Hammond Innes: Blue Ice

‘That’s a pipe dream,’ I told him. ‘And you know it. Thorite costs dollars. And even if you’d got all the dollars in the world, there just isn’t enough of the stuff. American output is negligible, and that’s the only known source.’

‘Is it?’ He fished a small wooden box from the pocket of his overcoat and pushed it across the table at me. Then what’s this?’ he asked.

I lifted the lid. Inside, resting on cotton wool, was a lump of metallic-looking ore. I lifted it out and with sudden excitement took it over to the window. ‘Where did you get this?’ I asked.

‘First, what is it?’ he asked.

‘I can’t be certain until tests have been made,’ I told him. ‘But I’d say it’s thorite.’

He nodded. ‘It is thorite,’ he said. ‘We’ve been through all the tests.’

I looked out of the window at the smoke and dirt of London’s river. I was thinking of long assembly lines pouring out thorite alloy equipment, stronger than steel, lighter than aluminium, rustless and bright. If we could mine thorite in quantity then Britain would no longer lose ground to America. ‘Where was this mined?’ I asked.

He sat back in his chair again. ‘That’s what I don’t know,’ he said.

‘But surely,’ I said, ‘you know where it came from?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, I know where it came from.’ His voice was dry and unemotional. ‘A fishmonger in Hartlepool sent it to me.’

‘A fishmonger in Hartlepool?’ I stared at him. I thought he was joking.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He found it in a case of whale meat.’

‘You mean it came from the stomach of a whale?’ I was thinking of untold mineral wealth that was supposed to be hidden under the Antarctic ice.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘The whale meat came from Norway. And that lump of ore hadn’t been absorbed into the digestive organs of a whale. It had been placed in a fold of the meat when it was packed.’ He paused, and then said, ‘We’ve checked up as far as we can from this end. The meat was part of a consignment dispatched to Newcastle by one of the Norwegian coastal stations.’ He leaned forward. ‘Gansert, I want your opinion. Who’s the best man for us on Norway?’

‘You mean for metals?’ I asked.

He nodded.

I didn’t have to stop and think. I knew them all. Most of them were friends of mine. There’s Pritchard,’ I said. ‘Einar Jacobsen’s good, and there’s that Swedish fellow, Kults. Oh, and Williamson. But for our purpose, I’d say Pritchard.’

‘That’s no good,’ he said. ‘We’re not the only people who know about this. Det Norske Staalselskab are on to it, too. Jorgensen’s over here now, purchasing equipment. He’s also angling for a tie up with either ourselves or Castlet Steel. He says he possesses all the necessary information, but he’s asking us to go into it blind. I’ve told him that’s impossible and he threatens to approach the Americans. We’ve no time to waste sending Pritchard out there. He could search for months and find nothing. What we need is somebody who could advise us out of his own knowledge.’

There’s only one man who could do that,’ I said. ‘And he’s probably dead by now. But if he weren’t he could give you the answers you want. He knows Norway-’ I stopped then and shrugged my shoulders. That was the trouble,’ I added. ‘He spent too much time in Norway — his own time and other people’s money.’

Sir Clinton’s gaze was fixed on me and there was almost a glint of excitement in his eyes. ‘You mean George Farnell, don’t you?’ he said.

I nodded. ‘But it’s ten years since he disappeared.’

‘I know.’ Sir Clinton’s fingers drummed a tattoo on the leather surface of his brief case. Two weeks ago our representative in Norway cabled from Oslo that there were rumours of new mineral discoveries in the central part of the country. Ever since then I’ve been trying to trace George Farnell. His mother and father are both dead. He seems to have had no relatives and no friends. Those who knew him before his conviction haven’t heard from him since he disappeared. I had a detective agency on the job. No luck. Then I put an advertisement in the personal column of The Times.’

‘Any luck there?’ I asked as he paused.

‘Yes. I had several replies — including the fishmonger. Apparently fishmongers now read The Times.’

‘But what made him connect that lump of ore with your advertisement?’

‘This.’ Sir Clinton produced a filthy slip of paper. It was stained and stiffened with the congealed blood of the whale meat and had split along the folds. Through the dark bloodstains spidery writing showed in a vague blur. Two lines of what looked like poetry — and then a signature.

Ten years! It seemed incredible. ‘I suppose it is his signature?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’ Sir Clinton passed a slip of paper across to me. ‘That’s a specimen,’ he said.

I compared the two. There was no doubt about it. Blurred and half obliterated by the blood, the signature on the scrap of paper had the same flourishing characteristics as the specimen. I sat back, thinking of George Farnell — how he’d flung himself out of an express train and had then completely vanished. He’d worked with me once on some concessions in Southern Rhodesia. He’d been a small, dark man with tremendous vitality — a bundle of nerves behind horn-rimmed glasses. He was an authority on base metals and he’d been obsessed with the idea of untold mineral wealth in the great mountain mass of Central Norway. ‘This means that he’s alive, and in Norway,’

I said slowly.

‘I wish you were right,’ Sir Clinton answered. He produced a newspaper cutting from his briefcase. ‘Farnell’s dead. This was published a fortnight ago. I didn’t see it at the time. My attention was draw to it later. There’s a picture of the grave. And I’ve checked with the Norwegian military authorities that he did, in fact, join the Kompani Linge under the name of Bernt Olsen.’

I took the cutting. It was headlined — ESCAPED CONVICT IN HERO’S GRAVE. The letters of the name — Bernt Olsen — stood out black against the plain white cross in the picture.

In the background was a small wooden church. The story recalled how Farnell had been convicted of forging the name of his partner, Vincent Clegg, and swindling him out of nearly Ł10,000, how he had escaped from the lavatory window of a train while being transferred to Parkhurst and had then completely vanished. That was in August, 1939. Apparently Farnell, trading on his knowledge of Norwegian, had then enlisted in the Norwegian Forces under the name Bernt Olsen. He had joined the Kompani Linge and had gone on the Maloy raid in December, 1941. He was reported missing from this operation. There followed a paragraph marked with blue pencil:-. ‘Recently the body of a man, later identified as Bernt Olsen, was discovered on the Boya Brae. He had attempted a lone crossing of the Jostedal, Europe’s largest glacier. Presumably he had lost his way in a snowstorm. He must have fallen over a thousand feet on to the Boya Brae, a tributary of the main glacier above Fjaerland. He had with him divining rods and other metallurgical instruments. Papers found on the body proved the connection between Bernt Olsen, the hero, and George Farnell, the convict.’

The story finished sententiously: And so another of Britain’s sons has found glory in the hour of his country’s greatest need.

I handed the story back to Sir Clinton. ‘That happened a month ago?’ I asked.

He nodded. ‘Yes. That’s been checked. The body was found on March 10th. The grave is at Fjaerland, which is at the head of the fjord running right up under the Jostedal. Have you read the lines above the signature on that piece of paper?’