“We’re taking the wireless operator and stewardess with us,” I explained. “Back in twenty minutes. And if you want to live, just keep this door tight shut.”
“What an extraordinarily brusque young man,” the elderly lady murmured. Her voice was low-pitched, resonant, with an extraordinary carrying power.
“Only from necessity, madam,” I said dryly. “Would you really prefer long-winded and flowery speeches the while you were freezing to death?”
“Well, do you know, I really don’t think I would,” she answered mock-seriously, and I could hear her chuckling – there was no other word for it – as I closed the door behind me.
Working in the cramped confines of that wrecked control cabin, in almost pitch darkness and with that ice-laden bitter gale whistling through the shattered windscreens, we had the devil’s own time of it trying to get the injured wireless operator down to that waiting sledge below. Without the help of the big young stranger I don’t think we would ever have managed it, but manage it we eventually did: he and I lowered and slid the stretcher down to Jackstraw and Joss, who took and strapped it on the sledge. Then we eased the stewardess down: I thought I heard her cry out as she hung supported only by a hand round either wrist, and remembered that Jackstraw had said something about her back being injured. But there was no time for such things now.
I jumped down and a couple of seconds later the big young man joined me. I hadn’t intended that he should come, but there was no harm in it: he had to go sometime, and there was no question of his having to ride on the sledge.
The wind had eased a little, perhaps, but the cold was crueller than ever. Even the dogs cowered miserably in the lee of the plane: now and again one of them stretched out a neck in protest and gave its long, mournful wolf call, a sound eerie beyond description. But their misery was all to the good: as Jackstraw said, they were mad to run.
And, with the wind and ice-drift behind them, run they did. At first I led the way with the torch, but Balto, the big lead dog, brushed me aside and raced on into the darkness: I had sense enough to let him have his head. He followed the twisting route of the plane’s snow-furrow, the bamboos, homing spool and antenna line as swiftly and unerringly as if it had been broad daylight, and the polished steel runners of the sledge fairly hissed across the snow. The frozen ground was smooth and flat as river ice; no ambulance could have carried the wireless operator as comfortably as our sledge did that night.
It took us no more than five minutes to reach the cabin, and in three more minutes we were on our way again. They were a busy three minutes. Jackstraw lit the oil stove, oil lamp and Colman pressure lamp, while Joss and I put the injured man on a collapsible cot before the stove, worked him into my sleeping-bag, slid in half a dozen heat pads – waterproof pads containing a chemical which gave off heat when water was added – placed a rolled up blanket under his neck to keep the back of his head off the cot, and zipped the sleeping-bag shut. I had surgical instruments enough to do what had to be done, but it had to wait: not so much because we had others still to rescue, urgent enough though that was, but the man lying at our feet, so still, so ashen-faced, was suffering so severely from shock and exposure that to touch him would have been to kill him: I was astonished that he had managed to survive even this long.
I told the stewardess to make some coffee, gave her the necessary instructions, and then we left her and the big young man together: the girl heating a pan over a pile of meta tablets, the young man staring incredulously into a mirror as he kneaded a frost-bitten cheek and chin with one hand, and with another held a cold compress to a frozen ear. We took with us the warm clothes we had lent them, some rolls of bandages, and left.
Ten minutes later we were back inside the plane. Despite its insulation, the temperature inside the main cabin had already dropped at least thirty degrees and almost everyone was shivering with the cold, one or two beating their arms to keep themselves warm. Even the Dixie colonel was looking very subdued. The elderly lady, fur coat tightly wrapped around her, looked at her watch and smiled.
“Twenty minutes, exactly. You are very prompt, young man.”
“We try to be of service.” I dumped the pile of clothes I was carrying on a seat, nodded at them and the contents of a gunny sack Joss and Jackstraw were emptying. “Share these out between you and be as quick as you can. I want you to get out at once – my two friends here will take you back. Perhaps one of you will be kind enough to remain behind.” I looked to where the young girl still sat alone in her back seat, still holding her left forearm in her hand. Til need some help to fix this young lady up.”
“Fix her up?” It was the expensive young woman in the expensive furs speaking for the first time. Her voice was expensive as the rest of her and made me want to reach for a hairbrush. “Why? What on earth is the mattef with her?”
“Her collar-bone is broken,” I said shortly.
“Collar-bone broken?” The elderly lady was on her feet, her face a nice mixture of concern and indignation. “And she’s been sitting there alone all this time – why didn’t you tell us, you silly man?”
“I forgot,” I replied mildly. “Besides, what good would it have done?” I looked down at the girl in the mink coat. Goodness only knew that I didn’t particularly want her, but the injured girl had struck me as being almost painfully shy, and I was sure she’d prefer to have one of her own sex around. “Would you like to give me a hand?”
She stared at me, a cold surprised stare that would have been normal enough had I made some outrageous or improper request, but before she could answer the elderly lady broke in again.
Til stay behind. I’d love to help.”
“Well-” I began doubtfully, but she interrupted immediately.
“Well yourself. What’s the matter? Think I’m too old, hey?”
“No, no, of course not,” I protested.
“A fluent liar, but a gallant one.” She grinned. “Come on, we’re wasting this valuable time you’re always so concerned about.” We brought the girl into the first of the rear seats, where there was plenty of space between that and the first of the rearward facing front seats, and had just worked her coat off when Joss called me.
“We’re off now, sir. Back in twenty minutes.”
As the door closed behind the last of them and I broke open a roll of bandage, the old lady looked quizzically at me.
“Know what you’re doing, young man?”
“More or less. I’m a doctor.”
“Doctor, hey?” She looked at me with open suspicion, and what with my bulky, oil-streaked and smelly furs, not to mention the fact that I hadn’t shaved for three days, I suppose there was justification enough for it. “You sure?”
“Sure I’m sure,” I said irritably. “What do you expect me to do – whip my medical degree out from under this parka or just wear round my neck a brass plate giving my consulting hours?”
“We’ll get along, young man,” she chuckled. She patted my arm, then turned to the young girl. “What’s your name, my dear?”
“Helene.” We could hardly catch it, the voice was so low: her embarrassment was positively painful.
“Helene? A lovely name.” And indeed, the way she said it made it sound so. “You’re not British, are you? Or American?”
“I’m from Germany, madam.”
“Don’t call me ‘madam’. You know, you speak English beautifully. Germany, hey? Bavaria, for a guess?”
“Yes.” The rather plain face was transfigured in a smile, and I mentally saluted the old lady for the ease with which she was distracting the young girl’s thoughts from the pain. “Munich. Perhaps you know it?”
“Like the back of my hand,” she said complacently. “And not just the Hofbrauhaus either. You’re still very young, aren’t you?”
“I’m seventeen.”
“Seventeen.” A nostalgic sigh. “Ah, my dear, I remember when I was seventeen. A different world. There was no trans-Atlantic airliner in those days, I can tell you.”
“In fact,” I murmured, “the Wright brothers were hardly airborne.” The face had been more than familiar to me, and I was annoyed that I should have taken so long in placing it: I suppose it was because her normal setting was so utterly different from this bleak and frozen world.