So and permanent nature against me as long as I had Mary Stuart practically sitting on my lap. It was, I thought, a pretty even trade. I looked down at the half-hidden lovely face and reflected that I was possibly having a shade the better of the deal. I reached for my own rug, draped it round my shoulders in Navaho style, picked up the Olympus manifesto again and continued to read. The next two pages were largely a hyperbolic expansion of what had gone before with the writer-I assumed it was Heissman-harping on at nauseating length on the twin themes of the supreme artistic merit of the production and the necessity for absolute secrecy. After this self-adulatory exercise, the writer got down to facts.

"After long consideration, and the close examination and subsequent rejection of a very considerable number of possible alternatives, we finally decided upon Bear Island as the location for this project. We are aware that all of you, and this includes the entire crew of the Morning Rose from Captain Imrie downwards, believed that we were heading for a destination in the neighbourhood of the Lofoten Islands off northern Norway and it was not exactly, shall we say, through fortuitous circumstance, that this rumour was gaining some currency in certain quarters in London immediately prior to our departure. We make no apologies for what may superficially appear to be an unwarranted deception for it was essential to our purposes and the maintenance of secrecy that this subterfuge be adopted.

"For the following brief description of Bear Island we are indebted to the Royal Geographical Society of Oslo, who have also furnished us with a translation." That was a relief, just as long as the translator wasn't Heissman I might be able to get it on the first reading. "This information, it is perhaps superfluous to add, was obtained for us through the good offices of a third party entirely unconnected with Olympus Productions, a noted ornithologist who must remain entirely incognito. It may be mentioned in the passing that the Norwegian Government has given us permission to film on the island. We understand that it is their understanding that we propose to make a wild life documentary: such an understanding, far less a commitment, was not obtained from us."

I wondered about the last bit-not the cleverer– than-thou smugness of it, that was clearly inseparable from everything Heissman wrote-but the fact that he should say it at all. Heissman, clearly, was not a man much given to hiding his own brilliance-the phrase low cunning" would not have occurred to him-under a bushel but equally he wasn't a man who would permit this particular type of self gratification to lead him into" danger. Almost certainly if the Norwegians did find out they had been deluded there would be nothing in international law they could do about it-Olympus wouldn't have overlooked anything so obvious-other than ban the completed film from their country and as Norway could hardly be regarded as a major market this would cause few sleepless nights. On the other hand, it would be effective in stilling any qualms of conscience -true, this was a world of the cinema but Heissman would be unlikely to overlook even the most remote possibility-that might have arisen had the project been denied even this superficial official blessing, and the very fact that they were being made privy to the secret inner workings of Olympus would tend to bind both cast and crew closer to the company for it is an almost universal law of nature that mankind, which is still in the painful process of growing up, dearly loves its little closed and/or secret societies, whether those be the most remote Masonic Lodge in Saskatchewan or White's of St. James's, and tend to form an intense personal attachment and loyalty to other members of that group while presenting a united front to the world of the unfortunates beyond their doors. I did not overlook the possibility that there might be another, and conceivably sinister , interpretation of Heissman's confidential frankness but as it was now into the early hours of the morning I didn't particularly feel like seeking it out.

"Bear Island," the resume began. "One of the Svalbard group, of which Spitzbergen is much the largest. This group remained neutral and unclaimed until the beginning of the 20th Century when, because of its very considerable investments in the exploitation of mineral resources and the establishment of whaling operation, Norway requested sovereignty of the area, placing her petition before the Conference"-they didn't specify what conference-"at Christiana (Oslo) in 1910, 1912, and again in 1914. On each occasion Russian objections prevented ratification of the proposals. However, in 1919 the Allied Supreme Council granted Norway sovereignty, formal possession being taken on August 14, 1925."

Having established the ownership beyond all doubt the report proceeded: "The (Bear) island, 74'28w, 1913'E., lies some 260 miles N.NW. of North Cape, Norway, and some 140 miles south of Spitzbergen and may be regarded as the meeting point of the Norwegian, Greenland, and Barents seas. In terms of distance from its nearest neighbours , this is the most isolated island in the Arctic."

There followed a long and for me highly uninteresting account of the island's history which seemed to consist mainly of interminable squabbles between Norwegians, Germans, and Russians over whaling and mining rights-although I was mildly intrigued to learn that as recently as the 20S there had been as many as a hundred and eighty Norwegians working the coal mines at Tunheim in the northeast of the island-I would have imagined that even the polar bears, after whom the island was named, would have given this desolation as wide a berth as possible. The mines, it seemed, had been closed down following a geological survey which showed that the purity and thickness of the seams were not sufficient to make it a profitable proposition. The island, however, was not entirely uninhabited even today: it appeared that the Norwegian Government maintained a meteorological and radio station at Tunheim.

Then came articles on the natural resources, vegetation and animal life, all of which I took as read. The references to the climate, however, which might be expected to concern us all, I found much more intriguing and highly discouraging. "The meeting of the Gulf Stream and the Polar Drift," it read, "makes for extremely poor weather conditions, with large rainfall and dense fogs. The average summer temperature rises to not more than five degrees above freezing. Not until mid-July do the lakes become ice-free and the snow melts. The midnight sun lasts for 106 days from April 30th to August 13th: the sun remains below the horizon from November 7th to February 4th." This last item made our presence there, this late in the year, very odd indeed as Otto couldn't expect more than a few hours of daylight at the most: perhaps the script called for the whole story to be shot in darkness.

"Physical and geological," it went on, "Bear Island is triangular in shape with its apex to the south, being approximately twelve miles long on its north-south axis and in width varying from ten miles in the north to two miles in the south at the point where the southernmost peninsula begins.

Generally speaking the north and west consist of a fairly flat plateau at an elevation of about a hundred feel?, while the south and cast is mountainous, the two main complexes being the Misery Fell group in the east and the Antaretiefjell and its associated mountains, the Alfredfjcil, Hambergfiell, and Fuglefiell in the extreme southeast.

"There are no glaciers. The entire area is covered with a network of shallow lakes, none more than a few yards in depth: those account for about one-tenth of the total area of the island: the remainder of the interior of the island consists largely of icy swamps and loose scree which makes it extremely difficult to traverse.