‘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.’