The Story of Martha

by Dan Abnett

  And Pierre told him he didn’t want them to go away. ‘I like the white,’ he whispered in confidence. ‘It’s mysterious.’

  When Pierre was fifteen, an exhibition came to Paris, and his family made a rare journey into the city to see it. Expeditions into the Arctic had been inconclusive at best; the North Pole had never been reached, and yet it still fascinated people – it seemed to Monsieur Bruyère that the entire population of France had crowded into the hall to see the photographs.

  ‘It looks very cold,’ said Pierre’s mother, rather obviously, ‘not very nice at all!’

  Pierre looked from picture to picture, at the desolation, at the swatches of snow and ice relieved every now and then by glimpses of the ocean breaking through the cracks between. He could hardly take his eyes off them, and only moved along when an impatient crowd pushed him aside.

  ‘That’s what I’ve been dreaming,’ he told his parents.

  ‘You’ve been dreaming of these pictures?’

  ‘Not the pictures,’ said Pierre irritably. ‘The place. That’s what I see when I close my eyes. I’m going to be an Arctic explorer.’

  His mother pointed out gently that Arctic exploration was a dangerous career move, wouldn’t he be better off baking bread instead? But Pierre was adamant.

  As the years went by, it seemed to Pierre that everyone in the world was trying to make it to the North Pole before him. They’d make attempts by boats (which sank), by foot (which frostbit), they’d even come up with new-fangled inventions called skis. And every time they failed, Pierre couldn’t help but feel relieved. The conquest of the Pole was to be his achievement; he knew it was what he was born for. He felt terribly guilty for a while whenever he delighted in the news of another disaster in the Arctic, of the men who’d perished. And then he forgot to feel guilt any more. He had no room in his brain for such stuff – he had his own schemes to work on. In 1890, he at last addressed a party at the International Geographical Congress in London. He wasn’t used to talking in public – he’d been a boy who’d cut himself off from friends – and as a result, he couldn’t help but shake as he spoke to the committee.

  ‘Balloon,’ he said. ‘I’m going to conquer the North Pole by balloon.’

  The room was stuffy, and the speakers tedious. In spite of her best efforts, Martha kept on dozing off. The Doctor nudged her. ‘This is what we came for,’ he whispered.

  ‘They don’t even have penguins in the Arctic,’ said the Doctor.

  There was a crowd to see them off, and stalls for the tourists, selling all kinds of merchandise. There was always a buzz about attempts on the North Pole, and the papers in London spoke of the Arctic season the same way they’d chatter about the Henley regatta. But there was even greater excitement about Bruyère’s balloon. Ships are all very well and good and have an undeniable majesty about them, but there’s nothing as pretty as a balloon, straining against the ropes and the wind for its launch, looking for all the world like an enormous children’s toy. ‘It’s huge,’ Martha had said to the Doctor when she first saw it. A ball of pongee silk, the lightest and most resilient material available, it towered above her. Now as she stood in the basket it didn’t seem quite so big.

  And suddenly they were free. The balloon rose into the air – and it didn’t feel to Martha as if they were the ones moving at all. Instead the ground was sucked away from beneath her, the banners wishing them safe voyage, the people waving and cheering and holding up their flags and their rubber icebergs and even – yes – their clockwork penguins. Martha couldn’t believe the Doctor was still going on about them. ‘Penguins is the Antarctic,’ said the Doctor. ‘They’ve got the wrong Pole.’

  ‘Listen,’ the Doctor had said to Martha, and so she had listened. Pierre Bruyère spoke to the Geographical Congress, and as he warmed to his subject he forgot to be nervous. He explained how a balloon could cover in a few days distances it would take them months with their dogs and sleds. He wasn’t wringing his hands any longer, now he was punching the air with his fist every time he made a point.

  ‘He sounds convincing enough,’ Martha had said, a little cautiously.

  ‘Oh, he’s brilliant,’ said the Doctor. ‘You’ve got to be impressed by the sheer ingenuity of it all. All these people trying to explore the Arctic, this man comes at the problem sideways on. I love sideways on. There’s really only one problem. Well, one big problem. Lots of little problems, there are tons of those, of course.’

  ‘What are the little problems?’

  ‘Right. Well, for a start, you can’t steer a balloon. I mean, you can do a bit with drag ropes, drop them over the side you get pulled in that direction, but against the Arctic winds? I don’t think so, do you? Then there’s the gas. At that temperature, you’re at the mercy of the sun. When the sun shines, the hydrogen expands, the balloon rises. When it hits a cloud, uh-oh, down you go. And then there’s the balloon itself. Cos that’s made up of thousands and thousands of silk sheets, all stitched together. Each of the little stitch holes, that’s something the gas can leak through, and it will.’

  ‘They don’t sound like little problems.’

  ‘Nah,’ said the Doctor, ‘they’re pretty small, really.’

  ‘Your tried and tested methods,’ Pierre went on, ‘they’ve failed. How many more men will you allow to die? Whereas in a balloon all that’s being risked is my life. Mine, and the two crew members I shall need. It’s the cheapest, safest means to victory. If I die,’ and he shrugged, ‘at least it won’t be for lack of effort. At least I won’t spend my days in a baker’s shop, denying my dreams.’

  There was silence to that. Martha took advantage of it to whisper to the Doctor. ‘OK, so what’s the big problem?’

  ‘Well,’ said the Doctor. ‘He fails. April 1890, he takes off with his crew, he’s never heard of again.’

  ‘But, Doctor,’ said Martha. ‘It’s June 1890.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said the Doctor. ‘Odd, isn’t it? We’re looking at a dead man. He just doesn’t seem to know it.’

  And for a dead man, Pierre Bruyère seemed very animated. ‘Gentlemen, you misunderstand me,’ he said at last, in exasperation. ‘I am not asking your permission. I am stating my intent. I have already secured funds. I have already found my crew. And we are setting off for the Pole as soon as it is propitious. Good day.’

  Martha looked at the Doctor. He gave her a grin. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I know, I know. But you’ve got to admire sideways.’

  Afterwards the Doctor introduced Martha to Pierre. He shook her hand formally. ‘I hope we have no need of your medical skills,’ he told her solemnly, ‘but we have no idea what new illnesses might be waiting for us in such an alien place.’ Martha was surprised he didn’t comment upon her being a woman. He tutted with impatience. ‘It’s of no interest whatsoever. If you can do your job, that is enough. We are going to the North Pole, Doctor Jones. I do trust that we will find there more remarkable causes for comment than your gender or the colour of your skin.’

  ‘I don’t like him,’ Martha said to the Doctor.

  ‘Not the warmest of individuals,’ agreed the Doctor. ‘Still, I suppose that makes sense where we’re going.’

  Bruyère hadn’t spoken since the balloon had taken off; he’d spent the last three hours making entries in his journal. It would be the record of all their discoveries. It was more important, he explained, than any single member of the crew. Their bodies might fail on their arduous expedition, but so long as it was properly logged, they would live for ever. At last he laid down his pen. ‘It’s time we ate,’ he said.

  Open flames weren’t allowed in the basket, not with inflammable hydrogen mere feet above. Instead Bruyère had dangled a little stove some thirty feet below the basket, which could be ignited or doused by remote control. There was even a mirror set at an angle, so that if you peered over the side you could see whether the eggs were done yet.

  ‘I told you,’ said the Doctor. ‘Brilliant.’

  Bruyère serve
d up their meals, and they tucked in.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Pierre at last. ‘We are the lucky ones. I am quite certain that the North Pole will be discovered, with or without our efforts. In ten years, maybe, every single place on the Earth will have been mapped, there’ll be no need for explorers any more. And Man will have to turn to the skies, and stare at the planets if they want to see anything new. We are privileged. We have been born at the right time, we can still be the first.’

  Martha had never seen Pierre smile before, but he suddenly did, and it took years off him. Even with his beard, his greying hair, he looked for all the world like a little boy on Christmas morning.

  ‘We’re on our way,’ he told them. And hugged them both.

  Looking back, Martha thought that was the best moment of the expedition, the time that they came together as a team. They sang songs – the Doctor fumbling his way through a Beatles classic, Pierre something very gentle in French that the TARDIS had the sensitivity not to translate. They all peered over the side of the balloon at the sea of ice beneath them, Martha marvelling at how the wind would blow wisps of snow across the surface and make it look like something fluid. Pierre checked his sextant, and announced that in twelve hours’ travel they had come further than Nansen’s expedition had managed in two whole months. And they all cheered at that, and the Doctor poured them all coffee, and they toasted each other. Pierre sucked on his pipe – ‘I can’t light it,’ he said, ‘but I can pretend all the same.’

  They set up a sleep rota. It was Martha’s turn first. She didn’t think she’d be able to get even a wink with the excitement and the brightness of the snow, but she propped herself up against the side of the basket anyway, closed her eyes, and didn’t even remember nodding off.

  And Martha dreamed that she was going to be a doctor, that was what she wanted most in the world. And no one could stop her, not the girls in the playground, not Leo with his teasing. She’d look at that poster of the human skeleton on her bedroom wall before she turned the lights out, she’d study it so hard that every night she’d dream the names of bones. Hang on, thought Martha to herself, I don’t need to dream this any more, I am a doctor! – but she looked down at her hands and they were so very small, and she was so very young, those ambitions of hers were a world away, how would she ever achieve them? And then, suddenly, she was at her exam, the teacher asking her questions and grading her responses. I’m not old enough for this yet, said Martha, and the examiner just smiled. ‘Tell me all about the bones, Martha, tell me your hopes and dreams.’ So she did, patella, tibia, fibula… ‘More,’ said the teacher, clavicle, scapula, humerus, and the teacher put back her head and purred, which Martha thought a very odd thing for a teacher to do. Ulna, radius, ‘It’s so cold out here, Martha, and I must feast to keep warm,’ sacrum, coccyx, and the teacher tilted her head towards her, opened her eyes wide, and Martha could see they were just shards of ice, glacial like the sea beneath the balloon…

  The balloon. The Doctor was shaking her. ‘Martha, wake up. We’ve got a problem.’ And he didn’t pause, he was back to a whirlwind of activity, racing around the basket, grabbing hold of whatever he could, throwing it over the side. Martha squinted through the brightness of the sun, and saw that Pierre was doing the same thing.

  ‘We’re still losing height!’ cried Pierre. Martha struggled to her feet but it was difficult to find her balance – she could feel now that the balloon was giving way beneath her, she was being pulled downwards fast. She scrabbled about, her hands found the saucepan in which they’d boiled the water for coffee. As she pitched it overboard she was able to see the ground rushing up to meet them. It was impossible to say how close it was, the vast shadow of the balloon stretched out before them like a black smudge on the snow.

  ‘What happened?’ she shouted.

  ‘We’ve jettisoned all the inessentials!’ Pierre called out over the wind of their descent. ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘Lose the essentials,’ said the Doctor. He took hold of a food hamper, strained under the weight. ‘Help me,’ he cried, and Martha took the other side. Together they staggered with it to the edge of the basket, so unsteady on their feet it looked like they were performing a bizarre dance – and then, ‘Now!’ said the Doctor, and with a heave, they threw it over.

  ‘Not our food!’ Pierre looked ashen. ‘No!’ He grabbed hold of the second hamper, pulling it away from the Doctor.

  ‘Do you feel that?’ said the Doctor. ‘Do you feel what’s happening?’ And Martha could see what he meant, the rate of descent had slowed. ‘It wants us to get rid of our food.’

  ‘The only force here is gravity.’

  ‘Not that force. The force that’s keeping us aloft. We should have crashed on the ice already.’

  The bottom of the basket hit a spike of ice, chipping snow over them all. The force knocked them off their feet, the balloon bounced upwards off the impact. ‘Next time we’ll tip over,’ said the Doctor. ‘We’ve no choice.’ And they took the remaining hampers, all three of them, and heaved them away.

  In that instant the balloon stopped struggling. As if they’d just flicked a switch and turned the crisis off. Oh, the balloon seemed to say, you want me to go up? Nothing to it! And with a nonchalance that almost made Martha laugh, calmly, lazily, it began to rise once more into the air. They gained height quickly – Martha watched all the provisions dwindle to the size of ants against the snow, then disappear completely.

  ‘We’re alive,’ she said. It was obvious. But it needed to be said.

  ‘Whatever this thing is,’ said the Doctor, ‘it wants us entirely at its mercy.’ He stared at the polar wastes ahead of them.

  One day Pierre looked up from his sextant, cleared his throat formally, and announced that he thought they must nearly be there. ‘Below us, gentlemen, is the North Pole.’

  Martha couldn’t help herself, she looked over the side of the basket. It was a pointless thing to do, and she knew it was pointless. Nothing but white below them, white above them, nothing but white all around. Nothing but white for weeks.

  ‘What do you think, Doctor?’ asked Pierre. But the Doctor hadn’t spoken for a long time.

  At first the Doctor had been characteristically exuberant. ‘We have to stay alive,’ he told them, ‘that’s what matters. Gather everything which we can throw overboard, just in case we need ballast again.’ Martha even thought he was enjoying himself as he arranged the heaviest items around the perimeter for easy access. Sledges, scientific instruments. ‘We’ve got to be prepared to junk the lot,’ said the Doctor. He took hold of Pierre’s journal, but the explorer snatched it back. ‘Not that,’ said Pierre, and for a moment it looked as if the Doctor would argue, but then he nodded, let go. ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘All right. Not that.’

  They made sure they kept warm, and took regular turns to sleep and keep watch. Not that there was anything to watch. After a few hours Martha found the stark blankness all around her almost blinding. There was no food, of course, and the Doctor told them they’d have to cope as best they could. That day Martha hadn’t felt hungry anyway, she supposed she was too scared. And after a couple more days she stopped questioning it, and by the end of that first week she’d even forgotten she should be hungry. Once in a while her thoughts would drift, and she’d wonder about it – wasn’t there something she should be doing with food, she’d think dreamily, shouldn’t she be eating it, something like that – then with a jolt she’d realise she should be starving. No, really, literally starving. And then she’d feel dozy again, and the voice in her head would tell her not to worry about it. OK, she’d tell the voice, and give in to sleep – I’m sure if anything were wrong, the Doctor would take care of it.

  Sometimes Martha’s dreams would be peaceful. She wouldn’t remember what they’d been when she woke up, but they’d been all hers and nobody else’s. But more often than not they’d get interrupted by that woman examiner. ‘Never mind that holiday in Bermuda,’ she’d say, ‘never mind that
Christmas when you were seven, never mind that date with Leonardo DiCaprio. Tell me about the bones, Martha. It’s so very cold, I must feast. Tell me all about the bones, and why you love them so much.’

  When they’d run out of songs, the crew began to share dreams. Martha told the Doctor and Pierre how she had always wanted to study medicine. And Pierre told them his dreams of white.

  The Doctor hadn’t paid much attention to anything in weeks, Martha had been getting very worried – but at this he showed a sudden interest. ‘Nothing but white, really?’

  ‘But out here,’ said Pierre, ‘amongst the white… sometimes I now dream of other things.’

  ‘What other things?’

  ‘Just other things,’ Pierre would shrug. ‘Just not white. As if I’ve been set free. It’s a relief.’

  Pierre wouldn’t say much any more either, he liked to sleep as long as possible. He’d do so with a grin across his face, and look so at peace that Martha would feel envious. And when he was awake he’d be scribbling in his journal. Martha couldn’t see why. Nothing was happening for him to write about. But he’d write anyway, one arm hiding it from view, as if he didn’t want anyone to copy his homework.

  ‘What do you dream of, Doctor?’ asked Martha.

  ‘I don’t dream,’ he said shortly.

  But one time, when Pierre was asleep, he told Martha.

  ‘On old maps you’ll find the words “Here Be Dragons”. It doesn’t mean there really were dragons, of course. Only that there were places no one had ever been. They didn’t know what they’d find, there could be anything. Explorers like Pierre, they don’t think that’s good enough. They keep pushing against the limits of what they know, they refuse ever to sit back and say, that’s enough. They won’t give in to the dragons. But,’ he said, ‘what if, when you get out there, into the unknown… you find there are dragons waiting after all?’