Midnight Sun's Magic. Бетти Нилс

He was just the irritating kind of man to remind one of one’s duty…

      The kitchen, she discovered the next morning, was remarkably up-to-date. Being a new broom she intended to sweep clean, so she was ten minutes early, making coffee, setting the table with what she hoped the men ate for breakfast. There was a huge side of bacon hanging in the larder too, but she was relieved to see that a large quantity had already been sliced. She found a frying pan as large as a football field and started frying, helped half way through by Freddy who was to go on the day shift but hadn’t hurried from his bed.

      ‘Six rashers each,’ he told her. ‘Just put the bread on the table—there’s orange juice too.’

      On the whole, Annis felt that she had acquitted herself rather well. The ten men who presently sat down to their breakfast did justice to it, complimented her on her cooking and hurried away to their various stations, all except the doctor, who had another cup of coffee, asked her rather carelessly if she had slept well, handed her a timetable of the day’s work so that she knew where she was and then requested her presence in the surgery at nine o’clock. ‘One of the engineers slipped early this morning and cut his leg on the rock—nothing serious, but we shall need to tidy it up a bit.’

      Having said which, he took himself off, leaving her to clear the debris and get the next lot of bacon into the pan; presumably she ate with the men coming off duty. It was an agreeable surprise when two men came into the kitchen and told her that they were doing the washing up. ‘We take it in turns,’ they explained. ‘There’ll be two more for the next batch.’

      They grinned at her cheerfully and eyed her with interest, while she, happily unaware of their glances, bent over the stove, unaware of the pretty picture she made. She had sensibly packed slacks and a variety of tops, and she was wearing a short-sleeved shirt over blue slacks now, enveloping the whole in a large apron she had found behind the door, a legacy from the previous cook and nurse. She hadn’t bothered much with her hair, either, only brushed it out and tied it back in a ponytail. She looked considerably less than her twenty-seven years and pretty enough to eat.

      The men coming off duty were tired, but they ate just as heartily as the first lot had. Annis dealt with gigantic appetites, ate her own meal and leaving two more volunteers to wash up, made her way to the surgery, a hut standing a little apart from the rest, a roomy place with a well-equipped surgery, a two-bedded ward, a portable operating table and a cupboard well stocked with instruments. The doctor was already there, bending over a man on the table. Without turning round he said: ‘Ah, there you are—there’s a white gown in that closet beside the door.’ And as she put it on: ‘Bring me that covered kidney dish, will you?’

      Unfriendly to the point of being terse, she considered, and while she stood beside him, handing things, swabbing the leg, cutting gut, she had time to take a good look at him. Her first impression had been right; he was enormous and rather more heavily built than she had thought and his high-bridged nose and heavy-lidded eyes made him look ill-tempered, although that didn’t seem likely, for he seemed universally popular. She wasn’t sure if she was going to like him; he hadn’t done so yet, but probably he was going to throw his weight about. He looked, she considered, more like a ruthless high-powered executive than a doctor. But within half an hour she found herself eating her words. The doctor, while not attempting to charm her in any way, was placidly good-natured, not saying much but responding to his patient’s remarks with goodhumoured patience. The injury wasn’t too severe; a day or two resting it and he could return to his work in the hut at the far end of the tongue of rock. Annis was to dress it daily after the doctor had seen it. The doctor glanced at her as he spoke and smiled and she found herself smiling back at him.

      She discovered within two days that the doctor was the silent one of the team. He never joined in any of the arguments or made any but the mildest of comments on any subject, yet she noticed that the men turned to him when a deciding opinion was needed, and when the argument became too fierce it was he who damped it down with a few quiet words. She wondered what he did with his day until Freddy told her that he was carrying out a series of experiments, monitoring hearts and lungs after each man came off duty as well as taking samples of everything vegetable which was living; and that wasn’t much. Annis had been there for several days before she found her first flower, a minute buttercup-like plant clinging to the rock in the warm sunshine. She took care not to disturb it; it took decades for seeds to germinate in the unfriendly climate which existed for nine months of the year; each small flower was a precious thing. She was so delighted with her find that she told the doctor while she was clearing up the surgery after he had treated a boil on a Norwegian’s neck, and he had told her that there were many more if she looked carefully. She waited for him to suggest that they might go together in their leisure to look for them, but in this she was disappointed. He remained silent, and she, not a vain girl but aware that she was attractive, wondered what he didn’t like about her. He took almost no notice of her beyond greeting her civilly when they encountered each other about the station, making conversation when circumstances demanded it of him, and sitting at the far end of the table at meals. In a word, she told herself crossly, he was avoiding her.

      And somehow this was all the more annoying when every other man there sought her out whenever she was free—trips on the sea in one of the powerful motorboats kept at the station; careful climbing expeditions to look for flowers, and when it was warm, long sessions by the sea with binoculars watching the birds and looking for seals.

      The boss had taken her on a tour within a few days of her arrival; round the various huts, along to the big radio hut where the men sat at their instruments. She had only a dim idea what they were doing and she was quick to see that no one was going to tell her anyway, although she was shown how messages were sent and how they got their electricity and the wonderful view they had of the mountains around them as well as the open sea. Cruising ships passed from time to time, she was told, on their way to the Ice Barrier and Ny Aalesund, but they never stopped at the station; for one thing, although the water was deep, the pier was only a rickety erection, liable to fall down at any minute.

      ‘Why doesn’t someone mend it, then?’ asked Annis practically. She didn’t wait for an answer because the Coastal Express was just in sight. It wasn’t calling that day, it seemed; supplies had been brought back when she had been fetched from Tromso and as someone would be going to Ny Aalesund very shortly, the letters could be fetched from there. They trundled back to the main camp in the jeep and she went to get on with the dinner.

      Her days were well filled; she was busy but not overworked and mostly the days were clear, with blue skies. There was always a boat available and someone to go with her, and when it was bad weather with ink-black clouds pressing on to the mountain tops and a cold, sullen sea, there were plenty of partners for a game of chess or backgammon. Letters to write too, a great many of them, to be taken to Ny Aalesund, the weekly film to enjoy, and books to read. She spent a good deal of time with Freddy, listening with sympathy to his account of his last love affair; he fell in and out of love so often and so briefly that she was hard put to it to remember the girl’s name. She didn’t think he was brokenhearted this time, though. He remembered, however, after a long monologue about girls and the last one in particular, to ask her if she were happy.

      ‘Yes, very,’ she told him, and was surprised to find that it was true. She was happy—there was very little nursing, the odd cut hand and septic finger, bruises and abrasions, but there was plenty to keep her occupied each day. She could work as she wished, no one interfered and she took her free time more or less when she liked. Only the daily surgery was strictly on time each day and although the doctor had never said a word, she made sure that she was punctual.

      It was towards the end of the week when they were at supper one evening that the doctor mentioned casually that he had seen a small herd of seals further along the coast, and added: ‘If you’re interested, Annis, I’ll show you how to reach them—it’s not far if we cut across the base of the mountains. Only wear your boots.’

      The invitation was given so casually that she wasn’t sure if he had meant it, but when supper was finished and she had cleared the table and put everything to rights, she found him waiting, sitting on an upturned box outside the hut. It was already late evening, but there would be no night,