It started to rain slightly as we walked along what had once been the main street and she pushed her hands into her pockets and laughed, a strange excitement in her voice.
Now this I like always have done since I was a kid. Walking in the rain with the mist closing in.
And keeping out the world, I said. I know the feeling.
She turned and looked at me in some surprise, then laughed suddenly, but this time it lacked its usual harsh edge. She had changed. It was difficult to decide exactly how just a general softening up, I suppose, but for the moment at any rate, she had become a different person.
Welcome to the club. You said this was once a whaling station?
I nodded. Abandoned towards the end of the last century.
What happened?
They simply ran out of whale in commercial quantities. I shrugged. Most years there were four or five hundred ships up here. They over-fished, that was the trouble, just like the buffalo hunted to extinction.
There was a small ruined church at the end of the street, a cemetery behind it enclosed by a broken wall and we went inside and paused at the first lichen covered headstone.
Angus McClaren died 1830, she said aloud. A Scot.
I nodded. That was a bad year in whaling history. The pack ice didnt break up as early as usual and nineteen British whalers were caught in it out there. They say there were more than a thousand men on the ice at one time.
She moved on reading the half-obliterated names aloud as she passed slowly among the graves. She paused at one stone, a slight frown on her face, then dropped to one knee and rubbed the green moss away with a gloved hand.
A Star of David appeared, carved with the same loving care that had distinguished the ornate Celtic crosses on the other stones and like them, the inscription was in English.
Aaron Isaacs, she said as if to herself, her voice little more than a whisper. Bosun SeaQueen out of Liverpool. Killed by a whale at sea 27th July, 1863.
She knelt there staring at the inscription, a hand on the stone itself, sadness on her face and finding me standing over her, rose to her feet looking strangely embarrassed for a girl who normally seemed so cast-iron, and for the first time I wondered just how deep that surface toughness went.
She heaved herself up on top of a square stone tomb and sat on the edge, legs dangling. I forgot my cigarettes. Can you oblige?
I produced my old silver cigarette case and passed it up. She helped herself and paused before returning it, a slight frown on her face as she examined the lid.
Whats the crest?
Fleet Air Arm.
Is that where you learned to fly? I nodded and she shook her head. The worst bit of casting Ive seen in years. Youre no more a bush pilot than my Uncle Max.
Should I be flattered or otherwise?
Depends how you look at it. Hes something in the City a partner in one of the merchant banking houses I think. Some kind of finance anyway.
I smiled. We dont all look like Humphrey Bogart you know or Jack Desforge for that matter.
All right, she said. Lets do it the hard way. Why Greenland? There must be other places.
Simple I can earn twice as much here in the four months of the summer season as I could in twelve months anywhere else.
And thats important?
It is to me. I want to buy another couple of planes.
That sounds ambitious for a start. To what end?
If I could start my own outfit in Newfoundland and Labrador Id be a rich man inside five or six years.
You sound pretty certain about that.
I should be I had eighteen months of it over there working for someone else, then six months free-lancing. The way Canadas expanding shell be the richest country in the world inside twenty-five years, take my word for it.
She shook her head. It still doesnt fit, she said, and obviously decided to try another tack. You look the sort of man who invariably has a good woman somewhere around in his life. What does she think about all this?
I havent heard from that front lately, I said. The last despatch was from her lawyers and distinctly cool.
What did she want money?
I shook my head. She could buy me those two planes and never notice it. No, she just wants her freedom. Im expecting the good word any day now.
You dont sound in any great pain.
Dust and ashes a long, long time ago. I grinned. Look, Ill put you out of your misery. Joe Martin, in three easy lessons. I did a degree in business administration at the London School of Economics and learned to fly with the University Air squadron. I had to do a couple of years National Service when I finished, so I decided I might as well get something out of it and took a short service commission as a pilot with the old Fleet Air Arm. My wife was an actress when I first met her. Bit parts with the Bristol Old Vic. All very real and earnest.
When did you get married?
When I came out of the service. Like your Uncle Max, I took a job in the City, in my case Public Relations.
Didnt it work out?
Very well indeed by normal standards. I frowned, trying to get the facts straight in my mind. It all seemed so unreal when you talked about it like this. There were other things that went wrong. Someone discovered that Amy could sing and before we knew where we were she was making records. From then on it was one long programme of one-night stands and tours, personal appearances that sort of thing.
And you saw less and less of each other. An old story in show business.
There seems to be a sort of gradual corruption about success especially that kind. When you find that you can earn a thousand pounds a week, its a short step to deciding there must be something wrong in a husband who cant make a tenth of that sum.
So you decided to cut loose.
There was a morning when I walked into my office, took one look at the desk and the pile of mail waiting for me and walked right out again. I spent my last thousand pounds on a conversion course and took a commercial pilots licence.
And here you are. Joe Martin fly anywhere do anything. Gun-running our speciality. She shook her head. The dream of every bowler-hatted clerk travelling each day on the City line. When do you move on to Pago Pago?
That comes next year, I said. But why should you have all the fun? Lets see what we can find out about Ilana Eytan. A Hebrew name as I remember, so for a start youre Jewish.
It was like a match on dry grass and she flared up at once. Israeli Im a sabra Israeli born and bred.
It was there, of course, the chip the size of a Californian Redwood and explained a great deal. I quickly smoothed her ruffled feathers. The most beautiful soldiers in the world, Israeli girls. Were you ever one?
Naturally everyone must serve. My father is a lecturer in Ancient Languages at the University of Tel Aviv, but he saw active service in the Sinai campaign in 1956 and he was well into his fifties.
What about this film business?
I did some theatre in Israel which led to a small film part, then someone offered me work in Italy. I played bit parts in several films there. Thats where I met Jack. He was on location for a war picture. He not only took the lead he also directed. Most of the money was his own too.
What about this film business?
I did some theatre in Israel which led to a small film part, then someone offered me work in Italy. I played bit parts in several films there. Thats where I met Jack. He was on location for a war picture. He not only took the lead he also directed. Most of the money was his own too.
And he gave you a part?
A small one, but I was the only woman in the picture so the critics had to say something.
And then Hollywood?
Old hat. These days you do better in Europe.
Suddenly the mist dissolved like a magic curtain and behind her, the mountain reared up into a sky that seemed bluer than ever.
Time to go, I said, and held up my hands to catch her as she jumped down.
She looked up at the mountain. Has it got a name?
Agsaussat, I said. An Eskimo word. It means big with child.
She laughed harshly. Well, thats Freudian if you like, she said, and turned and led the way out through the gap in the wall.
Just like that she had changed again, back into the tough, brittle young woman I had first encountered in the dining room of the hotel at Frederiksborg, safe behind a hard protective shell that could only be penetrated if she wished, and I felt strangely depressed as I followed her.
3
Off the southern tip of Disko we came across another two Portuguese schooners moving along nicely in a light breeze, followed by a fleet of fourteen-foot dories, their yellow and green sails vivid in the bright sunlight.
We drifted across the rocky spine of the island and dropped into the channel beyond that separates it from the mainland. I took the Otter down, losing height rapidly and a few moments later found what I was looking for.
Narquassit was typical of most Eskimo fishing villages on that part of the coast. There were perhaps fifteen or sixteen gaily painted wooden houses strung out along the edge of the shore and two or three whaleboats and a dozen kayaks had been beached just above the high water mark.
The Stella was anchored about fifty yards off-shore, a slim and graceful looking ninety-foot diesel motor yacht, her steel hull painted dazzling white with a scarlet trim. When I banked, turning into the wind for my landing, someone came out of the wheelhouse and stood at the bridge rail looking up at us.
Is that Jack? she asked as we continued our turn. I didnt get a good look.
I shook my head. Olaf Sørensen hes a Greenlander from Godthaab. Knows this coast like the back of his hand. Jack signed him on as pilot for the duration of the trip.
Is he carrying his usual crew?
They all came with him if thats what you mean. An engineer, two deck hands and a cook theyre American. And then theres the steward hes a Filipino.
Tony Serafino?
Thats him.
She was obviously pleased. Theres an old friend for a start.
I went in low once just to check the extent of the pack ice, but there was nothing to get excited about and I banked steeply and dropped her into the water without wasting any more time. I taxied towards the shore, let down the wheels and ran up on to dry land as the first of the village dogs arrived on the run. By the time Id switched off the engine and opened the side door, the rest of them were there, forming a half-circle, stiff-legged and angry, howling their defiance.
A handful of Eskimo children appeared and drove them away in a hail of sticks and stones. The children clustered together and watched us, the brown Mongolian faces solemn and unsmiling, the heavy fur-lined Parkas they wore exaggerating their bulk so that they looked like little old men and women.
They dont look very friendly, Ilana Eytan commented.
Try them with these. I produced a brown paper bag from my pocket.
She opened it and peered inside. What are they?
Mint humbugs never been known to fail.
But already the children were moving forward, their faces wreathed in smiles and she was swamped in a forest of waving arms as they swarmed around her.
I left her to it and went to the waters edge to meet the whaleboat from the Stella which was already half-way between the ship and the shore. One of the deckhands was at the tiller and Sørensen stood in the prow, a line ready in his hands. As the man in the stern cut the engine, the whaleboat started to turn, drifting in on the waves and Sørensen threw the line. I caught it quickly, one foot in the shallows, and started to haul. Sørensen joined me and a moment later we had the whaleboat around and her stern beached.
He spoke good English, a legacy of fifteen years in the Canadian and British merchant marines and he used it on every available opportunity.
I thought you might run into trouble when the mist came down.
I put down at Argamask for an hour.
He nodded. Nothing like knowing the coast. Whos the woman?
A friend of Desforges or so she says.
He didnt tell me he was expecting anyone.
He isnt, I said simply.
Like that, is it? He frowned. Desforge isnt going to like this, Joe.
I shrugged. Shes paid me in advance for the round trip. If he doesnt want her here she can come back with me tonight. I could drop her off at Søndre if she wants to make a connection for Europe or the States.
Thats okay by me as long as you think you can handle it. Ive got troubles enough just keeping the Stella in once piece.
I was surprised and showed it. Whats been going wrong?
Its Desforge, Sørensen said bitterly. The mans quite mad. Ive never known anyone so hell-bent on self-destruction.
Whats he been up to now?
We were up near Hagamut the other day looking for polar bear, his latest obsession, when we met some Eskimo hunters out after seal in their kayaks. Needless to say Desforge insisted on joining them. On the way back it seems he was out in front on his own when he came across an old bull walrus on the ice.
And tried to take it alone? I said incredulously.
With a harpoon and on foot.
What happened?
It knocked him down with its first rush and snapped the harpoon. Luckily one of the hunters from Hagamut came up fast and shot it before it could finish him off.
And he wasnt hurt?
A few bruises, thats all. He laughed the whole thing off. He can go to hell his own way as far as Im concerned, but Im entitled to object when he puts all our lives at risk quite needlessly. Theres been a lot of pack ice in the northern fjords this year it really is dangerous and yet he ordered me to take the Stella into the Kavangar Fjord because Eskimo hunters had reported traces of bear in that region. The ice was moving down so fast from the glacier that we were trapped for four hours. I thought we were never going to get out.
Where is he now?
He left by kayak about two hours ago with a party of hunters from Narquassit. Apparently one of them sighted a bear yesterday afternoon in an inlet about three miles up the coast. He had to pay them in advance to get them to go with him. They think hes crazy.