East of Desolation. Jack Higgins

harbour was half a mile away at the end of a rocky road beside the new canning factory and contained half a dozen fishing boats, a Catalina flying boat used by East Canada Airways for coastal traffic, and my own Otter Amphibian which was parked on dry land at the head of the concrete slipway.

      It was almost ten o’clock and I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. There was a quick knock on the outside door and I wrapped a towel around my waist and returned to the bedroom.

      Gudrid Rasmussen looked in. ‘You are ready for coffee, Mr Martin?’ she said in Danish.

      She was a small, rather hippy girl of twenty-five or so, a Greenlander born and bred, mainly Danish by blood which showed in the fair hair plaited around her head, with just a touch of Eskimo in the high cheekbones and almond shaped eyes. Most of the year she spent housekeeping for her grandfather on his sheep farm at Sandvig about a hundred miles down the coast, but during the summer she worked as a chambermaid at the hotel.

      ‘Make it tea this morning, Gudrid,’ I said, ‘I’m feeling nostalgic.’

      She shook her head in reproof. ‘You look awful. Too much work is not good for a man.’

      Before I could reply the sound of an aeroplane engine shattered the stillness of the morning and I went to the window in time to see an Aermacchi flip neatly in across the harbour and drop flaps to land on the airstrip beyond the canning factory.

      ‘Here comes your boy friend.’

      ‘Arnie?’ There was a touch of colour in her cheeks as she crossed to the window. ‘Any girl is Arnie’s girl, Mr Martin. I hold no special rights.’

      It would have been pointless to try and pretend otherwise and we stood there together for a moment in silence watching the wheels come down beneath the skis with which the Aermacchi was fitted.

      ‘I thought he was going to take those off and put his floats back on,’ I said.

      ‘The skis?’ She shrugged. ‘He’s got an extension of his service contract with the American mining company at Malamusk on the edge of the ice-cap. Up there the only place to land is the snow-field.’

      His landing was good – not excellent, but then we all have our off-days. The Aermacchi rolled along the airstrip and disappeared from view behind the canning factory.

      Gudrid smiled brightly. ‘I’ll bring your tea while you have a shower, then I’ll order breakfast for you. I’ll change the bed later.’

      The door closed behind her and I went back into the bathroom and got under the shower. It was nice and hot and very relaxing and after a while my headache started to go, which was a good thing considering that I had a two and a half hour flight ahead of me. I pulled on my old silk dressing gown and went back into the bedroom towelling my hair briskly. In my absence, Gudrid had brought in a tray and the tea, when I poured it, was scalding. I finished the first cup and was pouring another when the door burst open and Arnie Fassberg blew in.

      He was about my height, which was a little under six feet, but the resemblance stopped there. My hair was dark, his so fair as to be almost white, his face open, mine closed and saturnine. As yet he had not been used by life or at least had been used kindly and his forehead was as unlined as any child’s. By birth an Icelander, he had perhaps the most incredible appetite for women that I have ever encountered, and like all Don Juans he was an incurable romantic, falling in and out of love with astounding frequency.

      He presented a slightly theatrical figure in his fur-lined boots and old flying jacket and he tossed a canvas holdall into the corner and moved to the table.

      ‘I thought you might have left. I’ve probably broken all records from Søndre Strømfjord to get here.’

      ‘Any particular reason?’

      He helped himself to tea using my cup. ‘You’re flying supplies out to that American film actor aren’t you?’

      He was referring to Jack Desforge, who’d arrived unexpectedly in Godthaab early in June in his motor yacht Stella. Since then he’d been cruising the coast fishing and hunting and I’d been flying out supplies to wherever he was at regular intervals.

      ‘Why the interest?’

      ‘I’ve got a passenger for you. She got off the midnight jet from Copenhagen at Søndre. Wanted me to take her straight to Desforge, but I couldn’t oblige. Have to be at Malamusk by noon with some spare parts they’ve had specially flown in from the States. Where is he, by the way?’

      ‘Somewhere north of Disko in the region of Narquassit as I last heard; looking for polar bear.’

      There was genuine astonishment on his face. ‘At this time of the year. You must be joking.’

      ‘About the only thing outside of a Tibetan yak that he’s never laid low. You never know, he could hit lucky. I’ve seen bear up there myself in August before now.’

      ‘But not often, my friend. I wish him luck.’

      ‘This girl – what’s her name?’

      ‘Eytan – Ilana Eytan.’

      I raised my eyebrows. ‘Israeli?’

      ‘I would have said English.’ He grinned. ‘Not that it matters – in any language she’s a lot of woman.’

      ‘Good looking?’

      He shook his head. ‘Ugly as sin and it doesn’t matter a damn.’

      ‘A rare combination. I look forward to meeting her.’

      ‘She’s having breakfast downstairs.’

      The door opened and Gudrid entered as I knew she would, her excuse the clean sheets she carried. Arnie swung round and advanced on her.

      ‘Gudrid – sweetheart.’

      She side-stepped him neatly and dropped the sheets on the bed. ‘You can cut that out for a start.’

      He unzipped one of the pockets of his flying jacket and took out a roll of notes. ‘I got paid, angel. A thousand dollars on account. Where would we be without our American friends?’

      ‘And how much of that will go across the card table at the Fredericsmut?’ she said acidly.

      He peeled off two hundred dollar bills and held out the rest of the money. ‘Save me from myself, Gudrid. Be my banker like always.’

      ‘What would be the point? You’ll want it back again tomorrow.’

      He grinned. ‘Put it in the bank then, in your name. Just so I can’t get at it. I trust you.’

      And as usual, she was putty in his hands. ‘If you’re sure you want me to.’

      ‘Would I ask if I didn’t?’ He patted her on the bottom. ‘I’d better come and see where you do put it, just in case you get knocked down in the street or anything.’

      I didn’t need the wink he gave me over his shoulder as they went out to tell me what that meant. Poor Gudrid. Always on hand to keep him occupied in between affairs, never facing up to the hopelessness of the situation from her point of view. And yet in his own selfish way he had a genuine affection for her, and she did act as his banker on occasion, which was probably the only reason he had any money at all.

      But I had enough problems of my own without worrying too much about other people’s and I finished dressing quickly and went downstairs.

      As was only to be expected at that time in the morning, the restaurant was empty except for the girl sitting at a table in the bow window drinking coffee and looking out into the street. I could see at once what Arnie had meant, but he was wrong about one thing – she wasn’t beautiful, not in any conventional sense, but she was far from ugly.

      She had a strong Jewish face, if one can use that term these days without being called a racialist – a proud face with strong lines