Shivering with cold, yet with light and happy hearts, the four comrades set off towards the whaling station, now not more than a mile and a half distant. The difficulties of the journey lay behind them.
They tried to straighten themselves up a bit, as they were painfully conscious of their appearance. Their fur was matted, they were all unwashed, and the garments they had worn for weeks without a change were tattered and stained. Four more disreputable-looking ruffians could hardly be imagined. Penguin produced several safety-pins from some corner of her garments and effected some temporary repairs that really emphasised her general disrepair.
Down they hurried, and when quite close to the station they met two small boys ten or twelve years of age. Gudge asked these lads where the manager’s house was. They didn’t answer. The boys gave them one look—a comprehensive look that didn’t need to be repeated. Then they ran as fast as their legs would carry them. A short distance later they reached the outskirts of the station and passed through the “digesting house”, which was dark inside. Emerging at the other end, they met an old man, who started as if he had seen the Devil himself and gave them no time to ask any questions. He hurried away. This greeting wasn’t friendly either. Then they came to the wharf, where the man in charge stuck to his station. Gudge asked him if Mr. Solle was in the house.
“Yes,” he said as he stared at them.
“We’d like to see him,” Gudge said.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“We’ve lost our ship and come over the island,” Gudge replied.
“You have come over the island?” he said in a tone of entire disbelief.
The man went to the manager’s house and they followed him. They learned afterwards that he said to Mr. Solle: “There are four funny-looking people outside who say they’ve come over the island and they know you. I’ve left them outside.” A very necessary precaution from his point of view.
Mr. Solle came to the door and said, “Well?”
“Don’t you recognise me?” Gudge said.
“I know your voice,” he replied doubtfully. “You’re the mate of the Sunflower.”
“My name is Gudge,” he said.
Immediately Solle put out his hand and said, “Come in. Come in.”
“Is the war over?” Gudge asked.
“The war is not over,” Solle answered. “Aenia is mad. The world is mad.”
Mr. Solle’s hospitality had no bounds. He would scarcely wait for them to remove their freezing boots before he took them into his house and gave them seats in a warm and comfortable room. They were in no condition to sit in anybody’s house until they had washed and got into clean clothes, but he gave them coffee and cakes in the Ventrian fashion, and then showed them upstairs to the bathroom, where they shed their rags and scrubbed themselves luxuriously in a green, claw-footed bathtub.
Mr. Solle’s kindness did not end with his personal care for the four wayfarers who had come to his door. While they were washing and scrubbing themselves he gave orders for one of the whaling vessels to be prepared at once in order that it might leave that night for the other side of the island and pick up the rest of the crew. The whalers knew King Bok Bay, though they never worked on that side of the island.
Soon the small party felt clean and dry again, and they put on delightful new clothes supplied from the station stores. Then came a splendid meal, while Mr. Solle told them of the arrangements he had made and they discussed plans for getting back to their merchant ship.
Gudge arranged for Penguin to go that night with the relief ship to show the exact spot where the others were camped, while the rest of them started to prepare for their return to the mainland. The next day the relief ship entered King Bok Bay and she reached Camp Hildebur in a boat. The others were delighted beyond measure to know that the four had made the crossing in safety and that their wait under the upturned Timothy Obi was ended. Curiously enough, they didn’t recognise Penguin, who had left them a dirty ruffian and had returned clean and smart. They thought she was one of the whalers. When one of them asked why no one had come round with the relief, Penguin said, “What do you mean?”
“We thought Gudge or one of the others would come round,” they explained.
“What’s wrong with you?” Penguin asked. Then it suddenly dawned on them they were talking to the young woman who had been their close companion for months.
Within a few minutes the whalers had moved their bits of gear into their boat. They towed off the Timothy Obi and hoisted her to the deck of their ship. Then they started on the return voyage. Just at dusk on Fyrday afternoon they entered Maugness Bay, where the men and women of the whaling station mustered on the beach to receive the rescued party and to examine with professional interest the boat that had navigated across 800 miles of the stormy ocean they knew so well.
When Tortoise looked back at those days he found it hard not to think that something had guided them, not only across the snowfields, but across the storm-white sea that separated the Pegasus from their landing-place on East Seiru. During the long and exhausting march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of East Seiru he’d had a strange feeling that there were five of them, not four. He said nothing to the others about it, but afterwards Penguin said, “Boss, I had a strange feeling on the march that there was another person with us.” Dee confessed to the same idea.
Gudge nodded slightly, and they never spoke of it again.
Next episode: Squid Soup