My Dear Lady Misericordia,

Tea with knife

I hope this letter finds you well. Now we have gone beyond the reach of the postal service, I will simply have to imagine how you are getting along.

So, I imagine you sitting in the drawing room, with your Pekinese lap dog Knife curled up at your feet, a blazing fire in the grate and tea being served. You are not, I think, hurtling across the freezing ice behind a pack of yelling dogs with nothing but wind-dried herring to chew on.

I, however, am.

I have to say, I’m afraid, that travel by dog-sled is not nearly as delightful as travel by reindeer sleigh. For one thing, these are not friendly English dogs – but then neither is your dog Knife, who has earned his name by shredding the cuffs of at least three pairs of my trousers.

My trousers

Also, the weather has changed. For the last day the sky has been overcast, one great expanse of monotone cloud, and I cannot describe the dullness that settles in the heart at this endless, rattling travel over a white ground, under a grey sky towards an ever retreating horizon of black mountains.

Dark clouds

Fortunately I have been sharing a sled with Professor Cumulus, who has provided many cheerful hours of rambling conversation on all subjects under the sun. Except one: where we are going and why. Although he has been very complimentary about my contribution to our venture so far and continually drops dark hints that I may be very useful where we are going, he still refuses to be drawn on what, exactly, we are doing here.

I gather, from some of what he says, that he believes that he is on the track of some new fuel or energy source that will revolutionise modern industry, but, when I question him further, however delicately, he simply grins, impishly, and changes the subject.

I simply cannot imagine what he is about: of course there may be untold minerals hidden away in this great icy expanse, but even if we could find them, how one would go about extracting and transporting them in this vast wilderness is beyond my skill.

But that is one mystery that we may soon discover the secret of, as the Professor assures me that we don’t have far to go now.

Which is just as well, considering the ruckus we have had in camp this evening. We had all had a rather pitiful supper around the fire, which did little to keep out the cold of the night, and a night-cap of brandy, which did, and had retreated to our tents to try and sleep. Or, in Baronet Oxshott’s case to complain loudly about the food.

I am sharing a tent with Harry, with whom I have managed to make friends with, again, after our disagreement and our adventure with the kite, and we talked for a little while, speculating on where our journey might be taking us. Eventually we both dropped off to sleep and I dreamt happily of Latin lessons until I suddenly found myself being shaken awake by Harry.

“Mr Hope, there’s something up!” Indeed there was – the camp was alive with shouting and bellowing.

We leapt from our sleeping bags and out into the snow (we all sleep fully clothed here, what with the cold, and Harry even keeps his cap on in bed, I have discovered) and there, in the dying firelight, came upon the most spectacular tableau.

There in the centre of the camp, surrounded by the dogs, all snarling and barking, was Baronet Oxshott, in nothing but his red flannel underclothes and, facing him, a huge Polar Bear!

Oxshott and the Polar Bear

It was quite the most enormous creature I have ever seen, a great powerful mountain of white fur, that lumbered to and fro round the fire, confused and annoyed by the lights and the noise. Oxshott was holding a frying pan in one hand and there was half cooked bacon on the snow at his feet.

He had obviously been cooking a midnight snack for himself and the smell had attracted the bear!

...square on the nose

The great head lunged forward at the bacon and, without thinking, Oxshott punched it squarely on the nose!

Taken completely by surprise the bear reared back, its massive paws, like soup plates with claws on, flailing around, and then it turned and lolloped off into the night.

“Blighter was trying to steal my bacon,” explained Oxshott, gruffly.

“My bacon,” pointed out Lord Daunt, “It was trying to steal the bacon you had stolen from my supplies.”

“Dashed hungry,” mumbled Oxshott

“So was he,” interjected the Professor, “The world’s largest land predator, the Polar Bear – needs a lot of meat, I should imagine.”

“Must be hungry, yes,” said Jim, our Finnish guide, “Never this far south, only when has hungry.”

“Largest, is he?” Oxshott gazed off into the darkness where the bear, “Big head, wasn’t it?”

“Well, if you’ve quite finished larking about, Oxshott,” said Lord Daunt, who was evidently still upset about the bacon, “Perhaps we can all get back to bed, busy day tomorrow.”

“Dashed well will be,” said Oxshott, mysteriously, and dived back into his tent.

Huskies

Later: When we awoke this morning, all was peaceful. Too peaceful – the dogs had gone. And so had Oxshott.

Jim the Finn told us that he had woken up in the early dawn to discover Oxshott untying all the dogs. Before he had been able to do anything, Oxshott had run off, the dogs running after him in a pack.

“He goes hunting, he said,” Jim shook his head, confused, “But nothing there is to hunt here. Nothing.”

“What’s the bally fool playing at now?” scowled Lord Daunt.

“The polar bear,” said Harry, “He’s gone after the polar bear!”

Indeed he had, but he didn’t get very far. He stumped back into camp when we were still eating breakfast, managing to look both cross and shamefaced all at once.

“Dogs ran away. Lost the scent,” he said, and sat down, sulkily, “Move dashed fast, those bears.”

“Run away?” Lord Daunt was aghast, “What do you mean, run away? You’ve lost the dogs?”

“Don’t think they liked the bear,” said Oxshott.

“Very sensible of them,” said the Professor, fiddling with the little camping stove he was using to fix his porridge.

“This is true, they are not liking the bear, these dogs,” said Jim despondently, “They will run far away. They will not come back.”

“Not come back?” roared Lord Daunt, “You mean this bally idiot has lost the dogs and they won’t be coming back! How are we going to continue our journey now?”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the Professor’s camping stove.

“I think, my Lord,” I said, “I might have an idea.”

It was Harry who had the truly clever idea, however. My plan was to use the Professor’s camping stove (and a couple of others we had packed) to create small steam engines – we certainly had enough snow to keep them supplied with steam. We could then use those engines to power the sleds across the snow.

The problem was: how? Wheels were useless on the powdery snow and ski’s would just slide and give us enough grip to push forward. Which was when Harry had his really very ingenious idea.

Harry and I quickly set about building the steam engines, while the rest of the party spent a couple of hours hammering nails through the long leather straps we had been using to secure our supplies onto the sleds, Oxshott complaining bitterly all the while.

Once they were done, though, we could use the straps as tracks, the nails digging into the snow as they whizzed round, driving the sleds along.

The steam sled tracks

We had one slight hiccup, though, when it came to actually joining the tracks to the engines, as we had no drive belts to pass the spinning of the engine to the wheel that turned the tracks. It

A pair of stockings

was here that Harry once more came to the rescue with, strangely enough, a couple of pairs of ladies’ stockings.

He always keeps some around, apparently, because they are extraordinarily useful. We laughed and ribbed him somewhat but he is quite right – he showed me how to use one as a fine filter and also that they made exceptionally strong and elastic bindings. And, most importantly, they made excellent drive belts.

He really is a most inventive and resourceful young man. The Professor has promised us both jobs with him when we return and I look forward to working with Harry immensely.

And so, with our engines fitted, we were soon off, chugging over the great white expanse, our little engines huffing and rattling away as we kept them happily supplied with fresh snow.

The weather was starting to clear and we set out once more under a perfect bright blue sky, sending up our own little white clouds as we went along.

Jim in particular was very taken by my ’snow-steam-train’, as he called it, and whooped and laughed as he shovelled snow, much to the annoyance of Oxshott, who was travelling on his sled.

Aboard the steam sleds

I am, I must admit, becoming worried about Oxshott. He is hardly a friend of mine, but he seems so sad and bad-tempered that it is hard not to feel a little sorry for him. I’m not sure whether it’s your father’s harsh words that have upset him so much, or the escape of the polar bear.

Given how angry your father is with him, after all, there seems little point in him capturing all these trophies to send home to you – I cannot now believe your father would ever let him marry you, he has disgraced himself so much.

But then, I am not wholly sure that he is collecting all these heads for you. I mean, I am sure he will present them to you (whether you want them or not) but I think he would be collecting them anyway – it has become an obsession with him, a mania.

Tonight, as we were setting up camp, for example, I heard him bark with delight and then shout at me to:

“Stand still, you blighter!”

Before I knew what he was doing, he bounded over and, with a delicacy I wouldn’t have expected from him, flicked something away from my cheek. A mosquito!

Oxshott had flicked it on the proboscis with his nail and stunned the thing. He now bent down and gingerly picked it up from the snow.

“Need a specially small plaque for this little swine,” he said, beaming at me. I assumed he was joking, but he bore the tiny thing away cupped in his hand like it was a precious jewel.

Later, while we were eating supper, he was feverishly at work on something, whittling away at some tiny bit of wood in his lap, barely paying attention to his food (which was something of a relief, I must admit, as our meal times previously had been accompanied by a constant stream of complaint from Oxshott about both the quantity and quality of the food).

Then, after our meal, he gathered us all round the fire and showed us what he had made: a tiny wooden shield lay in the centre of his palm and, in the middle of it, a barely visible speck – the head of mosquito, carefully removed and mounted on the plaque. Beneath in miniscule and careful letters: ‘Mosquito. Arctic Circle.‘

Mosquito, Arctic Circle

Lord Daunt just clucked his tongue and retreated to his tent, but Harry and I tried to be as encouraging as possible. I don’t think Oxshott was interested in what we thought, though. He remained perfectly happy with his evening’s work and returned to his tent with his little plaque, singing drinking songs under his breath.

We are going to bed ourselves now. The Professor assures us that we only have to cross the mountains to reach our final destination. So near and yet so far!

Yours,

In hope that the polar bear does not come back again

Timothy Hope

PS Jim, our Finn, is to leave us tomorrow – I believe the Professor wants to keep knowledge of our destination as secret as possible. I shall give Jim this letter to bring back with him.

The Polar Bear