Blue Ice

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?’

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.