Read Online Night Without End by Alistair MacLean - Free Book Online
Authors: Alistair MacLean
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coming forward and catching me by the lapels. I noticed the glitter of a diamond ring on her hand, and remember having some vague idea that this was against airline regulations.
"What kind of joke is this? It can't be, it can't be! Greenland - it just can't be." She saw by the expression on my face that I wasn't joking, and her grip tightened even more. I had just time to be conscious of two conflicting thoughts - that, wide with fear and dismay though they might be, she had the most extraordinarily beautiful brown eyes and, secondly, that the BOAC were slipping in their selection of stewardesses whose calmness in emergency was supposed to match the trimness of their appearance - then she rushed on wildly.
"How - how can it be? We were on a Gander-Reykjavik flight. Greenland - we don't go anywhere near it. And there's the automatic pilot, and radio beams and - and radio base checks every half-hour. Oh, it's impossible, it's impossible! Why do you tell us this?" She was shaking now, whether from nervous strain or cold I had no idea: the big young man with the Ivy League accent put an arm awkwardly round her shoulder, and I saw her wince. Something indeed seemed to be hurting her - but again it could wait.
"Joss," I called. He looked up from the stove, where he was pouring coffee into mugs. "Tell our friends where we are."
"Latitude 72.40 north, longitude 40.10 east," Joss said unemotionally. His voice cut clearly through the hubbub of incredulous conversation. "Three hundred miles from the nearest human habitation. Four hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle. Near enough 800 miles from Reykjavik, 1000 from Cape Farewell, the southernmost point of Greenland, and just a little further distant from the North Pole. And if anyone doesn't believe us, sir, I suggest they just take a walk - in any direction - and they'll find out who's right."
Joss's calm, matter-of-fact statement was worth half an hour of argument and explanation. In a moment, conviction was complete - and there were more problems than ever to be answered. I held up my hand in mock protest and protection against the waves of questions that surged against me from every side.
"All in good time, please - although I don't really know anything more than yourselves - with the exception, perhaps, of one thing. But first, coffee and brandy all round."
"Brandy?" The expensive young woman had been the first, I'd noticed, to appropriate one of the empty wooden cases that Jackstraw had brought in in lieu of seats, and now she looked up under the curve of exquisitely modelled eyebrows. "Are you sure that's wise?" The tone of her voice left little room for doubt as to her opinion.
"Of course." I forced myself to be civil: bickering could reach intolerable proportions in a rigidly closed, mutually interdependent group such as we were likely to be for some time to come. "Why ever not?"
"Opens the pores, dear man," she said sweetly. "I thought everyone knew that - how dangerous it is when you're exposed to cold afterwards. Or had you forgotten? Our cases, our night things in the plane - somebody has to get these."
"Don't talk such utter rubbish." My short-lived attempt at civility perished miserably. "Nobody's leaving here tonight. You sleep in your clothes - this isn't the Dorchester. If the blizzard dies down, we may try to get your things tomorrow morning."
"But-"
"If you're all that desperate, you're welcome to get them yourself. Want to try?" It was boorish of me, but that was the effect she had. I turned away to see the minister or priest hold up his hand against the offered brandy.
"Go on, take it," I said impatiently.
"I don't really think I
"What kind of joke is this? It can't be, it can't be! Greenland - it just can't be." She saw by the expression on my face that I wasn't joking, and her grip tightened even more. I had just time to be conscious of two conflicting thoughts - that, wide with fear and dismay though they might be, she had the most extraordinarily beautiful brown eyes and, secondly, that the BOAC were slipping in their selection of stewardesses whose calmness in emergency was supposed to match the trimness of their appearance - then she rushed on wildly.
"How - how can it be? We were on a Gander-Reykjavik flight. Greenland - we don't go anywhere near it. And there's the automatic pilot, and radio beams and - and radio base checks every half-hour. Oh, it's impossible, it's impossible! Why do you tell us this?" She was shaking now, whether from nervous strain or cold I had no idea: the big young man with the Ivy League accent put an arm awkwardly round her shoulder, and I saw her wince. Something indeed seemed to be hurting her - but again it could wait.
"Joss," I called. He looked up from the stove, where he was pouring coffee into mugs. "Tell our friends where we are."
"Latitude 72.40 north, longitude 40.10 east," Joss said unemotionally. His voice cut clearly through the hubbub of incredulous conversation. "Three hundred miles from the nearest human habitation. Four hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle. Near enough 800 miles from Reykjavik, 1000 from Cape Farewell, the southernmost point of Greenland, and just a little further distant from the North Pole. And if anyone doesn't believe us, sir, I suggest they just take a walk - in any direction - and they'll find out who's right."
Joss's calm, matter-of-fact statement was worth half an hour of argument and explanation. In a moment, conviction was complete - and there were more problems than ever to be answered. I held up my hand in mock protest and protection against the waves of questions that surged against me from every side.
"All in good time, please - although I don't really know anything more than yourselves - with the exception, perhaps, of one thing. But first, coffee and brandy all round."
"Brandy?" The expensive young woman had been the first, I'd noticed, to appropriate one of the empty wooden cases that Jackstraw had brought in in lieu of seats, and now she looked up under the curve of exquisitely modelled eyebrows. "Are you sure that's wise?" The tone of her voice left little room for doubt as to her opinion.
"Of course." I forced myself to be civil: bickering could reach intolerable proportions in a rigidly closed, mutually interdependent group such as we were likely to be for some time to come. "Why ever not?"
"Opens the pores, dear man," she said sweetly. "I thought everyone knew that - how dangerous it is when you're exposed to cold afterwards. Or had you forgotten? Our cases, our night things in the plane - somebody has to get these."
"Don't talk such utter rubbish." My short-lived attempt at civility perished miserably. "Nobody's leaving here tonight. You sleep in your clothes - this isn't the Dorchester. If the blizzard dies down, we may try to get your things tomorrow morning."
"But-"
"If you're all that desperate, you're welcome to get them yourself. Want to try?" It was boorish of me, but that was the effect she had. I turned away to see the minister or priest hold up his hand against the offered brandy.
"Go on, take it," I said impatiently.
"I don't really think I
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