Night Without End by Alistair MacLean Read Free Book Online

them." 
         
         Joss scrambled out through the windscreen to get the collapsible stretcher. While we were waiting I went to the exit door behind the flight deck and tried to open it, swinging at it with the back of my fire axe. But it was locked solid. 
         
         We had the stretcher up and were lashing the wireless operator inside as carefully as we could in these cramped conditions, when the stewardess reappeared. She was wearing her uniform heavy coat now, and high boots. I tossed her a pair of caribou trousers. 
         
         "Better, but not enough. Put these on." She hesitated, and I added roughly, "We won't look." 
         
         "I -1 must go and see the passengers." 
         
         "They're all right. Bit late in thinking about it, aren't you?" 
         
         "I know. I'm sorry. I couldn't leave him." She looked down at the young man at her feet. "Do you - I mean-" She broke off, then it came out with a rush. "Is he going to die?" 
         
         "Probably," I said, and she flinched away as if I had struck her across the face. I hadn't meant to be brutal, just clinical. 
         
         "We'll do what we can for him. It's not much, I'm afraid." 
         
         Finally we had him securely lashed to the stretcher, his head cushioned against the shock as best we could. When I got to my feet, the stewardess was just pulling her coat down over the caribou pants. 
         
         "We're taking him back to our cabin," I said. "We have a sledge below. There's room for another. You could protect his head. Want to come?" 
         
         "The passengers-" she began uncertainly. 
         
         "They'll be all right." 
         
         I went back inside the main cabin, closing the door behind me, and handed my torch to the man with the cut brow. The two feeble night or emergency lights that burned inside were poor enough for illumination, worse still for morale. 
         
         "We're taking the wireless operator and stewardess with us," I explained. "Back in twenty minutes. And if you want to live, just keep this door tight shut." 
         
         "What an extraordinarily brusque young man," the elderly lady murmured. Her voice was low-pitched, resonant, with an extraordinary carrying power. 
         
         "Only from necessity, madam," I said dryly. "Would you really prefer long-winded and flowery speeches the while you were freezing to death?" 
         
         "Well, do you know, I really don't think I would," she answered mock-seriously, and I could hear her chuckling - there was no other word for it - as I closed the door behind me. 
         
         Working in the cramped confines of that wrecked control cabin, in almost pitch darkness and with that ice-laden bitter gale whistling through the shattered windscreens, we had the devil's own time of it trying to get the injured wireless operator down to that waiting sledge below. Without the help of the big young stranger I don't think we would ever have managed it, but manage it we eventually did: he and I lowered and slid the stretcher down to Jackstraw and Joss, who took and strapped it on the sledge. Then we eased the stewardess down: I thought I heard her cry out as she hung supported only by a hand round either wrist, and remembered that Jackstraw had said something about her back being injured. But there was no time for such things now. 
         
         I jumped down and a couple of seconds later the big young man joined me. I hadn't intended that he should come, but there was no harm in it: he had to go sometime, and there was no question of his having to ride on the sledge. 
         
         The wind had eased a little, perhaps, but the cold was crueller than ever. Even the dogs cowered miserably in the lee of the plane: now and again one of them stretched out a neck in protest and gave its long, mournful