The White Voyage

by John Christopher

  ‘No,’ Olsen said, ‘we go together. That is the best way.’

  Mouritzen said: ‘You cannot force this, Erik. You are Captain of the Kreya, but we have our rights.’

  Olsen said heavily: ‘I am the Captain, as you say. You are the First Officer, and not a lawyer. I think you forget that.’

  ‘Human rights come first,’ Mouritzen said. ‘I think you forget that, Erik.’

  Olsen leaned back in his chair, and let his chin sink on his blue jersey. He looked grave and then, unexpectedly, smiled.

  ‘Do I meet a second mutiny, on one voyage? That would be unique for a sea captain, I fancy. Right, we will have democracy, a free choice. I give you the possibilities.’

  He raised his hand, clenched except for one finger.

  ‘First, that all stay here on the Kreya. In a week, two weeks at most, there is no fuel for the engines, and so no heat, no light. If we are careful, maybe the food lasts three weeks. Then we begin to starve and freeze, if the ice has not crushed us already.’

  Olsen released another finger.

  ‘Second. That we form a party to travel across the ice to Scoresbysund. This is my plan. There are risks, but we meet them together.’

  The third finger went up.

  ‘Third. Some go, some stay. Those that stay must take the risk of the ice. And they must wait, in patience. If no help comes in a week, they must be patient. In two weeks, even, because in this kind of thing there will always be delays, difficulties. After three weeks, they may guess that the advance party has met disaster. Then they set out in their turn, with less food and with less skill.’

  His eyes fastened on Mary. He spoke more slowly.

  ‘If this is the choice, I take the advance party. And since, for the good of all, this party must travel fast and surely, I choose two men to go with me – Niels and Josef.’ His gaze darted briefly to Mouritzen and then returned to Mary. ‘Josef might refuse this. Niels, as a ship’s officer, cannot refuse. He is bound to obey my order.’

  Mama Simanyi said: ‘I go with Papa, if he goes. That is understood.’

  ‘Those are the choices,’ Olsen said. ‘Now we vote. My plan first – that all go together to the mainland. In favour, please raise hands.’

  Their hands were raised. Mary, shaking her head slightly as she looked at Mouritzen, put hers up.

  ‘Niels?’ Olsen said.

  ‘All right,’ Mouritzen said, ‘you win.’

  ‘Put up your hand, then,’ Olsen told him. He smiled faintly. ‘That makes the vote unanimous.’

  ‘When do we start?’ Jones asked. ‘It’s too late today, isn’t it? Tomorrow morning?’

  ‘We shall not be ready by the morning,’ Olsen said. ‘First we make our preparations. This is no jaunt. We must make sledges, collect food, prepare clothing. The men will work on the sledges, and the women see to the rest. We start right away.’

  * * *

  Josef and Stefan were Olsen’s chief aiders on the sledges; both, by reason of their experience of the nomadic life of the circus, were reasonably skilled in carpentry and its allied crafts. Olsen sketched out for them plans for two six-foot sledges, and they got to work right away.

  ‘Extra sets of runners,’ he warned them. ‘Two extra sets, if it can be managed, for each. That is where the strain will come.’

  ‘On such a little journey?’ asked Josef.

  ‘By the time we have hauled them over a couple of hundred ice-ridges, you will not call it a little journey.’

  Stefan said: ‘We can be at the foot of those mountains in a day.’

  ‘Yes?’ Olsen smiled. ‘All the same, we make extra runners.’

  He discussed food with Mama Simanyi.

  ‘We will have two hot meals each day – in the morning and at night. In the middle of the day, we eat chocolate and biscuits on the trail. For breakfast, we make porridge, with milk and sugar, and then cocoa with biscuits and butter. Plenty of butter – at least one hundred and fifty grams each person every day. It is fine to keep out the cold.’

  She nodded. ‘More than a kilo and a half each day.’

  ‘How much have we in store?’

  ‘Seven kilos – perhaps a little more.’

  ‘We take rations for ten days; more would be too much to carry. There is margarine?’

  ‘Enough.’

  ‘Make up with that. A hundred and twenty grams of biscuits per day. We have enough biscuits, I know.’

  ‘They are not very good.’

  ‘They will taste good. For supper, the best thing is a stew. We want plenty of good stew, every night, and those dried potatoes. Then more biscuits and more butter. And more cocoa, sweet and milky. The dried milk is best. The milk in cans may freeze.’

  ‘How do we cook? The paraffin stove? It is a bulky thing to carry.’

  ‘No. There are two Primus stoves in the galley. One may need mending, but only a support to be welded, I think. And there are two pressure cookers. That saves fuel, and there is less condensation inside a tent.’

  ‘Are there tents on the ship?’

  Olsen shook his head. ‘But there is canvas, and wood. We will make them.’

  ‘There is a tent in our caravan down in the hold, if it has not been washed away. That will take four people.’

  ‘And the child, too? Then that serves for the women. We need only make one for the men.’

  Mama Simanyi called to Nadya: ‘Go find the tent, in the caravan, Nadya. It will need drying, I guess.’

  Nadya said: ‘Yes.’ She smiled at Olsen. ‘When you work it out, do not forget the rations for Katerina.’

  Olsen shook his head, his eyes narrowing. ‘You must turn the bear loose. She will fend for herself.’

  ‘Then I will see to Katerina’s rations,’ Nadya said. ‘There will be enough left over when you have taken all you need.’

  ‘We carry no extra weight on the sledges – not one ounce more than is needed.’

  Nadya smiled again. ‘You have not seen Katerina’s act, Captain. She wears a harness and carries a sack on her back. She will carry her own rations.’

  ‘She will not carry much.’

  ‘She is a strong bear, and a sensible one. And she goes with us, Captain, or we do not go.’

  Olsen stared at her grimly; she continued to smile. Mama Simanyi said:

  ‘She will be no trouble, Captain. We will promise that.’

  ‘She gets no rations from the sledges, and if there is trouble, we turn her loose – that is agreed?’

  ‘But yes, Captain,’ Nadya said. ‘Now I will go for the tent. I will get Katerina’s harness at the same time.’

  Grumbling, Olsen said: ‘A bear – on such a journey.’

  ‘For the chocolate,’ Mama Simanyi said, ‘– I get that from Jorgen?’

  ‘Yes. A hundred grams as the daily ration.’ He paused, considering this. ‘You can take a couple of kilos extra. No, better, I will have Jorgen get you the emergency ration from the lifeboats. That takes up less room, though it does not taste so good.’

  ‘For the stews, I take as much as I think will be needed?’

  ‘Yes, but choose what bulks smallest and weighs least.’ He smiled. ‘We should have pemmican, but the company does not expect us to end our journey by sledge.’

  ‘Can we take coffee as well as cocoa?’

  ‘Cocoa is better, and more easily made. But you can take some coffee, for special treats.’

  ‘And pastes, for the biscuits?’

  ‘Hunger will be the best paste. But there is Gye, in the store. It is made from Guinness – we buy it in Dublin. That will go well on biscuits, and it does not take up too much space.’

  ‘Special treats,’ Mama Simanyi said. ‘And food for ten days. I guess it is a long little walk we take across the ice.’

  ‘I like to have all well prepared. We will see how we go when the sledges are loaded. If there is room, maybe we can add a little more – cans of fruit and such. But we make room for the essential things first. We will need plen
ty of blankets. It may be we have to spend a night out on the ice.’

  Mama Simanyi shook her head. ‘It will be cold out there. We must wear plenty of clothes.’

  ‘That is the next thing. Get the other women to work on that. Boots are most important.’

  ‘We have fur boots, Nadya and I, in our cases.’

  ‘No, listen. We need mukluks, but we have not got them. So we must do what we can. In the forecastle, you will find boots, and Jorgen must give you the boots from the store and all the boots of officers and passengers. Then you share them out, giving each person boots one or even two sizes too big. Inside we wear two pairs of socks; but we need more insulation under the foot, so you must make pads for each boot.’

  ‘Pads? Of cloth?’

  ‘Cloth outside. Inside – we have hay in the stern hold; that is good for insulation. Make pads to fit the inside soles of the boots, and inside the pads put hay – enough for them to be about seven millimetres thick when pressed down hard. Use the softest, driest hay you can find for this.’

  Mama Simanyi nodded. ‘We can do it.’

  ‘For the other clothes, again we need insulation. It would be good if we had string vests, but we have not. If you can find thin cellular vests to go underneath wool ones, use them. On top, flannel shirts, jerseys, jackets that will best keep out wind and rain and snow. And all must wear trousers – pyjama trousers underneath – and you cut an opening in the seats, and fasten with buttons, eh? – and then two pairs of trousers over them. There are denims in the crew’s quarters for the top pair.’

  Mama Simanyi said doubtfully: ‘It will not be easy to find outfits for ten people. And there is the child. There will be no boots two sizes too big for her.’

  ‘You must do what you can, Mama. We rely on you. For the child’s boots, it is not so important – she will not be walking like the rest of us. Take extra woollen socks that can be pulled over her boots from outside. They will keep her warm.’

  ‘And gloves, too.’

  ‘The stoutest you can find, with liners if possible, and wool wristlets sewn on.’

  ‘We cannot do all this by tomorrow morning.’ She was apologetic. ‘At least, I do not think we can.’

  ‘It makes nothing,’ Olsen said. ‘The sledges and the tent will not be ready either. We take our time. Better to start later, and better prepared.’

  They were alone at this end of the lounge. Mama Simanyi said, in a low voice:

  ‘The little walk. How many days do you think, Captain? It is best you tell me since I am to prepare for housekeeping.’

  Olsen looked at her intently. ‘If all goes well – a week.’

  ‘And if not?’

  He shrugged. ‘Who knows, Mama? We will get there as soon as is possible, I guess.’

  * * *

  Jones had cut his hand during the sledge-making. In their cabin at night, Sheila removed the old dressing and put on a new one.

  She said: ‘It’s nasty.’

  ‘The knife slipped.’

  ‘Does it hurt much?’

  ‘Only when the cold gets to it. I’m glad we shan’t be ready to go in the morning.’

  ‘Do you think it will be all right the next day?’

  ‘Yes.’ He examined the cut. ‘It’s healing already.’

  ‘Apart from that,’ she said, ‘it will be good to go, won’t it – to get off the ship, to have some purpose in view.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Won’t it?’

  He nodded towards the typewriter case. ‘I’m worrying about that.’

  In a flat voice, she said: ‘What about it?’

  ‘Olsen says we shall only have room for essentials on the sledge. He’s right, I suppose.’

  ‘If you leave it, it will be safe here. No one can touch it, can they?’

  He laughed, with some harshness. ‘And if the ice crushes the ship?’

  ‘Probably it won’t. He meant that you couldn’t risk human lives to it. We can’t be far from the edge of the ice. The steward, Thorsen, was saying they would probably salvage it when the ice breaks in the spring.’

  ‘And we’re to wait till then, wondering what’s happened to it and whether one of the salvage crew will get curious about that lock?’

  She finished bandaging his hand and put her arms round him to draw him to her on the bed.

  ‘I know! We’ll put it inside one of the big cases – there’s room with the clothes and things we’re taking out. The lock on the blue case is a good one, and that won’t make anyone curious. We could even seal the cases; it’s a reasonable sort of precaution.’

  He showed a brief interest, and then shook his head.

  ‘Four months at the least, perhaps six, perhaps longer. How do we live during that time?’

  ‘We could take enough with us in our pockets to last till then. A few hundred, anyway.’

  He was silent for a time. Then he said:

  ‘I’m not going to risk it. I’m taking it with me.’

  She thought of arguing with him, but she saw that it was no good. Logic was on his side; once you started something you carried it through to the end.

  As though following her thoughts, he said:

  ‘Sheila, darling, are you sorry?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘That you got into all this.’

  There was not enough reassurance in words. She put her mouth to his and kissed him, passionately, desperately. Even that reassurance would not last, but for a time it was enough.

  * * *

  Annabel was asleep. The Arctic air tired her, and at night she went to sleep quickly and slept soundly. Mouritzen had looked in on his way to his cabin. Mary smiled and came to him. She was wearing a woollen dressing-gown over a white silk nightdress. The dressing-gown was knotted loosely at the front. He tugged at the knot, and the front fell open.

  She said, smiling, wary and welcoming at once:

  ‘Remember your promise.’

  ‘I have not forgotten. I will not kiss you. To look at you in a nightdress is something else.’

  ‘Do you like it?’

  He grinned at her. ‘Do not tempt me too far! You have told me how weak a man I am.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said.

  ‘Hm?’

  She drew the dressing-gown round her again, and tied the belt more securely.

  ‘Now, listen. You said before that you would have to stay with the Kreya and Annabel and I were to go on ahead. But we’re leaving the Kreya here. So we can go together!’

  ‘Will you like that?’

  She smiled. ‘Anyway, I was scared of meeting your family by myself.’

  ‘You need not have been. But you are right – it seems we will meet them together. There is one thing, though.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘There is no boat from Copenhagen to Scoresby until July. We have a long wait there first. Unless we are taken by aeroplane. But I think there is no landing place for big aeroplanes, and I am not sure that the little ones can carry fuel to go so far from Iceland.’

  ‘We can wait. We’ll be together.’

  ‘Ah, that is the trouble. Together, in the Arctic winter, with no sun for two months … I think I would be very weak by the time the sun came back.’

  ‘I’ll put a padlock on my igloo.’

  ‘I have a better idea. We will get married at Scoresby. Then in the summer I will take you back to Denmark as a wife. If the boat takes us back in July, perhaps there will just be time.’

  ‘Time? For what?’

  He took her hand and kissed the fingers.

  ‘For our first little Dane to be properly born in Denmark.’

  * * *

  The wind died down and the fog returned. The next day it thinned a little, but the sun, in its brief visit, was no more than a red streak in the haze. The work of preparation went on. Olsen found Mouritzen and Josef binding the runners on to one of the sledges with wire. He examined the sledge carefully.

  ‘Good,’
he said. ‘I think we start tomorrow.’

  ‘Even if the fog is thick?’ Josef asked.

  ‘If it is no worse than today, we go. The ice is piling up on the starboard side.’

  Josef nodded. ‘I saw that. And it gets more noisy, I think.’

  ‘Mama has given us boots,’ Mouritzen said. ‘With pads filled with hay to go inside. Might not the sea-boots be better?’

  ‘The sea-boots are of rubber. They make you sweat too much, and the sweat becomes ice under your feet. Then it is not pleasant.’

  ‘Weapons, Captain,’ Josef said, ‘– have we weapons?’

  Olsen smiled. ‘We go for a little walk, not to fight a war.’

  ‘Maybe we kill a seal.’

  ‘We have the flare pistol,’ Olsen said, ‘but we will need that for flares, maybe. If you wish, you can make some spears – fix sharp knives on the end of sticks. I will leave the weapons to you.’

  ‘Yes, I will make them,’ Josef said with satisfaction. ‘And maybe I will catch fish, too.’

  ‘I do not think we can stop on the way long enough for that.’

  ‘It will not take long, Captain.’

  ‘I know a quicker way.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘Catch a seal and tame it. Then the seal will catch the fish for you.’

  Chapter Ten

  The wind rose again that night; it was not very strong but savagely cold. It numbed flesh after the first burning brand of its touch. But it dispersed the fog. They had their last breakfast on the Kreya at seven in the morning, and at eight, with the first beginning of half light, Olsen began to organize the transfer of the sledges to the surface of the ice, and their loading with equipment, food and blankets.

  The sledges were piled high, and tarpaulins were drawn over them and bound tightly with rope: these tarpaulins would also serve as ground-sheets for the tents. A place was left, at the end of one of the sledges, for Annabel, and when all was ready she was carried down the rope ladder by Mouritzen and propped in place.

  ‘Is it well with you, little one?’ he asked her.

  ‘It’s so cold.’

  ‘Pull the flap across your face. So. And now I wrap the blankets around you and tuck them underneath. And then I must tie this strap, so that you do not fall off if the sledge tilts. It will be a rocky journey. Have you ever ridden on a camel?’