CHAPTER XI
THE RESCUE
Our first night at the whaling-station was blissful. Crean and I
shared a beautiful room in Mr. Sorlle's house, with electric light and
two beds, warm and soft. We were so comfortable that we were unable to
sleep. Late at night a steward brought us tea, bread and butter and
cakes, and we lay in bed, revelling in the luxury of it all. Outside a
dense snow-storm, which started two hours after our arrival and lasted
until the following day, was swirling and driving about the mountain-
slopes. We were thankful indeed that we had made a place of safety,
for it would have gone hard with us if we had been out on the mountains
that night. Deep snow lay everywhere when we got up the following
morning.
After breakfast Mr. Sorlle took us round to Husvik in a motor-launch.
We were listening avidly to his account of the war and of all that had
happened while we were out of the world of men. We were like men arisen
from the dead to a world gone mad. Our minds accustomed themselves
gradually to the tales of nations in arms, of deathless courage and
unimagined slaughter, of a world-conflict that had grown beyond all
conceptions, of vast red battlefields in grimmest contrast with the
frigid whiteness we had left behind us. The reader may not realize
quite how difficult it was for us to envisage nearly two years of the
most stupendous war of history.
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