The 'Blaaisen'
It was a moment, after Farnell had left, before anyone in the hut moved. It wasn't so much that we were stunned by the suddenness of his exit as the fact that none of us had any plan. Lovaas was half bent over the table, holding his shoulder. Halvorsen was cutting his jacket away with a large jack knife. Jorgensen, usually so quick, stood motionless, staring at the closed door. I met Jill's eyes. She looked away as though it hurt her to look at me. Her face looked pinched and cold. Her jaw was set firmly like a man's. 'Come on, Bill,' she said suddenly. 'We must do something. If the police get him — ' She didn't finish the sentence, but started for the door.
I followed her, sliding up the zip of my windbreaker. As she opened the outer door, a swirl of fine, powdery snow swept up into my face. Outside, the force of the wind was driving the snow almost parallel with the top of the ridge on which the hut stood. The whole world seemed moving, the myriad snow-flakes showing as dark specks against the dismal grey light. Dahler looked up as we came out of the hut. He was fixing his last ski. I called to him. 'Where are our skis?' But he made no reply. He was working feverishly at the binding of his ski. Then he straightened up, pulling his sticks out of the snow and, with one last glance at us, turned and thrust himself forward into the driving snow.
'Mr Dahler!' Jill called. 'You'd better wait for us.'
He glanced back over his shoulder. Perhaps it was the light, but it seemed to me that his face was contorted in a frenzy of hate. Then he pressed forward. An instant later he was no more than a vague shadow. Then he was gone, swallowed up in the storm.
Jill caught my arm. 'Quick!' she said. 'Our skis are down there.' She caught hold of the sticks still leaning against the side of the hut, thrust a pair into my hands and then started off down the slope, skiing forward like a skater on her feet. I followed. Below the loose surface the snow was a hard, frozen crust. The wind whipped blindingly into my face as I descended. The exertion and the cold brought my circulation back. By the time I caught up with Jill she had already fixed one of her skis. Fortunately all the skis had come to rest in a pile on a drift. I found mine and fitted them to my boots. As I straightened up, Jorgensen joined us. 'Be careful, Miss Somers,' he said. 'It is dangerous now. You may get lost.'
'I'll risk that,' she answered and started off up the slope towards the hut.
I followed her. My limbs had stiffened so that they felt like boards with rusted joints. But by the time I reached the top of the slope, they had loosened up a bit and I was feeling warm with the exertion. There was no sign of the hut. The marks of our descent were already obliterated. Jill had a compass in her hand. 'We shall never find the post in this snow,' she said. 'We must go by compass. Finse is just west of due south. Ready?'
I nodded.
She thrust her sticks into the snow and glided off along the ridge. 'Keep close to me,' she called. 'And go slowly. It may be dangerous.'
So began one of the craziest trips I have ever done. The snow was so thick that visibility was reduced to a few yards. The wind cut like a knife. There were no markers now. Jill was leading us by compass and intuition. And I'll say this, she led well. She had a feel for the lie of the country which was instinctive rather than reasoned. We kept to ridges where possible. But every now and then we dropped steeply only to have to climb again on the far side. But as we went on the proportion of downhill to uphill work increased and in consequence the going became easier. Several times we found ourselves faced with, drops into nothingness. Probably they were only a matter of twenty or thirty feet. But in the snow it was impossible to tell. Once we climbed a long, sloping snow-field only to find ourselves stopped by a sheer cliff of black rock splodged with patches of snow. We worked round this and then had a good run down a long cutting in the mountain.
On this run Jill disappeared completely. She was somewhere just ahead of me, for despite the snow, her ski tracks were still quite clear as I followed. But apart from the tracks, I might have been alone in the wilderness of falling and fallen snow. Then suddenly her figure loomed up at me out of the storm. She screamed something to me and waved her stick. I did a jump turn and fell with my face buried in the snow, A hand caught me under the arm and helped me to my feet. 'What's the trouble?' I asked, looking down into her face which was almost obliterated by snow.
She turned round and pointed. I shivered. It was one of the most terrifying sights I have ever seen. Just beyond the point where she had churned up the snow in a quick Christi, the ground fell away and the colour changed from white to ice-cold green. We were on the glacier itself, and this was a crevasse. It was a big one — about fifteen feet across; a great gap that disappeared deep down beyond our sight. I went as close as I dared, but I could not see the bottom. I was looking at a million years of ice packed hard and solid like green crystal. I looked at Jill and could see she was thinking the same thing. She had only just saved herself. Just a fraction faster and instead of looking down into the green depths of that giant crack, we should be down there looking our last at the narrow slit that marked the world above.
'Come on,' she said. 'We must go back and cross it higher up.' Her voice, though she endeavoured to control it, sounded shaky.
We turned then and began to trudge back, climbing parallel to the crevasse. Gradually it narrowed until at last it was bridged by snow. We climbed a little higher and then struck across the glacier. We found no more crevasses and were soon climbing a ridge on the far side studded with huge rocks, some of which outcropped from the snow. Beyond, was a long sloping run. We turned south again and began to glide down. But this time Jill kept the pace down.
We found no more crevasses. And shortly afterwards the snow slackened and the dismal grey seemed lessened by a strange iridescence. This iridescence strengthened gradually until it hurt the eyes to look at it. The snow suddenly ceased to fall. The iridescence was mist. A moment later it was agitated as though by some giant hand and then, in a flash, the obscuring veil was whisked away and the sun shone. The white of the snow was blinding. To the west the sky was blue. The snow-capped peaks smiled at us benignly. The driving snowstorm up at the hut seemed as unreal now as a nightmare. We were in a pleasant world of warmth and white snow and brown outcrops of rock. Jill turned and waved. She was smiling. The next moment I was crouched low on my skis and going like the wind. The ski points sizzled in the powdery, ice-crystal snow and the cold air whipped at my cheeks.
We were running down a long valley. Jill, leading, set the pace, and it was a fast one. As we went down and down that everlasting slope I felt my knee joints tiring. The exhilaration of going after Farnell, the concentration required to get safely through the snow, the fear that had gripped me at the sight of the open jaws of that crevasse — all these had combined to give me strength. But now, now that it was a simple, straightforward run, the strength ebbed away and I began to feel the efforts again of the overlong, all-night trek across the mountains.
At the bottom of the valley we made a wide sweep round the foot of a shoulder of the mountains. It was here that I had my first fall. I don't know quite what happened. The snow was deeper, I suppose, and I just hadn't the strength to force my skis round. The joints of my knees seemed to melt away under my weight and the next thing I knew I was slithering across the snow in a jumble of skis and sticks.
I had great difficulty in struggling to my feet. The snow was soft and my limbs just refused to supply the extra effort needed. Jill waited for me. And when I came up with her, all plastered in snow, she said, 'Tired?'
'I'm all right,' I said.
She gave me a quick glance. 'I'll take it a bit easier,' she said. And we started off again.
I suppose the pace she set was slower, but it didn't seem so to my trembling and aching limbs. I fell again and again, wherever there was a difficult turn. Each time she waited for me. Twice she came back and helped me up where the snow was soft. Then at last the slope was gentle and we were running easier, side by side.
It was \vhilst we were crossing this gently tiled tableland of snow, that we came across two ski tracks freshly made. Jill, who was slightly in the lead, swung into line with them. 'George and Dahler,' she flung over her shoulder.
'Must be,' I called back.
We reached a jagged outcrop of rock and she stopped. There, spread out before us in the sunlight, was the pass with the slender, black line of the Bergen railway snaking through the white waste of snow. Directly below us the white, flat expanse of the frozen Finsevatn. And on the nearer bank the tiny, box-like shapes of the Finse Hotel and the railway sheds and cottages stood out black against the dazzling landscape. And beyond Finse, standing over it on the other side of the valley like a huge crystal dome, was the white expanse of the Hardanger-jokulen. The sweep of the snow over the summit of the Jokulen itself was unbroken, but to the left the snow seemed to fall away, leaving glacial ice of a vivid blue exposed to view, veined with the black lines of the shadows in the crevasses.
Jill glanced at her watch. 'It's half-past twelve,' she said. The Oslo train will be in shortly. See — they've got the snow-ploughs out.'
I followed the curves of the railway beyond Finse. Whole sections of the track were invisible, running through great timber snowsheds completely covered by drifts. They were like tunnels through the snow. Here and there, between the sheds, the line showed as a dark cleft cut through the snow, the sides as vertical as if they'd been sliced with a knife. Only on the bends were the lines visible — two slender black threads gleaming dully in the sun. Farther still to the left, a great plume of white vapour moved steadily along the track. At first I thought it was a locomotive. I could see the black shape of it just showing above the sides of the snow cutting. Then I realised it was a snow-plough. The plume of vapour was snow being flung out from above the spinning rotary snow-cutters.
Jill suddenly gripped my arm as faintly echoing through the mountains came the mournful note of a siren. She was pointing away to the right where the track curved round a shoulder of the mountains towards Bergen. Just below the tip of the shoulder a plume of smoke showed for an instant. 'It's the Oslo train,' she said. 'See it?' A moment later the plume of smoke was visible again and I could see the dark line of the train coming out of the tunnel-like entrance of one of the snowsheds. For perhaps half a minute it crawled along in the sunshine. Then it was gradually swallowed up under the snow as it entered another snowshed. Little puffs of smoke came from the side of the shed which was not covered with snow. I couldn't see the train, but I could measure its progress as it burrowed along under the snow by those little wisps of smoke that appeared and then hung motionless in the frosty air.
'Do you think George really meant it when he said he was going to catch that train?' Jill asked.
'I don't know,' I answered. 'But it certainly looks like it. These must be his and Dahler's tracks. Surely nobody else would have been out in that snow? And if they are his tracks, then he's certainly making for the railway.'
'But look,' she said, 'they're not going down to Finse. They're curving away to the left. The next station down the line is Ustaoset. That's more than twenty miles away. He'd never make it in time. And he can't jump the train.'
'Well, there's only one way to find out,' I said.
She nodded and we started off again. The ski tracks led farther and farther away to the left until Finse lay over my right shoulder. The Oslo train was drawing into Finse station now.
I could see the black snake-line of the carriages slowing to standstill. A white plume of steam burst from the engine as though it were blown with the long climb up from sea level to over four thousand feet. I began to wonder whether in fact we were following the right ski tracks.
Then round a small nut of rock we came upon the figure of a man struggling up towards us. He looked up as we bore down on him. And then suddenly he shouted, 'Is that you, Jill?' It was Curtis. I recognised him as soon as I heard his voice.
'Yes,» Jill called back.
'Thank God!' he said. 'I wondered what had happened to you. I've been trying to look for you, but I'm not very used to these things yet.' He pointed to his skis. Then he saw me. 'Hallo Skipper! So you made it all right.'
'Has Farnell passed you?' I asked as I ran up towards him.
'Dunno,' he answered. 'Two men went by a little time back. One a long way behind the other. The second looked rather like Dahler. Couldn't have been, could it? But neither he nor Jorgensen were at the hotel when I got down to breakfast. And police all over the place. Where have you been?' he asked, turning to Jill.
'Up on Sankt Paal,' she replied.
Down in the valley the train whistled. The siren note was thrown back by the mountains, growing fainter and fainter as it slipped away into the infinity of snow-capped peaks.
'That was Dahler all right,' I said. 'The man ahead of him was Farnell.'
'Good God!' I heard him mutter. But I was already past him, thrusting with my sticks to gain impetus. Jill came up beside me. Now that I was within sight of the quarry, I felt the excitement of the chase bringing the strength back into my legs. If only I could get Farnell alone — away from people like Lovaas and Jorgensen. He was bitter, tired of being pursued. He needed to be handled carefully. If I could talk to him quietly.
We topped another slight rise and there ahead of us, connected to us by the double lines of their ski tracks, two figures showed black against the snow. They were close above the railway now. The whistle of the train at Finse sounded again, the wail of it coming up to us from the valley and being thrown back by the hills. I glanced over my right shoulder. Great puffs of smoke were belching from the engine, condensing white in the thin air. The smoke turned black. I could hear the thick panting of the heavy locomotive. The long line of carriages began to move.
Jill came up alongside me. 'We must stop him getting on to that train,' she panted. Then she raised her stick and pointed to the sharp-cut line of the snow-ploughed railway below us. Little figures were moving along above the cutting. 'Police,' she said.
I nodded and plunged my sticks into the soft snow. All thought of my tiredness had vanished. If Farnell were captured by the Norwegian police, there was little chance of my getting the information I wanted.
Side by side we plunged down the slope, heads bent, our skis sizzling through the snow, thrusting the powdery top surface up like bow waves on either side of the upcurved points.
Ahead of us the two tiny figures swung further left. The leading figure turned still more. He was close by the railway now where it ran through a long cutting. He paused and half-turned his head. Dahler's smaller figure was gaining on him. Farnell swung away suddenly to the right, his skis throwing the snow up in a huge wave as he turned the speed. A moment later he was running parallel with the line directly below us.
I glanced once more over my shoulder. The train was moving steadily out of Finse. Jill saw it too and, without speaking, we turned and went headlong down the slope towards Farnell. Jill shouted at him. He must have heard, for I saw him look up. Dahler, too, had turned. He passed directly below us, a black speck hurtling down towards the railway.
Jill, in the lead again, swung away to the right, following Farnell's movement. Finse was hidden from us now by a long shoulder round which the line curved in a snowshed. Farnell was disappearing round the corner, Dahler close behind him.
Then they vanished from sight. Faintly came the siren sound of the train as it went into the first of the snowsheds after Finse.
A moment later, and we had turned the point of the shoulder. We were right over the line now, skiing along the roof of one of the snowsheds. It ended just round the bend. Here the line made a convex curve to another shoulder of hill where it entered the next snowshed. Farnell was climbing now up the side of the shoulder of land nearest Finse. Dahler came hurtling down the slope of the bend. He was making for the railway, clearly with the idea of getting between Farnell and the line.
It all happened very quickly then. The slope was steep where Dahler was coming down. At the bottom, just above the line, he did a jump Christi. Either he was tired or he was handicapped by his withered arm. At any rate, he muffed the Christi and went slithering down on his side. The next instant he had fallen down the sheer side of the cutting on to the lines.
Jill stopped then and I stemmed. We were standing at the end of the snowshed. Below us was the wooden tunnel over the line holding off the snow that poured like an avalanche slope down the shoulder of the hills. In places the wooden boards showed through the snow, which was blackened by smoke. Curving round the farther headland was the next snowshed, its entrance gaping black like a tunnel. Between the two snowsheds was the convex curve of the snow-ploughed cutting, with the lines showing black through the tight-packed snow. The walls of the cutting were quite sheer, the snow packed hard and tight. Its width was the width of a train. And in that cutting Dahler struggled to his feet and brushed the snow off his ski suit.
Beyond the headland the train hooted as it entered another snowshed. Jill clutched my arm. Her fingers bit into my flesh. For a moment I couldn't understand her agitation. Then I saw Dahler trying to scale the sheer snow walls of the cutting and I realised the danger of his position.
I glanced quickly up the shoulder ahead of us. Farnell was still climbing, glancing over his left shoulder as though measuring the distance to the line below. He was directly above the next snowshed now. Then I looked down towards Dahler. He was scrabbling frenziedly at the snow with his hands, trying to get a purchase for his skis. Round the headland I could hear the heavy panting and rumbling of the approaching train. 'Mr Dahler!' Jill screamed. 'This way. Under the snowshed.' Her fingers dug at my arm. 'Doesn't he know there's room for him to get off the track in these snowsheds?' She breathed. 'Mr Dahler!'
But the man was panic-stricken. Where he was, he could probably feel the trembling of the rails under his feet as the giant locomotive came down the track beyond the headland.
'Dahler!' I shouted. This way!'
But he was frenziedly tearing at the wall of snow as though he would burrow through it. Every now and then, where he had made it crumble a bit, he tried to climb with his skis.
'Dahler!' I yelled.
He looked up.
I waved to him. This way, for God's sake. Get under the shed here.'
He seemed to take it in at last, for he straightened up. The engine hooted again. The sound of the siren was very clear now. It was hooting for the entrance to the snowshed on the other side of the headland. Dahler half turned and looked at the black, gaping hole of the snowshed. Then he started to ski towards us. But his skis caught in the sleepers and he fell. Take your skis off and run for it,' I shouted.
He bent down and worked like a mad man at his ski bindings.
Jill pulled at my arm. She was pointing to where George Farnell stood poised high up on the slope of the headland. He was watching the track below, his body bent forward as though about to start the run for a ski jump. 'What's he going to do?' Jill whispered.
'I don't know,' I said.
The sound of the train was loud now, the noise of it magnified by the snow-arched tunnel. Dahler had at last got rid of his skis. He was running down the track towards us. Above the snowshed I saw Farnell do a half-jump and come hurtling down the slope. And suddenly I knew what he was going to do. He was going to do a ski jump from the lip of the snowshed entrance on to the top of the moving train as it came out of the tunnel. Jill had understood too, for her grip on my arm tightened.
The rumble of the train grew louder. Here and there on the outer side of the shed little puffs of smoke seeped out into the cold air. Farnell was just above the snowshed now, his body bent forward, his sticks poised ready. A perfect jump turn in a welter of snow and he was coming straight towards us along the very top of the shed. My hands were gripped around my sticks so that it hurt. Suppose he reached the edge of the shed before the engine emerged? But he was stemming now. The blunt, cow-catchered front of the engine burst out of the tunnel in a roar of smoke, its headlight blazing dully in the sunshine. The tender and then the first carriage appeared. In that instant Farnell reached the end of the snowshed and jumped. And in that instant I realised with horror that the forward carriage had no snow on it. The smoke from the engine must have melted it. He had gauged it perfectly and for a moment I thought he was going to make it. He had skied on to the train at the exact speed the train was moving. And for one instant he stood erect on his skis, steady on the very top of the carriage.
Then his skis caught something, slipped and threw him. He folded at the knees in a proper fall and clutched at one of the ventilating cones. I think he gripped it. But one of his skis caught the snow that was on a level with the top of the carriage and in a second he was dragged sickeningly back along the carriage top, ground down between the moving carriage and the small wall at the side and then spewed up again on to the snow above the cutting.
I felt Jill tense. I looked down at her. She had her hands over her eyes. Then she relaxed and looked up again. But in a moment she had stiffened with renewed horror. The train was on the curve now. Below us, in the cutting, Dahler was running towards us. Behind him, the engine panted and rumbled round the curve. I saw him glance over his shoulder. Then his face was turned towards us again and I saw that it was a mask of fear, his eyes wide and his teeth bared with the effort of running. He wasn't a young man and he'd been skiing all morning. He ran incredibly slowly, it seemed.
The engine rounded the bend of the cutting until its headlight shone straight at us. The noise of it shook the snow-clad hills. And Dahler ran — ran for his life. The driver saw him and the brakes squealed as he applied them. But the heavy train was on the down-grade. Dahler turned his head again. He was about twenty yards from us. I could see the sweat glistening on his face. The engine was bearing straight down on him. He hadn't a hope. I took hold of Jill and pressed her to me, so that she couldn't see what happened.
It was all over in a second. Realising that the iron monster was on top of him, Dahler flung himself against the sheer snow wall, squeezing himself against it in the hope that there would just be room between the snow and the train. It was the worst thing he could have done. There just wasn't enough room for his small body. I stood there, helpless, and saw the iron edge of the locomotive cut into him, mangling him to a bloody pulp against the ice-hard wall of the snow. His thin, high-pitched scream, like the cry of a trapped rabbit, merged and was lost in the squealing of the train's brakes. With a roar and a hiss of hot smoke in our faces the engine thundered into the snowshed, rumbling heavily in the snow under our feet and shaking the buried wood structure. Then the sound of it was drowned by the metallic clatter of the buffers as the carriages overran each other.
'Oh, God!' Jill muttered. 'How horrible!' Her face was buried against my wind-breaker and she was shuddering. In that moment she was thinking of Dahler and not of Farnell. Then she stopped shuddering and straightened herself. 'What about — George?' she asked and peered through the smoke towards the far side of the curve where George Farnell's body lay in a dark heap on the snow above the cutting.
'We'll go and see,' I said. Anything for action. To stand there waiting for Dahler's mangled body to emerge from the other end of the train was unthinkable.
We started forward then, leaving the top of the snowshed and moving along above the cutting. Below and to the left of us the last carriages were moving slower and slower into the dark tunnel entrance of the snowshed.
The last coach moved sluggishly past me and stopped, with just half of it protruding from the tunnel to show that a train was standing there beneath the snow. I glanced hurriedly into the cutting. The farther wall, directly below me, was broken and scarred with crimson as though some political agitator with more ardour than education had tried to daub a slogan. Of Dahler himself there was no sign. Somewhere along the train they would find his remains caught up between two carriages. I did not like to think what his body would look like.
I turned my head away and trudged on as fast as I could. It was Farnell I had to reach — Farnell, who might be still alive. But I could not get the thought of Dahler out of my mind. I'd liked the man. There had been something sinister and unreliable about him. And yet, remembering his past, it was all so understandable. I was sorry he was dead. But perhaps it was as well.
'Bill! I think I saw him move.' Jill's voice was small and tight as though she were fighting to keep control of herself.
I peered ahead. The brilliance of the sunlight on the snow played tricks. My eyes were tired. I couldn't focus properly. 'Maybe he's not dead,' I said, and pressed on, my skis crunching in the frosty snow.
When we reached Farnell he was lying quite still, his body curled up in a tight ball. His ski pants were dug deep in the snow and there were smears of blood along the broken lip of the cutting. Jill lifted his head. It was all bloody. I loosened the bindings of his skis and cleared them from his boots. One leg was horribly broken. As I eased it round so that it was less twisted he gave a slight groan. I looked up and, as I did so, I saw his eyes open. Jill was wiping the blood from his face.
His skin beneath the stubble was ivory against the pure white of the snow.
'Water,' he whispered. His voice rattled in his throat. Neither of us had our packs. Jill smoothed his forehead. He stirred and tried to sit up. His face twisted with pain and he lay back again, his head cradled in her lap. His teeth were clenched. But when he looked up into her face and saw who it was, he seemed to relax. 'I nearly made it,' he whispered. 'No — snow. I'd have done it if-' He stopped and coughed up a gob of blood.
'Don't talk,' Jill said, wiping his face again. Then to me, 'See if there's a doctor on that train.'
I started to get to my feet. But Farnell stopped me. 'No use,' he said.
'You'll be all right,' I said.
But I knew he wouldn't. I could see it in his eyes. He knew too. He looked up at Jill. 'I'm sorry' — his voice was barely audible — 'I've been a poor husband, haven't I?'
Husband? I glanced from him to Jill. And then I understood — all the things that had puzzled me were suddenly clear.
He had closed his eyes and for a moment I thought he had gone. But his grip on Jill's hand was tight and suddenly he looked up at me. His glance moved from me to Jill. Without a word he put her hand in mine. Then he said, 'Bill — you must take over where I left off. The thorite deposits-' He gritted his teeth and raised himself. Jill supported his back. His eyes were narrowed against the light as he gazed out across the valley. 'The Blaaisen,' he murmured.
I turned and followed the direction of his gaze. He was looking across to the Jokulen, to the flank of the mountain where the glacier ice shone a brilliant blue. When I looked back at him he had relaxed and closed his eyes. Jill bent and kissed his lips. He tried to say something, but he hadn't the strength. A moment later his head lolled over and the thin blood trickle of a haemorrhage started from his open mouth.
Jill laid him back in the snow as a shadow fell across us. I looked up. Jorgensen was standing over us. I became conscious of many voices from the direction of the snowshed. The half coach was still protruding from the tunnel and in the cutting police and officials mingled with a mob of excited passengers.
I glanced at Jill. She was dry-eyed and staring at nothing. 'Dead?' Jorgensen asked.
I nodded.
'But he told you before he died?'
'Yes,' I said.
I stood up, conscious again of the aching of my limbs, and I turned and stared across the valley to the Jokulen. At my feet lay the remains of George Farnell. But out there, under the Blue Ice, lay all that he had lived and worked for, all that was best in him. That was the sum total of his life. Nothing visible — nothing that has not been visible since the Ice Age first elected to make the ice on the flank of the Jokulen blue. But an idea — something bom of a lifetime's study and work, backed by the solid presence of mineral wealth under the rock and ice. And I swore then and there that I'd stay up here at Finse and build an industrial monument to George Farnell, who died there in the snow — ex-convict, swindler, forger, deserter, murderer — but for all that a great man who subordinated everything to one idea.
And now, here it is, half completed. When I began this story the days were shortening and Finse was in the grip of ice. It is still in the grip of ice. But now the days are drawing out. Spring is coming. All through the long winter months Jill and I have been living up here and the work has gone steadily forward. We have done all the exploratory work. We have proved that George Farnell did not die for nothing. Soon now we shall mine the first ore. Soon these sprawling, wooden buildings will be humming with activity. Finse will be a small town, centre of the life blood of one of the world's greatest industrial plants. Open the window now and look out across the snow. I can see from here the spot where Farnell died. And away to the right, its icy jaws seeming to grin back at me, is the Blue Ice and all he lived for.