Night Without End by Alistair MacLean Page B

measuring look of one who knew from experience that he could cope with most of the situations, pleasant and unpleasant, that he was ever likely to come up against. 
         
         "Look," he began without preamble, "I don't know who you are or what your name is, but I'm sure we are all most grateful to you for what you have done for us. It's more than probable that we owe our lives to you. We acknowledge that. Also, we know you're a field scientist, and we realise that your equipment is of paramount importance to you. Agreed?" 
         
         "Agreed." I dabbed iodine fairly liberally on the injured man's head - he was tough, all right, he didn't even wince - and looked at the speaker. Not at all a man to ignore, I thought. Behind the strong intelligent face lay a hardness, a tenacity of purpose that hadn't been acquired along with the cultured relaxed voice at the Ivy League college I was pretty certain he had attended. "You'd something else to say?" 
         
         "Yes. We think - correction, I think - that you were unnecessarily rough on our air hostess. You can see the state the poor kid's in. OK, so your radio's bust, so you're hoppin' mad about it - but there's no need for all this song and dance." His voice was calm, conversational all the time. "Radios aren't irreplaceable. This one will be replaced, I promise you. You'll have a new one inside a week, ten days at the most." 
         
         "Kind," I said dryly. I finished tying the head bandage and straightened up. "The offer is appreciated, but there's one thing you haven't taken into account. You may be dead inside that ten days. You may all be dead in ten days." 
         
         "We may all-" He broke off and stared at me, his expression perceptibly hardening. "What are you talking about?" 
         
         "What I'm talking about is that without this radio you dismiss so lightly your chances - our chances - of survival aren't all that good. In fact, they're not good at all. I don't give a tuppenny damn about the radio, as such." I eyed him curiously, and a preposterous thought struck me: at least, it was preposterous for all of a couple of seconds, before the truth hit me. "Have you - have any of you any idea just where you are, right here, at the present moment?" 
         
         "Sure we have." The young man lifted his shoulders fractionally. "Just can't say how far to the nearest drugstore or pub-" 
         
         "I told them," the stewardess interrupted. "They were asking me, just before you came in. I thought Captain Johnson had overshot the landing field at Reykjavik in a snowstorm. This is Langjokull, isn't it?" She saw the expression on my face and went on hastily. "Or Hofsjokull? I mean, we were flying more or less north-east from Gander, and these are the only two snowfields or glaciers or whatever you call them in Iceland in that direction from-" 
         
         "Iceland?" I suppose there is a bit of the ham actor in all of us, and I really couldn't pass it up. "Did you say Iceland?" 
         
         She nodded, dumbly. Everybody was looking at her, and when she didn't answer they all transferred their gazes to me, as at the touch of a switch. 
         
         "Iceland," I repeated. "My dear -girl, at the present moment you're at an altitude of 8500 feet, right slam bang in the middle of the Greenland ice-cap." 
         
         The effect was all that anybody could ever have wished for. I doubt whether even Marie LeGarde had ever had a better reaction from an audience. "Stunned' is an inadequate word to describe their mental state immediately after this announcement: paralysis was nearer it, especially where the power of speech was concerned. And when the power of thought and speech did return, it expressed itself, as I might have expected, in the most violent disbelief. Everybody seemed to start talking at once, but it was the stewardess who took my attention, by