The Novels of Beryl Bainbridge Volume 1

by Beryl Bainbridge

  I fought back nausea and concentrated on digging footholds for the other two ponies. We got one out, and thought we had the other; at the last moment it jumped short and slipped into the water, the killer whales rising all around, Oates hollering like a madman in an effort to scare them off. He and Birdie managed to haul the poor beast onto the floe. Birdie straddled its back and fought to yank it upright, but it couldn’t rise from its knees.

  I don’t think any of us were in our right minds. None of us will forget that nightmare scene – the ice chunks heaving in the black water amidst the bucking whales, Birdie grotesquely riding that dying pony, Titus swinging the pickaxe against a sky the colour of blood.

  We are now languishing in the old Discovery Hut waiting for the sea ice to freeze over. It’s hardly as comfortable as the one at Cape Evans, yet snug enough for all that. Bowers, having wrought miracles out of empty kerosene cans and firebricks, has constructed a stove connected to the old pipe. Within days, such is his nature, he decided it would soon exhaust our supply of firewood and redesigned the whole thing to run on blubber. We boil our cocoa on a primus and stew or fry on the stove. It makes for a lot of smoke, but it generates a lot of heat. Not a day passes without Bill remarking to me, or me to him, on the marvellous qualities possessed by Birdie.

  We’re all right for food. What with sugar, salt, raisins, lentils and sardines, etc., we shan’t starve. Indeed, some of our number are in danger of putting on weight and have to be chivvied into taking exercise, Teddy Evans, Meares and Gran being the worst offenders. Cut off as we are, it was difficult at first to find enough to occupy the men, for beyond a limited amount of geological work, seeing to the fabric of the hut and attending to the animals, etc., there was very little to be done in the way of serious work. I’m afraid a minority spent all too many hours writing letters and generally loafing. Since then, I’ve sent off two dog teams with further supplies for Corner Camp, instigated regular ski instruction, and organised seal-killing excursions.

  At night some play cards, the rest read by the light of blubber lamps, a fuel-saving innovation thought up by Keohane and Birdie. We have a small collection of books which we interchange, with the exception of A History of the Napoleonic Wars belonging to Oates, which he appears never to get very far with. He told Bill he’s been reading it for ten years.

  For my part, I’m continually engaged in working on plans for the Polar journey, though they don’t seem to be progressing as fast as I’d like. I’m conscious my mind is somewhat clouded at the moment. The thought of what might have happened to Bowers and Co. on the ice still haunts me. However, I’ve been thinking that when we get back to Cape Evans and settle in for the winter, it would be an excellent idea for the various scientific experts among us to give lectures on their special subjects – Simpson on coronas and auroras, Griffith-Taylor on modern physiography, Wright on ice formations, and so forth. In fact, we needn’t confine ourselves to meteorological and geographical matters. For instance, Ponting could enlarge on photography, and Atkinson and Bill on parasites. Bill is absolutely marvellous when one gets him going on bloodsucking worms and the diseases they cause in man. We might even persuade Oates to give us his views on the management of horses.

  When I told Bill of my idea, he was very enthusiastic. For the last few days he’s been bullying everyone into a frenzy of sewing, patching and darning. I hadn’t realised, until he pointed it out, how terribly negligent Englishmen can be in regard to the care of clothes. He says it’s because they naturally shrink from looking as though they’re playing the peacock. I suspect it has more to do with a reliance on women and servants.

  Most mornings Bill and I march to Castle Rock to examine the state of the sea ice. It alternately melts and freezes. Our route back to Cape Evans lies over the worst corner of Erebus, and the whole mountainside appears to be a mass of crevasses. We might get over if we climbed to 4000 feet. We have long chats on these dawn excursions, mulling over things he realises I can’t discuss in the hut. He understands me well enough to know that my continual harping on Amundsen’s chances of beating us to the Pole isn’t down to self-interest, or a longing for glory, simply a desire to reach, in an endless process of addition and subtraction, a kind of mathematical peace. One hundred dogs, none of them presumably having fallen down a crevasse, must surely equal formidable odds.

  It’s ironic that the same situation should be happening to me all over again. It’s barely three years since Shackleton sneaked off and nearly pipped me to the post. There again, I’d made no secret of my intentions. I’m not stupid enough to think of the Pole as mine, but I do detest underhandedness.

  Sometimes Bill and I talk of personal matters, mostly on his initiative: mothers, fathers, wives. We don’t go too deep. He says he misses his father. I counter by asserting I miss my mother, though I don’t; I just hope the girls are looking after her and that she’s not worrying about me.

  ‘My father’s such a steady man,’ Bill says. ‘I owe him everything.’

  ‘My mother’s been a brick,’ I say. ‘It’s not been easy for her, what with my father gone, and Archie dying.’

  It’s true my mother was broken-hearted over my brother Archie’s death, but my father’s demise came as a merciful release – more so for her than him. He’d grown less careful in his later years, and my mother underwent humiliations.

  ‘What sort of man was he?’ asks Bill.

  ‘The best,’ I answer.

  Bill says he misses Oriana. I admit to missing Kathleen. I haven’t the faintest idea what he means by the word. I know what I mean, and missing seems a poor description for the amputation I’m suffering. Love is always selfish, and in my book all the better for it. Bill holds the opposite view, but then, being the puritan he is, he’s more preoccupied with the spirit than the flesh, and I don’t often get the feeling we’re talking about the same thing.

  Bill has made provision for Oriana, should things go wrong. Her family has money too, so he has no worries on that score. I have nothing to leave Kathleen, because my first priority is my mother. She has been so wonderfully strong all these years, and I couldn’t bear to think of her destitute.

  Kathleen understands, and doesn’t give a fig. She thinks I attach too much importance to material things. My mother was anxious when I said I was going to be married; she imagined Kathleen would object to my continuing to support her. It’s a small enough amount, but it’s still been a struggle to find it. I think, in time, my mother will come to realise what a splendid girl she has for a daughter-in-law. Why, when we were married I had to beg Kathleen to buy more suitable clothes. I was very much in the public eye, and it simply didn’t do to have a wife dressed in Spanish shawls and black shrouds. I was alarmed at what she might wear at the altar, and asked my sisters to have a word with her; she sent them off with a flea in their ear. I needn’t have worried. She looked like every other bride, only more radiant. She got her own back just before I slipped the ring on her finger by whispering that she thought the best man was very good-looking and she’d rather marry him.

  Yesterday I told Bill I’d come to the conclusion there were three weak links in our party – four, if one counted Atkinson.

  ‘What on earth has Atkinson done wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘That business of him going lame at Safety Camp,’ I said.

  ‘You can’t blame a man for getting blisters,’ he said.

  It was the same when we got round to Meares and Gran. He said Gran was just a bit green round the ears and all he needed was a little support and encouragement.

  ‘And what have you got against Meares?’ he demanded. ‘Apart from his wearing pyjamas on deck?’

  ‘He’s just not up to it,’ I said. ‘He’s slack, and he made a terrible hash of purchasing the ponies.’

  ‘Titus was supposed to go with him,’ said Bill. ‘At the last moment you agreed he should stay behind and help with the refitting of the ship.’

  He was equally dogmatic when we discussed Teddy Evans.
I’d known within three days of joining the Terra Nova at Port Chalmers that I’d made an error of judgment in appointing him my second in command, although my assessment wasn’t proved until we set foot on land. Up until then he’d merely exhibited a kind of childishness, a lack of gravity, which I’d charitably put down to us all living hugger-mugger; some men need to feel the life and soul of the party. Which is why I renamed the Skuary after him. I thought it would buck him up. However, I’ve come to the belief he’s not a rock to be built upon.

  ‘Come now,’ argued Bill, ‘I grant you his continual high spirits can be a little irritating, but I wouldn’t dismiss him out of hand. He gets on well with the men, and he’s always anxious to help.’

  ‘He may want to be helpful,’ I said, ‘but he’s mentally incapable of being so. Though full of stout intentions, he simply lacks the intellectual ballast to make a significant contribution.’

  ‘In the last resort,’ countered Bill, ‘physical rather than intellectual strength could be the saving of us.’

  He had a point, albeit a disputable one. It’s my belief the mind controls the body.

  ‘He’s also goodhearted,’ said Bill. ‘He doesn’t bear grudges. Think of that business with Petty Officer Evans.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ I shouted, ‘he practically ordered me to dismiss him. He can’t stand Taff.’

  ‘Very few of us can,’ Bill said. ‘Quite apart from the incident with Teddy’s foot, no man likes to see his national flag draped over a tram terminus. And perhaps you’ve forgotten you did dismiss him, only to sign him on again.’

  ‘It wasn’t the national flag,’ I said, lamely enough. ‘It was the City of Cardiff flag.’ I hadn’t any real defence; Bill had right on his side. Taff had blotted his copybook in both Cardiff and New Zealand, and Teddy Evans had every cause for complaint. Nobody likes to have their boots pissed on, not by an inferior. And I had dismissed Taff, after he’d made a spectacle of himself falling overboard dead-drunk in Lyttleton; if Lashly hadn’t dived in and fished him out, he might have perished. But then Taff, being the strenuous man he is, boarded my train to Port Chalmers and persuaded me to give him a second chance. ‘Third,’ I’d thundered, looking up at him in the doorway of the compartment. ‘Cardiff seems to have slipped your mind.’

  ‘That it hasn’t, sir,’ he lilted. ‘Particularly the fundraising dinner at the Royal Hotel, all them white lilies nodding in their vases, and Mrs Scott more beautiful than any of them.’ After which bit of bunkum he launched into a rendering of the Welsh song which had roused so much patriotic, not to say financial, fervour in the stony breasts of the Chamber of Commerce.

  Bill is the best friend I’ve ever had. While taking on board that I wrestle with imponderables – weights and measures, diet, altitudes, latitudes, climatic changes, animal capability, the evaluation of the men under my command – he still sees fit to keep me in check, defuse my anger and jolly me out of depression.

  He’s the only one I’ve told about my plans for the Polar journey. I see no reason to involve the others until I’ve got them quite fixed in my mind. We face a march of 400 miles across the Great Ice Barrier to the foot of the Beardmore Glacier. For this initial stage I intend to divide the party into three groups; a pony party of ten, two dog teams and a four-man motor party. Then twelve of us will climb 10,000 feet up the icy defile of the Queen Alexandra mountains to the Polar plateau where, split into three man-hauling sledge teams, we shall slog it south. The final assault will be made by four men. Bill altogether approves of these arrangements. How lost I should be without him.

  A week later, I battled up Crater Hill. I was worried about the floe at Pram Point; besides, the longer I sit at the table, struggling with calculations, the more morose I become. Far better to keep on the move. The gusts were fierce and there was a heavy sea breaking over the ice foot. The spray carried right over the Point and rained on the roof of the hut. Vince’s cross, thirty feet above the water, was continually battered. I don’t ever remember such southerly winds.

  Coming back, I saw several figures advancing on the hut. They turned out to be Griffith Taylor and party, returned from their geographical expedition to the Ferrar Glacier. At my approach Griff hesitated, not sure who I was. He said later he mistook me for a nigger. So much for Birdie’s blubber contraptions.

  By all accounts, Griff’s trip has been highly worthwhile. Over supper he was forthright enough to declare they’d done more in six weeks than the Discovery scientists had accomplished in two years. He went further; he said previous findings were a disgrace. My stomach somersaulted once or twice, but I kept an interested smile on my face. Everyone had pulled their weight, Taff Evans in particular.

  Later that night Taff asked if he could have a word. ‘I hear very good reports of you,’ I said.

  ‘All in the line of duty, sir,’ he replied, and stood there, shuffling his feet.

  ‘Speak out,’ I said. ‘What is it?’ I half thought he wanted to tell me the expedition had been a failure, that Griff had acted the Simon Legree.

  ‘Well, sir,’ he said, ‘I missed my birthday. Leastways, we didn’t have the opportunity, see, to mark the occasion. Now we’re back, Clissold’s going to bake me a cake.’

  ‘A capital idea,’ I said.

  ‘Thing is,’ he continued, ‘it wouldn’t be the same without you. I’d like you to be present, sir. If you could spare the time, sir.’

  ‘Certainly,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t miss it for worlds.’

  When I told Bill, he said I was showing favouritism. If I wasn’t careful they’d all be asking me to attend their birthday celebrations. I knew there was no danger of that. Most of them would consider my presence a damper on the proceedings.

  My regard for Taff Evans puzzles Bill. The most generous of fellows, he still can’t quite understand what I see in the man, beyond the fact that we nearly died together falling down a crevasse. I imagine he thinks I’m flattered. I don’t attempt to explain; the reasons are far too personal even for Bill to know. Nor am I blind to the obvious element of self-interest in Taff’s regard for me.

  The following day there was an unfortunate incident. I was standing outside the hut observing the skiing party through binoculars; Gran was supposed to be leading, but he was well behind, floundering on the slope. He looked back, and I swear he saw me and immediately clutched his leg and fell down. Some minutes later, emerging from a circle of concerned silhouettes, he began to limp hut-wards. I knew instantly what he was up to – at the very least he’s an exhibitionist.

  That morning I’d practically had to order him out of his bunk. He said he wasn’t feeling too good. ‘Report to Dr Atkinson,’ I told him. Of course, he didn’t. His attitude was openly slack. The way he dawdled over putting on his snow-shoes, his repeated yawning, alerted me to what might follow, which is why I’d been keeping an eye on him.

  I didn’t say anything when he came in. I waited two hours, until there were a fair number in the hut, and then, against Bill’s earlier advice, denounced him as a malingerer. I knew what I was doing. He’s 21 years of age, raw as an uncooked fish, and in his present state of mind as lethal as a killer whale. If I’m going to use him on the Polar journey, and I do need him, I can’t allow him to behave as an individual. Such singular behaviour constitutes a danger. In the end it may well be every man for himself, but in the beginning it has to be every man for another. Should Gran fail to shoulder his share of the burden, none of us will survive.

  He looked humiliated, which is understandable, and I daresay he’ll hate the sight of me for some time to come, but he took it quite well, as I’d expected he would.

  Afterwards, Bowers was kind enough to tell me he approved of what I’d done. I suspect the others had been muttering behind my back.

  ‘It will stand him in good stead,’ I said, and Bowers said, ‘For a foreigner, he’s not a bad cove. There’s nothing wrong with him that a year in a good English public school wouldn’t put to rights.’ It was a pretty crass remark, b
ut I pretended to go along with it.

  Later, I overheard Oates telling Bill that Gran felt I was against him because of Amundsen. In due course Bill came to repeat what had been said, but I cut him short. ‘I’m not interested in Oates’s opinion,’ I said. ‘He makes no secret of the fact he’s contemptuous of every other race save the British. I’m damned if I’m going to justify myself on his account, or yours, for that matter.’

  This time I didn’t bother to apologise to Bill. One grows sick of being thought in the wrong …

  The cutting of Taff’s cake went off very well. I made a little speech along the lines of its being almost a decade since we met and how I valued knowing him. Clissold lit the candles, and we all sang ‘Happy Birthday’ – rather childish, really, when one thinks of our present position. As I expected, the men were relieved when I went back to my own part of the hut. I was just about to get down to my paperwork when Taff followed me.

  ‘Well, Taff,’ I said, ‘that was all very pleasant.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking, sir,’ he blurted out, ‘leastways, I gave it a lot of thought when me and Mr Griffith Taylor were on the glacier … about my drinking, that is.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s all behind us now,’ I said. ‘You’re hardly likely to be tempted here.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I disgraced you, sir, and that saddens me.’

  ‘Well,’ I replied, ‘we all make mistakes. I’d put it out of your mind.’

  He still looked downcast, so I asked if there was anything else that was troubling him.