Hammond Innes - Campbell's Kingdom

This sudden interest in what we were doing gave me fresh heart. I stayed on and did the broadcast, for now that I was down in a town and forced to face the situation with realism I found I could not sustain the forced optimism that had been engendered by the tense atmosphere of the Kingdom. I was already subconsciously working towards obtaining the best compensation I could from the courts. Upon what they awarded me depended the extent to which I could repay those who had helped me. I made it clear, therefore, both in the broadcast and in the article I wrote for the Calgary Tribune, that we were into the igneous country that had stopped Campbell Number One and that given a few more weeks we should undoubtedly bring in a well.

This false optimism produced immediate dividends for on the morning after the broadcast Acheson came to see me. He looked pale and angry, which was not surprising since Fergus had sent him with an offer of $100,000. I was very tempted to accept. And then Acheson said, ‘Of course, in view of the publicity you have been getting, we shall require a statement that you are now of the opinion that Campbell was wrong and there is no oil in that area of the Rockies.’ ‘And if I don’t make the statement?’ ‘Then I’m instructed to withdraw the offer.’ I went over to the window and stood looking out across the railway tracks. To make that statement meant finally branding my grandfather as a liar and a cheat. It meant reversing all I’d aimed at in the last few months. It would be a final act of cowardice. ‘Would Fergus agree to free transportation of all vehicles and personnel down by the hoist and over the Thunder Valley road?’ ‘Yes.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll think about it.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘You’ll have to think fast then. This offer is open till midday.’ ‘What’s the hurry?’

‘Fergus wants to get shot of the whole business.’ He left me then and for an hour I paced up and down the room, trying to balance my unwillingness to accept defeat against the need to repay the men who had helped me. And then the bell-hop came and I knew why they had been in such a hurry to get a decision out of me. It was a telegram from Boy, dispatched from Keithley: Through sill at fifty-eight hundred. Drilling ten per hour. Everyone optimistic. Second consignment fuel on way. Boy. I stared at it, excitement mounting inside me, reviving my hopes, bursting like a flood over my mood of pessimism. I seized hold of the phone and rang Acheson. ‘I just wanted to let you know that half a million dollars wouldn’t buy the Kingdom now,’ I told him. ‘We’re in the clear and drilling ten feet an hour. You knew that damn well, didn’t you? Well, you can tell Fergus it’s going to cost him a fortune to flood the Kingdom.’ I slammed down the receiver without waiting for him to reply. The damned crooks! They’d known we were through the sill. They’d known it by the speed at which the travelling block moved down the rig. That’s why they’d increased their offer. I was laughing aloud in my excitement as I picked up the phone and rang the editor of the Calgary Tribune. I told him the whole thing, how they’d offered me $100,000 and they’d known all the time we were in the clear. ‘If they’ll only give us long enough,’ I said, ‘we’ll bring in that well.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said. ‘We’ll run this story and I’ll write a leader that won’t do you any harm. When are you planning to go up there?’

‘I’ll be leaving first thing in the morning,’ I said.

‘Okay. Well, don’t worry about transport. I’ll have Steve pick you up in the station wagon around nine. You don’t mind him coming up with you?’

‘Of course not.’

Early the following evening Steve and I arrived in Jasper. There was little snow on the mountains now and it was still warm after the blistering heat of the day. It was only that evening, as I sat drinking beer with Jeff, that I realised I had been over a week in Calgary and hadn’t felt ill. ‘It’s our dry, healthy climate, I guess,’ Jeff said. I nodded, abstractedly, thinking how much had happened since that first time I had come through Jasper. ‘Don’t reckon they gave you much time to be ill, anyway.’ Jeff took a newspaper from his pocket and passed it across to me. It was the Edmonton paper and it carried a long news story on development in the Kingdom.

The effect was to make me even more impatient to get up to the Kingdom. Somehow I couldn’t bear the thought that they might strike oil before I got up there. From a mood of despair I had swung over to wild, unreasoned optimism. For a long time I lay awake that night watching the moon over the peak of Edith Cavell, praying to God that it would be all right, that we’d get deep enough in time. I was sorry Johnnie couldn’t come up with me; he was out riding trail with a party of dudes and Jeff was tied up with his garage now the tourist season was in full swing.

The next night we bunked down in the straw of the Wessels hayloft and early the following morning we rode round the north shore of Beaver Dam Lake and when we emerged from the cottonwoods there, suddenly, straight ahead of us, were the peaks of Solomon’s Judgment. I reined in my pony and sat there for a moment, staring at them, thinking of the activity going on up there, hearing the clatter of the drill, seeing the travelling block slowly descending. Jean would be there and with luck …

I shook my reins and heeled the pony forward. It didn’t bear thinking about. There just had to be oil there. My eyes were dazzled for a moment by the flash of sun on glass. It was a lorry moving on the road up to Thunder Creek. Another and another followed it; materials for the dam moving up to the hoist. ‘Seems a lot more traffic on that road now,’ Steve said.

I nodded and pushed on up the trail. I didn’t want to think about that dam. I hoped to God they were behind schedule. Already it was the 15th and their completion date was supposed to be the 20th. Only five more days.

As we wound our way up through the timber I smelt the old, familiar smell of warm resin. It seemed to me as heady as wine. It made the blood sing in my veins and my heart pound. I felt as though this were my country, as though it were a part of me as it had been a part of old Stuart Campbell.

Thunder heads were building up as we reached the timber line. The peaks became cold and grey and streaks of forked lightning stabbed at the mountains to the roll of thunder echoing through the valleys. And then the hail came. The Kingdom was blanketed with it as we crossed the Saddle in a freak shaft of sunlight.

An hour later Moses was barking a welcome to us as we rode up to the ranch-house. Jean came in as we unsaddled. Her eyes were bright in the gloom of the stable and as I gripped her arms and felt the trembling excitement of her body the place seemed like home. ‘Have we brought in a well?’ I asked her.

She shook her head. ‘The boys are working shifts round the clock now,’ she said. ‘They’re determined that if it’s there, they’ll get down to it.’ The tightness of her voice revealed the strain they were working under and when we went out into the sunlight I was shocked to see how tired she looked.

‘What are they down to now?’ I asked.

‘Six thousand four hundred.’

‘Let’s go down to the rig,’ I said. ‘I’ve got some mail for them and a lot of newspapers.’

‘Sure you’re not too tired?’ She was looking at me anxiously. ‘I was afraid-’ She turned away and stared towards the rig. ‘They’ve nearly finished the dam,’ she said quickly. ‘They’ve been working at it like beavers. A week ago they took on fifty extra men.’

‘When do they expect to complete it?’

‘In two days’ time.’

Two days! I turned to Steve. ‘You hear that, Steve? Two days.’