I went to look for her. It was snowing again, the wind was colder and stronger. The streets were deserted, there was nobody to direct me. I thought I had found the house, but saw no sign. Perhaps I was too late: through an unaccountable failure of impulse had waited too long. … I tried the street doors as I passed them; they were all locked.
The door of one house was unfastened. I entered without hesitation. Inside, the place was bare and shabby, had the look of an institution. The rooms were unheated. She sat wearing her grey overcoat, her legs wrapped in something that looked like a curtain. As soon as she saw me she threw this aside and sprang up. ‘You! I suppose he sent you—didn’t you get my message?’ ‘No one sent me. What message?’ ‘I left a message telling you not to follow me.’ I said I had not received it, but if I had it would have made no difference, I should have come just the same. Her big distrustful eyes gazed at me, indignant and frightened. ‘I don’t want anything to do with either of you.’ I ignored this. ‘You can’t stay here alone.’ ‘Why not? I’m getting on all right.’ I asked what she was doing. ‘Working.’ ‘How much do they pay you?’ ‘We get our food.’ ‘No money?’ ‘Sometimes people are given money when they’ve worked specially hard.’ Defensively she went on: ‘I’m too thin for the really hard jobs. They say I haven’t got enough stamina.’ I had been watching her: she looked half-starved, as if for some time she had not had enough to eat. Her thin wrists had always fascinated me; now I could scarcely take my eyes off them, emerging like sticks from the heavy sleeves. Instead of inquiring into the nature of the work she was doing, I asked her plans for the future. When she snapped: ‘Why should I tell you?’ I knew that she had no plans. I said I very much wished she would look on me as a friend. ‘Why? I’ve no reason to. Anyhow, I don’t need friends. I can manage alone.’ I told her I had come hoping to take her away with me to a place where life would be easier, somewhere in a better climate. I felt her beginning to weaken, waved my hand at the window covered in heavy frost, snow banked on the sill to half its whole height. ‘Haven’t you had enough of the cold?’ She could no longer hide her nervousness, her hands twisted together. I added: ‘Besides, you’re in the danger zone here.’ Her face was starting to have its bruised look, she was gradually losing control. ‘What danger?’ The pupils of her eyes dilated as I watched her. ‘The ice….’ I meant to say more, but the two words were sufficient. Her whole appearance indicated fear, she began to tremble.
I moved closer to her, touched her hand. She jerked it away. ‘Don’t do that!’ I held a fold of her coat, looked at her angry, frightened face of a child betrayed, the look of faint bruising around the eyes like a child that has cried a long time. ‘Leave me alone!’ She tried to drag the heavy material out of my hand. ‘Go away!’ I did not move. ‘Then I’ll go!’ She tore herself free, dashed to the door, threw her whole weight against it. It crashed open so violently that she lost her balance and fell. The bright hair spread on the floor, quicksilver, brilliant, stirring, alive, on the dark, dull, dead, dirty floor. I picked her up. She struggled, gasped: ‘Let me go! I hate you, I hate you!’ She had no strength at all. It was like holding a struggling kitten. I shut the door and turned the key in the lock.
I waited a few days although waiting was difficult. It was time to go. It was only a matter of hours before a disaster of the greatest magnitude. In spite of the secrecy which enveloped the subject, news must have leaked out. Agitated activity suddenly spread through the town. From my window I watched a young man running from house to house, delivering a message of terror. In an astonishingly short time, minutes only, the street was full of people carrying bags and bundles. Disorganized, and showing every sign of acute fear, they set off in great haste, some going one way and some another. They seemed to have no definite destination or plan, just the one overwhelming urge to fly from the town. I was surprised that the authorities took no action. Presumably they had failed to evolve a workable scheme for evacuation, so simply decided to let things take their course. The chaotic exodus was disturbing to watch. Everybody seemed on the verge of panic. People clearly thought I was mad to sit in a bar instead of preparing for flight. Their fears were infectious, the atmosphere of impending catastrophe made me uneasy and I was thankful to get the message I was expecting. A ship was about to anchor outside the harbour, somewhere beyond the ice. It was the last one that would call, and it would stay at anchor for one hour only.
I went to the girl, told her this was our last chance, and that she had to come. She refused, refused to stand up. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you. I don’t trust you. I shall stay here where I’m free.’ ‘Free for what? To starve? To be frozen to death?’ I lifted her off the chair bodily, stood her on her feet. ‘I won’t go—you can’t force me.’ She backed away, wide-eyed, and stood against the wall, waiting for someone or something to rescue her. I lost patience, dragged her out of the building, went on holding her arm; I had to pull her along.
It was snowing so hard I could barely see to the other side of the street; a stark, white, deathly, pre-polar scene. The arctic wind drove floods of snow past us like feathers. Walking was difficult, the wind slammed the snow in our faces, hurled it at us from different sides, whirled it round us in crazy spirals. Everything was muffled, blurred, indistinct, not a person to be seen. Then suddenly six mounted policemen rode out of the blizzard, hooves soundless and bridles jingling. The girl cried, ‘Help!’ when she saw them. She thought they would save her, tried to struggle free, made an imploring gesture with her free hand. I held on to her tight, kept her close beside me. The men laughed and whistled at us as they passed, disappearing in the blowing white. She burst into tears.
I heard a bell ringing, slowly coming nearer. An old priest shuffled round the corner, black-cowled, bent double against the storm, leading a rabble of people. The bell was the sort used to call school children from the playground; as he walked, he kept ringing it feebly. When his arm tired, he gave it a brief rest, calling out in a quavering voice: ‘Sauve qui peut!’ Some of his followers took up the cry, chanting it like a dirge: one or two paused long enough to bang on the doors they were passing. From some of the houses muffled figures crept out to join them. I wondered where they were going; it did not look as if they would get very far. They were all old and infirm, decrepit. The young and able-bodied had left them behind. They moved with weak tottering steps in a slow, shambling procession, their movements unco-ordinated, their faded faces reddened by the blast.
The girl kept stumbling in the deep snow. I had to half carry her, although I could hardly breathe. The frost tore my breath away, tried to stop me breathing; my breath froze in icicles on my collar. The frozen mucous membranes plugged my nose with ice. Each time I took a mouthful of polar air I coughed and gasped. It seemed hours before we got to the harbour. She renewed her feeble struggles at the sight of the boat, cried: ‘You can’t do this to me….’ I pushed her in, jumped in after her, seized the oars, shoved off, started rowing with all my might.
Voices screamed after us, but I ignored them; she was my one concern. The open channel had narrowed considerably, its edges frozen; soon it would be solid ice. Extraordinary loud, long cracks, like shots, like thunderclaps, came from the thickening ice of the harbour. My face felt raw, my hands were blue and burning with cold, but I kept on rowing towards the ship, through the churning white of the blizzard, through flying spray, booming ice, shrieks, crashes, blood. A small boat foundered beside us, the water seethed with frantically lashing limbs. Desperate drowning fingers clawed at the gunwale; I beat them off. A pair of lovers floated past, locked together by frozen arms, rocking and rolling deliriously in the waves. Suddenly the boat gave a violent lurch; I swung round, pulling out my revolver. I knew what had happened. Behind my back a man had climbed over the side. I fired, thrust him into the water again, watched it turn red. The ship’s side loomed steep as a cliff above us, the companion-ladder only reached to my shoulder.