by Rebecca Hunt
Napps envisaged the glass-like splintering, the sudden capsize. He got control of himself. ‘It’s too early in the season.’
‘Nothing else about Everland seems to abide by the ordinary rules,’ Millet-Bass said. ‘Check for yourself.’
Napps put an ear against the ground and detected the muffled swirl of water. He ground the blade of his knife down through the ice and it resisted solidly to the handle. Retracting the knife, he bent to listen again, then gouged up a chunk and skimmed it into the blackness. They heard it whir and blip out over the floe.
‘A foot thick at least,’ Millet-Bass said.
‘No matter, the Kismet can force a path through,’ Napps said. ‘She’s equipped for heavy floes, her bow is practically solid wood.’
Millet-Bass wasn’t thinking of the ship. ‘My guess is that it stretches all the way across to Cape Athena.’
During that first summer, as part of a twelve-man group assigned the task of constructing the hut, Millet-Bass had stayed at the Cape for a full six weeks. He’d been wild and optimistic and invincible, and he’d not known those sun-filled, white-skied days nailing matchboard to the roof and building a porch and cobbling together a ventilation system for the blubber stove would be some of the happiest of his life. He hadn’t assigned value to them. There were other days to come, many thousands. He hadn’t known that there was always a value to anything which could be taken or spent, such as his strength, such as the promise of time. Staring in the direction of the Cape, he said, ‘Napps, I think I’ve had about enough.’
Napps told him they’d go back to the tent.
‘That’s not what I mean,’ Millet-Bass said. ‘We can’t stay here and hope any more. If you need me to be useful, you’ll have to make a choice. And you don’t have long.’
A longish pause followed before Napps spoke. ‘My choice being to leave Everland and march to Cape Athena.’ His expression conveyed the battle he was having to subjugate his true, heartfelt wants. ‘How would Dinners fare? He couldn’t travel in his present condition. I must take account of the cost to him.’
‘I’d suggest the cost of delaying is harsher,’ Millet-Bass said. ‘It takes two good men to haul the larger sledge, and I’m getting worse, Napps. The question is how we’ll fare when this option is gone, as it will be if you wait.’
‘You don’t believe we can expect rescue any more.’
‘I never did,’ Millet-Bass said. ‘And I don’t think you do either.’
It was in answering that Napps realized just how long he’d known this. ‘No.’
45
August 1913
Not too long now,’ Lawrence said, taking his customary place on Addison’s bed. He watched the doctor snap shut his diary and put it on the desk.
Looking fixedly at the diary, Lawrence said, ‘Just imagine that view of Oamaru harbour.’ There was a rehearsed quality to his chat as he summoned the shoreline of the New Zealand port. Trees, Addison! Can you picture it! Grass! Lawrence said he’d be unable to stop himself diving overboard at the first sight of a house and then laughed at his own joke. Addison recognized these signs. They meant Lawrence was about to start an awkwardly confessional discussion. He’d always prelude the fact he needed to talk about something important by saying, shall we have a drink?
Addison said it for him. ‘Shall we have a drink?’
‘Please.’ Lawrence rubbed his face with both hands. He hadn’t slept a full night in months. He toasted their health when Addison gave him a tumbler of whisky. ‘I’m surprised we haven’t all dropped dead, Adds. I certainly don’t know how I’m alive. It’s not like I eat anything. And the others just get crazier by the day.’
The last few weeks had tested even the most resilient of spirits. There’d been tempests with all their mess and fury, the continual hazard of thick pack ice. Waves had thundered across the lee rail, men thrown down the deck as the Kismet’s bow lurched from the sea. Crisis had struck in the form of a flooded engine room, a near-fatal concussion, the endless repair emergencies. The crisis of the rudder struck eternally as it froze and jammed and needed incessant care like a troubled iron baby. And the strain had weathered Lawrence. His old self-assurance, which implied that destiny could be trusted to favour the handsome and charismatic, was now marred with frustration. The voyage was problematic, Everland was a catastrophe, and handsomeness hadn’t protected him from any of it. Lawrence felt the injustice deeply.
‘Well, there are a couple of matters I want to discuss,’ he said to the doctor.
Yes, of course. Addison was ready to help.
‘I think I’ll start with my eyes.’
‘Your eyes.’
Like all the officers’ quarters, Addison’s room had a small mirror cabinet and a porcelain washbasin on a wooden dresser. He invited Lawrence to take a seat in front of the mirror where the lamplight was best.
‘I doubt you’ll see it, no one else has,’ Lawrence said as he was examined, his head gently angled and re-angled. Addison asked him to look left, and he gazed at the coat hook. Requested to look right, he examined the doctor’s scrubbing brushes. His blue eyes were so pale they were silvery.
‘What do you feel is wrong with them?’
‘There’s nothing wrong as such,’ Lawrence said. ‘It’s more that I started with brown eyes.’
Addison’s response to this disclosure was to sit in silence for what felt like a year. Then he leant and stared into Lawrence’s eyes with such precision Lawrence found it difficult to keep a straight face.
‘Your vision is normal?’ Addison asked. Yes, he had normal vision. ‘You don’t have any pain from them?’ No. No pain at all. ‘And you’re sure they were brown,’ Addison said, and immediately withdrew it; of course he was sure. ‘Well, that’s certainly unusual. I have to admit I can’t find an obvious reason.’
‘I only noticed myself this morning while shaving,’ Lawrence said. ‘I thought it might possibly connect to your bizarre white hair, a similar process.’
Possibly, yes. Addison was as mystified as everyone by his piebald scalp and beard. The patches were pure white and randomly placed. It had happened to a few of the sailors over the course of the expedition, one in his very early twenties.
With unconvincing nonchalance, Lawrence said, ‘Oh, and yes, there was also this other tiny thing I wanted to talk about.’ He retrieved an envelope from his inside pocket. ‘Napps handed it to me to add to the ship’s mail collection before he boarded the Joseph Evelyn. What with all the drama of leaving for Everland, I think he’d forgotten about his letter. And unfortunately, once I’d put it in my pocket, so did I.’
Addison had volunteered to look after the crew’s mail and would gladly put Napps’s letter in the box for post he kept under his bed. A weaselly hesitation sparked through Lawrence’s newly blue eyes as the doctor took the envelope.
‘You read it,’ Addison said.
‘If I answer no, that’s not entirely correct. Enough to gain a sense of enlightenment, let’s say.’
‘Meaning you read most of it.’
‘Most of it? No. Enough to explain the consequent disaster, which—’
‘Lawrence, he gave it to you in good faith.’
‘Adds.’ Lawrence let out an affectionate little sigh. ‘Although touching, I should tell you that your loyalty to Napps is a waste of time.’ He pattered his fingers suggestively against the letter. ‘His loyalty was to himself alone. There was nothing so callous or base your champion wouldn’t have done to ensure his own safety.’
Addison had a particular expression that managed both to be impassive and also to convey great regret. It was a talent which meant the source of his disappointment grasped exactly how disappointing they were without the doctor needing to say a word. For a second Lawrence was sidetracked by the ancient need not to displease Addison. Then he recovered. A larger, more important principle was at stake.
‘But,’ Lawrence said, the sly humour in his tone indicating he was about to ask a favour he knew was unreasonable. ‘But it does, whatever your objections, conveniently lead me on to the subject of letters. Your letters, Addison. Specifically in that journal. Because I suspect you’re writing more than letters.’
Addison seemed prepared to grab the diary if the Captain moved to touch it.
‘Now, Adds,’ he said, affably offended. ‘Now hold on a minute. I’m not going to steal it.’ He smiled. This was so horribly difficult. ‘What I’m going to do is worse. I’m going to request that you stop, since I believe you’re writing a book about the expedition which will contradict mine. And that puts me in a very tight situation.’ Before Addison could speak, he made a conciliatory gesture. ‘Ah, ah, ah, let me finish.’
Lawrence said there were three things the doctor needed to understand, and the first was that explorations took a lot of funding. An enormous amount of funding. It was important Addison grasped how difficult it was to secure that funding. Addison wasn’t a lump of gristle or some insentient amoeba-type creature. He wasn’t ignorant, he knew about funding. But Lawrence had to beat this point into obscene clarity before he felt able to continue to Sir Joseph Evelyn, his second point.
The steel-manufacturing magnate Evelyn was a huge supporter of polar exploration. He’d been the major benefactor of most of Lawrence’s voyages. So when his academic nephew Dinners expressed an interest in Antarctica, Uncle Joe obviously approached Lawrence, who was obviously unable to refuse him anything. A meeting had been arranged between Lawrence and this scrawny nephew. Dinners wanted to join the Kismet crew because he believed it gave him the chance to prove himself on his own terms, as his own man. Whilst he loved Evelyn, being the old man’s nephew was clearly suffocating as his uncle’s achievements overshadowed everything he did. Dinners said he’d spent his life feeling like a useless, spoiled pet. Therefore, in order to be recognized for his scientific work rather than for his relatives, Dinners was adamant that his identity be concealed on board the ship. Being patient, yet extremely sceptical, Lawrence questioned if he was serious about the whole anonymity thing. Dinners replied that yes, he was serious, very much so. It seemed extraordinary that Dinners would want to be subjected to the same muck and privation as the rest of the men, but yes, he did, absolutely. Telling Dinners to think carefully before replying, because sailors were a rough bunch and his connection to Evelyn would buy him immunity, Lawrence asked for a final time if he genuinely didn’t want the crew to know who his uncle was. And the answer was no. No, never. Not anyone. Dinners made Lawrence swear that he’d be treated exactly the same as everyone else.
Except, of course, he wasn’t the same. Dinners was the only son of the only sibling of the unmarried, childless multi-millionaire Joseph Evelyn, and therefore breathtakingly wealthy in his own right. At best, Dinners was a king-like figure masquerading as a lowly serf. And at worst, such as during the Everland selection dispute, Lawrence felt like a castrated little plaything. Because how could a Captain have any real authority over a man when beholden to him? The power bestowed by money unbalanced everything. It made the frailest man a giant, while a thousand stronger, poorer men were born with their hands tied. And the financial incentives Dinners had offered were enough to tie the hands of any ambitious Captain. He’d pledged to influence dazzlingly large sums of money from Evelyn, and also offered Lawrence thirty thousand pounds from his own private funds for the next expedition. So show me whose hands wouldn’t be bound?
‘And here’s where it becomes upsettingly problematic for us,’ Lawrence said.
The third point in his argument was ambition, because Lawrence was insatiably ambitious. He’d envisaged a brilliant legacy for himself which stretched across every ocean, across every continent, and covered an entire career of voyages. And that legacy required funding. And that funding would evaporate if Evelyn believed the long-standing recipient of his generosity was feckless, unsound, or in any way responsible for his nephew’s tragic end.
‘You see what I’m getting at, Adds?’ Lawrence said. ‘I’m asking you not to endanger me by mounting a heartfelt yet misplaced campaign to defend Napps. I’m asking you not to deflect the severity of his wrongdoing, as you will inevitably do if you write your book. Whether Dinners should have been prevented from going to Everland is an unnecessary debate. I’m saying don’t dilute the issue by implying fault lies anywhere else except with Napps. I’m saying let the culpability remain with the culprit. I respect that he was your friend, but I’m also your friend. And I’m asking you to respect me.’
‘Lawrence.’ Addison lifted his hands helplessly. ‘You’re asking me to help you bury him.’
‘Do you want to put it like that?’ Lawrence cocked his head, disappointed. ‘I’d put it another way. I’d say you were helping someone capable of appreciating your help. As I’m alive, I’m here, and I’ll suffer in a very real way if you choose to make me suffer. Which is of course disastrous for you, Adds, because you’ll suffer if I do.’
He paused for Addison to appreciate the dilemma. ‘I wonder if you understand what I mean.’
Addison replied with an air of battered dignity, ‘You’re referring to my assistance to Dinners.’
What an awful pity, Lawrence’s expression said, that life forces these unpleasantnesses. ‘I think it would be better, would it not, if that extra help remained confidential? You’re an excellent doctor, you were doing your best for your patient. But it’s a clouded issue, isn’t it? And it will harm you if it comes out. So maybe we should agree to keep it in. You dispose of your book, drop any sentiments about Napps and Everland, and I’ll never say a word about Dinners’s final moments. Except . . . ’ Lawrence sucked air through his teeth. ‘Oh dear, I can’t guarantee my own discretion if I’m not fully persuaded of yours.’ He stood up. ‘So shake my hand and let’s have the matter done with.’
For a moment Addison saw a future where he resisted blackmail. He remembered the letter he’d scribbled in the delirium of grief. He remembered Lawrence shouting, have you any idea what you’ve done, as he studied the lines about morphine. But he hadn’t been so furious he didn’t recognize the intrinsic value of the letter. And now Addison understood what Lawrence had seen. His letter was a noose. He’d undermined a career he’d spent a lifetime building. With inexpressible self-loathing, Addison accepted the Captain’s outstretched hand.
‘There, that wasn’t so bad, was it,’ Lawrence said. ‘No thunderbolts. No devastating consequences. You didn’t go up in flames.’
Addison looked at him with something close to pity. ‘There’s a consequence,’ he said. ‘Of course there is. Every single day you’ve ever lived has a consequence, although you can’t often see it.’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
‘But there are moments, like this one, when you can. The possibilities speak to you. And you listen.’
The disagreeable task was over and the world was beautiful again. Lawrence radiated cheer. ‘Oh, that’s good, that’s very good,’ he said as he left the room. ‘And you listen? That’s going in the book, Adds.’
After twenty minutes of contemplating the envelope on his desk, Addison found himself succumbing to curiosity. Lawrence had scrambled the letter’s order and what Addison opened first was the last page.
To Rosie, how much Napps missed her. The Captain had requested that he volunteer to take a run ashore with two other men, a sailor and a scientist, to scout out an uncharted and unknown island.
Addison read the next paragraph and then refolded the letter. Lawrence’s trace of enlightenment was there, as his pattering fingers had indicated.
Dearest Rosie, as Napps was sure she’d imagined: ‘Pitiful defeatist that I am, I’ve had to battle my apprehensions. Although the sailor is highly competent, the scientist doesn’t seem at all suitable. I had a decent old row with the Captain about it. However, as always, I
’m reassured by the sheer force of my will to return to you. No man or deed or sin or obstacle could stop me. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to return, nothing I can’t live with if it gets me home. And what courage it gives me! Your devoted pessimist is transformed into a bigger man who embraces adventure and even pursues it. How time tricks us into seeing who we really are, and what choices we make.’
46
April 1913
Speed, Napps,’ Millet-Bass said. ‘It’s mid-morning already.’
The moon seemed disproportionately large. It cast a hallucinatory light which made ice crystals reflect, covering the snow with diamond dust. The glow of the oil lamps looked jaundiced and vulgar in the sparkling indigo dreamscape.
Millet-Bass told Napps there was an atmospheric heaviness he didn’t like. He could feel some sort of blizzard-bringing pressure, he said, his breath steaming to linger around his head as a raggedly empty speech bubble. ‘There’s no time for second thoughts.’
‘I know, but we can’t rush Dinners. Show some patience.’
‘Rush him?’ Millet-Bass said. ‘Your lenience with him is crippling us. You do nothing but indulge him. In fact you’re so busy being Dinners’s nursemaid you’ve never mentioned you know he’s Evelyn’s nephew.’
‘You want me to confront Dinners about Evelyn?’ Napps said in a low voice. ‘What, to punish him for it? What good do you imagine that would do? Something’s wrong with him, Millet-Bass. He’s barely holding himself together.’
Two days had passed since Millet-Bass’s ultimatum on the sea ice about either leaving for Cape Athena or losing their chance to leave. The first day was spent in a tent-bound conference. Dinners remained watchful and mute as Napps and Millet-Bass had the same fraught, looping conversations about the same unanswerable questions. When Millet-Bass argued for going to the Cape, Napps countered that they might die on the journey, which caused Millet-Bass to rage that not going meant they’d die on the island instead. It was Millet-Bass who eventually won the battle. One factor was his steeply declining health, which forced Napps into action. Another factor was Millet-Bass’s horrifyingly true assertion that dying whilst attempting to escape was still preferable to sitting in the tent, waiting for death, without the decency to act as though your life was even worth trying to save. The decision was made.