The Great White Space

Four

Having completed my arrangements in London I drove back down to Surrey the following week in a mood which blended contentment with apprehension. In the interim I had time to consider the implications of the Professor’s cryptic statements; divorced of his personality and the sincerity of his voice they left a good deal to be desired. And yet, wild as some of his assertions had been and as mysterious as our destination still appeared, I was inclined on balance to believe him. There was no doubt of his sanity in my mind and his field record was an impressive one.

I had been to the reference books during the past few days and my old friend Robson had added his own personal reminiscences of Scarsdale’s personality; third-hand, I must admit, but they had reinforced my own belief in his integrity. Robson too was a dabbler in outre and bizarre things on the fringe of the world’s knowledge; one of his own friends had accompanied. Scarsdale on what he was pleased to call one of his ‘hikes’. He was full of admiration for a man he regarded as one of the most outstanding field workers of the twentieth century.

All this was good enough for me. With Robson’s assurance that he would ‘look in’ at my flat from time to time and deal with any mail of a business nature, and my own promise that I would write as and when I was able, I packed my few personal belongings, together with a plethora of photographic equipment, bundled it all in my old car and set off. On my arrival at The Pines I was at once flung into such a routine of work, research, preparation and tests that on looking back I regarded it as one of the most enjoyable — if occasionally traumatic experiences — of my life.

In addition to my special photographic work — and I had to set up a minute dark room for my own purposes in Number 1 tractor — and the general manhandling of supplies inescapable in such a project where the five principals are desirous of keeping their preparations secret — I had also to learn the mysteries of tractor driving, plus the operation of the radio equipment linking the mobile bases. Scarsdale, to my surprise, had designated me his sole companion in Number 1 with Van Damm in charge of Number 2, Holden and Prescott acting as his crew. I asked if that were not causing an imbalance among the expedition’s scientific personnel but the Professor’s reply somewhat startled me.

‘The technical qualifications have little to do with this aspect,’ he assured me. ‘All I am concerned with is that the two physically strongest people shall be in the leading vehicle.’

This factor, together with the other special equipment being loaded, filled me with some disquiet. Rifles, revolvers, grenades, Very pistols and even what looked like a rack of elephant guns were among the formidable armaments being screwed into position within the vehicles.

I had meant to ask Scarsdale about this but something in his eyes made me hold my own counsel. Certainly, none of the others saw any reason for comment or alarm in the material currently loading and I wondered if perhaps they had discussed it all earlier. I understood the four of them had been at the Surrey house for something like a year and certainly they all worked smoothly together with a score of private jokes and special references that I, as a newcomer, could not be expected to comprehend.

The only outward opinion expressed was Holden’s jocular remark to Prescott one afternoon. Scarsdale was absent on some business in Guildford and Holden was lifting one of the massive elephant pieces through the sliding door of Number 2. He made some grave comment about Van Damm’s forthcoming ‘sparrow shoot’. To my surprise both he and his companion went into veritable paroxysms of laughter and the subject of their amusement, whom I had not earlier seen in the hangar doorway, joined in, Van Damm’s high, snickering laugh echoing among the roof girders.

They had more cause for amusement shortly as it was soon discovered that I was an even more inept pupil than Van Damm at tractor-driving; try as I would, I could not at first remember exactly how to operate the two confounded levers and the complicated gear-stick that Scarsdale and Van Damm had devised to drive the things and my efforts in the misty orchard, with Collins hopping frantically out of the way and the Professor bellowing about the high cost of fruit trees, raised echoes of mirth long after their physical manifestations had ceased.

Van Damm, I think, was secretly pleased at this, as it gave the Professor another scapegoat though he did not, of course, bully me in the same manner and his arguments did not take the same form that his mock rows with the doctor took. But he did take me aside on one or two occasions to express his gentle concern at my ineptitude and it was this, more than anything, which forged in me the ambition to succeed That I succeeded in becoming the best driver among them, with a ground-work of only three weeks’ training, was a tribute, I feel, to the Professor’s personality rather than to any special aptitude on my part.

When the Professor went to the bank one morning to draw out a number of charts, books and other documents he had deposited there, we then knew that the time of departure must be near. We were not leaving, initially, by ship, but the Professor had arranged for the vehicles to be taken through France and Italy by road, in three great lorries and we could, of course, leave at almost any time, being subject to no sailing schedules other than those maintained by the Channel boats.

We ourselves were flying to Rome where the Professor intended to carry out certain field trials in a desolate sandy region to the north of the city. I think Collins was the most disappointed person at The Pines on learning that he was not to accompany the Professor. Scarsdale told him one afternoon when the lugubrious manservant was helping to break down the sand-table model a few days before our departure. We would miss Collins also, as his stiff, correct figure, always trying to maintain protocol in face of chaos was a never-ending source of good-natured amusement among us.

But Collins brightened when Scarsdale told him he needed someone he could trust to maintain the house while he was abroad and with the promise of a bonus in addition to complete sovereignty over the large domestic staff of ten which ran the place, he went about his duties with renewed vigour.

All went as Scarsdale had planned. I had no-one or nothing in particular to keep me in England and so it was no great hardship for me to forsake my native shore for a protracted period; all the other members of the expedition were bachelors — no doubt specially chosen by the Professor for that reason — and the only person among us who had the least tie was Holden, who had become engaged to be married a short while before I arrived at The Pines.

Scarsdale and Van Damm supervised the loading of the tractors; how the Professor avoided national press mention during this phase of the operation I never did discover. He had, I believe, given out originally that the Great Northern Expedition was to carry out tests in Europe before going to the Arctic and it may be that these latest manoeuvres were thought of little public interest, the newspapers reserving coverage for the expedition proper. I remained at The Pines with our three companions, where we concluded our packing and other minor tasks while awaiting the return of the two leaders from Dover.

The whole party flew out three days later to Italy by flying boat; we were accommodated at a private hotel near Ostia and, with the arrival of our precious vehicles a day or so after, carried out the sand trials as Scarsdale had decreed. We were there no more than a week and it would sorely overburden this narrative if I went into great detail over the tests, except to say that they were highly satisfactory.

Scarsdale and Van Damm also were extremely pleased with results, so much so that they occasionally forgot to bicker and our farewell dinner in Rome was such a convivial occasion that they even posed for a friendly photograph for one of the Continental society magazines. I thought I had acquitted myself fairly well; I had piloted my tractor up and down the dunes with a minimum of fuss and problems. In fact all four machines had handled extremely well and we had also tested the rubber boats in a fair breeze off Ostia one afternoon and results here had been pleasing. Scarsdale was particularly concerned over the short-wave radio links and the air conditioning units and the results again in both these departments had given us all cause for satisfaction.

The tractors were then driven to the docks at dead of night and loaded on to a freighter, destination unknown to us at the time. We also took passage on the same vessel and all public records of the Great Northern Expedition of 1933 then ceased. Where we went and exactly where we disembarked I am still not at liberty to disclose to the world and I will leave the reader to judge whether or not I have done that same world a disservice.

The fact remains that I did not — I dare not — be more specific and the reasons for this will emerge during the course of this narrative. The colours will inevitably grow more sombre with the drawing near of our party to that cursed country and those cursed mountains. The reader will appreciate by what I have already said that we went not to the north, but to the east. And at our going all the humour, the sunshine and the friendly comradeship that we had enjoyed amid the misty hills of Surrey seemed to evaporate as though they had never existed.

This is not to say that we did not remain kind to one another or that we no longer worked together as a coherent team, but that on our disembarkation from our long voyage, which lasted over a month, a sense of strain, a waiting expectancy and — eventually- a covert watching for something, had replaced the easy companionship of the earlier months. We disembarked in dismal conditions of tropical heat, we engaged porters, we started for the interior.

Further weary weeks passed; weeks in which heat, insects and petty pilfering among the porters were our principal worries I am at liberty to say that we bordered Tibet but from there onwards nothing would induce me to reveal our destination We pushed ahead for weeks more, the weather becoming cooler as we rose higher among the foothills. The lush, semi-tropical vegetation was giving way to more arid landscapes in which rock, ice-cold mountain streams and ancient beds of volcanic ash abounded. The colder weather was, of course, a relief after the sticky heat of the plains and we benefited greatly from this.

The four tractors behaved well and we were able to maintain an average speed of about 10 miles an hour on the mountain tracks, which was exceptionally good for this type of terrain. In fact so impressive was the performance that I once overheard Scarsdale praising Van Damm’s design capabilities to his face. Looking back on it all I often wonder if something was not assisting nature to draw us inexorably forward to our sombre destination. Who knows? Certainly, a pulsing rhythm, which seemed to have a life of its own was the drum-beat which underlined the thin, high scream of the dynamos which propelled us forward daily, ever higher, ever onwards, ever towards the dark, menacing line of the distant mountains. There, Scarsdale said, we should pay off our porters and establish a provisional base at the ancient city of Zak.