An Old Captivity - Nevil Shute

This is such an unusual book, a mixture of exploration of the far north, the minutiae of flying a seaplane & a possible reincarnation experience reaching back to the Vikings & the time of the Icelandic sagas.

An Old Captivity (cover picture from here) is the story of an archaeological expedition to Greenland. Pilot Donald Ross has spent time flying seaplanes in the far north of Canada. When he returns to England, he is offered a job flying a seaplane on a survey commissioned by Oxford don, Professor Lockwood. Lockwood's industrialist brother finances the expedition & Ross, once approved by the Lockwoods, is given carte blanche to order a plane & organize everything they'll need. He sees this job as a great opportunity, a stepping stone to more lucrative work. Professor Lockwood's prickly daughter Alix, is not so impressed with Ross. She suspects him of inflating the cost of the expedition & taking advantage of her unworldly father's enthusiasm for surveying the remote location. Ross is equally unimpressed with Alix & is disconcerted when Lockwood announces that his daughter will be accompanying them on the trip. A photographer, Jameson, will meet them at Greenland but, until then, Ross has to do all the work involved with flying & maintaining the plane.

The Lockwoods soon realise just how much work Ross has to do & regret that they hadn't insisted on an engineer taking Alix's place. The testy relationship between Ross & Alix gradually thaws as she begins to appreciate Ross's abilities & begins to help him as much as she can. After adventures including an unexpected night at a native settlement, they reach the town from which they'll set off on the survey to discover that Jameson has a broken leg & can't make the trip. Ross & Alix quickly learn to operate the camera & take the survey photographs.

Ross is a conscientious & methodical man. His constant worry about the work he has to do & the responsibility of the plane interfere with his sleep. He's given a bottle of sleeping tablets by a chemist in Reykjavik & he soon finds he can't sleep comfortably without them. On reaching the settlement in Greenland, they make camp at a location where earlier settlements had long since vanished. Their native workmen refuse to sleep at the camp & move to another place a mile away. All they will say is that they're afraid to sleep where the old people once lived. The survey work goes well, the weather is in their favour & Ross & Alix become closer as Ross realizes that he's fallen in love.

One night, Ross falls asleep after taking three sleeping tablets & falls into a coma that lasts 36 hours. Spooked by the tales of the old people, the Lockwoods manage to move Ross to the other camp &, gradually, he regains consciousness. He tells an amazing story about a dream he'd had while he was unconscious, a dream where he was a young Scotsman, Haki, taken as a slave by Viking raiders. He becomes a member of Leif Erickson's expedition to Greenland & then on to Vinland, the almost mythical settlement on the coast of North America. The dream is so vivid that Ross is constantly thinking of it. In the dream, he's accompanied by a young girl, Hekia, whom he equates with Alix. On the final leg of their journey home, they cross the Atlantic to Canada & then, down the coast of Massachusetts towards New York. Ross is suddenly convinced that he's found the place the Vikings called Wondersward &, when they land to have a look, he recognizes everything, including a place that was special to Haki & Hekia. Alix begins to wonder whether Ross's experience was just a dream or something more uncanny.

The story begins with one of Shute's framing stories, a device he often used. Ross is on a stranded train in Europe & tells his story to a fellow traveller, a psychologist. Shute must have forgotten how he began the story because we never return to the stranded train & the viewpoint of the story isn't just Ross's which it should be if he's telling his story as he experienced it. However, that didn't bother me too much. I enjoyed the story very much - the early scenes in Oxford with Ross & Alix irritating each other while Lockwood is completely focussed on his research without any idea of what such a trip entails. I love novels set in the 1930s, with all the assumptions about class & privilege. Alix Lockwood looks down on Ross & her middle class assumptions about him & his abilities were typical of the period. It certainly sets up the combative relationship between Alix & Ross very well & contrasts with the slow dawning of respect that she feels for him when she realises how naive she & her father had been. I also loved Donald's Aunt Janet, who had brought him up on her meagre earnings as a teacher. As always, Nevil Shute writes about the work of pilots & engineers with authority. Sometimes, I admit, the endless detail about fitting out a seaplane, filling the engine, changing the plugs, became a little mind-numbing, but the story was fascinating.

The scenes in the north reminded me a little of Michelle Paver's Dark Matter, a terrific ghost story that I listened to on audio read by Jeremy Northam. A young man is left as the only member of a scientific expedition to a remote station where something horrible happened in the past, something so dreadful that it left an enduring impression on the landscape & the atmosphere of the place. It was a story that left me with such a feeling of dread, I don't think I could have read (or listened) to it at night.  I listened to An Old Captivity on audio too, read by Cameron Stewart. He did a good job narrating the story & his male voices were fine but Alix's voice was dreadful. Still, the lure of the story kept me listening & I'm keen to go on reading more of Nevil Shute's novels.

An Airman's Wife - Aimée McHardy

My Remembrance Day reading has continued with An Airman's Wife, subtitled A True Story of Lovers Separated by War. This little book consists mostly of the letters Bill Bond wrote to his wife, Aimée, as he served in the RFC on the Western Front & she waited at home in England. It was published in 1918 & then forgotten until Barry Marsden discovered it during his researches into Derbyshire fighter pilots. He was so impressed that he arranged for it to be reprinted. So many books were written during the War & forgotten. This story is, in some ways, representative of so many stories of the War but it's also unique because it's Bill & Aimée's story.

Aimée & Bill lived quite a bohemian life in Paris before the war & Amy McHardy began spelling her name in the French manner. Both writers & journalists, they shared a love of adventure & a disregard for convention. Bill enlisted in the Army at the beginning of the war & served at Gallipoli & Ypres where he won the Military Cross. He decided that he needed a new challenge & transferred to the Royal Flying Corps in 1916. After training in England, he & Aimée were married & he was posted to Treziennes, near St Omer. The book begins here, with his departure for the Front & contrasts Aimée's life at home & his letters from France. They wrote to each other every day, sometimes several times a day & counted the days until they could expect a letter if one of them was travelling. The book was published in 1918 & subject to censorship so all the names were changed. Barry Marsden has been able to recover the names of most of the RFC personnel from the squadron's Operations Book.

The RFC worked behind & over the trenches on the Western Front. The war in the air hasn't been written about as much as the war in the trenches but the raids undertaken by the pilots were vital to the safety of the men below. Bill's squadron was responsible for escorting planes sent over the German lines to take photographs of manoeuvres & materiel as well as pursuing enemy aircraft & engaging in dogfights. The planes were primitive, the pilots inexperienced & life expectancy was short. Everyone was so young, not just the pilots but their commanding officers,

The General commanding our Brigade and a Colonel from the Brigade were dining with us. Combine the ages of our C.O. (a major) and that of our two guests and the average is about 26 years.... I looked on as an impartial spectator. The picture was one of youth not sobered, but stimulated, by responsibility: graced, not by a heroic air, but by one of serenity; endowed by unfailing optimism and avowing but one object of hate - not the Hun but the perpetrator, whoever he may happen to be, of 'hot air'. Nearly thirty people under twenty-five years old doing a vital part of the work on which a whole army may depend!

Bill describes raids & everyday life at the base. A 'dud' day is one where the weather is unsuitable for flying. Sometimes a dud day is welcome when they've been flying up to three operations a day but in general they're all keen to be flying & anxious to get on with the job. Aimée, on the other hand, is living in a cottage in the country with friends or in London with her family & waiting for Bill to come on leave. She writes stories & tries to have them published, looks after her two younger sisters when they visit, & learns to cook.

Betty & I are cooks! I used to think those who could turn raw flour and other raw things into something one liked to eat must have a special gift. Now I no longer am surprised, except that anyone should go on doing it day after day. We enjoyed ourselves because it was adventure, but I shouldn't care to be obliged to spend my time in a kitchen - even such a darling of a kitchen as this - whether I felt inclined or otherwise. Our cakes are perfect and the cornflour jelly stuff slips down like a dream. That's because it was flavoured with chocolate and had the beaten white of eggs stirred in at the last minute.

Bill's letters are full of longing for Aimée. He writes quite straightforwardly of his work but ends every letter by telling her how much he misses her & how he spends hours thinking of her. His letters begin, "My own wife," "Aimée, dearest one," "Ma bien Aimée," & end with "Do you know that I love you? Darling Aimée, I want you and soon...", "All my love, my sweet wife," "I love you, dearest woman."

As the months pass, the main topic of Aimée's thoughts is Bill's leave. She's afraid to think about it in case something should happen to him before he gets it.

I want to know and I'm frightened to know. I want to be able to count the days, and yet I think I shall be worn to a shadow if I do - and what joy would a shadow be to Bill? We want each other to kiss and love, and we want to see each other. It's very difficult to explain why spiritual union is not enough, any more than mere bodily union would be enough. I suppose it's because - on this earth anyway - we are human; and because there must be something beyond - above! When Bill comes back to me I think I will weep. Tears come to my eyes even at the thought.


Bill's leave did come through & they spent a blissful 10 days together. However, the news Aimée had always dreaded came at last. Bill was reported missing in July 1917. Aimée went to Bill's family & stayed with them while they waited for more news. Her emotions are very much on the surface, trying to stay calm for Bill's mother & father's sake, hoping that he had been taken prisoner after he was shot down but always fearing to have her worst thoughts confirmed. Aimée keeps writing her daily letter until the news comes that there's no hope of Bill having survived the crash. I couldn't help thinking about the many women & families who never got that certainty. Aimée describes so well the limbo of hoping for the best yet fearing the worst until the confirmation of Bill's death comes.

The book ends with Aimée accepting Bill's death yet feeling that he's watching over her as she tries to imagine a future without her. Unfortunately, nothing is known of Aimée's story after the war. I wonder if she was able to make a living as a writer & if she was able to return to Paris after the war. An Airman's Wife is a touching story, told with humour & passion. I'm glad that it was rediscovered & that I had a chance to read it.