“But what about the night?” said Roger.
Everybody laughed, although, inside, not one of them really felt much like laughing. Titty remembered being lost with Roger up on the fells in a summer fog. That had been bad enough. But to be lost in winter and in a snowstorm was much worse.
“They’ll know it’s us coming to the rescue the moment they see the lantern,” she said.
“Unless they’re hopeless galoots,” said Peggy.
They skated on and on, hoping always to hear a hail out of the darkness.
“When did the blizzard calm down?” said John suddenly.
“Not till it was pretty well dark,” said Peggy.
“We could only just see, going up the field,” said Titty, “and we started home from the Fram almost the moment it stopped.”
“Well, they wouldn’t try to move once they got ashore,” said John. “And by the time it stopped they couldn’t get home along the road. They’d simply have to come back over the ice. And they’d keep close to the shore so as not to lose their way. But why on earth didn’t they cut straight across to Beckfoot the moment they saw the snow coming?”
“They didn’t know Nancy was clear of mumps,” said Susan. “We didn’t know till yesterday afternoon.”
“I say,” said Peggy. “Oughtn’t we to go and tell Nancy and get her to come? She’ll be awfully sick at not coming when she hears about it.”
For a moment John hesitated. Over there, on the other side of the lake, where the great white mass of Kanchenjunga sloped down into the long line of the fells, somewhere over there was the mouth of the Amazon; Beckfoot was there, and Nancy, who had planned everything for the expedition, and was now clear of mumps, and had been done out of the council by the coming of the snowstorm. She was sitting there not knowing that part of the expedition had already started, and was lost, and that a rescue party was racing northwards in the dark. It did seem rather a shame. But, for all he knew, every minute mattered. He thought of Dorothea, a little town girl, not tough like themselves, out all day in that blinding storm. He thought of Dick, who was full of good ideas but was nearly always thinking of the wrong one. They could both skate like anything, but, in weather like today’s, could anybody trust them to know what to do? And then he thought again of Captain Nancy, but for whose mumps they would all have been long ago at school.
“Ahoy, Susan!” he called.
“Ahoy!” The lantern stopped, and was moving swiftly back towards them. “What’s the matter? Those two getting tired?”
“It’s Nancy,” said John. “Oughtn’t we to go and rope her in?”
“She’s probably in bed,” said Susan. “They probably send her to bed soon after tea. She’s been ill. Nobody would ever let her go out at night.”
“I forgot that,” said John. Susan was right. It would be a waste of time to go right across the lake to Beckfoot only to find Nancy in bed. And someone would have to stay on this side of the lake in case of missing the D.’s, who might be trying to get home. That would mean splitting up the party, and whenever that happened there were always chances for things to go wrong. It was bad enough to have the D.’s lost without having to bother about what was happening to anybody else.
They wondered if the light they could see over there could be the light in Nancy’s window. Peggy thought it probably was. They were very sorry for her, but there was nothing to be done. Presently the light they had seen was gone. They skated on. John took a turn with the lantern, then Peggy again. The elders noticed that Titty and Roger were talking less and less, and began to be afraid that they would be tired out before ever the D.’s had been found. So first Roger and then Titty was made to lie flat on the loaded sledge, and changed from being a dog to being a passenger. But it was far too cold for anybody to be a passenger for very long.
They kept very close to the shore until they were brought up short by running into a snowdrift that had built itself up against a low spit that ran far out into the lake. After that they gave the shore a rather wider berth, but they were never too far away to hear a hail if anybody had been there to shout to them. The blue darkness of each little bay brought them nearer in. And all the time they were watching the white fields that came down to the edge of the ice and the dark fringes of the woods where the trees came down to the beach, hoping every moment to see some sign of Dick and Dorothea.
“It’s no good thinking they’d have the sense to light a fire,” said Susan, “and they wouldn’t know how to do it in a snowstorm. They probably hadn’t got any matches, either.”
Roger patted his pocket to hear the matches rattle in his box. It was pleasant to feel that he, at least, was properly equipped.
“I don’t believe they can have got as far as this,” said John. “Not before the snow started.”
“They can skate awfully fast,” said Titty.
“They can’t have been such galoots as to try to go on in the blizzard,” said Peggy.
“They couldn’t see where they were going,” said Roger. “We couldn’t even see the shore when we looked out from the Fram.”
“But what would they do?” said Titty. “They’d have to do something. They may have tried to get back and got lost on the way . . . Going in circles, like we did in the fog.”
“How far is it to the head of the lake?” asked John.
“Good long way yet,” said Peggy.
“Well,” said John, “it’s no use cutting across now. We’ll keep right up this side and then come back down the other if we haven’t met them.”
On and on they skated. Titty and Roger had long stopped talking. John was counting grimly aloud, “One, two, one, two.” Hopes had fallen low. The snow mountains seemed to be closing in on either side. Scattered lights in a line far ahead showed where the village lay close under the fells beyond and above the head of the lake. There were fewer than there had been. Folk were going to bed. Worst of all, the farther north they came the worse was the skating. There was so much snow on the ice that again and again a tired dog was tripped up by it.
“Halt,” called John, at last. “It’s no good trying to skate here. Better take them off.”
That was better. For some time now Titty had been wondering how much longer she could bear the ache down her shins that was almost as bad as it had been in those early days of skating practice on the tarn. Skates were taken off, strapped in pairs, and loaded on the sledge. They trudged on. It was not easy going. The ice was slippery under the snow, but anything was better than skating in the dark and knowing that any minute a little ridge of blown snow might bring one headlong down.
At last, on their right, the wooded shore fell away, and they turned into a deep bay. A light on shore went out.
“It couldn’t be them, could it?” said Titty.
“Can’t tell,” said John.
They trudged steadily round the bay, trying not to lose touch with the shore, in case they might be hailed by desperate, waiting figures. Suddenly, right ahead of them, a high black steamer pier loomed up in the darkness.
“I know where we are now,” cried Peggy. “We’re close to the head of the lake. They can’t have gone much farther. Cheer up, my hearties. If only it was daylight we’d be able to see the Pole itself in a few more minutes.”
Titty and Roger blinked hard to keep their eyes from closing altogether. The Pole itself. This was no time to fall asleep. The Pole. In sight. As near as that.
“Nothing for it,” said John. “We’ll go right round the head of the lake, and then down the other side to Beckfoot.”
“We can’t possibly have missed them so far,” said Susan.
“We must look out for the place where the river comes in at the head of the lake. Right away over the other side,” said Peggy. “Captain Flint says it never properly freezes there.”
“What?” said John.
“Bad ice,” said Peggy. “It isn’t safe to go into the mouth of the river.”
A dreadful thought struck all of them at once. What if,
in the snowstorm, the D.’s had skated blindly on, and, without knowing it, had left the firm ice of the lake . . .?
They left the steamer pier and the little bay that in summer was a harbour. They trudged on, past dim white shores, deep in drifted snow that seemed continually to bear away to the left. They were working round the head of the lake.
“Is that a house?” said John suddenly.
They all saw it at once as they passed the promontory that had so far hidden it from them. There it was, a bright light, a lighted window, but a big one, almost like a lighthouse, not far from the edge of the ice, above them in the snow.
“But there are no houses here,” said Peggy. “They’re all by the pier. There’s nothing here except . . . Giminy! Come on, you galoots. Come on. It’s the Pole itself. It can’t be anything else. And there’s someone there . . .”
Everybody woke up again in a moment. Tiredness was gone. They raced for the shore. Desperately they floundered up off the ice and through the deep snow. The light shone before them.
“Look! Look!” cried Titty.
She was on the left of the sledge, and had seen in the light of the lantern that John was trying to hold above his head something in the snow almost before her. Footprints, deep, clumsy holes in the snow, a single line of them, going towards the light.
“There’s only one lot of tracks,” said John. “It can’t be them.”
“We’ll know in a minute,” said Susan.
“Hang on to the sledge,” said John. “The snow’s getting deeper and deeper. Stick to it. Only a few more yards. What sort of a place is it?” He lifted the lantern, but his eyes were blinded by its light and the other light that he saw through the window. “Where are those torches?”
“Here.”
“Here.”
Titty and Roger proudly flashed their torches on the little building now close above them in the snow. The front of it seemed all window. Were those halyards on that cleat? The beams from the torches lifted. A snow-laden roof. Halyards going up above it. A flagstaff and . . . what was that pale thing at the masthead?
A sudden joyful shout went up from the whole rescue party.
“Hurrah! Hurrah! They’re here!”
For a puff of wind had spread for a moment that pale rag hanging up there above the little hut. And everybody, looking up into the darkness, had seen the tiny quarantine flag flap yellow in the white light of the upturned torches.
CHAPTER XXVIII
ARCTIC NIGHT
HOUR after hour had gone by. The short winter day was ending. Dorothea and Dick were still alone at the Pole. And still, outside, great gusts of wind filled the air with flying snow. Inside, the little hut looked very different from the bleak place it had been when Dick first stumbled into it. A cheerful fire was blazing in the grate under a simmering kettle. Dick had spent the afternoon in melting snow (dipped from below the window), so that there should be plenty of water when the others should arrive. The big saucepan, that had been the first thing taken out of the packing-case, was standing on the hearth, full to the brim. Dorothea had unpacked the case and arranged its contents along one of the benches, food enough to last a dozen people for a whole day: two cold chickens and a Christmas pudding and what not, with plates, knives, forks, spoons, and mugs. She had counted these at once, and found that there were nine of everything. That meant that Nancy was coming too, and Captain Flint, who certainly deserved to, Dorothea thought, after making such careful preparations. The packing-case itself had been turned over to make a table, and one corner of the hut looked almost like a larder. Dorothea thought that even Susan would think that her Polar housekeeping was not half bad.
At first, thinking that the storm would soon be over, when the main body of the expedition would be coming along, she had been very unwilling to break into the stores of food. But Dick had been hungry, and so had she, and in the end, encouraged by what had been written on the outside of the packing-case, they had made themselves some tea, opened a tin of condensed milk and one of meat paste, taken a few biscuits to eat it with, and given themselves an allowance of two Swiss buns apiece (afterwards increased to four).
“It’s not snowing like it was,” said Dick at last, late in the afternoon, “and not blowing so hard either.”
“They’ll be coming the moment they can see to move,” said Dorothea, “and they may be quite close to us already.”
But the last half-hour of daylight passed, and the dark closed down over the little hut. They had lit the lantern some time before.
The noise of the wind had stopped, and Dick opened a window to look out into the darkness.
“They’ll be coming soon now,” he said. “It’s stopped snowing. Let’s hang the lantern in a good place.”
No one had ever thought of using the viewhouse at night, so there was no place to hang a lantern, but Dick worked one of the nails out of the lid of the packing-case and hammered it into a crack in the Pole as high as he could reach.
“It’ll show through all the windows,” he said. “They can’t miss it, wherever they are.”
“Going back in the dark’ll be a good deal easier with all of us together,” said Dorothea, “but we’re going to be dreadfully late.”
She came to the open window with him, and looked out at her own. shadow and Dick’s thrown by the lantern on the snow.
“Good,” said Dick suddenly. “Stars. There’s Orion.”
Away to the south stars showed in a patch of clear sky, and among them were the three bright stars of Orion’s Belt. Dick climbed over the window sill and dropped down into the snow.
“Right up to my waist,” he said cheerfully.
“Where are you going?”
“Just to look at the Pole Star,” he said. “Of course, it won’t be really overhead, but still . . .”
He floundered through the snow round the corner of the hut.
“Come back, Dick,” cried Dorothea. “Come back. Do come back.”
“What is it?” He struggled back under the opened window.
“Nothing really,” said Dorothea, a little ashamed. “But we ought to keep the window shut. It’s no good getting the hut cold again. And there isn’t an awful lot of coal in that sack.”
“You can shut the window,” said Dick. “I’m going round to clear the snow from the door, so that we can open it without getting another lot inside.”
He was gone. She heard him scraping at the door, and presently he came in after shaking the snow off on the top step.
“It was like swimming just by the door,” he said. “Jolly deep, too. Piled right up. And I couldn’t see the Pole Star. All clouds. But it doesn’t matter. Orion’s sword showed clear for a moment, north and south. Anybody could see that the hilt end was pointing straight to us.”
Another half-hour went by. Dorothea made some more tea, and they took two more buns (making six) and some biscuits. Now, at last, they began to think that something must have gone seriously wrong. Where could those others be?
“They’d never give it up,” said Dick.
“Captain Flint may be with them,” said Doror thea. “And Nancy, too. He may have made them start home when the snow stopped.”
“They wouldn’t go,” said Dick. “Not without us.”
“They started first,” said Dorothea, “without waiting for us.”
Dick was silent for a minute or two. He had gone to the window again, and was looking out, where the warmth of the room had melted the snow on the window-panes, at the faraway lights on the shores of the lake.
“Perhaps they think we couldn’t have got so far,” he said. “They didn’t know we had a sail.”
“That’s just it,” said Dorothea. “They wouldn’t mind turning back if they thought we were somewhere behind them.”
Dick turned suddenly from the windows, and glanced up at the lantern and then at the fire that was sending flickering shadows over the walls.
“We’ll show them just where we are,” he said. “Let’s push the box
in front of the fire so that the light from it doesn’t show, and then we can signal with the lantern.”
“How?”
“Like we did before. Only this time we can send a real signal.” He pulled out the little book and turned up the page with the Morse code. “All we’ve got to do is to signal N-P – North Pole. They’ll know at once. A long and a short for N. And P’S a short, two longs, and then another short. They’ll know at once, and nobody else will.”
Hopes rose again. Dorothea remembered that successful signalling to Mars.
In a few minutes the light from the fire was screened by the packing-case, and Dick and Dorothea were busy at the windows, taking turns in showing the lantern and then shielding it with a sheepskin. Long, short . . . Short, long, long, short . . . Again and again the signal N-P was flashed into the night.
“With all those windows it’s as good as a lighthouse,” said Dick. “They’re bound to see it if they’re anywhere about.”
Now and then they stopped to see if anywhere in the darkness another lantern was flashing in answer. But there was never a sign that anybody had noticed what they were doing.
At last they tired.
“They must have seen it by now,” said Dick, and hung the lantern once more on its nail.
And then, suddenly, Dorothea made up her mind that they must leave the Pole at once. Time was going on and on. Whatever had happened to the others, they themselves must face that struggle through the snow and the long journey home in the darkness. They must not wait another minute.
“Dick,” she said, looking at that neat larder, “let’s put everything back. We’ve got to start home.”
“But we can’t go away now we’ve signalled,” said Dick. “We’ve told them we’re here. They’ll be coming, and we’d be sure to miss them in the dark.”
This was worse than ever. Dorothea hardly knew what ought to be done. It was not like one of her own stories, in which it was easy to twist things another way or go back a page or two and start again if anything had gone badly. It would not have mattered so much if only they had left a message at Dixon’s Farm to say they might be late. She thought of Mrs Dixon, and Mr Dixon and old Silas, with nightfall long past, and empty places at the kitchen table. Dick never thought of things like that. But what could they do? There they were at the North Pole. The others must be somewhere out in the Arctic night. Signals had been made to them. It was too late now to take the signals back. Dick was right. There was nothing to be done but to wait.