I opened my eyes. He was looking at me with a kindly smile. 'Yer'll soon get used to it,' he said.
I struggled to my feet, every muscle in my body crying out with pain. In that brief rest I seemed to have stiffened up so that every joint seemed rusted, immovable. Sunde helped me on with the rucksack. We struggled on through deepening snow across a shoulder of the mountain. Soon we had to put on skis. Sunde waxed them first. The Norwegians use different waxes, not skins, for climbing through snow. The skis felt heavy and clumsy on my tired feet. It was as though I had strapped a pair of canoes to them. New muscles began to cry out in agony as we sidestepped up the shoulder. Then for a brief spell we were running downhill, following the tracks of other skis. There were several ski tracks in all. The snow ended in rock. I stemmed. The heavy rucksack swung and I fell. Sunde helped me to my feet. 'Lovaas is ahead of us,' he said.
I nodded. I had already realised that.
More climbing. Then another run on skis, in and out amongst huge, snow-capped rocks. At one point Sunde swung backwards and forwards across the mountain side, quartering it as though in search of something. At last he stopped by a large rock. I saw the pistol I had given him in his hand. He moved forward quietly on his skis. I ran up carefully towards him. He disappeared as I approached. A moment later I stemmed and came up facing the back of a smaller saeter hut almost buried in snow.
Sunde emerged from the side, shaking his head. 'Holmen Saeter,' he said. 'No one there. The ski tracks pass above it. But Oi thort Oi'd just make sure.' He pulled a map out of his pocket. 'Just wonderin' if we can make anuvver short cut 'ere.' But after a moment he shook his head. 'No. We follow the others.'
We began to climb then. The ache of my shoulders was less now the rucksack was freed from the skis. But my legs felt like the legs of a sawdust doll from which the sawdust is gradually seeping. The bones seemed to be no longer solid, but liquid sticks that bent and folded. I had difficulty in keeping my skis straight. If only we could get a nice long run down. But I had a vivid picture in my mind of the route. It was steadily up-hill all the way from Aurland to Finse — a good fifty miles the way we were having to come.
From Holmen Saeter we climbed in a steep zigzag, sometimes on foot. At the top there was a chill breeze. The mist was being blown to the head of the valley. It was like a white fog, one moment drawn aside to show the silver line of the river far below us and the black cliffs opposite, the next sweeping down, thick, impenetrable, choking. The snow was crisper here. But after only a short, downhill run boulders began to show like white molehills and we had to tramp forward on foot. Soon we were at the river again on a broad path where skiing was possible. The valley.widened and the river became a series of lakes. Beside the largest of these was a well-cared-for saeter. But again the marks of the skis ahead of us ran on past it. Doors and windows were bolted. An outhouse was similarly locked.
Sunde stopped and pointed to the ski tracks. Three ski tracks ran off at an angle, crossing the tracks we were following. 'Peer has gone back,' he said. 'See their marks?'
'Why didn't we meet them?' I gasped. I didn't really care. I was past caring. My mind was a haze in which the ability to keep going was all that mattered.
'Probably they went the long way round for the ski-ing,' he answered. 'Besides, the Bjornstigen would be difficult going down.'
He went on. I stumbled after him, trying to hold the killing pace. I wanted to pick up snow and cram it into my mouth. I wanted to lie down in the white softness of it that packed so easily with a crunching sound under our skis. But above all those desires was the thought of Farnell, alone now, sitting by a log fire in some lonely saeter farther up in the hills. The ski tracks would be plain — plain as though his route had been marked off on a map. And whilst he sat there, tired and lonely, Lovaas and his two companions would be approaching him. It was that thought that spurred me on. We had to catch up with Lovaas. We had to warn Farnell. If we got there too late… I wasn't afraid that Farnell would talk. He wouldn't tell Lovaas where the thorite deposits lay. Nothing would induce him to do that. But if they killed him… I remembered the hot temper that had blazed in Lovaas's grey eyes. I remembered what Dahler had said of him. Frustrated, he might well kill Farnell. And if they killed him, then all that he had worked for would be lost for ever.
Near the end of the lake the path hugged a sheer cliff. Wooden boards on iron supports took us across a gap below overhanging rock. Beneath us the lake lay black and cold. It was then I think that I first noticed that the light was beginning to fade. I looked at my watch. It was nearly seven. We climbed again for a few minutes. Then we were out on a hillside and looking up a widening valley. The mountains fell back as we advanced, opening out till they were no more than grey shapes, slashed with cold, dirty white. The mist swept down again, as though in sudden alliance with night. The grey of the valley deepened to a sombre half-dark in which rocks and river had a remote, unreal quality.
Soon it was dark. It came slowly and our eyes were given a chance to accustom themselves to it. But even so, it was pretty dark. Only the snow at our feet glimmered faintly to prove that we had not been struck with blindness. Sunde went slowly now, picking his way with care, his head thrust forward as though he were smelling out the route. He had a compass and he worked on that. Sometimes we were close to the water's edge, going forward by the sound of it rippling over the stones, at other times we were clambering over some shoulder of land. The rocks were thick and dangerous on these shoulders. But at last we were out in the open, clear of rocks and river, with the vague, white glimmering of snow all around us. Our skis slid crisply over the even surface. And then he found the ski tracks of the others and followed them through the black and glimmering white that was night in the mountains. There was not a sound in all the world. It was as though time stood still. This might be that world of shadow between life and death; it was chill, remote and utterly silent. The only sound was the slither and hiss of our skis. I wasn't panting now. The blood no longer throbbed in my ears. I felt numb and cold. The loneliness of the place ate into me.
Sunde slithered up beside me. 'Listen!' he said.
We stopped. A distant murmur could be heard through the sound of the stillness. It was water running over rocks. 'That's Osterbo,' he said. 'Wiv any luck we'll find 'im there.'
'What about Lovaas?' I asked.
'Dunno,' he replied. 'He ain't come this way. See — there's four ski tracks here. So that's Farnell's party. Maybe Lovaas stayed back at Nasbo, that saeter by the lake. He could rest up there and go on to Osterbo by moonlight.'
'But it was all locked up,' I said.
'Maybe he turned back when it began to get dark.'
'But we'd have heard him if he'd passed us,' I pointed out.
'Not if he passed us da'n by the river.' He gripped my arm. 'Look! Stars showin' nan. Goin' ter be a fine night.'
We went on then, following the four dim ski tracks. The sound of water grew louder. We reached a stone wall, followed it and came to a bridge across a torrent. The snow on the wooden cross-planks had been churned up by many skis. It was impossible to tell how many people had crossed. Across the bridge we swung to the right. And there, straight ahead of us, was a faint glimmer of light — red and soft, like the flicker of a camp fire.
Stars were patterning the sky ahead of us as we glided across the snow towards that light. The drawn veil of the mist gave shape to things — stone wall, a graveyard with two solitary crosses, the dull steel of a lake beyond. I drew my pistol from my rucksack. Soon we could see the sprawling shape of the Turisthytten. Nearest the lake was the old, original saeter, stone-built with turf roof. Behind it ran a new, wooden building. It was from this that the light shone. And as we got nearer we could see that it was a flicker of a fire. The snow ran smooth and white to the edge of the building. No shadow moved. Complete silence save for the murmur of the stream. The ski tracks ran to the door of the hut. And coming in from the left, other tracks ran to the window and thence to the door.