betty’s first book, Sister Peters in Amsterdam, was published in 1969, and she eventually completed 134 books. Her novels offer a reassuring warmth that was very much a part of her own personality. She was a wonderful writer, and she will be greatly missed. Her spirit and genuine talent will live on in all her stories.
Midnight Sun’s Magic
Betty Neels
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER ONE
THE DIN ON the ward was unbelievable, rising and falling like a stormy sea gone mad; children calling to each other, crying, screaming, shouting from their cots and beds, while those already up and dressed and able to eat their breakfast at the miniature table in the centre of the ward were darting up and down, evading the nurses trying to tie their bibs and settle them to their porridge, and accompanying these sounds was the constant thin cry of the babies in the side wards, wanting their next feed, the whole cemented together by the rattle of spoons in bowls and the thumping of mugs.
The young woman who had opened the door on to this uproar closed her eyes for a split second and a tiny frown marred her lovely features, but it was banished instantly as she opened them again, remarkable dark green eyes with long curling lashes, made all the more remarkable by the rich chestnut of her hair. She was a tall girl with a figure as striking as her face and she held herself well; her friends considered her to be a beauty, while the few who weren’t referred to her grudgingly as handsome, implying that she was too big and opulent for beauty. She paused now just inside the door and surveyed the ward with a practised eye; she had been Sister on the Children’s Ward at St Anselm’s for three years now and had grown accustomed to the turmoil around her, and she could see now that everything was just as it should be. She waved to the children at the table and without pausing again went straight to her office where the night nurses would be waiting.
With the report given and the pair of them gone, she re-read it, made up the day book so that each nurse knew what she had to do, glanced at the off duty book and was on the point of getting up from her desk when her staff nurse, Carol Drew, came in. She was a small, neat girl, devoted to her work, and they got on splendidly together.
She smiled as she came in, said ‘Good morning, Sister,’ and waited.
‘Morning, Carol—and for heaven’s sake stop calling me Sister when there’s no one around. I see Archie’s been sick twice. We’d better get Mr Potter to go over him again—we’ve missed something…’ She stretched out a hand for the telephone. ‘And Night Nurse says that Baby Scott isn’t feeding—he’d better have a look at her too. Is there anything else to worry us?’ She sighed. ‘I’ve an idea we’re in for a bad day.’
Carol nodded her head. ‘Me too—Baby Cook’s ready for theatre.’
‘I’ll take him up—I’ve just time to do a round first. How is breakfast going?’
Her staff nurse cast her eyes upwards. ‘The usual; we’re just starting to clear up the mess, I’ll go and see how they’re getting on.’ At the door she looked back. ‘I say, Annis, don’t you want to be here when Mr Potter comes?’
Annis Brown raised her magnificent head from the papers she was studying. ‘No, I don’t,’ she grinned, and looked much younger than her twenty-seven years. ‘You can have him.’
But she didn’t smile when Carol had left her. Arthur Potter was becoming a problem in her life; he was persistent in his wish to marry her, worthy to the point of being boring, an excellent doctor with an undoubtedly successful career before him and one of the dullest young men she had ever met. They had known each other for three years now and he was beginning to grow on her so that every now and then the unwelcome thought that she would eventually marry him was becoming increasingly difficult to dispel; the trouble was that she liked him as a friend—he was kind and considerate and non-demanding, he had an even temper and looked upon her occasional outburst with tolerance, and she found herself wishing more and more frequently that he might display some temper himself, or at least disagree with her.
The trouble was that she didn’t know what she wanted; to get married, of course, to remain a Ward Sister all her life had no appeal for her; she wanted a home and a husband and children of her own, but she hadn’t met anyone who had swept her off her feet and she was beginning to doubt if she ever would. She sighed and went into the ward, to become immediately engrossed in the sick little people who lived in it.
She went first to the table where the convalescents were eating the last of their breakfasts and sat down with them, idly eating a slice of bread and butter while she enquired as to how they felt; not that she was hungry, but she had discovered long ago that reluctant eaters were inclined to eat a slice with her while they talked and shouted and cried. Little Betty Wakes, the coeliac disease who had been with them for so long, she took on to her lap, comforting her while she grizzled—she grizzled a lot and from Annis’s point of view, she had every reason to do so. Presently, when she had discovered all she wanted to know about the children round the table, she carried Betty round the ward with her, stopping by each cot and small bed, reading charts, casting a knowledgeable eye over each occupant and occasionally pausing to speak to one or other of the nurses. It took her all of half an hour and she was back in her office just in time to meet Arthur Potter as he came along the corridor.
He was a tall thin young man, with hair already receding from a clever forehead, and his glasses emphasised his earnest manner. He greeted her gravely, reminded her that they were going out together that evening, and then became absorbed in Archie’s charts. By the time he had asked a few questions and pondered the symptoms it was time for Annis to gather up Baby Cook and bear him off to theatre for his pyloric stenosis to be corrected. He was a very small baby, and wizened through insufficient nourishment, but Annis kissed the top of the elderly little head, assured the infant that he would be as beautiful as any baby that lived in no time at all, a remark which Arthur, who had caught up with her in the ward, gently but seriously pointed out wasn’t quite accurate. Baby Cook would never be beautiful, however well fed he was; his eyes were small and squinted slightly, his hair was sparse and dull and his mouth too large. Annis told the doctor quite fiercely that he knew nothing about it, and sped away.
Baby Cook was to be done first. Annis stayed in theatre, giving a helping hand to the anaesthetist while the surgeons worked, and presently, when their work was finished, she picked up the small creature and bore him gently back to a side ward where one or other of her more senior student nurses would special him for the next twenty-four hours.
Annis laid him gently on to his cot, glanced at her watch and said: ‘We’ll start feeds in—let me see—three and three-quarter hours from now—four mls of glucose, nurse, and then two-hourly feeds alternating with glucose. I’ll let you know when to increase them and I want to know at once if he brings them up.’ She smiled at the girl, gave a final look at Master Cook and sailed away to superintend the dressings.
She had been right, the day was busy and full of small setbacks, so that by the time she got off duty that evening the last thing she wanted to do was go out with Arthur. There must be something wrong with her, she mused; they were such good friends and on the whole she enjoyed being with him, although she was honest enough to admit to herself that he bored her a little more each time she went out with him. No, not bored, she corrected herself. Everything they did together was done from habit, there was no excitement—surely, if she were in love with him, even the littlest bit, she would feel a thrill at meeting him, spending the evening with him, even seeing him on the ward? It was like putting on an old coat one was particularly fond of—it might do nothing for one, but it was comfortable. She frowned and poked around in her wardrobe, trying to decide what to wear. Something different, she decided, something to make Arthur look at her—really look at her. There was a dress she had bought at a sale some months back; it had looked lovely in the window, but when she had got it home it had been too daringly cut. Mindful of Arthur’s views on modesty in women, she had hung it at the back of her more discreet clothes and forgotten about it. Now some imp of mischief made her decide to wear it. It was a pretty colour, soft misty blue, and the material was pretty too, but the neckline was quite outrageous. All the same, she put it on, did her lovely face, allowed her hair to fall free and went down to the hospital entrance, prudently wrapped in a light coat.
‘You’ll be too warm,’ advised Arthur the moment he saw her. ‘It’s mid-May, you know.’
She assured him that she wouldn’t and climbed into the car—a Triumph, kept in tip-top condition and treated with care. A race down a motorway wasn’t in Arthur’s line, he preferred to do a steady fifty in the slow lane because it was better for the engine and didn’t use as much petrol, and in London now he travelled very slowly indeed. Annis who drove well if rather recklessly herself, reminded herself that Arthur was a good, steady driver who would never take risks. He would be a good steady husband too. She sighed and he asked at once: ‘Had a busy day? Children can be the very devil sometimes.’ He glanced sideways at her. ‘You and I will have had enough of them by the time we settle down.’
Annis, a good-tempered girl, gritted her splendid teeth, contemplating a lifetime ahead of her settling down in a pristine house with not a single child to muddy the floor or scuff the paint. How dull the future looked, and really it was so silly. She had no need to marry Arthur; it was simply that circumstances had thrown them continuously together for the last three years—besides, he hadn’t asked her, only taken it for granted that she would. Well, she wouldn’t. ‘Arthur…’ she began.
‘I prefer not to talk while I’m driving in town,’ he reminded her kindly. ‘I daresay it’s something that can wait until we’re at the restaurant.’
But once sitting at the table with him, she found it impossible. He was being at his nicest; considerate, thoughtful of her every wish, keeping the conversation pleasant. It was over the coffee that he asked her: ‘What was it you wanted to ask me, Annis?’
It was her chance, but she couldn’t take it after all, he looked so kind—so she shook her head and said that it didn’t matter.
But after a more or less sleepless night, she knew that she would have to do something about it, and the opportunity occurred sooner than she expected. Arthur had done a round with Mr Travers, the paediatrician, and stayed behind to write up fresh instructions on some of the charts. He sat at Annis’s desk while she altered the day book, perched on the only other chair in the little room, and presently, almost finished, he sat back and put his pen down.
‘That was rather a sexy dress you wore last night,’ he observed in a mildly reproving voice. ‘I can’t say that I entirely approve.’
‘You noticed it—that’s something, anyway. I’ve thought that just lately you don’t see me any more, only in the same way as you see your breakfast porridge or—or your stethoscope or pen…’ She went on crossly: ‘As to approving, it’s none of your business what I choose to wear.’
He looked surprised and vaguely displeased, but before he could say anything she went on, getting crosser every minute: ‘Arthur, do you intend to marry me?’
The displeasure was no longer vague. ‘My dear Annis, surely that’s a question which I should ask you?’
She had the bit well and truly between her teeth now. ‘Well, why don’t you?’
‘These things can’t be rushed,’ he told her with a patient tolerance which sent her temper soaring even higher. ‘We’re two busy people, we aren’t able to see each other as much as some men and women do—we have to get to know each other…’
She gaped at him. If you didn’t know someone with whom you worked each day and spent a good deal of your leisure with for the best part of three years, surely you should give it up as a bad job? And what about love, she thought confusedly—falling in love? Surely that came in a blinding flash all of a sudden, not after months of lukewarm affection? If Arthur had been in love with her, really in love, probably she would have married him even though she felt nothing but a deep regard for him. As it was she could see now, very clearly indeed, that she could never marry him. Even if she never married, she wouldn’t regret it. She said now: ‘I’m not the right wife for you, Arthur. I know we’re good friends and we’ve got used to seeing each other every day, but that’s not enough, not for me, anyway.’
He had picked up a chart and had his pen poised to write. ‘If that’s how you feel about it, Annis, then there’s no more to be said, is there?’
She couldn’t refrain from asking him: ‘Don’t you mind?’
He thought carefully before he answered. ‘Yes, at the moment I mind. I’d woven you into the pattern of my future…’
‘Yes, but the present, Arthur—never mind the future!’
He looked surprised. ‘But the future matters, Annis. I must make a success of it; do exactly what I’ve planned.’
‘Did you plan me into it, then?’
‘Oh, yes—later on.’
‘But I’m twenty-seven, Arthur!’
‘Another three or four years and we could have discussed marriage,’ he told her comfortably. ‘Neither of us, I fancy, would want children—our life would have been too busy.’ He smiled at her kindly. ‘If you like, we’ll forget the whole of this conversation.’
She wanted to cry, a mixture of rage and sorrow, she supposed miserably. ‘No, Arthur, I don’t want to forget it. We’ve—we’ve had a very pleasant friendship and I’m sure you’ll find someone exactly right for you.’
One who’ll wait patiently until he has his life exactly as he wants it and can fit a wife in without it interfering, she thought, and said out loud:
‘What shall we do about Archie? Do you suppose he’s cooking up something nasty?’
She could see the relief on his face as he began on the pros and cons of operating on Archie.
She wasn’t off duty until eight o’clock that evening and she didn’t mind; after a busy day she would be too tired to do more than have her supper, a bath, and then in her dressing gown, sit for a while drinking tea in one or other of the Sisters’ bedrooms.
An arrangement which didn’t mature. True, she got off duty and had her supper, but on her way over to the Home, Dodge, the head porter, singled her out from the little group crossing the entrance hall and handed her a letter.
‘Came this evening,’ he told her, ‘and got overlooked, Sister. I was just going to send it over to the Home.’
She recognised her brother’s writing and the Norwegian stamp as she took it, pushed it idly into a pocket, thanked Dodge and ran to catch up to the others. Freddy wrote spasmodically and infrequently and although they were a devoted brother and sister, she had long ago given up getting him to do otherwise. He was a few years younger than she and a clever atomic engineer whose work took him all over the world. At the moment he was in Spitzbergen, working with a team in some remote spot and glad to be there, for earlier in the year he had broken off his engagement to a girl Annis had privately considered not at all suitable for him to marry, and was mending a supposedly broken heart among the snow and ice and no girls for miles around. Annis, knowing him well, guessed that by the time he returned to civilisation he would be ready to fall in love all over again.
There was something worth seeing on the TV someone had offered and she went with the rest of them, to crowd round the box in the rather small, stuffy room which they all shared. It was mild for the time of year and still light, and in between watching they discussed summer clothes and holidays. Annis, listening to her friends arguing about the various places they would like to visit, wondered what she would do. There was Great-Aunt Mary at Mere, of course, always glad to see her or Freddy, for they were all the family she had and she had left it rather late to arrange anything else, for she had the first two weeks of her holidays in a month’s time when it would be the middle of June. She sighed a little and remembered her letter.
Freddy wrote briefly; he was never one to waste time on letters anyway. She read the few lines in a moment or two and then read them again, very slowly this time. Freddy wanted her to join him—the cook-cum-secretary-cum-nurse who was attached to the team had been flown back to Oslo with appendicitis and he had immediately thought of her to fill the gap and offered to get her there as quickly as possible. ‘It’s time you had a change,’ he wrote, cheerfully impervious to things like giving in her notice and whether she wanted to go anyway, ‘it’s almost summer here and you’ll love it—no real hard work and you couldn’t meet a nicer bunch of chaps than the team. Wire me when you intend to arrive. We can manage for a week or two, but make it sooner than that if you can. Will send information about how to reach us when I hear from you; send a radiogram.’
Her first impulse was to dismiss the whole thing as one of Freddy’s scatterbrained ideas. It was Nora Kemp, Sister on Women’s Surgical and a great friend of Annis, who asked her why she looked so surprised and when Annis told her, said at once: ‘But of course you must go! What a chance—you could always get taken back on the staff here, but I bet no one will ever ask you to go to Spitzbergen again. I wish he’d asked me.’
‘But they would want me at once—or in a week at most.’
Everyone was listening now and several voices joined in. ‘You’ve got holidays due,’ said someone, ‘three weeks, isn’t it? Well, you can give notice and leave at the end of the week. No reason why you shouldn’t—family matters, you know, and you’ve got Carol Drew as Staff, haven’t you? She’s quite able to step into your shoes.’
It was Peggy Trevitt, Junior Sister on Casualty, who offered slyly: ‘Perhaps Annis doesn’t want to go— Arthur might object.’
Annis shook her head. ‘Why should he?’ she wanted to know coolly. She didn’t like Peggy all that much.
‘Well, of course if you only went for a few weeks,’ conceded Peggy.
‘I’ve been thinking of a change, anyway,’ declared Annis, who hadn’t given the idea a thought until that moment. ‘I think perhaps I’ll go.’
That triggered off a lively discussion as to the clothes she should take with her and how she should get there.
‘By plane?’ asked Nora. ‘But is there anywhere where one can land up there? Surely it’s all rocks and mountains and ice…’
‘Boat?’ ventured Annis. ‘I don’t even know if people actually live there.’
‘Well, you soon will…’ There was a good deal of laughter. ‘You’ll need a fur coat, Annis, and those hideous boots that look like bedsocks—and thick woolly undies…’
‘It’s summer there,’ observed Annis. ‘Freddy said something about getting tanned.’ She got up. ‘Well, I shall sleep on it. Perhaps Miss Phipps won’t let me go in a week’s time.’
But Miss Phipps, surprisingly, did. She was reluctant to let Annis go, of course, for she would be losing a good nurse, but she had expected to do that anyway and she was only surprised that Annis wanted to leave for a reason other than marrying Arthur Potter. Like her lesser colleagues, she had watched the affair blossom, although she had considered privately that the parties concerned were taking far too long to make up their minds, and now, looking at the beautiful creature standing in front of her desk, she felt a vague relief. Annis Brown was far too good for him. Perhaps if she went on this expedition or whatever it was, she would meet someone who could match her in looks and not take her for granted like Mr Potter did. Miss Phipps thought that in Sister Brown’s place she would most certainly have gone herself—it sounded most interesting and a little unusual, and she was a sensible girl as well as being a beautiful one. Miss Phipps, conjuring up rather inaccurate mental pictures of the Spitzbergen landscape, felt a distinct touch of envy.
Having made up her mind, Annis didn’t waste time. She sent a radiogram to Freddy, asking for directions as to how to get there, bought slacks and an assortment of blouses and sweaters, a new anorak, some sensible shoes and a supply of cosmetics; Freddy had said that the country looked lovely, but he had never mentioned shops. She added a book or two, and obedient to the instructions which Freddy sent by return, booked on a flight to Tromso where she would be met. That left her with exactly a day in which to visit Great-Aunt Mary.
She left London very early in the morning, having said her goodbyes on the previous day, and that had included a rather uncomfortable ten minutes with Arthur. He had been rather superior about it all, treating it as a joke and declaring in his calm way that she would probably hate the whole set-up when she got there. ‘I might even renew our very pleasant relationship when you return, as most certainly you will.’ He had smiled at her and for a brief moment she wondered if she was being a complete fool, but she had pushed the idea away at once, feeling resentful at his smugness. And now in the train she wasn’t thinking about him at all, she was thinking with regret of the ward she had left; all the funny, noisy, pathetic children and babies who lived in it, however briefly. She would miss them; she would miss her friends too; she had made a great many during her years in hospital. She settled back in her seat and picked up the morning paper. There was no point in getting sentimental, she told herself firmly.
It was a two-hour journey to Gillingham, the nearest station to Mere. Only a handful of people got out there; a small, pleasant country town where the ticket collector had time to smile and say good morning as they filed out of the station. Great-Aunt Mary was outside at the wheel of the Morris 1000 which she had bought years ago and didn’t intend to change. ‘It will last as long as I shall,’ she had declared to a car salesman who had done his best to persuade her to trade it in for a more modern car, ‘and that’s more than can be said for a great many motor cars put on the market these days, young man.’
She waved to Annis now and then put her head through the window to say: ‘Put everything in the boot, dear, I shall need the back for the groceries.’
She offered a sunburnt cheek for Annis to kiss and took a good look at her. ‘London doesn’t suit you. I’m glad you’re going on this trip with Freddy, it sounds a most unusual set-up, but then I never have pretended to understand these modern atomic things…’
‘I think it’s electronics, too,’ murmured Annis.
‘All one and the same,’ declared Great-Aunt Mary largely, ‘but I should think that part of the world should be rather interesting.’
She was driving at a stately pace along the crown of the road, taking no notice of those who would like to overtake and couldn’t. ‘Who’s meeting you when you get there?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Annis. ‘I hope it’s Freddy, then he can tell me a bit about it. I don’t even know how long I’m to be there.’
‘A nice change from living to a timetable. It’ll do you good, my dear—another year or two at that hospital and you would have been an old maid, whether you’d married that Arthur fellow or not.’
Annis didn’t answer that, for it was very probably true; she said instead: ‘Well, I am looking forward to it. Are you stopping at Walton’s?’
‘Only to pick up a few things they’ll have ready for me. Do you really have to go back this evening?’
‘Yes, Aunt. The plane goes very early in the morning—I’m spending the night at an hotel close by the airport—my case is there already.’
Great-Aunt Mary had slowed down as they entered the village, swung round the corner between the two local pubs, and stopped before the grocer’s.
‘What clothes are you taking?’ she wanted to know. She was a poor dresser herself; she had a short, plump figure which she declared nothing off the peg fitted, and she was right, but that didn’t stop her loving clothes. They talked about them while the groceries were loaded, and didn’t pause when she drove on presently to stop a few hundred yards further, pull into a side road and stop.
They walked from the car to the cottage, carrying the groceries between them, down a narrow path running beside a clear stream and crossed at intervals by little bridges leading to the back gardens on the other side.
Great-Aunt Mary’s cottage had a bridge too, leading to a tiny triangle of grass and flowers which fronted her home: a red brick Victorian cottage, its side wall rising straight out of the stream with windows opening on to it. It was bigger inside than it looked from the lane—true, the hall was narrow but the staircase was nicely placed and the dining room and what its owner called the drawing room were a fair size, and to make up for the Lilliputian kitchen, there were innumerable cupboards, big enough to house a piano if needed. Annis loved it; she had lived there for a few years after her parents died, going as a weekly boarder to Sher-borne School for Girls while Freddy had gone to Bryanston, coming home for school holidays, and she had always returned for holidays all the time she had been at St Anselm’s. She looked around her now, at the white walls hung with a wide variety of pictures, some really good, some framed cards which her aunt had taken a fancy to, at the old-fashioned furniture which fitted so well into the Victorian appearance of the little place and the windows with their pretty chintz curtains. ‘It’s nice to be home,’ she said.
It was over lunch that Great-Aunt Mary remarked suddenly: ‘Of course, I should very much have preferred it if you had been getting married, though not to Arthur. You’re twenty-seven, aren’t you, Annis?’ she eyed her niece’s splendid figure across the table, ‘and there can’t be all that number of men in the world to match up to you.’
‘Match up to me?’ asked Annis faintly.
‘Looks, my dear, and height, and come to that, size. You’re hardly petite, are you? Perhaps there’ll be someone suitable among the Norwegians.’
Annis giggled. ‘I’ll keep an eye open,’ she promised.
She left early that evening with regret. The little house looked delightful in the late sunshine and the hills around were turning to golden. Snow and ice, she thought—I must be mad!
But due reflection made it obvious to her that it was rather less mad to go traipsing off to the top of the world than to continue the lukewarm and far too cautious relationship with Arthur. At least Spitzbergen was different, or she hoped it would be; indeed, the more she thought about it the better she liked the idea. She slept soundly on it, ate a good breakfast and arrived, unruffled and very neat, in good time for her flight.
She had flown before, but only short flights, and she was disappointed to find that the journey was over so quickly. She had expected that the six-hour trip would have given her plenty of time to look at the passing world beneath her, but what with take-off and coffee and then, just as she was picking out the coastline below, lunch, she had very little time to peer out of her porthole. They were landing before she had had more than a glimpse of Tromso, on the islands below her, hugging Norway’s rugged coast.
Freddy was waiting for her and although she was a girl well able to look after herself, she was more than pleased to see him. There were any number of questions she wanted answered too.
‘Not now, Sis, I’ve got a company plane waiting to take off.’
‘Oh, don’t we have any time at all here? A cup of tea…?’
He grinned. ‘They’ll wait that long. Come on, over here, just stand there while I get someone to take your luggage.’
It wasn’t tea, but coffee, strong and dark, accompanied by large, satisfying buns. ‘How long does it take?’ asked Annis, her mouth full.
‘It’s eight hundred miles—about three hours; as it doesn’t get dark at all we don’t have to worry about landing.’
‘Oh, but how shall we…?’
Freddy was on his feet. ‘We’ll have to go—there’ll be plenty of time to talk later.’
She had expected that they would return to the airfield, but Freddy got into a small Saab with the driver already at the wheel and she got in with him, prudently asking no more questions. There was plenty to keep her occupied. Tromso was delightful with the forest all around it, joined to the mainland by a long bridge, its wooden houses gay with flowers, and having an air of happy bustle. There were ships of all sorts in its harbour, too, and she looked at Freddy, a little puzzled; he had said a plane…
‘Out there,’ he said laconically, and nodded towards a seaplane a few hundred yards out. The Saab stopped and Annis found herself being ushered into a small boat, her luggage piled in after her and Freddy beside her while the driver started the outboard motor; she barely had time to take a last lingering look at Tromso before she was clambering on board.
There was already someone there, a slight young man, who grinned at her with an easy ‘Hullo—so Freddy found you.’ He whistled: ‘And aren’t you a lovely surprise—hefty,’ he added, ‘strong as a horse and never turns a hair.’ He put out a hand. ‘I’m Jeff Blake, I do the book work and sometimes I’m allowed to pilot the plane—this one, that is, not Jake’s.’
Annis laughed at him, told Freddy that he was a wretch and added: ‘But I am as strong as a horse, you know.’
Jeff gave her a wicked look. ‘Never mind the strength, just so long as you can bathe a fevered brow and cook.’ He turned to Freddy. ‘All set? Let’s go, then.’
The two men talked shop, quite unintelligible to Annis, but she didn’t mind. This trip was so much more exciting than the flight from London that morning; the Norwegian coast quickly disappeared and there was nothing but the sea below and the clear sky all around. She sat quietly, mulling over her day. It had all happened too quickly for her; she would have to go back to Tromso and take time to explore—which reminded her about things like days off…
‘Do I get any free time?’ she asked, ruthlessly cutting in on electronic jargon.
‘Lord, yes,’ Freddy assured her. ‘There are only twenty of us, you know, and most of the time we’re fighting fit; all we want are three good meals a day, some help with the books and a soothing hand if we’re ill.’ He turned to pick up a Thermos flask. ‘And Jake sees to it that we never are. He doesn’t mind the odd accident, but he draws the line at headaches and vague disorders.’
‘And who is this Jake?’
‘The doctor—the company needed one while we were at the radio station and he fancied a holiday.’ He grinned at her. ‘Wait till you meet him.’
‘Oh—why?’
But Jeff only laughed, it was Freddy who observed: ‘They’ll make a good pair.’
Annis forgot their remarks soon enough. Her first glimpse of Spitzbergen dispelled every other thought from her head; great grey snow-capped mountains on the horizon, a little frightening because suddenly she realised how far they were from everywhere else. ‘It looks bleak,’ she ventured.
‘It’s beautiful, so quiet you can hear the ice floes cracking on their way through the fjords down to the sea, birds of course and seals, and the odd whale.’
‘People?’
‘The odd thousand or so scattered between the three settlements. And us, of course.’
‘Are we very far from a—a settlement?’
‘An hour’s flight—someone goes once a fortnight to pick up provisions and post; the Coastal Express calls too with the odd crate.’
She had to be content with that. The men fell to talking technicalities once more, leaving her to contemplate the awe-inspiring landscape.
The sun was still shining brilliantly as Jeff brought the seaplane down close to a flat, lichen-covered tongue of rock, the mountains towered all round them with a narrow strip of rock between them and the sea, and scattered along it were wooden huts and what Annis vaguely supposed to be wireless stations; there was a round building too, standing well away from the rest. It looked remarkably lonely even in the late evening sun, but not for long. As they came to rest on the iron grey water she could see men emerging from the huts and running towards them. Two of them got into a small motorboat tied to a rickety pier and started towards the plane.
‘We’re here,’ said Freddy unnecessarily.
There was nothing lacking in her welcome; any doubts Annis might have still been harbouring were drowned in the enthusiastic greeting she got from the men. There were more than a dozen of them, shaking her by the hand the moment she stepped rather gingerly on the rock, telling her their names, declaring that she was the answer to a prayer—just what the doctor had ordered.
‘I wasn’t aware that I had done any such thing,’ drawled a voice behind her, and to the accompaniment of shouts of laughter Annis turned round, bristling a little because the voice had held mockery.
Its owner suited the scenery very well. He was large and rugged, with great shoulders and towering over everyone there. Good-looking too, only his dark eyes were cool and his mouth was a thought too straight for her liking. Not so very young either, she decided; his thick dark hair was grey at the temples.
She held out a hand. ‘How do you do?’ she said in her sweetest voice.
CHAPTER TWO
THE HAND which grasped hers was hard and firm and cool, and when she looked at the doctor’s face she could see no trace of mockery there; she must have imagined it.
He said in a deep slow voice: ‘Hullo, Annis, I’m so glad you have come—we’ve been taking it in turns to cook and we’re all very bad at it.’
She said with a touch of frost because he had called her Annis without even asking: ‘I’m a nurse.’
He said gravely: ‘We have almost no sickness here and—we hope—only occasional accidents, but if there is a mass outbreak of measles I, and I’m sure the rest of the team, won’t grumble.’
There was general laughter at that and she laughed too, not because she found it very amusing but because it was so obviously expected of her. She looked up and saw the gleam in the doctor’s eye; probably he wanted to annoy her. ‘I don’t know your name…’ she reminded him gently.
‘Jake—Jake van Germert. I hope you’ll call me Jake—we’re all on the best of terms; you’ve met most of us, but there are several on duty. You’ll meet them in the morning.’ He looked over the men’s heads to speak to a short, fat man, a good deal older than the rest of them. ‘How about Freddy taking Annis to their hut, Willy, while we dish the supper.’
She vaguely remembered shaking the fat man’s hand. Presumably he was the boss; he looked mild and absent-minded and probably had a remarkable brain. He smiled at her now and came to take her arm. ‘Lead on, Freddy. Annis, you can have ten minutes to make your beautiful self even more beautiful and then you shall have supper, such as it is.’
The hut, which looked bare and unwelcoming from the outside, was a surprise. Its furniture was comfortable and the covers and cushions were brightly coloured. Two rooms led from the small living room, small too, but her bed looked comfortable and there was a good sized cupboard and a dressing table. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but she was agreeably surprised now. It wasn’t for a few days that she discovered that she and Freddy had been moved into the hut shared by the boss and the doctor, who had taken up quarters in one of the other huts, which while comfortable, had no living room and was more cramped. She unpacked a few things, did her hair and her face and with Freddy beside her, crossed the bare rocky ground between them and a larger hut which, he explained, was their communal centre, where they ate and played cards, and played records and spent their leisure. ‘We go climbing too,’ he added, ‘and fishing; it’s pretty quiet in the winter, though.’
The understatement of the year, thought Annis. It seemed pretty quiet now, with nothing but the seabirds calling and the gentle wash of the icy water against the rock. ‘Holidays?’ she asked.
‘Oh, rather, everyone goes to Norway in turn— there’s a plane or they can go by the Coastal Express. I’ll go in a couple of months, though; I’ll be finished by then. Jake’s going too—he’s got a practice in Holland, you know.’
‘No, I didn’t know,’ said Annis dryly as they went into the hut.
The men had certainly done their best. There was a long table running down the middle of the room and although there were no flowers, there were lighted candles, rather dimmed by the midnight sun but nevertheless festive. She was sat at the centre of the table, with the boss on one side and the senior engineer on the other. The doctor, she was vaguely annoyed to find, was sitting as far away as possible.
The meal was, perforce, out of tins and whoever had opened them had been lavish with the can-opener—there was more than enough for everyone and a good deal over, and Annis found it a little pathetic the way they asked her every few minutes if the food was good. She praised it lavishly, hoping her inside wouldn’t rebel against the strange mixture which it was sampling. Everyone must have had a hand in preparing the meal; she worked her way through soup, cod, covered with a rich sauce which seemed to contain everything in the cookery book, a variety of vegetables, and rounded off with a steamed pudding. Over coffee they explained that they were due to fetch their stores very shortly, when she would find a much larger selection of groceries. They looked at her hopefully as they said it and she hoped that Freddy hadn’t made her out to be up to Cordon Bleu standard.
They had had drinks first and wine with their meal, although she suspected that the men would have preferred beer. She was touched with their welcome, though, and resolved privately to feed them well as well as nurse them, although it seemed unlikely that there would be much of that; a tougher bunch of men she had yet to meet.
‘Where did your cook come from?’ she asked the boss.
‘Oslo—Sven’s sister…’he nodded across the table towards a fair young man who didn’t look more than twenty. ‘She was a nurse too, and a typist. Do you type, Annis?’
She was glad that she could tell him that yes, she could type. ‘Not very well,’ she explained, ‘but I’m a bit rusty at it.’ Her pretty mouth curved in a smile. ‘Is there an awful lot to do?’
‘No, no—just once or twice a month, reports and so on, very simple.’
‘You’re not English?’ she asked him. ‘Although you speak it perfectly.’
‘Finnish—we are a very mixed bunch, mostly Norwegians though, with a couple of Swedes and of course Jake, who is Dutch.’
‘Yes, someone told me. What a blessing everyone speaks English, because I can’t understand a word of Norwegian or Finnish or Dutch—I don’t think I’d know them if I heard them.’
He laughed comfortably. ‘We shall all teach you a few words and you will get quite expert.’
The dinner party broke up presently, and Annis said goodnight to everyone, thanked them prettily for her welcome and dinner and made for her hut, secretly appalled at the doctor’s cool: ‘Don’t forget you are on duty tomorrow morning at seven o’clock, Annis. The shifts change over at eight so that the men going on duty breakfast at seven-thirty and the men coming off at eight o’clock.’
She thanked him coldly for the information. He was just the irritating kind of man to remind one of one’s duty…
The kitchen, she discovered the next morning, was remarkably up-to-date. Being a new broom she intended to sweep clean, so she was ten minutes early, making coffee, setting the table with what she hoped the men ate for breakfast. There was a huge side of bacon hanging in the larder too, but she was relieved to see that a large quantity had already been sliced. She found a frying pan as large as a football field and started frying, helped half way through by Freddy who was to go on the day shift but hadn’t hurried from his bed.
‘Six rashers each,’ he told her. ‘Just put the bread on the table—there’s orange juice too.’
On the whole, Annis felt that she had acquitted herself rather well. The ten men who presently sat down to their breakfast did justice to it, complimented her on her cooking and hurried away to their various stations, all except the doctor, who had another cup of coffee, asked her rather carelessly if she had slept well, handed her a timetable of the day’s work so that she knew where she was and then requested her presence in the surgery at nine o’clock. ‘One of the engineers slipped early this morning and cut his leg on the rock—nothing serious, but we shall need to tidy it up a bit.’
Having said which, he took himself off, leaving her to clear the debris and get the next lot of bacon into the pan; presumably she ate with the men coming off duty. It was an agreeable surprise when two men came into the kitchen and told her that they were doing the washing up. ‘We take it in turns,’ they explained. ‘There’ll be two more for the next batch.’
They grinned at her cheerfully and eyed her with interest, while she, happily unaware of their glances, bent over the stove, unaware of the pretty picture she made. She had sensibly packed slacks and a variety of tops, and she was wearing a short-sleeved shirt over blue slacks now, enveloping the whole in a large apron she had found behind the door, a legacy from the previous cook and nurse. She hadn’t bothered much with her hair, either, only brushed it out and tied it back in a ponytail. She looked considerably less than her twenty-seven years and pretty enough to eat.
The men coming off duty were tired, but they ate just as heartily as the first lot had. Annis dealt with gigantic appetites, ate her own meal and leaving two more volunteers to wash up, made her way to the surgery, a hut standing a little apart from the rest, a roomy place with a well-equipped surgery, a two-bedded ward, a portable operating table and a cupboard well stocked with instruments. The doctor was already there, bending over a man on the table. Without turning round he said: ‘Ah, there you are—there’s a white gown in that closet beside the door.’ And as she put it on: ‘Bring me that covered kidney dish, will you?’
Unfriendly to the point of being terse, she considered, and while she stood beside him, handing things, swabbing the leg, cutting gut, she had time to take a good look at him. Her first impression had been right; he was enormous and rather more heavily built than she had thought and his high-bridged nose and heavy-lidded eyes made him look ill-tempered, although that didn’t seem likely, for he seemed universally popular. She wasn’t sure if she was going to like him; he hadn’t done so yet, but probably he was going to throw his weight about. He looked, she considered, more like a ruthless high-powered executive than a doctor. But within half an hour she found herself eating her words. The doctor, while not attempting to charm her in any way, was placidly good-natured, not saying much but responding to his patient’s remarks with goodhumoured patience. The injury wasn’t too severe; a day or two resting it and he could return to his work in the hut at the far end of the tongue of rock. Annis was to dress it daily after the doctor had seen it. The doctor glanced at her as he spoke and smiled and she found herself smiling back at him.
She discovered within two days that the doctor was the silent one of the team. He never joined in any of the arguments or made any but the mildest of comments on any subject, yet she noticed that the men turned to him when a deciding opinion was needed, and when the argument became too fierce it was he who damped it down with a few quiet words. She wondered what he did with his day until Freddy told her that he was carrying out a series of experiments, monitoring hearts and lungs after each man came off duty as well as taking samples of everything vegetable which was living; and that wasn’t much. Annis had been there for several days before she found her first flower, a minute buttercup-like plant clinging to the rock in the warm sunshine. She took care not to disturb it; it took decades for seeds to germinate in the unfriendly climate which existed for nine months of the year; each small flower was a precious thing. She was so delighted with her find that she told the doctor while she was clearing up the surgery after he had treated a boil on a Norwegian’s neck, and he had told her that there were many more if she looked carefully. She waited for him to suggest that they might go together in their leisure to look for them, but in this she was disappointed. He remained silent, and she, not a vain girl but aware that she was attractive, wondered what he didn’t like about her. He took almost no notice of her beyond greeting her civilly when they encountered each other about the station, making conversation when circumstances demanded it of him, and sitting at the far end of the table at meals. In a word, she told herself crossly, he was avoiding her.
And somehow this was all the more annoying when every other man there sought her out whenever she was free—trips on the sea in one of the powerful motorboats kept at the station; careful climbing expeditions to look for flowers, and when it was warm, long sessions by the sea with binoculars watching the birds and looking for seals.
The boss had taken her on a tour within a few days of her arrival; round the various huts, along to the big radio hut where the men sat at their instruments. She had only a dim idea what they were doing and she was quick to see that no one was going to tell her anyway, although she was shown how messages were sent and how they got their electricity and the wonderful view they had of the mountains around them as well as the open sea. Cruising ships passed from time to time, she was told, on their way to the Ice Barrier and Ny Aalesund, but they never stopped at the station; for one thing, although the water was deep, the pier was only a rickety erection, liable to fall down at any minute.
‘Why doesn’t someone mend it, then?’ asked Annis practically. She didn’t wait for an answer because the Coastal Express was just in sight. It wasn’t calling that day, it seemed; supplies had been brought back when she had been fetched from Tromso and as someone would be going to Ny Aalesund very shortly, the letters could be fetched from there. They trundled back to the main camp in the jeep and she went to get on with the dinner.
Her days were well filled; she was busy but not overworked and mostly the days were clear, with blue skies. There was always a boat available and someone to go with her, and when it was bad weather with ink-black clouds pressing on to the mountain tops and a cold, sullen sea, there were plenty of partners for a game of chess or backgammon. Letters to write too, a great many of them, to be taken to Ny Aalesund, the weekly film to enjoy, and books to read. She spent a good deal of time with Freddy, listening with sympathy to his account of his last love affair; he fell in and out of love so often and so briefly that she was hard put to it to remember the girl’s name. She didn’t think he was brokenhearted this time, though. He remembered, however, after a long monologue about girls and the last one in particular, to ask her if she were happy.
‘Yes, very,’ she told him, and was surprised to find that it was true. She was happy—there was very little nursing, the odd cut hand and septic finger, bruises and abrasions, but there was plenty to keep her occupied each day. She could work as she wished, no one interfered and she took her free time more or less when she liked. Only the daily surgery was strictly on time each day and although the doctor had never said a word, she made sure that she was punctual.
It was towards the end of the week when they were at supper one evening that the doctor mentioned casually that he had seen a small herd of seals further along the coast, and added: ‘If you’re interested, Annis, I’ll show you how to reach them—it’s not far if we cut across the base of the mountains. Only wear your boots.’
The invitation was given so casually that she wasn’t sure if he had meant it, but when supper was finished and she had cleared the table and put everything to rights, she found him waiting, sitting on an upturned box outside the hut. It was already late evening, but there would be no night, of course; the sun shone, a rich gold, above the horizon and would stay like that until day began once more.
‘Boots,’ he reminded her, and she went to her hut and obediently pulled on the strong footwear she had been given on her arrival. She picked up her anorak too, for the weather could change with disconcerting suddenness and she was wearing only a cotton blouse and slacks.
They went for the most part in silence. For one thing, it was quite hard work scrambling over the bare rock and for another it hardly seemed the right background for light conversation. Once or twice they stopped while her companion pointed out a seabird or a particularly beautiful ice floe, its pale green turned to gold by the sun, creaking and cracking as it went on its way south, but for the greater part of the time he went steadily ahead, turning to give her a hand over a particularly tricky bit.
They were cutting across a curve in the coastline, somewhere Annis hadn’t been yet, for on her boat trips they almost always went in the other direction. Now they rounded the last massive cliff and she caught her breath.
The mountains stretched in front of them, sweeping down to the sea, their snow-capped tops contrasting with the dark grey of their slopes and the dark blue of the sea. Their line was broken directly before them, though, and a fjord, its beginnings lost in a great glacier a mile or more away, cut them in two. Its water was smooth and still and dark, for the mountains held back the sun, and the barren shore, thick with ice, looked grandly desolate. It seemed incredible to Annis that anything should want to live there, but the doctor had been right. The seals were packed snugly side by side along the side of the fjord, with the giant male seals sitting on ice floes, guarding them. They looked fatherly and a little pompous, but they never took their eyes away from the mother seals and their pups.
‘We can get closer, they’re not afraid of us,’ said the doctor quietly, and helped her across a ridge of rock.
‘How can anyone bear to kill them?’ demanded Annis fiercely. ‘Look, their eyes are just like ours and the babies look just like our babies.’
Her companion’s firm mouth twitched slightly but he answered her gravely: ‘Indeed they do, and I deplore their killing, but here they seem safe, although one wonders how they can live so contentedly in this barren land.’
‘Yes, but it’s beautiful too, although it frightens me. I had no idea—I don’t know what I expected, but I felt sick with fright when I got here. It’s not like anything else…’ She felt she wasn’t explaining very well, but he seemed to understand her.
‘It’s still our world,’ he reminded her. ‘It’s hard to equate it with Piccadilly Circus or the Dam Square in Amsterdam, but it’s utter peace and quiet and awe-inspiring nature at her most magnificent.’
She was surprised into saying: ‘Oh, do you feel like that about it, too? Only I couldn’t have put it as well as you have.’
She took a careless step and slipped and his hand grasped her arm, and then without any hesitation at all, he caught her close and kissed her. It wasn’t at all the kind of kiss Arthur had been in the habit of giving her; he took his time over it and she thought confusedly that she was enjoying it very much.
His pleasantly friendly: ‘You’re such a beautiful girl, Annis—that and the midnight sun’s magic…’ brought her back with a sickening bump to a prosaic world again. Commendably, she managed to say coolly:
‘It is magic, isn’t it, and I wouldn’t have missed it for all the world. I’d like to come here in winter, though…’
He had thrown a great arm round her shoulders and she felt a thrill of pleasure.
‘Would you indeed?’ He turned his head to study her face. ‘Yes, I do believe you mean that. I came up here a couple of years ago for a few weeks and it’s quite extraordinary, more so because the people who live here take it for granted.’
‘But you live in Holland?’ She had never asked him any questions before; probably he would snub her politely, but he didn’t.
‘Oh, yes—I’ve a practice in a small country town; Goes—it’s near Middelburg, if you know where that is.’
‘Well, of course I do,’ she protested indignantly, ‘though I’ve never been to Holland.’
She felt a strong urge to ask him if he were married, if he had children and a family. She wanted to know more about him, but although he had kissed her with some warmth, his manner was as casual as it always had been and she was sensible enough to know that kissing a girl when there wasn’t another female to be seen for miles was a perfectly normal thing for a man to do. She stifled a sigh and asked: ‘What exactly does everyone do here? Freddy doesn’t make it very clear.’
He threw her a quick look. ‘It’s a radio station, you knew that? We send weather reports and relay shipping news and there’s an early warning system…’
‘Oh, I see… I suppose I’m not supposed to be too curious?’
‘The boss relies on your discretion, but unless you happened to be an electronics expert with a very inquisitive nose, I don’t think you would be any the wiser.’
‘Well, I’m not particularly interested,’ she said loftily, and he laughed. ‘You’re not bored?’
‘Bored? Heavens, no—how could I possibly be that? I don’t have much time for a start, do I? And there’s such a lot to cram into each day.’
‘And there’s a treat in store for you in a couple of days. Fetching the stores from Ny Aalesund. There’s one shop there and it stocks everything, although not all of it is on sale to the tourists from the cruising trips coming from Norway during the summer. The men will give you a list as long as your arm and you’d better make one for yourself. We only go once a month.’
‘Don’t you go on the Coastal Express?’
‘Sometimes, but the jetty isn’t any good and we have to go out to her by boat, and transferring the stuff from her on the return journey is quite a lengthy business.’
‘Then how do we go?’ Annis gazed round her. ‘There’s no road…’
‘We fly.’
‘Oh—does the plane come from Tromso?’
‘No—there’s one here, it’s in a boathouse on the other side of the radio station. I don’t suppose you’ve been as far.’
She shook her head. ‘No. It’ll be fun to go to Ny Aalesund.’
They went back presently and she went to the hut and joined Freddy, writing one of his rare, sketchy letters. He looked up when she went in. ‘Hullo—enjoy the seals?’
‘Enormously.’
‘Jake’s a good fellow to be with, never gets worked up about anything. I’m told that he’s much sought after by the birds.’
‘Don’t be vulgar, Freddy.’ She added carelessly: ‘He’s not so young, though, is he?’
Freddy grinned. ‘Thirty-five, very up-and-coming in his profession, too. A worthy target for your charms, love.’
She turned a wintry eye on him. ‘Freddy, I’ve already begged you not be vulgar. I’m sure Doctor van Germert is a very pleasant man, that’s all.’
He sighed loudly. ‘Don’t tell me that you’re pining for that dreary Arthur?’
Annis giggled. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! That’s why I came here—we weren’t getting anywhere and I’d discovered that I couldn’t possibly marry him.’
‘Bully for you, ducky. I found him a drip, not your sort.’
‘What’s my sort?’ She had sat down on a folding chair and had picked up the map she had been studying each day in the hope that she would know exactly where she was.
‘Jake.’
She put the map down carefully. Her voice was light and a little amused. ‘I’m waiting for a real charmer, Freddy—I’d like to be swept off my feet.’
Freddy turned back to his writing. ‘As long as you find them again,’ he warned her.
It was at breakfast the next day that someone asked: ‘Who’s going with you, Jake?’
‘Annis.’ The doctor didn’t even look at her as he spoke. ‘Have your lists ready by this evening, will you? We’ll leave early.’
‘And what is early?’ asked Annis sweetly. ‘I don’t seem to have been told much about this…’
He refused to be ruffled. ‘After the night shift’s breakfast,’ he told her blandly. ‘The second breakfast men can manage for themselves—we’ll be back in time for you to cook supper.’
She eyed him frostily. So she was to cook supper, was she, after a hectic day shopping in a strange language among strange people, not to mention the trip there and back. She only hoped whoever was to fly the plane was a nice levelheaded man who didn’t expect her to get thrilled every time they hit a pocket of air and dropped like a stone…
‘Will you have time to show Annis the hospital, Jake?’ asked someone.
‘I thought it might be an idea; I’ve a job or two to do there, anyway.’
Annis’s interest quickened. It would be fun to see a hospital so far from the rest of the world, and she began to wonder about it, not listening to the talk around her.
She would have liked to have worn something more feminine than slacks and a shirt on this, the highlight of her stay, but common sense warned her that the weather might change with a speed she hadn’t quite got used to, and probably the ground was rock. She wore sensible shoes, her new pale blue slacks and a white cotton blouse with a blue and white striped sweater to pull over it, and covered it with a pinny while she saw to breakfast.
She studied the lists she had been given while she ate her breakfast through a chorus of items which had been forgotten. She already had a list of food and necessities and how she was going to get the lot in a day was beyond her, although with only one shop it might be easier. She finished her meal and only then noticed that the doctor wasn’t there. Perhaps she was late—she got to her feet in a panic, gathering her plates and cup and saucer together. ‘I should go,’ she cried to those around her. ‘Who’s flying the plane?’
‘I am,’ said Jake, coming in through the door with maddening slowness. ‘And I haven’t had my breakfast yet, so don’t panic.’
‘I am not panicking,’ declared Annis crossly. She added: ‘Can you fly a plane, then?’
There was a chorus of kindly laughter. ‘It’s his plane, Annis,’ she was told. ‘He’s really very good at it, too, you don’t have to be nervous.’
‘I’m not in the least nervous.’ She shot a glance at the doctor, calmly eating his breakfast, taking so little notice of anyone that he might have been at his own table, quite alone. Not alone, she decided, her thoughts taking off as usual; he’d have a dog—perhaps two…
‘Have you a dog?’ she asked suddenly, and everyone looked bewildered. All except the doctor, who looked up, studied her face carefully and answered, just as though he had read her thoughts: ‘Yes. He sits with me while I eat my breakfast. If you’d like to collect your purse or whatever, I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes.’
The plane was moored to the jetty, a small seaplane, very spick and span, bouncing up and down in what Annis considered to be a quite unnecessarily boisterous manner.
‘It’s the wind catching her,’ explained the doctor, just as though Annis had spoken out loud. ‘Jump in.’
‘Isn’t there anyone else coming?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’ And because he obviously wasn’t going to say more than that, she climbed aboard and settled herself down.
She hadn’t expected to enjoy the trip because she had to confess to a secret fear that the small craft might drop like a stone on to the white wastes below them, or lose a wing or a vital bit of its engine, but presently her fears left her, probably because her companion exhibited much the same sort of calm as a bus driver going along a well-remembered country lane.
After a little while he began to point out various landmarks. ‘There’s Magdalena Bay straight ahead, and Konigsfjord is round the corner. The cruisers all go there and then on up to the ice barrier.’
They had been following the coastline for a good deal of the time, now he banked and pointed downwards. ‘There’s Ny Aalesund; we’ll come down by the pier—it’s quite a walk to the shop and the road’s a mixture of coal and lava. We’ll take a taxi if you would rather.’
‘A taxi? Here? Surely they can’t earn their living? Where are the roads?’
‘There are two, and they don’t go far, but all the same a car can be useful to get about. In the winter everyone has snow scooters.’
He came down some way from the shore and taxied slowly up to the pier, where several men appeared to make the plane fast. ‘Out you get,’ said the doctor. ‘We’ll go straight to the shop, though I suggest that we stop at the post office and have coffee.’
Annis could see no post office, no houses, for that matter, just a dusty track alongside a bridge being built over a rambling little river hurrying down to the sea. The track opened out on to a road once they had crossed the bridge and she could see it winding uphill, past some wooden houses. The doctor took her arm. ‘It’s much nicer once we get to the top,’ he said reassuringly.
CHAPTER THREE
JAKE WAS RIGHT. They gained the top of the slope and found grass round its curve—rough, tough very short grass, it was true, but a welcome green. The tiny town before them stretched back from the sea, its houses built on either side of the tumbling, untidy little torrent they had already crossed further back, its origins lost in the massive glacier at the head of the valley, some miles away. Mountains towered in a great curve, their sides scarred by mine workings. The houses were wooden, as was the white-painted church, and on the far side of the stream there was a group of new houses, so modern and sedate they might have been in a London suburb instead of at the back of beyond.
The doctor had given Annis time to stand and stare, now he suggested that they should start their walk. ‘Though you can ride if you wish,’ he reminded her, ‘but there’s plenty to see.’
The houses were at first rather old-fashioned and weather-worn, but by the time they had reached the church they looked more modern and well-kept, and the church itself, with its own little house attached to it, was pristine against the dull rock of the mountains behind it. There was lichen beside the cinder road, and tiny flowers and a few patches of the same coarse grass, and there were people too. Annis was surprised to see two young women wheeling babies in prams, and the doctor laughed at her astonished face: ‘People have babies everywhere in the world,’ he observed. ‘The hospital here is more than adequate to deal with any kind of surgery; there are a doctor and a surgeon, midwives, nurses—you name it, they’ve got it.’
They passed a lonely little graveyard half way up the lower slopes of the mountains and Annis said soberly: ‘I suppose they must love being here—I mean, to live here all their lives and die here too.’
‘I think they’re very content and happy, and the children look beautiful—there’s a good school and they go to Norway for their higher education and come home for holidays. There’s a film evening, too, and dancing each week, and a library.’
The road forked presently, the fork crossing the stream and climbing along its other bank. ‘There’s the hospital,’ said Jake, ‘that long building built up from the road. We’ll keep straight on, though. The post office is at the end, you can see it now, then we cross a bridge and the shop’s on the other side.’
‘Where does the road go to?’
‘It doesn’t. There are a few houses beyond the shop, and it stops there; there’s no way through the mountains.’
It was a clear morning now, although every now and then the mountains disappeared in cloud, and it was warm walking. Annis was glad when they stopped presently and had their coffee, but she wasn’t allowed to linger. ‘I’m due at the hospital in half an hour; I’ll take you to the shop and leave you there and pick you up later.’
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