The Ice Maiden

by Sara Sheridan

  An order was called and the men dispersed. It was impressive, Karina thought, like some kind of machine. Up till now she had only caught sight of the running of the ship now and then – as she peered out from behind the barrel or noticed something underway as she passed. She had sailed the world wide but never on a vessel like this. The English were famous for their navy.

  ‘Karl,’ Bevan called her, as he turned to go below, but she lingered alone at the rail, drawn to the whiteness of the vast plain, almost glad that she was here to see it as the men scrambled to their duties.

  Below, the bread was baking and hard tack and hot rum had been issued by the time Karina got back to her station. She set herself to preparing pease broth in an iron tub.

  ‘You took your time,’ Bevan said without looking at her.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Never seen anything like it before, then?’

  She shook her head. ‘What will we do here?’

  Bevan laughed. ‘What will we do? Well, you, my fine lad, will cook.’

  She hunched over the pot and poured in some barley. ‘And the rest of them?’

  ‘They’ll do as they’re told. Lord, you’re like a woman, fussing so.’

  This comment silenced her. Thebo used to complain the same. ‘You’re like an old woman,’ he’d say when she asked him for details about his boat or took an interest in the flora. If she asked about money, he sulked. As a result, they used to squabble. It was easy, in the intimacy of marriage to annoy each other, she’d found, especially towards the end. He had taken the commission on Deception Island for the money alone. Van Kleek offered good wages. Their plan was to stay for two years and save enough to return to Copenhagen – Thebo’s home town. ‘You can go to Amsterdam, to your sister’s house,’ he said, ever the captain and in charge.

  What he meant was, that once they were across the Atlantic she could leave him and start again. Unsaid, it was what they both wanted. There was no ill will, but the marriage was over.

  When Thebo went to sea that last morning, Karina had been almost relieved as he slammed the front door. There was a moment’s silence in contemplation of a couple of weeks alone to read, to enjoy, to explore and make the best of it. Then a sting of annoyance as the door opened and he came back. He had forgotten his sweater – the thick one that she had knitted when they decided to come so far south.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said, as she fetched it in the candlelight.

  She was always a dutiful wife, but Thebo hadn’t laid his hands on her in months. Not even in the night. Not even fast asleep. Not even if she asked him with her eyes. She wasn’t compliant enough for him. She asked too many questions. She had tried to contain her curiosity but there was only so much disinterest she could feign.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she had nodded.

  No touch. No kiss.

  The truth was she hadn’t cried for her husband when he died. She didn’t hate him but she didn’t love him either. The memory made her feel guilty. The marriage had ignited in a flurry of passion and at first the intrigue of travelling had fanned the flames. Thebo had liked her questions then – when he had been the one who could hold her spellbound with tales of streets lined with lilac trees in the south of Spain, of drinking cacao hot and spiced, sitting in the dappled shade. She had been slack-jawed at the horrors of the slave markets on the African coast that still abided, despite being outlawed. At the beauty of carved conch shells. At the money to be made. But then she had seen it for herself, Thebo was no longer a man of the world, and she started to ask questions he couldn’t answer.

  That last morning she had turned away from the shadowy sight of her husband heading towards the dock, knowing he would be whaling for almost a month. They had made a deal and were in it together until it was fair for them to part. In the meantime, Karina’s duty was to wait. She curled under a blanket and read Holberg from a tiny tattered-edged book that had accompanied her on all her travels. She knew the text by rote but she liked to hold it anyway. The thick leather bindings felt comfortable in her hands, adding weight to the poetry. Thebo walked alone to the harbour. She never saw him again.

  In the Terror’s galley, Karina tripped against the stove and pulled back from the heat. Bevan laughed and the sound jolted her guilty imaginings. Sometimes an idea got a grip but there was nothing she could do to change things. Not now.

  ‘Giddy, are you?’ the old cook asked. ‘We’ve anchored, lad. The boat’s not moving.’ Carefully she found her feet as Bevan eyed her. ‘You’re not much of a sailor,’ he commented. ‘You look white as a ghost. Take a turn on deck. Go on.’

  She stumbled out of the galley. She hadn’t thought of Thebo for weeks. Now she tried to haul her mind back onto the Terror. Ross had ordered the ships anchored close to shore. On deck, the crew were moving as one, the Erebus its mirror image. One lad, dallying by the rail, received a sharp lash from the bo’sun and jumped back to his duties with a last longing glance at the other ship.

  ‘It’s his brother,’ the bo’sun said. ‘On the Erebus. I wonder we shouldn’t unite them, but they are needed where they are.’

  Karina did not reply. The bo’sun was not so much cruel as lazy. ‘You got the still sickness? Land legs?’ he asked, seeing the state of her. ‘Bevan can’t have you being sick into the soup, eh?’ An amused expressed played across his mouth and disappeared as if his skin had absorbed it.

  Karina settled by the bowsprit as the men collected ropes and boxes of instruments. Joseph Hooker fussed around a bundle of jute sacks. ‘Mind yourself, Karl. The frost will get you.’ He nodded towards her boots, these days fortified by navy regulation stockings and a pair of socks that Bevan had supplied. She understood the dangers. Ven was cold in winter, though, it struck her, it had never got colder than she was now, here, in the polar summer. She knew the dangers. If you did not stay warm, your extremities went white, which was called frostnip. If this was not tended the affected areas blackened and died.

  ‘I doctor the men as best I can but last year five men lost fingers. It’s all in the education. Be careful,’ Hooker warned her. ‘You have to learn to watch for it.’

  ‘Will it kill a man, sir?’

  ‘You cannot carry dead flesh with the living. Not for long.’

  At the portside, three midshipmen, Pearce among them, were taking measurements with the glacial jagged white vista behind them. ‘This is where we stopped taking soundings last year,’ Hooker explained. Now we must chart every nautical mile to the south from here on. For the captain’s map, you see.’

  ‘So we will go further south?’

  ‘Not today. Today,’ Hooker grinned, ‘I shall have a shot at my penguins.’

  ‘And on shore, sir, you will move on foot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘At home, the men use dogs in such conditions. Dogs and sleds. In the far north, the Sami use reindeer.’

  ‘As cold as this?’

  ‘In the winter,’ she confirmed.

  ‘We won’t go inland. We’re not equipped for it. But dogs, eh? That is an interesting idea. You must tell me more when you bring my tray. You’re a bright young fellow, Karl.’

  Hooker tied the last of his bundles and the men who were chosen for the mission piled into two crammed rowing boats lowered for the purpose and loaded with equipment. Karina stood with the rest of the crew and watched as they set out slowly across the sound. On land, such as it was, the colony of birds teemed with life.

  ‘Strange-looking creatures,’ one fellow observed.

  Karina nodded. They were odd – almost human-looking as they waddled across the ice.

  ‘Penguins,’ the sailor said sagely and turned away.

  On deck, several of the men fetched sketchbooks and settled to draw their observations as they kept watch over the exploratory party. The stunning scenery proved difficult to capture on paper and soon became reduced to a solemn series of measurements, scientific theories and superstition. Going ashore was dangerous and it was considered a grave duty – part
honour, part forfeit. At any second, the landscape or weather could change. Those left behind felt some kind of guilt, it seemed. What was the point of guilt, she wondered. What was the point of it?

  ‘Last year we near lost Harry,’ one commented.

  Harry, a thick-set northerner, took a penny whistle out of his pocket and blew on it. ‘Well, I am alive, aren’t I? But I wouldn’t go ashore again. That ice shelf could crack easy. Any time.’

  ‘Did you see your end?’

  ‘Near as. I was lucky, I got a hold,’ the man said and not wanting to talk about it, he settled to play an air. Karina tried to stop herself wondering what Thebo had seen at the end. Did he regret setting her aside? Had he thought of her at all? Really, this wasn’t helpful, she scolded herself and instead, she settled on a barrel to watch the shore party.

  From this vantage point, watching the men move among the birds made for entertainment. Pearce stood with an eyeglass, holding the brass just shy of his skin lest the cold burned him. He barked a laugh now and then at the comic goings on as Hooker and his men disembarked. When they got close to the colony the birds pecked the party fiercely. The penguins might look as if God made them for the sole purpose of amusement, but their beaks were deadly.

  Next to her, one man took in a sharp breath as the first bird made an attack. ‘I got caught by one last year,’ he said. ‘That’ll nip.’

  All afternoon the sailors observed the birds’ splashing, squabbling family lives while Hooker and his party carefully measured and inspected the flock and its rookery. Karina lingered, astonished to hear Hepworth giggle as the Adélie penguins jostled at the water’s edge. The men wagered their rations on which bird would be sent tumbling into the jaws of a predator by his cruel fellows, for they tried to trick each other into diving into the water to see if there was a predator waiting. Gales of laughter echoed from below, a cheer going up when one of the birds tipped into the jaws of a seal.

  ‘It gives you something to look at,’ one man declared.

  Two of the sailors whittled the distinctive squat shape of the birds out of old bone. Below deck, Bevan’s friend, Archie, had composed a song that became an on-board favourite called ‘Old Fellows on the Ice’. It seemed, Karina thought, quite jolly.

  Then the killing started. The penguins had no idea of the men’s intentions and neither had she. She put her hand to her mouth to stop herself crying out. She wasn’t squeamish. She had been brought up on an island among fishermen. Then she lived on Deception where there was no indignity spared God’s creatures. She had throttled razor-billed gulls with her bare hands, when she was hungriest, those last months. But the penguins, in the main, were trusting little things. It was a shame. Still, she could not take her eyes off the slaughter as the ice was peppered with red and the pile of bodies grew. Beside her two men gambled on whalebone dice. She wondered how they could ignore what was happening.

  When it was over, and Hooker had what he wanted, the shore party came aboard, proud to have been this year’s first on the virgin ice. Hooker directed the men as the cargo came up. Pearce helped him, seeing the ropes recoiled and stowed and the rowing boats secured in place. The doctor took a shot of spirits from a silver hip flask in a leather case and surveyed the carcasses to make sure they were not damaged.

  ‘Here,’ he called Karina.

  She hung back. She did not want to touch the dead birds at her feet. They were too large – somehow too solid. From far off they had looked tiny. Hooker thrust his leather bag into her arms. ‘Put it beside my desk,’ he ordered, and she fled.

  In the galley a few of Bevan’s cronies gathered to gossip. Karina set herself to preparing fish soup. Her hands shook as she cut the flesh. The men ignored her. Clearly nobody aboard was shocked by what had happened. Perhaps they had seen it all before.

  ‘I wonder could you skate on it?’ Bevan asked, as if the Antarctic was only a vast, village pond frozen over at Christmas. He had never been off the ship here to try for himself.

  Archie shrugged. In pantomime fashion, he held his nose, all the cockier for being the one who had had the experience.

  ‘It looks pristine but the birds stink, Si. I was brought up on a pig farm and I never smelled the like. You don’t expect it here. The whole place gives me the shakes, and not only for the cold. ’Tis an eerie old outpost,’ he pronounced. ‘Once you’re off the water. Out there. It’s like you’re being chosen for death. God knows what spirit’s hanging over the old place.’

  It was not the first time that Karina had heard talk of a ghostly spirit on the ice. Rumours circulated and some of the crew declared they did not want to go ashore. There was a whisper that the men who had had the ice underfoot had been somehow touched and were now part-wraith.

  ‘I can hardly sleep when we’re this close,’ Archie admitted.

  Karina listened silently. She had never believed in ghosts. Marijke hadn’t either. On Ven, the children had told stories on the dark nights but Marijke had just laughed. ‘There is nothing but you can touch it,’ she swore. And, as in all things, Karina had formed her view likewise. What point was there in scaring yourself? Once or twice, after Mother died, Karina wondered if she might not see her again, but Mor never appeared. She didn’t like to think of it. She turned towards the cooking pot. Archie was right about the birds. Her sense of smell was not so impaired that she hadn’t caught a whiff of them. Poor things.

  That evening, when Karina delivered the doctor’s tray, Hooker was bluff. He had enjoyed himself. ‘I’ll preserve one of these successfully. I’m sure of it,’ he said as he rolled down his sleeves and turned towards his food.

  ‘You tried before?’ she asked.

  ‘The carcasses rotted. They seemed to rot no matter what I did. I bought more alcohol for pickling them this time,’ he said cheerfully, as he picked up a soft chunk of bread and bit into it.

  Her eyes must have betrayed her or perhaps her skin had paled.

  ‘Are you all right, boy? Not squeamish are you?’

  Karina ignored the question. ‘They say there is a ghost. Some kind of Valkyrie. On the ice.’

  Hooker snorted. He had no more truck with superstition than she did. He was a man of science and a stolid Scot. But at least it might divert him from uncovering her weakness. ‘Nature scares people,’ he commented. ‘It is the majesty of it. They want to put a word to their fear.’

  He scarcely stopped working as he ate, throwing her a few details here and there, as if he was feeding a puppy from his plate. Carefully he notated the details he had taken of the landscape and the birds’ behaviour. ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘The females seem independent.’

  Karina ventured a question. ‘How do you tell a female penguin from a male one?’

  Hooker laughed. ‘It is tricky,’ he said. ‘They are almost identical, but the males are larger, more or less. Body and beak. Even I can’t always be sure.’ He seemed satisfied that she was taking an interest. ‘They must be very ancient, don’t you think?’ he said. Karina only murmured.

  After he had finished eating, the doctor let her carry his things up on deck where he unfurled his surgeon’s kit on a barrel. The sky was still light – the darkness retreated more each day and soon there would be no night at all. The ice mountains in the distance cut the air like a knife. ‘I have to get to it before they freeze solid,’ he said.

  She made herself watch while he skinned the carcasses. He was strong for a gentleman, she thought, and competent. He seemed to be enjoying himself though the unravelling of the birds’ anatomy was ghoulish. This was a particular kind of butchery. Karina had never killed anything that wasn’t for food. She felt like escaping into the warmth of the galley but the spectacle of gristle, bone and bill kept her rooted to the spot.

  Two sailors scrubbed the deck around the doctor with seawater, their hands raw and pink. One flung a brush in Karina’s direction. ‘Too hoity-toity, are you?’

  She fell on her knees, one eye still on the doctor’s work, and helped them.

/>   Afterwards, Hooker collected the constituent parts. He ordered the pelts to be dried on wooden airing frames positioned around the stoves in the men’s quarters. This proved a point of contention, for to have a place so close to the fire taken up by a dead creature was never going to be popular. The officers ignored the men’s complaints and prioritized the penguins. One or two of them, the captain included, came to survey Hooker’s work.

  ‘It’s for the greater good,’ Ross insisted, and hushed below decks, out of the officers’ hearing, the men aped him.

  Last of all, flecked in blood, Hooker washed in tepid seawater warmed in the galley. It was well beyond midnight. She wondered if he regretted the killings.

  ‘Another day you must tell me about those dogs,’ he said with a yawn.

  FIVE

  For the most part, cold or not, Karina found herself content aboard the Terror as the ships made their way down the coast. The slaughter of the penguins over, business proceeded as before. The midshipmen were constantly on deck overseeing the taking of soundings and the recording of measurements. The first week the weather was fine. ‘Clear as a bell,’ Bevan proclaimed. When they could, they fished for food – drawing aboard their prey of lumbering seals, as well as smaller sea creatures. Prompted by hunger, it wasn’t long before the crew attempted to kill a whale, but it was a particular skill. No man on the Terror had Thebo’s deadly aim or, Karina thought, his determination.

  Ten days in, in the absence of other game, they anchored once more and resorted to another penguin cull, though this time to better purpose. Si stood over the carcasses in the galley, his filleting knife dripping in blood and his woollen jacket flecked with gore.

  ‘Last year we did this,’ he said, his tone making it clear that he held out little hope that the meat would be palatable. ‘Maybe you can make it better.’

  Karina tried. She melted blubber and then fried over such meat as there was, which seemed mostly comprised of fat and gristle. It was bound to be tough, she thought, adding a small beer and averting her face. After half an hour she dipped in a spoon. The concoction tasted meaty and fishy at once and the smell of the Old Fellows on the Ice as they bubbled in the pan was pungent to say the least.