My Dear Lady Misericordia,

I hope this letter finds you well. If it finds you at all. I am not at all sure how I am going to post this to you, out here in the wilds, but I feel I ought to continue writing, to record our adventures.

I wonder what you are doing today? I know the Christmas Ball will be approaching, but I cannot believe that you would waste time with a thing like that with your Father, Baronet Oxshott and your tutor (whatever you think of him) lost somewhere out in the Arctic Circle on a mission of mystery and danger.

Your thoughts, I know, will be with us, and that cheers me considerably.

We, on the other hand, have now truly travelled beyond civilisation and beyond, even, wilderness. Jim, our guide, tells me that no one has ever been in this country before and I can believe him. We have reached, finally, the Unknown.

On the Professor’s maps, this place is just a blank white space, partly because no one has ever been here to map it and partly, I suspect, because this is simply a blank white place. Snow covers everything. Even the trees are half invisible, only the bottom of the branches showing a dark green under their layer of snow. Above us even the mountains show only their steepest parts in dark stone, where the snow has slid off in great avalanches.

The Professor, however, becomes happier and happier the further we go. He is positively enjoying the cloak of secrecy he has drawn about this adventure. He refuses even to let me draw the simplest map to plot our journey, so keen is he that no one else should know of our whereabouts.

Professor Cumulus and Harry

His only regret is, apparently, that he could not bring his daughter with him. Harry asked him why he didn’t bring her and he looked astonished.

“First priniciples, my boy, think it through logically,” he has a tendency to lecture, “She is my daughter, ergo, she is a woman – there, you see? Science tells us a female could not take the strain of a mission such as this – the mental strain alone would be too much for their nervous systems, let alone the physical challenge. Its simply obvious.”

“But, Professor,” protested Harry, “Women are no strangers to mental strain – do you not think that sitting at home, wondering how, where her father is is not placing immense mental strain on your daughter?”

But the Professor would hear none of it. I must say, althought I lean towards the Professor’s opinion, I rather admire Harry for his independence of thought, liberty of spirit and willingness to argue for what he believes.

All the more so, given the Professor’s actions this morning, which have made me wonder, a little, at what kind of errand he has led us on.

We have arrived in the foothills of a great mountain range that sweeps around us in a wide, jagged curve. We must cross this mountain range, says the Professor, to reach our goal.

To this end, he had Jim lead us into a narrow valley running down from the peaks above, at the bottom of which was a small river. It was at the river bank that he unveiled his great surprise. For, packed away in our supplies were two collapsible boats. With these, the Professor declared, we could easily travel along the river, over the mountains.

The gorge

We stood and stared at the Professor, beaming at his boats, and I felt I had to point out one or two minor flaws in his plan.

“But Professor,” I said, “This river flows down from the mountains – that means we would have to travel up river, against the stream, up, probably, steep, white water rapids and even waterfalls. Also, and more importantly from a water travel point of view, the river is frozen quite solid.”

The poor Professor looked so disconsolate at this that I almost regretted having said anything. Harry, in particular, looked daggers at me. But there was nothing for it, the river was nothing more than a curving sweep of thick white ice, and the boats were useless.

“Could your steam sleds climb it?” asked Lord Daunt.

“Some of it, perhaps,” I ventured, “But much of it would be too steep, I fear, and they would be awfully heavy to carry.”

“Well, this is a bally fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Professor,” growled Oxshott.

“It’s no good just standing around and complaining, you great oaf,” snapped Harry, “I don’t see you having having any bright ideas to get us out.”

Oxshott stiffened at this. but before he could do anything rash, I spotted something else among the Professor’s supplies.

“The Baronet might not have any bright ideas, but I think I might,” I said, “Professor, those crates labelled ‘Atmospheric Conditions Measuring Balloons’ – what’s in them?”

What was in them was, unsurprisingly, Atmospheric Conditions Measuring Balloons: enormous silvery balloons made of some resilient, rubbery material of the Professor’s own devising, extremely strong but extremely light, along with cannisters of a powerful lifting gas, again of the Professor’s concoction.

The balloons were designed to lift scientific devices high into the atmosphere to measure weather conditions – and if they could carry all that equipment, could they also carry us?

Harry and I soon discovered that all the balloons together would be able to lift one of the boats, just big enough for all of us to ride in, and with room only for enough supplies to see us over the mountains – enough to reach our goal, if the Professor is to be believed.

There was no time to debate, however, since the weather was still fine and clear and, knowing from the episode with the Sami how quickly a storm can blow up in these Arctic wastes, we knew we ought to take advantage of it while we could.

And so we tethered the balloons to the boat, raising the small sail to take advantage of what wind there was, and clambered aboard. Then we loosed the ropes and the boat began to rise slowly into the air, drifting forward on the breeze, up towards the mountains.

We waved goodbye to the frankly astonished Jim, who would return to civilisation on one of the steam sleds, as he disappeared into a single dark dot on the snowy wastes, and then we were in among the mountains themselves.

By dirigible through the mountains

Oh! What a strange, eerie, silent journey that was, bobbing along between the great walls of ice and stone that reared around us. I had become so used to the constant hiss and crunch of snow under sleigh and sled and boot that the peculiar quiet of the floating canoe was bewildering. The only sounds were the occassional  creak and squeak of the ropes and balloons, or the groaning and cracking of the mountains themselves.

We barely talked ourselves, so intent were we on the balance of the boat in its constant swaying and the passing grandeur. And what grandeur it was: there we sailed, right between the topmost peaks and crags of the mountains, sheer drops of black granite and great sky fields of untouched snow drifts, where no foot would ever stand, no eye would ever see, except ours.

The magnificent desolation held us spellbound, bewitched by the awful, harsh beauty. I can see how men might strive to be the first to set foot on an unconquered peak, or some unexplored land, but how more extraordinary was this – to see this hidden, unimagined wilderness and to drift past, like a cloud, and leave it behind, still untouched, lonely and pure.

The wind blew up into a high pass between two lofty peaks, leaving us to float down between them into a long, cavernous valley that wound between steep cliffs, the wind now gusting us along, up towards a high plateau, a wide and windswept valley hidden away in the heavens.

And as the wind bore us up towards the valley opening it brought with it an astonishing sound from behind us, the first noise we had heard for some hours, a rhythmic, happy honking.

Geese

We all craned round at the noise and there, coming up the valley behind us, was a ragged ‘V’ of geese, gliding up on the wind, calling to each other as they travelled.

I cannot describe to you how welcome the sound of those geese was after the terrible silence of the mountains: a merry, animal sound and it cheered us all immensely.

Most cheered of all was Baronett Oxshott, who began to swing round in his seat to try and get a good look at them. Then he tried to stand, sending the boat swaying and lurching as we all clutched desperately at the sides.

“Come here, you blighters!” He was shouting, “Come closer, where I can get at you!” And he flailed his great fists out at them, and the boat rocked under him.

At a particularly violent swing, the boat jumped and Harry lost his grip, stumbling sideways, half over the edge. I grabbed hold of him, hanging onto him for dear life, trying desperately to pull him back inside.

“For God’s sake, Oxshott!” bellowed Lord Daunt, “You’ll have us all over!”

But Oxshott wasn’t listening. As the geese passed overhead, squawking defiantly at the Baronet, he suddenly snatched his shotgun from under his seat and reared up, swinging the gun up at them.

Oxshott takes aim

“Oxshott!” I shouted, seeing what was about to happen, “No!”

But I was too late, the shot rang out, the boat shuddered and with a great bang, a balloon burst.

For a moment the whole world seemed to stand still, and then the boat dropped suddenly, pitching Harry back again into my lap.

“Oxshott!” roared Lord Daunt, and the boat, listing, began to plunge downwards, “Oxshott!”

“Dashed…” Oxshott stood, swaying for a moment, unable to take in what he had done, and then: “Must lighten the load…” And before anyone could do anything, he leapt over the side of the vessel and was gone.

With Oxshott gone our makeshift craft lifted a little, and began to swing sideways. Lord Daunt grabbed the nearest object to him and threw it over the side, trying to keep us in the air. Before any of the rest of could help, however, the boat suddenly pitched up and jolted forward: it had hit the snow! We had reached the plateau!

Letting the balloons go

The sudden movement knocked Lord Daunt off his feet and he went over the side, into a snow drift. The boat lifted again and began to skim across the snow, buoyed up by the balloons. Harry, the Professor and I scrambled to bring in the sail and release the balloons, letting them float up and away into the empty sky as the boat slid to a final, gentle stop.

Harry and I quickly ran back, as fast as we could through the deep drifts, to try and find Lord Daunt. Fortunately he had had a soft landing in the snow and was already trying to retrieve the stove he had thrown overboard as we were dropping.

“What about Oxshott?” I asked.

“Stove’s more important than that lunatic,” snapped back his Lordship, “Although I suppose we could always trying burning him for warmth.”

“But we can’t have been far above the ground when he jumped,” I pointed out, “He may well have survived.”

His Lordship sighed.

“Very well, then, I suppose we ought to go and look, I daresay my daughter would never forgive if I didn’t, although God knows why I should worry about that empty-headed chit’s opinions.”

“Well now, my Lord,” I said began, “I’m not sure…”

“Oh, no reflection on your tutoring, Hope, old chap – you did the best you could: it would take a stubborn man with a strong arm to teach that child anything – someone like Oxshott, I suppose – although I can tell you now, the stable boy has a better chance of marrying my daughter than that bally oaf after today’s performance.”

I must have betrayed my emotions on hearing this statement, because his Lordship continued.

“For goodness’ sake, Hope, my dashed daughter may be too good for the likes of Oxshott, but she’s nowhere near good enough for you: you need a wife with sense and wit, not some preening ninny like Misericordia… Aha! Good Lord – look at this…”

We had come across a deep snow drift with a great hole let into it: a hole exactly the size and shape of a falling Baronet.

...a hole exactly the size and shape of a falling Baronet

“This must be where the idiot landed,” said Lord Daunt, and we peered down into the hole. It was empty.

“The idiot has gone.”

We stood and gazed around at the featureless white of the valley floor where it stetched out to the wall of encircling mountains. Nothing moved. There was no sign of life.

“Quite gone,” continued his Lordship, “Ah, well.” And he turned and began walking back towards the boat, and Harry and I followed him.

Back at the boat we discovered that the Professor had unpacked some of his equipment, including a sextant and a telescope and was now doing a delighted little jig in the snow.

“We’re here!” he shouted to us, “We’re here!”

“We’re where?” demanded Lord Daunt.

“Here! Right where I said we would be!” and the Professor thrust the telescope into his hands, “Look over there, below that mountain in the middle.”

Lord Daunt took the telescope sceptically, but as he gazed through it, I heard him gasp.

“Is that it? Are you sure, Professor?”

“It must be, it matches all the measurements, all the predictions.”

“Then we’ve done it, Hedley, old man, we’ve done it, just as you said we would,” and Lord Daunt shook the Professor warmly by the hand.

“Its too far off to get there today, we’ll have to camp here tonight,” continued his Lordship.

“And then tomorrow…” said the Professor.

“Tomorrow, we shall see,” said his Lordship.

“Can I have a look, Professor?” I asked, burning with curiosity.

“Oh, of course, dear boy, of course, can’t hurt, have a look,” and the Professor handed me the telescope as he and his Lordship stamped off to begind setting up camp.

I scanned the horizon in vain, trying to see what had delighted them so, but it was Harry that found it in the end. Far across the other side of the valley, nestled in under the lowering mountains, was a glow, a light that could only have come from a fire or many lamps and, climbing up from it, up into the darkening night air, was a single, curling strand of smoke.

It could only mean one thing: a house, a settlement! But whose, out here? And why were we going to it? What did it mean?

Well, tomorrow, I suppose, as his Lordship said, we shall see

Yours

In trepidation and mystery

Timothy Hope

PS I do hope you can forgive your father for his harsh words, he was terribly cross with Oxshott, after all.