by Cormac James
The outside floe was fifteen feet thick, a mile across, and moving north now at a rate of two knots. A hundred yards ahead of the ship, the canal was slowly narrowing, to nothing. Gently, the outside floe came in to kiss the land ice. The land ice did not cede, and the outside floe did not stop. It simply cracked and buckled and began to rise. The first marble table rose up at a sharp angle, like a drawbridge. When at last it broke, it did so with a lazy, wretched rip. Behind it, the outer floe advanced at exactly the same rate as before.
From the bow, Morgan watched it come. From the helm, Myer was shouting at him for instructions, as though there was something yet to be done. Still the ice advanced. Morgan stood facing forward, saying nothing, both hands on the gunwale to steady himself for the shock to come. The train-lamp was swinging back and forth beside his head.
Overhead was a slate sky. Wreaths of snow were lifting up off the ice, hovering magically. Finally the ice touched the bows, and began moulding itself to their shape, as though to get a better grip. Morgan could feel it tightening about his own heart. Underneath him, he could feel her starting to lean to landside. She was tilting hard, and he could feel himself starting to slide. She began to whimper, to groan, trying to back out of the vice. Behind him, the dogs were all howling now with a single voice.
In the end she popped out like a pinched orange pip. The gate was closed for now, but it did not matter, he had seen the smoke. The next tide would draw the floe back and reopen the canal, and they could start inching forward again. They would push through. He was no longer in any doubt.
11th September
Then it was the 11th. The 12th. The 13th. The winds wheeled about and died. The tides swung back and forth. Mechanically, the canal opened and closed, and they scraped their way along the coast. Progress was slower every day. Every new morning they had to push through a brittle skin an inch thick, that dragged at their sides like broken glass. In Morgan’s mind, it was still a race against the clock. If they arrived too late, the supply steamer might be gone home, and they would be stuck with Kitty aboard all winter, and perhaps beyond.
The hatches were always closed now, even at noon, against the cold. The bull’s-eyes too had been boarded up. But it was still far too early, Morgan told Myer, to set the stoves and ventilation pipes. After all, if by some late freak they did not get through, they would need their coal.
She lay in her bed, with a sick stomach. She felt she was being slowly smothered, she said. She meant the stench below. The walls were closing in. By the time they got to Beechey, Morgan told himself, she would be glad to go.
He went to see her. She was sick, and weak, and perhaps he thought there was benefit to be had. A chance to brag or be cruel, perhaps. Perhaps he hoped it might be a first goodbye.
I had a dream, he announced.
Well done.
I don’t have them that often, it seems to me.
You have as many as the rest of us, she said. You don’t remember them, that is all.
Well, I remembered this one. Even as I was dreaming, I was telling myself, don’t let this one go.
What was it?
I was out on the ice.
Original.
Hauling something on a sledge.
Perhaps you were posing again, for one of our good doctor’s plates?
What wit, he said. How ever did the Danes let you go?
What was it you were hauling?
Some kind of box.
Big or small? Narrow or wide?
Long and narrow.
A coffin, she said.
I don’t think so, no.
You’re not sure?
It was a dream. How would I know?
You make it sound like it happened to someone else. It sounds like a coffin, she said.
Then maybe it is.
Ah! The plot thickens, as you like to say. And what was inside?
Your guess is as good as mine.
You didn’t open it?
No.
And then?
Nothing. That’s the dream.
Nothing actually occurred? she said.
No, but I was very fearful. That I do remember. Of what might be in the box.
What do you think it might be?
It’s hard to say.
Do you think it is a body perhaps?
Perhaps, he said.
Your father?
Perhaps. Or perhaps my mother. Or perhaps my wife.
Saying this last word, Morgan made sure to keep her eye.
It was a full-sized coffin? she said, unblinked. Not a child’s?
No, I don’t think so. But I can’t rightly say. Such things are often unclear, in dreams. Perhaps deliberately so.
Might it be me?
I hadn’t thought of that, he said. Then: No.
Might it be you yourself, future, present or past? Might that be who it is, in that box?
I don’t know.
We’re not getting very far, are we? she said, now with something brighter in her voice.
If I felt one of your answers rang more true than another, I should say, he said. Or do you want me simply to give you a good answer, to keep you quiet? Is that it?
If you wanted me quiet, you wouldn’t have come in, she said.
He didn’t answer. They listened to the men’s voices through the wall. To Morgan, they were a summons he did not always know how to resist.
You say you felt fear, she said. Nothing else?
Both fear and relief, oddly enough.
She let him talk. He seemed less drilled, just now. It was a strange tangent they’d taken, but the farther they followed it the more something in him seemed loosened, undone.
It seems strange, he said, staring at and addressing the wall. It seems there has been some definite occurrence, perhaps even a death, as you say, yet I have no definite feeling about the thing. Perhaps by dreaming it I was testing myself, to see my reaction. And I honestly can’t tell you, did I pass muster or fail.
Why don’t you unhitch yourself, she said, and walk on without it?
How can I, if I don’t know what it is? Why don’t I simply open it up?
It might be many things, she said.
I must want to keep it.
Perhaps. Or perhaps you like the definite burden, which you can unload and leave, eventually, in a definite time and place.
But how can I mean to unload it? he said, now with protest in his voice. I’ve hauled it down the gangway and set it on the sledge, and hitched myself up, and presently I’ll trail the damned thing behind me out over the ice.
You seem determined to think of it with resignation, as something . . . perpetual, she said. I don’t see why. As I said, it may be you’re merely bringing it away from the ship, and will come back alone.
There are some things you can never rid yourself of, he said.
But you said you felt relief.
I did. I don’t understand it, but I did. I’m not much of a witness, I’m afraid.
Out in the corridor, familiar footsteps passed. They both paused, to let Myer get to his cabin. They waited to hear his door shut.
Is it me in the coffin? she said.
He didn’t answer. He was thinking, visibly. To hide the fact, he had started to rummage through the mess on her desk. He was admiring her woman’s implements, one by one. One of her stray hairs, she noticed, clung to the back of his coat.
I have a set of possible answers, he told her mirror. No one of which . . . He paused again for a long time. He was peering at his own face, leaning in, tweezers at his nostril, poised for the kill. Here is one answer which occurs to me, just now, he said. Whether it be true or false is hardly for me to say. My mother is in the coffin. That’s what I think.
Now you’ve surprised me, she said. The first time you’ve ever done that, I believe. Suddenly she felt herself scrambling, flailing for a sure hold. You’ve never so much as mentioned the lady before.
Enjoy it while you can, he said, with lashings of charm. You might never hear her mentioned again.
The tweezers gave a little jolt and he waited for the pain to come; it came, did its worst, then quickly moved away. Carefully, he emptied his lungs, his eyes filled with water, and he breathed again. Only then did he turn to face her. He stared her straight in the eye, unblinking. For the moment, she knew, she wasn’t meant to look anywhere else.
But do you really think that’s true? she said, determined to get him talking again, not let him fritter the moment away with his little act. Do you really think it’s her face you’ll see, if you remove the lid?
He thought again, and she refused to interrupt him.
Here’s what I think is the right answer, he said finally. He had laid the tweezers down, and sat round to face her full square. I myself am in the coffin, alive. That’s who it is I’m dragging through the world. Perhaps that’s it. She could hear, now, the first note of retreat in his voice. Or perhaps that’s merely a nice fantasy, he said, that has just this minute occurred to me.
I’m surprised you are so ready to talk about this, she said. Any other man I’d take for drunk.
Drink tends to have the opposite effect, I’m afraid. It shuts me up.
I’ve noticed. Perhaps you’re drunk in the dream, she said, offering a smile. Perhaps that’s why you insist on leaving the lid on. Perhaps you’re not curious at all. She was half joking, and half wise. She wanted somehow to be careful and carefree, all at once.
Another possibility is that the coffin is empty, he said, as though he’d not heard.
Would that be good reason not to want to open it? To be afraid?
Perhaps it is not a person. Or not only. Perhaps it is not a specific thing.
What could that be? You’ve mentioned your mother. You’ve mentioned me. Who or what remains?
Maybe you’re all in there together, he smiled. Having a ball.
Perhaps you’re in there with us, she said. Perhaps you’re in there with her, alone.
An interesting proposition, he said.
Perhaps what is inside the coffin is a moment. A moment in time.
For half an hour that afternoon there had been progress. Then the wind had died again. That gave them time to dismount and grease the capstan, to be ready for the next ebb. That was the banging that came again now.
You must have many happy moments from your boyhood, she said. Every child does.
He seemed physically to recoil at that, if only an inch. But he was suddenly quiet and still, and stayed quiet for some time. As usual, she supposed, he was making all his concessions in advance. Agreeing to whatever judgment he thought she would reach for. He seemed to take a particular pleasure, always, in imagining the worst. Confirming every slight he’d ever felt. How often she’d imagined him doing what he’d done today – coming down to talk to her. How hard that seemed to be. She saw the scene unfold. Morgan walking down the corridor to her door, everything narrowing. Savouring the indignity he was about to undergo in there – in here, as he seemed to be undergoing now. Her every misplaced word less like a wound than a surgical incision. Specific and precise. The effect not pain but relief.
It feels like two different people, he said finally. That woman, and that boy.
Your mother, you mean?
I can remember her cutting my hair, when I was very small. That wasn’t something she usually did. I can remember long days at the beach. She’s upright, walking comfortably, in her dayclothes. There’s nothing remarkable about the thing, no special warmth or affection, but nothing cold either, no distance. It just seems – seemed – a regular part of the everyday. What came afterwards?
Afterwards, it was different, he said.
How so?
He suddenly stood up to go. That’s it, he announced. I’ve said far more than I meant to say. I don’t at all know how you managed to get so much out of me, but bravo.
The session is adjourned? she said, as lightly as she could.
The session is closed.
16th September
Under a clear sky they stood to the westward. They were sailors again, riding the waves, canvas bragging overhead. Already they had forgotten. As in the old days, there was shouting across the spars. The insults were brazen, but glanced off the new armour harmlessly. They were invincible now.
I hate to piss on the fire, Morgan said, but I think we’re going to be a little late for the party.
We’re not late, we’re last, DeHaven said. Which is far, far worse.
They had lost too much time going back to Disko. The other ships had passed this way long before.
God knows where they’re going to send us, DeHaven said. Where nobody else wants to go, I suppose.
Surely a commander of Myer’s stature, Morgan said, but the joke was stale. What his friend said was true. There was no telling what part of the map the Impetus would be assigned. Arriving last, they would have to fall in with what had already been decided in their absence, by other men.
In the evening they stared over the water towards the undying sun, that they were too eager to serve. Beneath it were what looked like ink-spills on cotton wool. That was Devon Island, Myer said – the great northern pillar of their gate.
For a day and a night they galloped through thick fog with men hanging from every tree, scouring for danger. They were sailing blind, but Myer promised they had entered Lancaster Sound, the last leg to Beechey.
It was the 17th of September, first watch. They were making eight knots. Suddenly canvas was called out. By the time Morgan got up they were alongside. She was a schooner, with a queer little lug foresail, pitiful small, being bounced like a barrel by every wave. A man in an oilskin clung to the mast. As they came alongside, they saw him open his mouth, roar. Myer stood at the stern with a bull-horn and they bellowed back and forth across the wild sea. The voices, in shreds, drifted by on the wind. He was barely audible, impossible to understand, but they were all cheered by the sound of a strange voice.
Near breakfast-time land was announced to the north. Myer wrote his guesses in the
log. Cape Warrender? Cape Bullen? He could not keep away from the map, but they did not really need it. They needed only to follow the coast, until it turned north into the Wellington Channel, at Beechey Island.
PART II
20th September
Three headboards were planted in the slate of the eastern shore, to guard three mounds of shale, shovelled from the ground round about. They lay in a neat row, facing east. Each had an inscription burned into the wood. Morgan took out his little notebook and wrote them down verbatim. They were all three much the same. The name and the ship, then the date and the age. William Braine RM. HMS Erebus. Died April 3d 1846 aged 32 years. John Hartnell AB. HMS Erebus. Died January 4th 1846 aged 25 years. John Torrington departed this life January 1st AD 1846 on board of HM ship Terror aged 20 years. Choose Ye This Day Whom Ye Will Serve, said Braine’s marker, the marine. Consider Your Ways, said Hartnell’s. Torrington’s had nothing but the bare unbending facts.
Down by the shore, Austin’s men had found hundreds of food tins, filled with shale. Ballast, Morgan said. To bring them home. All about the island they’d found scraps of paper, canvas, cloth. Spent and unspent matches, heaps of cinders, heaps of nails. Austin had found a cairn, too, on the island’s highest point, and dismantled it to the last stone. They’d found nothing near it but a tiny silver key, as for a trinket-box.
Grouped together, so many clues could be made to mean something, Myer told his officers. Morgan knew better than to contradict him. His captain obviously could not think straight for hope and sympathy and ambition.
A raked patch of ground showed rows of mountain sorrel and saxifrage, all shrivelled and black, years old. It was a garden, Myer announced. And no one plants a seed but expects to tend it, or later to harvest. It was an anchor, Myer went on. Or a marker to come back to. In either case, it spoke of journey’s end.