The Birthday Boys

by Beryl Bainbridge

  I slept badly. There’s a gas-lamp directly outside the window and it casts a glow, never quite still, on a patch of wallpaper above the wardrobe. In my fanciful state it seemed the wall was shifting. Some time in the small hours the clock on the landing stopped and the silence swelled up louder than the ticking. I thought of how in the morning Hugh Price would start it going once more, and how when my heart ceased to beat it would be for ever, there not being a key invented that could wind me up again. Then I dwelt on all the bad things I’d done – the untruths told, the tomcatting around, the squandering of money, the filching of those two cigars with their two little labels tossed over the side – and there was the usual melancholy pleasure to the exercise. Such moral reflections are customary before a long voyage; I expect it’s nature’s way of preparing one for the efforts to come. A man can’t give of his best if he’s beset with worries of things left undone, words gone unspoken.

  Lying there, I tried to go along with the notion that I was a weak and miserable sinner, and yet I had only to stretch out my arm, fist clenched huge against the lamplight, to know how strong I was, how endurable. For one dangerous moment I played with the idea of waking my wife and making a confession of sorts, just so I could go off purged, shiny as a new pin. I think the last bit of nonsense was occasioned by the tune of ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ suddenly popping into my head. It’s the Owner’s favourite hymn, and he used to whistle it, or leastways make the attempt, when we were trying to light the primus on the glacier. His lips were so cracked with the cold he could only manage one note in ten and he sounded like a cuckoo in spring.

  Thinking about it made me snort with laughter, loud enough for my wife to stir in her sleep. Earlier, she’d let me love her, albeit grudgingly. She complained my breath stank. It never ceases to puzzle me, that, while men and women’s bodies fit jigsaw-tight in an altogether miraculous way their minds remain wretchedly unaligned.

  I must have dozed off in the end, for the next day my wife said she’d had to clamp her hand over my mouth because I was bellowing out some name and she was feared I’d wake the baby.

  ‘What name?’ I asked, risking putting the fat on the fire. There’s a woman I bumped across in San Francisco who stays in the mind, half-Indian, half-white.

  ‘It sounded like Jesus,’ my wife said, and added, ‘Knowing you, it might have been Jeannie.’

  I saw her and my mother off on the midday train back to Swansea. I’d told them I was expected back on board at dinner-time, though strictly speaking I wasn’t required to show myself until sundown. I wanted the farewells over and done with, which was why I wasn’t very chatty at the station. I tried to be lovey-dovey; indeed I felt loving, yet they sensed I was holding myself separate. It’s hard to explain, but when a man’s within sight of sailing it’s as though he’s already gone, and the distance between him and those he’s leaving behind widens by the moment.

  My mother took hold of the baby and shooed me and Lois further down the platform, so we could be on our own for the last few minutes. It wasn’t a great success. My photograph’s been in all the newspapers and people kept coming up and wanting to pat me on the back. There was a man there with a dog no bigger than a mangy rabbit, and when it sniffed round my trousers and I cuffed it with my boot he said, ‘I expect you need all the practice you can get before you start marching with those huskies.’

  I couldn’t help laughing. A sledge-dog is part wolf, see, and will bite you to the bone as soon as look at you, and his poor brute had about as much life in it as the fur tippet my Mam drapes round her neck when she goes to chapel. My wife stalked off; I expect she thought I was laughing because I was cheerful. Then the train puffed in. My mother sat like a stone in the carriage, staring at me through the glass, the baby’s head, bald as an egg, bright against the dark nest of her shoulder. Just as the train began to move Lois bunched her fingers to her lips to blow me a kiss. Then I did feel choked. Tears pricked my eyes; my mother looked so old and my wife so young.

  The leakages in the Terra Nova were serious. By the Monday we were manning the pumps four hours out of twelve. One of the stokers, a Belgian who went under the nickname of Van Winkle, moaned that in her present condition she wasn’t fit to sail, that she’d never make Madeira, never mind Capetown, and we ought to delay passage until things could be put shipshape. He was partially in the right of it, of course, even if he is a foreigner. Given favourable winds we won’t fare too badly, but if we have to get up steam it will mean even longer at the pumps.

  Lashly and me did our best to put the Belgian right, spelling out the urgency of establishing a base before the Antarctic winter set in – being ignorant of the South he continued to belly-ache, so much so I offered to pitch him overboard. At that, dear old Tom Crean, warm-hearted as always, took me aside and told me the man had domestic problems to contend with. ‘Who hasn’t, boyo?’ I said, but I took his point.

  I felt uneasy in myself. Monday night, the ship’s company, wives included, were to muster as guests of the Cardiff Chamber of Commerce, the officers at a seven-and-six-penny dinner at the Royal and the rest of us at a half-a-crown-do further down the road at Barry’s Hotel. I had mentioned it to Lois, who’d argued she’d best get back home to look after our eldest child. It bothered me, what with our parting under a misunderstanding, that I hadn’t insisted. My Mam could have looked after the kiddies.

  I had the opportunity to ask Lt. Bowers if he was going to be accompanied, and he said he didn’t suppose so. We were still taking aboard equipment and stores and he was in his element, knee-deep amid crates of Stone’s Ginger Wine, his cap tipped to the back of his head, writing little entries in his notebook. Mr Cherry-Garrard was assisting him. The latter’s a nice enough young fellow, very anxious to please and make himself liked, and halfway to it seeing he doesn’t mind putting his hand to the muckiest jobs. He has a way of looking at you as if expecting to be struck by a fist, and might welcome it, if only to prove he won’t stagger.

  ‘I’ve already been home to say goodbye to my people,’ Lt. Bowers said. ‘My mother’s none too keen on my going as it is, so I see no call to drag her all this way just so she can weep on the quayside.’

  ‘My sentiments exactly, sir,’ I said. ‘It does no good to prolong the misery.’

  He proceeded to tell me how his sisters had knitted him a woolly jumper, and what a perfectly grand time he’d had jumping into the sea off a promontory in his back garden. He said he loved swimming and didn’t I find it the best sport in the world? ‘Captain Oates,’ he said, ‘lucky devil, is thinking of putting in a pool on his estate down in Essex … when he returns, that is. Don’t you think that a capital idea?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said, with as much enthusiasm as I could feign, for to tell the truth I’d consider myself a lucky devil if I could scrub the dirt off in something larger than a tin bath in front of the fire, never mind own a stretch of water in which to play at fishes.

  I waylaid the Owner first chance I got. ‘It’s like this, sir,’ I said, coming straight out with it. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but I’m worried as to arrangements for the wages.’

  ‘The men’s pay will come through the ordinary channels,’ he said. He sounded irritated. ‘I thought I made that clear.’

  So he had, but then, he’d also made it clear he was relying on public donations and by all accounts they weren’t as forthcoming as expected. I hated pestering him. He has very blue eyes, full of candour, and though they looked tired there was still an expression of concern in them, otherwise I wouldn’t have pushed him. ‘It’s not me that’s troubled, sir,’ I said. ‘It’s the wife.’

  ‘Then she’s no cause to be,’ he snapped, more vexed than ever.

  ‘Right you are, sir,’ I said. ‘Thank you, sir’, and walked off. I knew he’d come after me.

  ‘Look here,’ he called out. ‘Would it help if I wrote to Mrs Evans? Would it alleviate matters?’

  ‘That it would, sir,’ I replied. ‘I’d be much obliged.’


  The Owner’s shot through with gold; I trust him absolutely. There are some who might suppose the scrawling of a letter to be of little moment in the circumstances. I know differently. He has a thousand and one things to see to, and a mind so burdened with details and mathematical equations that a lesser man would sink under the weight. I daresay he wrote to Lois within the hour.

  Thus relieved, I was able to look forward to the evening. A party of us, including the Belgian, got togged up early, boots and buttons glittering like glass, and swaggered down town to the posh area around St Mary’s Street. We were treated like royalty every pub we entered. In the Prince Albert there was a photograph, taken by Mr Ponting, of the entire ship’s company lined up against the side of the Terra Nova. Being so large I was right at the back of the picture, but in the Caernarvon Castle there was one of me on my own, kneeling on deck examining one of the tents. The ship’s cat was sitting alongside, which gave it extra appeal. Crean said he wouldn’t be surprised if it got imprinted on the top of a biscuit tin, only they’d need to blot me out. The Duke of York, jumping the gun, had a damn big banner slung across the outside, advertising it as a drinking haunt of the southern explorers. The beer was on the house.

  It’s a heady feeling, being famous, and that before we’ve even taken a step. I’m not the only one among us – those of us, that is, who are in with a chance – who speculate inwardly as to whether we’ll be on that final march to plant the flag. Among the lower ranks I reckon my only rival is Lashly, seeing Crean isn’t the sort of bloke to push himself into the limelight. Like me, Lashly’s big and has the added advantage of being one of the mechanics in charge of the motorised sledges, which means he’ll be useful right up to the last slog. They’ll want someone from the ranks, mark my words, so as to avoid the accusation of nepotism. I don’t doubt there’ll be photographs at the end too, with the dear old Union Jack flapping away in the background.

  Lashly got embroiled in an argument in the Duke of York with Van Winkle. I overheard most of it, because I had an ear cocked in case the Belgian sounded off about the leaks. It had something to do with a lack of truth in daily life and people taking a drop too much and consequently slacking at their duties. Van Winkle said, ‘The neglect is there for all to see’, and Lashly replied scornfully – or so I thought at the time – ‘It must be a burden, you being here while it’s going on’, at which I flailed out, more clumsily than in anger, biffing the Belgian on the mouth and shouting he was talking from his backside.

  I was defending Lashly as much as myself. He’s not a boozer, see, and never could be, though it’s more out of fear than conviction. As for me, I drink when I’m among those with a thirst on – how else can a man slide out of himself and shine in the general chat? For my pains, Lashly called me a bloody fool and removed himself to another table to sit with the ship’s cook.

  Later, I went off to the gents and there was Van Winkle crouched on the tiles with his arms cradled over his head. A fly was buzzing about his ears and he let it come to rest on his fingers, which is always the sign of a broken man. ‘Don’t be a soft beggar,’ I said. ‘I didn’t hurt you.’

  ‘Would that you could,’ he replied, or words to that effect.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I asked, and he moaned, ‘It’s only her who has the power to wound me.’

  It turns out he’s strapped to a wife who’s taken to the bottle after becoming enamoured of a clerk in the offices of a diamond merchant. The Belgian’s mother has written telling him the wife’s gadding out every night, leaving the kiddies to fend for themselves.

  ‘Get up,’ I said, feeling bad, and I hoisted him to his feet and helped wash the rusting blood from his mouth. ‘Jump ship,’ I advised. ‘Where we’re going the cold will snap you in two if your heart isn’t whole.’

  I was speaking hard sense. To make a miscalculation in the selection of provisions is serious enough; to pick the wrong man when there’s a lengthy voyage ahead is inviting disaster. It’s the old business of the rotten apple in the barrel. We all lean towards contamination. I had nothing against the Belgian; indeed I was sorry for him, and I daresay given an advantageous turn in the weather he would have tacked safe home. As things stood, I have no guilt about my subsequent interference, him in his present volatile state being every bit as dangerous as a spark in the vicinity of a powder-keg.

  The Barry Hotel served up a good dinner of leek soup, with lamb cutlets to follow and a fair amount of beer. They had a Boys’ Brigade band going oompahpah on the rostrum at the end of the room, and a menu with a picture of the Terra Nova embossed across the top with the words Sailed from Cardiff, June 1910 printed underneath. I thought I’d folded it away to send home to Lois, but when I turned out my pockets the next day all I could find was a cigar butt and two pudding spoons encrusted with custard.

  Those who had brought wives, or were courting, had a jollier time of it than the rest of us, spaced as we were between sundry tradesmen and their ladies. The couples got to their feet and waltzed about the floor, larking and smooching, while we unfortunates were left to indulge in conversation. I’m no fool. Having been exposed to persons of the calibre of the Owner, I know a forever gentleman when I fall over him, as compared to a temporary one, and though our hosts were kind enough and more than anxious to do us proud, most of them, beyond having money in the bank, were no better than I am.

  There was a chap seated at my right hand who was employed in some lowly capacity by the Crown Patent Fuel Company. He would keep asking me to put a figure to the value of the briquettes they’d given us. I knew to the last penny, but I played the game and made out they must have cost twice as much. This tickled him no end and he left his seat and went up and down the table recounting what I’d said, at which a little fellow in pince-nez thumped the cloth with his fist and challenged me to estimate the worth of his particular contribution of galley pans and cutlery. I was just making signals to Crean, jerking my head in the direction of the door and indicating we should make a run for it, when a red-faced individual in a dicky and a frock-coat bustled up the steps onto the rostrum, and flapped his hand for the conductor to lower his baton.

  ‘The Lord Mayor of Cardiff,’ he announced, ‘would be obliged if the crew of the Terra Nova would adjourn to the Royal Hotel and join with Captain Scott and members of the Chamber of Commerce at a smoking concert.’

  We walked in crocodile to the hotel, the chap in the dicky marching at our head like a drum-major. People in the street cheered and raised their hats as we passed by. Just as we filed alongside the doors of the Mercantile Insurance offices a pigeon dropped its mess on the shoulder of our leader. He wasn’t aware of it and mistook the roar of laughter for high spirits. Some of the men doubled off down a side street to the nearest pub, but there was no way I was going to let the Owner down. He hates all the formal palaver, and I expect it was at his suggestion that we were fetched.

  He and his wife, along with Lt. Evans and his missus, have been staying at the Mansion House as guests of the Lord Mayor. Though no doubt the Lieutenant has enjoyed himself to the hilt, I reckon the Owner has had a bellyful of social engagements.

  We arrived before the dinner was quite over, to be parked at the end of the room at a long table laid out with extra menus and pamphlets setting down the scientific aims of the Expedition. I had a chance to glance at the menu and they’d had fillets of beef Terra Nova, souffé Captain Scott and South Pole ice pudding.

  It was a splendid dining-room, glittering with silver candelabras and gilded cornices, and you’ve never seen so many flowers, some in vases and others massed in brass tubs, and all of them white – lilies, possibly – to go with the theme of the white South, and a turkey carpet, embroidered in blues and yellows, of such magnificence that it seemed a crime to walk on it. There was a continual buzz and drone of voices in one’s ears, as if bees had zoomed in on a garden heavy with blooms.

  The Owner was seated dead-centre at the head table. I could see him craning forw
ard, trying to spot us, only we were hidden, see, by a bloody big potted palm. Lt. Bowers was there, and the Mate, and Mrs Evans, two shoulders along from the Owner. I have to admit Mrs Evans is a bit of a bobby-dazzler. She was dressed in white, with a pale flower caught up in her dark hair. Mrs Scott was seated to the left of the Lord Mayor. She was sort of sprawled back in her chair looking bored, and she was wearing purple.

  There was no sign, of course, of Captain Oates. The day before he’d told Lashly wild horses wouldn’t drag him to such a do, and that he was damned if he’d sit down to dine with a bunch of Labour socialists. I’m not convinced he’s against such gatherings on political grounds, any more than from shyness, rather that he’s so much his own man, and such a prey to boredom into the bargain, that he does as he pleases.

  Ten minutes or so after we’d sat down there was a lull in the proceedings to allow the ladies to go to the powder room, during which interlude the band launched into a rendering of the Hero of the South. I suspect Mrs Scott had kicked off her shoes, because she was bent sideways searching for something under the table, and when she finally rose to her feet she was a little off balance, and the Owner took her by the elbow to steady her. She smiled at him and flicked at his face, playfully, with her napkin. You could tell by the way he squeezed her arm they were friends, not just husband and wife.

  One of the waiters wheeled a trolley at us with the remains of the South Pole pudding sliding sideways on a silver platter; Crean plucked the little flag off the top and stuck it behind his ear. ‘If it’s all the same to you,’ I told the waiter, ‘we’d prefer something stronger to cool our throats.’

  A comic singer and a lady harpist were heralded as about to give of their all. The singer came on and sang a George Robey song about a philandering husband who took a girl to the music-hall and bumped into his wife the chorus of which we all joined in with a will: