An Old Captivity (28 page)

The girl shook her head. “He is only asleep. Very soon he will wake up.”

Mayark said something in an excited tone in Eskimo,
evidently in disagreement. Ajago answered him sharply in the same language, and got a volley of words in reply. An incomprehensible argument or quarrel developed between the natives; both grew very much excited. Alix sighed irritably, and went back to the tent.

A quarter of an hour later she discovered Ajago squatting morose and alone beside the fire. She asked him: “Where is Mayark?”

Without moving the native said: “One is foolish, and has gone away.”

“Why has he gone away?”

He raked awkwardly among the ashes. “One has been afraid.”

The girl said: “You are not afraid, Ajago? There is nothing here to be afraid of?”

He raised his eyes to hers uneasily. “I will stay here,” he said simply.

“Thank you, Ajago.” She touched his shoulder, and went back into the tent.

She told her father what the Eskimo had said. He bit his lip. “It’s most unlucky,” he said quietly. “They said that someone would get ill if we camped here, and now it’s happened. I suppose Mayark’s gone away for good. Will Ajago stay with us to-night? We’ll be done if they both go.”

“I think he’s all right, Daddy. You’d better come and have a word with him.”

They left the pilot, and went out of the tent. The native was still squatting by the fire; he had some kind of amulet in his hands which he concealed hurriedly as they came towards him. Alix remembered that he was supposed to be a Christian. He got to his feet to meet them.

Lockwood asked: “Where is Mayark, Ajago? Has he gone to the other camp?”

Alix interpreted: the man said something in reply. “He says, Mayark’s gone home.”

“Ask him if he will stay with us.”

The man burst into a torrent of nervous speech, mostly in his own language. Alix interrupted him gently, and told
him to speak Danish. For ten minutes they wrestled with the language difficulty.

The girl turned to her father. “What he’s trying to say is that we’re crazy to stay here. He doesn’t want to leave us. But he thinks we’re awful fools to have camped here at all. And of course, he’s saying that he warned us this would happen.”

The don stood looking round him, deep in thought. He saw the low, bare hill, the stream, the beach, the low stone walls of the abandoned buildings. Quite suddenly, it was distasteful to him; he came to a decision. “Tell him that as soon as Ross recovers we’ll all move over to the other camp.”

She did so. The man said something to her very earnestly, and repeated it several times.

“What’s that?” asked Lockwood.

She turned to him with a scared face. “He says that if we keep Mr. Ross here he … he’ll die to-night.”

“Oh!”

There was a long pause; Lockwood had to do some rapid thinking. If the native felt like that about it, it was most unlikely that he would stay with them; if Ross did not recover very soon, Ajago would desert. Without the Eskimo it would become impossible for them to carry on at all. If they were to retain him, they must make some compromise with his superstition.

“Ask him if he would like us to move over to the other camp to-day.”

The girl did so; there was very little doubt of Ajago’s feelings on that matter.

The don returned to his daughter. “What do you think, Alix?”

She stared around at the camp site. “I don’t know, Daddy,” she said slowly. “It’s much better here, of course—the water’s good, and there’s more level ground. But we could pull the seaplane right up at high tide, and leave her. There can’t really be anything in what he says, can there?”

Her father hesitated. “Of course there can’t,” he said,
a little uncertainly. “Ross has taken too many of those tablets—he’d be just the same in Oxford. Still—I don’t know.”

Alix said: “Daddy, I’d just as soon that we went over there …”

“All right.” He turned to the native. “We will wait here till midday,” he said. “If Ross has recovered then, we will stay here. If not, we’ll move him over to your camp this afternoon.”

The girl translated this, and Ajago received it with a smile. They turned back to the tent. The Eskimo came running after them, and said something to the girl.

“What’s that?” asked Lockwood.

She frowned, and hesitated. “Literally, I think he’s saying that Mr. Ross has gone on a journey with the people who used to live here, Daddy,” she said. “In case we didn’t quite understand …”

They nodded and smiled at the man, and went back into the tent. The pilot was still lying as they had left him; it seemed to them that the respiration was not quite so strong. They made another effort to rouse him and sponged his face with the cold water again, with not the least success. His hands and feet were growing cold; they filled bottles with hot water and put them in his sleeping-bag. Then they had done all that they could do.

At high tide Lockwood went down with Ajago to the water’s edge, and beached the seaplane at the top of the tide. They made her fast to stakes driven into the ground, securing her as firmly as they could. Then they went back to the camp, where Alix was still sitting by the pilot in the tent, immersed in her own thoughts. She had learned, that morning, what the pilot meant to her.

From time to time she sponged his face with the cold water, with absolutely no effect at all. By noon they could not deny that he was a good deal worse. The respiration was very low, and the pulse was feeble. Outside, Ajago was busy constructing a stretcher of birch boughs. Lockwood turned to Alix.

“It’s absolutely crazy,” he said, “but I believe I’d like to take him to the other camp. He’s doing no good here.”

She inclined her head. “It is crazy, Daddy,” she said seriously. “There’s absolutely nothing the matter with this place—we’ve only got the wind up because Ajago’s been talking to us. But I agree with you. If we wait till this afternoon he may be so weak that we won’t want to move him. If we’re going, we’d better go now.”

“I think so, too.”

They went and told Ajago of their decision. He finished the stretcher and went down and brought the motor boat to the beach; then they lifted the pilot in his sleeping-bag and laid him carefully upon the stretcher. They carried him down to the boat and, wading in the shallow water, laid the stretcher across the gunwales. The stretcher made access to the engine difficult; rather than bother with it for the short trip, Ajago took the oars and rowed the boat across the cove. In half an hour they were carrying him up from the boat to the Eskimos’ tent in the new camp.

At the entrance to the tent Ajago made them lay the stretcher down. Alix asked him the reason in Danish, and the man replied.

She turned to her father. “He says, we’ve got to wait,” she said.

They watched the Eskimo, a little irritably. He went into the tent and dragged his own sleeping-bag out on to the grass. Then he took down a bunch of vegetation that was hanging in the roof, and began to sprinkle little portions of it on the ground sheet. Satisfied with that, he crushed the remainder in his hands and rubbed it over the cloth entrance flaps. Lockwood watched him, keenly interested.

Alix asked: “What is that stuff? What’s he doing to the tent?”

He said quietly: “It’s wild garlic. He’s making a protection against spirits. I’ve never seen this done before.”

Satisfied with his work upon the tent, the Eskimo came over to the stretcher, and kneeled down beside the pilot. He looked at him critically and laid a hand upon his forehead;
then he said something to the girl. She turned to her father.

“He wants to put some of those weeds in his bag,” she said.

Her father said: “I guessed as much. I don’t think it can do him any harm—it’s only wild garlic. If we’re going to try mediaeval treatment we may as well go the whole hog.”

They nodded their assent to Ajago. The Eskimo undid his bag and put sprigs of garlic in beside the sleeping man, and laid a little on his chest. Then they carried him into the tent and made him comfortable upon the bed.

They had a hurried meal; then Ajago and Lockwood spent the afternoon transferring the camp with successive journeys in the motor boat, while Alix stayed with Ross. By evening a definite improvement was noticeable. The pilot’s breathing was much stronger and the pulse was better; moreover, he seemed to be keeping warmer.

Lockwood stood up from examining him. “It’s wearing off,” he said, a little uncertainly. “Drugs of that sort get absorbed into the system in time. It’s only a matter of time …”

Alix agreed. “Of course. I mean, it couldn’t be anything else.”

Ajago looked in at the tent door, bent over the pilot critically, and got to his feet very pleased. He said something to the girl, beaming all over his face; she turned to her father.

“He’s saying, ‘I told you so.’”

“Of course, he would say that.”

The man said in Danish: “It is good. To-morrow one will wake up.” He went out of the tent; when Alix went out later she discovered that he had spread a circle of wild garlic on the grass right round the tent.

That night they took turns to sit with the pilot. Alix went to sleep after supper and Lockwood stayed with the sick man in the tent; at two in the morning the girl came to relieve him.

She bent over the pilot and looked at him in the dim light of the candle lantern. “He’s ever so much better, Daddy,” she said quietly. “He’s got more colour, and he’s warmer. He’s breathing much more strongly, too, than when I saw him last. Ought we to try and wake him?”

The don said: “I don’t think so. I should let him sleep it off.”

The girl nodded. “All right, Daddy—he’s got plenty to make up. You go along and get some sleep yourself. I’ll be all right.”

She settled down beside the pilot in the tent; Lockwood went to the other tent to sleep. The man lay motionless, his head a little on one side, his breathing regular and even. The girl sat by him, deep in her own thoughts. From time to time she went out of the tent and threw some wood upon the fire; the night was fine, and still, and starry. Over the barren moors and the mountains, over the ice-cap and the fiord, a great peace reigned. From time to time she stood outside the tent and looked around; in spite of everything she was happy. The barren landscape seemed to be a friendly place to her. There was nothing bad here, nothing to be afraid of. It was only a little strange.

The half-light became dawn, and then full day. She stayed with the pilot until seven o’clock; then her father came to relieve her, and they breakfasted. She lay down and slept for a time after that; when she got up at noon and came to see how Ross was getting on she found that he was sleeping naturally and lightly. He had turned over in his sleep.

Alix said: “What about trying to wake him again now, Daddy?”

Her father said: “If you like. Perhaps it would be better, if he’s going to sleep at all to-night.”

The girl knelt down by the bed, and took one of the pilot’s hands in her own. Then she leaned across him, and with her other hand began to wipe his face with a cold sponge. In a few moments he stirred, and opened his eyes.

He raised himself upon one elbow, still holding her hand, and looked her full in the face. “This is a good country,” he said earnestly, “better than Greenland. I will ask Leif to let us stay here when the ship goes back, and you shall have your children here.”

There was a momentary silence.

The girl forced a laugh. “Wake up, Mr. Ross,” she said, a little tremulously. “You’re still asleep.” She passed the sponge over his face again.

He turned his face away, and stared at the tent wall. “Did you say I’d been asleep?” he said after a time.

Lockwood said: “You certainly have.”

There was a long, pregnant silence. The man lay motionless and silent, raised upon one elbow. At last he said: “You’re Miss Alix, aren’t you?” There was a world of disappointment in his voice.

The girl said in a low tone: “I’m Alix, Mr. Ross.”

He glanced down at the hand that he was still holding in his own, and laughed shortly. “I don’t know why we’re doing this, Miss Alix.”

She coloured a little, and withdrew her hand. The pilot rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry if I overslept, sir. What’s the time?”

The don said: “It’s about twelve o’clock.”

Ross said quietly: “I’m sorry. If you wouldn’t mind, Miss Alix … I’ll get up.”

She said: “Don’t do that, Mr. Ross. Not just yet. You’ve not been very well. It’s twelve o’clock, but you’ve missed a day. You’ve been asleep for thirty-six hours.”

He stared at her. “More like three weeks, you mean.”

The girl shot a swift glance at her father.

“Stay quiet in bed for a bit, anyway,” she said. “You’re not too fit.”

He rubbed a hand across his eyes again. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what I meant by talking of three weeks. How long did you say I’d been asleep?”

“Thirty-six hours.”

They became aware of Ajago in the tent door, beaming all over his face. “One is awake,” he said in Danish. “I told you so.” The last part of his sentence was familiar to the don by that time, and needed no interpretation.

The Eskimo left them and began bustling about the fire; when Alix went out a few minutes later she found him warming up some soup. She took it into the tent and gave it to the pilot to drink. He took it obediently, but spoke very little; when he did speak he was evidently still confused. Presently Lockwood motioned to his daughter, and they moved a short way from the tents.

“I’m not going to stay here any longer,” he said directly. “We’ll go back to Julianehaab to-morrow—for a time, at any rate.”

The girl nodded. “That’s the best thing to do. We can get the doctor there, if we still want one.”

“Of course we do. We must get somebody to have a look at him, after a bout like this.”

The girl said: “How are you going to get him to Julianehaab, Daddy?”

“He’ll have to come in the motor boat with us.”

“Leaving the seaplane here?”

“Yes. He can come back and fetch it when he’s well again.”

She looked very doubtful. “I don’t believe you’ll get him to do that.”

“Well, he can’t fly it in his present state.”