Jack Higgins Read Online Free Page B

signed him on as pilot for the duration of the trip.”
    â€œIs he carrying his usual crew?”
    â€œThey all came with him if that’s what you mean. An engineer, two deck hands and a cook—they’re American. And then there’s the steward—he’s a Filipino.”
    â€œTony Serafino?”
    â€œThat’s him.”
    She was obviously pleased. “There’s an old friend for a start.”
    I went in low once just to check the extent of the pack ice, but there was nothing to get excited about and I banked steeply and dropped her into the water without wasting any more time. I taxied towards the shore, let down the wheels and ran up on to dry land as the first of the village dogs arrived on the run. By the time I’d switched off the engine and opened the side door, the rest of them were there, forming a half-circle, stiff-legged and angry, howling their defiance.
    A handful of Eskimo children appeared and drove them away in a hail of sticks and stones. The children clustered together and watched us, the brown Mongolian faces solemn and unsmiling, the heavy fur-lined Parkasthey wore exaggerating their bulk so that they looked like little old men and women.
    â€œThey don’t look very friendly,” Ilana Eytan commented.
    â€œTry them with these.” I produced a brown paper bag from my pocket.
    She opened it and peered inside. “What are they?”
    â€œMint humbugs—never been known to fail.”
    But already the children were moving forward, their faces wreathed in smiles and she was swamped in a forest of waving arms as they swarmed around her.
    I left her to it and went to the water’s edge to meet the whaleboat from the Stella which was already halfway between the ship and the shore. One of the deckhands was at the tiller and Sørensen stood in the prow, a line ready in his hands. As the man in the stern cut the engine, the whaleboat started to turn, drifting in on the waves and Sørensen threw the line. I caught it quickly, one foot in the shallows, and started to haul. Sørensen joined me and a moment later we had the whaleboat around and her stern beached.
    He spoke good English, a legacy of fifteen years in the Canadian and British merchant marines and he used it on every available opportunity.
    â€œI thought you might run into trouble when the mist came down.”
    â€œI put down at Argamask for an hour.”
    He nodded. “Nothing like knowing the coast. Who’s the woman?”
    â€œA friend of Desforge’s or so she says.”
    â€œHe didn’t tell me he was expecting anyone.”
    â€œHe isn’t,” I said simply.
    â€œLike that, is it?” He frowned. “Desforge isn’t going to like this, Joe.”
    I shrugged. “She’s paid me in advance for the round trip. If he doesn’t want her here she can come back with me tonight. I could drop her off at Søndre if she wants to make a connection for Europe or the States.”
    â€œThat’s okay by me as long as you think you can handle it. I’ve got troubles enough just keeping the Stella in once piece.”
    I was surprised and showed it. “What’s been going wrong?”
    â€œIt’s Desforge,” Sørensen said bitterly. “The man’s quite mad. I’ve never known anyone so hell-bent on self-destruction.”
    â€œWhat’s he been up to now?”
    â€œWe were up near Hagamut the other day looking for polar bear, his latest obsession, when we met some Eskimo hunters out after seal in their kayaks. Needless to say Desforge insisted on joining them. On the way back it seems he was out in front on his own when he came across an old bull walrus on the ice.”
    â€œAnd tried to take it alone?” I said incredulously.
    â€œWith a harpoon and on foot.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œIt knocked him down with its first rush and snapped the harpoon. Luckily one of the hunters from