An Old Captivity by Nevil Shute

sent her at the New Year. She watched intently as he traced the outlines of Greenland, Iceland, and Labrador; then she took it and hung it upon its nail in the wall, the back outwards so that she could see the map.
    “I’ll be keeping it by me,” she said. “Will they pay for you to send a telegram now and again, Donald, the way I’ll know where you are?”
    He smiled. “I’ll be able to do that, Aunt Janet.”
    “Only if they pay for it on your expense account, Donald. Now that you’re making good money again you don’t want to be throwing it away on telegrams, or any other way. Ye want to put it by.”
    “All right, Aunt Janet. I think I can manage to squeeze in a telegram for you from time to time.”
    She sighed. “I’d like fine to have come and see you off, Donald. But with the examinations coming on next week I canna get away.”
    “Never mind,” he said. “It’s just a seaplane taking off. There’s nothing much to see.”
    “All the same, I’d like fine to have come.”
    He went to bed early that night; in the bed that he had slept in when he was a boy he had a good night, and awoke refreshed. He had to get up early in order to meet Lockwood and his daughter in London; he left the house at Guildford at about eight o’clock.
    His aunt came with him to the gate. “Mind and take the Phosferine, Donald,” she said.
    He smiled: “All right. I won’t forget. I’ll be back about the end of September, Aunt Janet.”
    “I’ll have the room all ready for you. Guid luck, Donald.”
    “Good luck, Aunt Janet.”
    He travelled up to London, and met Lockwood and Alix at their hotel. The sole luggage that they had was the linen kitbags with fifteen pounds of their personal luggage in them; Ross gathered that the hotel had looked askance at them. “They didn’t seem to think that this was luggage at all,” said Lockwood, smiling; “they made us pay for the rooms in advance.”
    The girl seemed to take it personally. “It’s perfectly absurd,” she said. “We’ll never come here again.”
    She was wearing a grey coat and skirt and a grey felt hat with a brim. There was something in her appearance that Ross could not place. She seemed different, younger. It was not until they reached the outfitters to try on flying clothing that the mystery was solved.
    She took off her hat to try on a black leather helmet. The yellow hair clustered round her head in a clipped shingled mass.
    Ross stared at it, caught unawares: “Why—you’ve had your hair cut!”
    “I know. I thought it would be less trouble.” She didnot repeat the rather coarse remark that Uncle David had made, but turned to the glass.
    The pilot fitted them both with helmets; then he had padded combination flying suits brought out. He said to Lockwood: “Would you mind slipping this one on, sir? It looks about right in length.” To the girl he said: “You’ll have to get rid of your skirt for this, Miss Lockwood.”
    She gave him a freezing look, and said nothing. He turned to the man. “You’ve got a dressing-room?”
    “Certainly. If madam would step this way?”
    She went with him; Ross sighed, and turned back to her father. Things were going to be very difficult in the intimacy of camp life. He ought to have been firmer, and refused to take a girl at all.
    She came back presently, dressed in the flying suit, and laughed shortly when she saw her father. “I don’t know what you look like, Daddy.”
    He said maliciously: “I know what you look like, Alix. You look as if you’d just come off the pillion of a motor bicycle.”
    “Oh …”
    Ross fitted them with soft sheepskin boots with the fur inside. It was a very hot July day; within a minute or two Lockwood was sweating and the girl was red in the face. “It’s all very comfortable, Mr. Ross,” she said. “May I go and get out of it now?”
    He looked at her critically. “You’re quite sure the boots aren’t tight?”
    “There’s heaps of room. I shall die if I