Hammond Innes: Blue Ice

I looked at the blooded scrap again. The lines were too blurred.

‘I’ve had it deciphered by experts,’ Sir Clinton went on. ‘It reads: If I should die, think only this of me…’

‘This presumably being the sample of thorite?’ I said. ‘How does it go? If I should die, think only this of me — That there’s some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.’ An open invitation? But the fool hadn’t said which corner. ‘Who was this addressed to?’ I asked.

That’s the trouble,’ Sir Clinton replied. ‘The fishmonger.destroyed the wrapping. He said it was sodden with blood and quite unreadable anyway.’

‘Pity,’ I said. ‘If we’d known that …’ I was thinking of til the people who’d like to get their hands on deposits of thorite. B.M. amp; I. wasn’t the only concern that had produced new alloys based on thorite.

‘It’s almost as though he had some premonition,’ Sir Clinton murmured. ‘Why else should he quote those lines of Rupert Brooke?’

‘Why, indeed?’ I said. ‘And why go and die on the Jostedal?’ That was what really puzzled me. Most of his life Farnell had spent in the mountains of Norway. He’d gone there as a boy on walking tours. By the time he was twenty he knew the mountains better than most Norwegians. All through that hot summer in Southern Rhodesia he’d talked of little else. Norway was his El Dorado. He lived for nothing else but the discovery of minerals in the ice-capped fastnesses of Scandinavia. It was to finance prospecting expeditions to Norway that he had swindled his partner. That had come out at the trial. I turned to Sir Clinton. ‘Isn’t there something strange,’ I said, ‘about a man who survives a jump from an express train, goes through the Maloy raid, does resistance work — all things he’s never done before — and then gets himself killed in the one place on which he’s really at home?’

Sir Clinton smiled and got to his feet. ‘He’s dead,’ he said. ‘And that’s all there is to it. But before he died he discovered something. When he went to the Jostedal he knew his life was in danger — hence the thorite sample and the note. Somewhere in England there’s somebody who’s expecting that sample.’ He folded the newspaper cutting and thrust the wooden box with the thorite sample back into the pocket of his coat. ‘What we need to know is what he had discovered before he died.’ He paused. ‘See — to-day’s Monday. I’ll have Ulvik — that’s our Norwegian representative — up at Fjaerland from Friday onwards. Find out all you can about how Farnell died — why he was on the Jostedal — and above all where that thorite sample came from. Needless to say, you’ll find our representative has authority to meet all expenses you may incur in Norway. And we shan’t forget that you’ll be acting for the company as a freelance in this matter.’

He seemed to take it for granted that I’d switch my plans. That got me angry. ‘Look, Sir Clinton,’ I said. ‘I’m not in need of money, and you seem to have forgotten that I’m leaving for the Mediterranean Tommorow.’

He turned in the doorway of the cabin. The Mediterranean or Norway — what’s it matter to you, Gansert?’ He gripped my arm. ‘We need somebody over there we can trust,’ he said. ‘Somebody who knew Farnell and who’s an expert in this sort of metal. Above all, we need somebody who understands the urgency of the matter. Farnell is dead. I want to know what he discovered before he died. I’m offering you a purpose for your trip — and the necessary foreign exchange.’ He nodded and turned again towards the door. ‘Think it over,’ he said.

I hesitated. He was climbing the companion. ‘You’ve left your paper,’ I said.

‘You might like to read it,’ he answered.

I followed him up on to the deck. ‘Good luck!’ he said. Then he climbed the iron ladder to the wharf. I stood and watched his tall, stooping figure till it disappeared between the warehouses. Damn the man! Why did he have to interfere with my plans? To hell with him -1 was going down into the sunshine where there was warmth and colour. And then I thought of Farnell and how he’d discovered that seam of copper when everyone else had thought the mine worked out. Why in the world should he go and get himself killed on a glacier?

‘What did the old boy want?’ Dick’s voice brought me back to the present.

Briefly I told him what had happened. ‘Well?’ he asked when I had finished. ‘What is it to be — the Med. or Norway?’ There was a bitter note in his voice as though he were resigned to disappointment. Norway was to him a cold, dark country. He wanted the sun and opportunity.

The Mediterranean,’ I said with sudden decision. ‘I’m through with the scramble for metals.’ The wind howled joyfully in the rigging. Then we’d lie out on the deck and swim and laze and drink wine. ‘Go and check that that water tender’s coming alongside before the tide leaves us on the mud,’ I said, and turned and went back to the saloon. I crossed over to the porthole and stood there idly watching a barge drift down with the outgoing tide. But why had Farnell died on the Jostedal? That’s what I couldn’t get out of my mind. During the war he’d probably lived up in the mountains. He knew all the glaciers. I glanced down at the table. The paper that Sir Clinton had left was still there. I read the headlines without recording them. I was thinking of Farnell’s note: If I should die… Why quote that?

A story ringed in blue pencil caught my eye. It was headed — METAL EXPERT TO VISIT CONVICT’S GRAVE. I picked up the paper. The story was quite short. It read:’ Recent reports of mineral discoveries in Central Norway have aroused fresh interest in the death of convict hero, George Farnell, whose body was discovered a month ago on the Jostedal Glacier in Norway. Farnell was an expert on Norwegian minerals. Castlet Steel and Base Metals amp; Industries are the firms chiefly interested. Sir Clinton Mann, chairman of B.M. amp; I., said yesterday, ‘It is possible that Farnell may have discovered something. We intend to investigate.’

‘“Big” Bill Gansert, until recently production chief at B.M. amp; I.‘s metal alloy plant at Birmingham, is the man chosen for the job. He leaves for Norway Tommorow, sailing his own yacht, Diviner, and postponing a planned Mediterranean cruise. If anyone has any information that may assist Gansert in his investigations, they are asked to get in touch with him on board his yacht which is moored at the wharf of Messrs. Crouch and Crouch, Herring-Pickle Street, London, close by Tower Bridge.’

I threw the paper down angrily. What right had he to put out a story like that? — trying to force my hand? I thought of all I’d read about the ruins of Greece and Italy, the pyramids, the primitive islands of the Aegean, the hill towns of Sicily. I I suppose I’ve been almost everywhere in the world. But I’ve seen nothing of it. I’ve always been chasing some damned metal, rushing from place to place, a little cog in the big machine of grab. I’ve never had a chance to stop off where I like and laze in the sun and look around me. All I knew of the world was cities and mining camps. I picked up the paper and read the story through again. Then I went up on deck. ‘Dick!’ I shouted. ‘Any reason why we can’t slip out on this tide?’

‘Yes,’ he answered, surprised. ‘We’ve just grounded. Why?’

‘Read that,’ I said and handed him the paper.

He read it through. Then he said, ‘It looks like Norway, doesn’t it?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘No, it doesn’t. I’m damned if I’ll be thrust into the thing like this.’

‘What about Farnell?’ he murmured.

‘What about him?’

‘You want to know how he managed to kill himself on that glacier, don’t you?’ he suggested.