The Blue Ice

The last coach moved sluggishly past me and stopped, with just half of it protruding from the tunnel to show that a train was standing there beneath the snow. I glanced hurriedly into the cutting. The farther wall, directly below me, was broken and scarred with crimson as though some political agitator with more ardour than education had tried to daub a slogan. Of Dahler himself there was no sign. Somewhere along the train they would find his remains caught up between two carriages. I did not like to think what his body would look like.

I turned my head away and trudged on as fast as I could. It was Farnell I had to reach — Farnell, who might be still alive. But I could not get the thought of Dahler out of my mind. I'd liked the man. There had been something sinister and unreliable about him. And yet, remembering his past, it was all so understandable. I was sorry he was dead. But perhaps it was as well.

'Bill! I think I saw him move.' Jill's voice was small and tight as though she were fighting to keep control of herself.

I peered ahead. The brilliance of the sunlight on the snow played tricks. My eyes were tired. I couldn't focus properly. 'Maybe he's not dead,' I said, and pressed on, my skis crunching in the frosty snow.

When we reached Farnell he was lying quite still, his body curled up in a tight ball. His ski pants were dug deep in the snow and there were smears of blood along the broken lip of the cutting. Jill lifted his head. It was all bloody. I loosened the bindings of his skis and cleared them from his boots. One leg was horribly broken. As I eased it round so that it was less twisted he gave a slight groan. I looked up and, as I did so, I saw his eyes open. Jill was wiping the blood from his face.

His skin beneath the stubble was ivory against the pure white of the snow.

'Water,' he whispered. His voice rattled in his throat. Neither of us had our packs. Jill smoothed his forehead. He stirred and tried to sit up. His face twisted with pain and he lay back again, his head cradled in her lap. His teeth were clenched. But when he looked up into her face and saw who it was, he seemed to relax. 'I nearly made it,' he whispered. 'No — snow. I'd have done it if-' He stopped and coughed up a gob of blood.

'Don't talk,' Jill said, wiping his face again. Then to me, 'See if there's a doctor on that train.'

I started to get to my feet. But Farnell stopped me. 'No use,' he said.

'You'll be all right,' I said.

But I knew he wouldn't. I could see it in his eyes. He knew too. He looked up at Jill. 'I'm sorry' — his voice was barely audible — 'I've been a poor husband, haven't I?'

Husband? I glanced from him to Jill. And then I understood — all the things that had puzzled me were suddenly clear.

He had closed his eyes and for a moment I thought he had gone. But his grip on Jill's hand was tight and suddenly he looked up at me. His glance moved from me to Jill. Without a word he put her hand in mine. Then he said, 'Bill — you must take over where I left off. The thorite deposits-' He gritted his teeth and raised himself. Jill supported his back. His eyes were narrowed against the light as he gazed out across the valley. 'The Blaaisen,' he murmured.

I turned and followed the direction of his gaze. He was looking across to the Jokulen, to the flank of the mountain where the glacier ice shone a brilliant blue. When I looked back at him he had relaxed and closed his eyes. Jill bent and kissed his lips. He tried to say something, but he hadn't the strength. A moment later his head lolled over and the thin blood trickle of a haemorrhage started from his open mouth.

Jill laid him back in the snow as a shadow fell across us. I looked up. Jorgensen was standing over us. I became conscious of many voices from the direction of the snowshed. The half coach was still protruding from the tunnel and in the cutting police and officials mingled with a mob of excited passengers.

I glanced at Jill. She was dry-eyed and staring at nothing. 'Dead?' Jorgensen asked.

I nodded.

'But he told you before he died?'

'Yes,' I said.

I stood up, conscious again of the aching of my limbs, and I turned and stared across the valley to the Jokulen. At my feet lay the remains of George Farnell. But out there, under the Blue Ice, lay all that he had lived and worked for, all that was best in him. That was the sum total of his life. Nothing visible — nothing that has not been visible since the Ice Age first elected to make the ice on the flank of the Jokulen blue. But an idea — something bom of a lifetime's study and work, backed by the solid presence of mineral wealth under the rock and ice. And I swore then and there that I'd stay up here at Finse and build an industrial monument to George Farnell, who died there in the snow — ex-convict, swindler, forger, deserter, murderer — but for all that a great man who subordinated everything to one idea.