by Cormac James
17th October
He went in to pass a little time with her, before he went away. She raised herself up a little to greet him. Her head sank back into the pillow with a well-earned sigh. It was not fatigue. It was the relief of someone who has finally arrived.
Look, she said.
She pushed away the blanket, lifted her nightshirt. Whatever was inside her had grown. It looked like one of those shallow bulges in the India-rubber boat. It looked like one of those bumps in their iron plates.
You know, Morgan said, all things considered it might have been better if you’d gone back.
It’s a little too late for that now, she said.
It is.
Unless you’re asking me to come along?
I wouldn’t think that particularly prudent.
Are you concerned for my safety, or for the safety of your child?
For the moment I hardly think the distinction useful.
He remembered kneeling over her. Lying flat on her belly, eyes closed, face pressed into the bed. The careful unravelling. The shy moans. The spit too, draining from her half-open mouth. The stain growing, where her lips were pressed into the sheet.
How long do you think it will take? she said.
Myer says we could be back within three weeks, if we are prepared to do ourselves some little violence. You know Myer. Personally I think we’ll be doing very well indeed if we make it in a month.
You’re not afraid? she said.
Morgan shrugged. I can see his logic, he said. If anything happens to the ship, it’s probably best someone knows where to find us. Look at what happened to Franklin. As much as it pains me to admit it, for once he’s probably right.
He had found a way to agree. The night before, in private, he’d made a list of the facts. More often than not, he wrote, we are enveloped in impenetrable fog. The ice is quite closed as far as the eye can see, north and south, inshore and off. Even if it were not, for southern sailing the winds are consistently foul. For the foreseeable future, then, we must remain where we are, in isolation. Of our position, our consorts in the search have not the first inkling, no more than we have of theirs, unless they be still at Beechey.
You want them to know where to find you, don’t you? Morgan said.
Who?
The Three Wise Men.
She lay under the covers, flapping nonchalantly through a magazine brought from Disko. Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine. The open page: Infant’s Frock For Knitting. The instructions were an entire page of minuscule print. Another complicated dream, he thought, to keep herself occupied. She could dream as prettily as she liked. Out here they had no crochet cotton, no muslin, no cotton braid.
Sometimes I think I can feel a little flutter, she said. Probably it’s pure invention.
He considered the blanket, expecting to see something visibly alive underneath, struggling, like a rat in a bag. As though the outside world were closing in and the thing was determined to resist, to fight for its own space, regardless of the damage done. As though trying to break out, to face him squarely, unrestrained. He saw nothing, of course.
Perhaps by the time you come back there’ll be something to see, she said.
Wouldn’t it be funny, he said, if it started to shrink, day by day, until in the end everything simply reverted to normal, and you were no longer pregnant, and our lives resumed as if none of this had ever occurred?
He set his clothes on his bunk. The folds were meticulous. At the foot of the bunk, his open bag. Once again he began to weed, as an example to the other men. They needed to see themselves striding ahead, unencumbered. They needed to imagine themselves travelling light. It made the voyage easier to face. From the far bunk, MacDonald watched him fingering out some essential calculation. One less shirt, one less pair of socks. And always the nagging voice in his ear: later, out there, this will still be far too much. The answer was simple, even brutal. Courageous, if that was what he needed to believe. Shed every useless ounce. Nothing that does not pull or help to pull its own weight.
What do I need, absolutely? This time Morgan said it out loud.
A hot-air balloon, DeHaven said.
MacDonald and Brooks laughed, and Morgan paid them no mind at all.
What can you simply not do without? he asked himself. It was no longer mere curiosity, but an interrogation. Forget like. Forget comfort. What is the absolute minimum you need to remain alive?
It was their last night. Dinner was something that looked like roast beef, and something that looked like roast potatoes. The kind of meal you like to feel you’ve earned, Morgan said. They would earn it afterwards, he supposed. They were drinking champagne, from DeHaven’s private supply.
Are you really so glad to see the back of us? Morgan said.
I’ll have no one to drink it with when you’re gone, said DeHaven.
Cabot, chapeau, Morgan said sternly. He pointed his knife at the ruins. I’m starting to have second thoughts, he said, about leaving all this behind.
There were flamboyant toasts, and soft, searching jibes. There were second helpings, and third, until they were scraping the bottom of the trays, and reaching in chunks of biscuit to mop them out. It was dinner as it should be.
The drinking was not light-hearted. Very likely, Morgan thought, they would not have a chance to do this again, all together, as they were now. He watched Cabot lift the glass to his mouth, tilt it, hold it in place. He watched the throat working. The man looked like he was trying to catch up.
They were chewing their way through the cheese, mould and rind and all. The conversation lurched from side to side. The voices were being piled up now, one on top of the other. Tonight the past was buffer enough for almost everything. The wrack lay before them, a prize, an accomplishment. They were proud of their work, every sip and every bite. He almost wished some stranger could walk down the corridor and look in the open door, to admire. Then Cabot stood up and reached for a dirty plate, but Morgan put a hand on his forearm.
Not tonight, he said. For once, someone else could clean up after them.
He refilled Cabot’s glass, and refilled his own. It was a refusal to end. Later, it would be over long enough. For now the work went on, lowering the levels time and again. As though determined to leave as little as possible for those who stayed behind. It looked a cheerless task. Like men who have given everything, they would stumble to their beds.
18th October
Petersen was stripped to the waist, rubbing melted blubber into his arms and chest. On the bench beside him, Daly was winding a length of bandage about his foot. Banes and Cabot were rubbing hog’s lard onto their eyelids, their noses, their lips. Morgan watched the layers go on. Outside, waiting for them, was the primitive world. No one spoke. Each man was readying himself for something new. Morgan too was at it, clearing his head, flushing it free of all rivalry. Everything was cheapened now but the trial to come, the furnace, the tempering.
Brooks appeared in the doorway. Myer was up on deck waiting, he said. Banes stood up, stood over the bucket, and roughly hacked up what sounded like a solid chunk. It was one thing less he wanted to bring along.
Your proper adversaries are neither the climate nor the geography, Myer told them, rather such doubts as you may carry with you as to your own capacity to endure. I myself have no such doubts, he told the gathering. Beneath him, the men stood bareheaded, shivering. A wicked little wind sent snow flickering down on them from the yards, and chopped Myer’s speech to pieces. Morgan watched the mouth moving, and did his best not to hear. Relief. Reward. Duty. Those were the words that stood out.
At first they kept out from the coast, to cut a straight line to the next headland. They had the wind at their backs, and for a long time could hear the dogs howling back at the ship.
Six hours that day they walked and waded and crawled across the snow-covered ice. They flailed over year-old hummocks, slickly glazed. They marched over new snow as soft as cotton wool, and snow that looked well tough enough to bear them, but soon set them in drift to their armpits. By midday Banes’s ears had turned to tallow. Petersen took off his gloves, rubbed the ears back and forth until Banes was whimpering with the pain. They drove on, always up to their knees, often middle-deep. The traps had all been nicely laid, and nicely disguised. They had no way of knowing what would hold and what would swallow.
On the beach, the ice looked like flour, was hard as rock, lay scattered like rubble at the foot of the cliff. A few minutes of that and they felt they were walking over broken stone in their socks. Mist was now pouring down over them from the land. The mist was welcome, it meant they could not be seen through the glass, and as soon as they got in under the headland Morgan had them set up camp. It was only just four o’clock in the afternoon.
By five the men were in their bags, sitting up, around the conjuror. For their first day, he knew, this was enough. There was no gain in driving them too far too soon. These past few months, they had learned how to be lazy. It would take a few more starts to teach them again how to sweat.
Cabot doled out the food. Finest Quality Pork, the label said, but it was all bones and gristle and fat.
More money the quartermasters threw away, Banes told the whole tent.
Morgan looked up. Hand me your tin please Mr Banes, he said, reaching across the other men. He scraped the whole of Banes’s dinner on top of his own, flung the tin back onto Banes’s lap. He began to spoon the lukewarm mess into his mouth. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Banes was staring at him. Morgan swallowed extravagantly, forcing it down.
Banes, he said. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but you’re not on the ship anymore. There are different rules out here.
The second day the hauling was no easier. He would almost have welcomed a gale, its hard frost, to fix the road. There would be easier hauling, he told them, once they got out from under the lee of the land. Still he gave them no encouragement, let them stroll along at their own easy pace, close under the cliffs. He would not let any man single himself out yet, strong or weak. In the traces, for the moment, he refused to lead. With Cabot, he put himself in wheel, behind the younger men, Daly and Banes. Petersen out front, scouting the best road. This early, the effort was still something to be shared. An old man like me, he said. Thirty-six years old. Never hauled in my life. Any kind of a load. A nod in that direction now and then would let him lead and harry later on.
In any case, he was not quite as spry as he’d hoped to be, setting out. Leaving the ship, he thought he would feel physically relieved, unburdened. It was not so. Still he felt a definite weight slowing him down, driving him into the ground.
That night they made camp in one of the stone circles that punctuated the shore. The ground round about was scattered with whale bones, which Banes was sure would burn. Petersen scoffed, but Morgan wanted to let Banes try. The man was going to be a troublemaker, once the shows of strength lost their charm, and it was always useful to prove a troublemaker wrong.
Inside the tent, Morgan decided to give them their first dose of rum. It was a brand new bottle, and the cork whimpered its way free.
Slow, Petersen said, but in one reckless gesture Cabot poured the whole of his dose down his throat. Petersen himself had barely wet his lips. Banes and Daly too were sipping carefully at their cups. Only Morgan had done more, to disguise his friend’s need, and already he could feel it working its way down, exploring every opening it found. Then Cabot jerked himself upright, strangely alive. The fright made Morgan almost drop his cup. His friend was already scrambling across the floor on all fours. Through the tent wall, they listened to him retch.
As though jealous of the sympathy, Banes began to carp, that his eyes were burning. Like live coals, he said. Burning right a way into my head.
What do you want me to do about it? Morgan said. DeHaven had given him plenty of drops, but it was far too early to start using them up.
Banes did not answer. He was still sulking about the bones, which had showed no interest whatsoever in the flame. Outside it had begun to blow. Morgan looked hatefully at the flap. In another minute or two he would have to go out there, to drag Cabot back in.
He was standing on the headland, high above the little tent. The air was strangely clear. The gale had swept all interference away, and through the glass he could see the ghost of Devon Island – a headland much like his own – directly opposite. Immediately north of that, however, was void. No visible coastline, and no lines on the map. Myer’s orders were clear. They were to push up into that empty space. Just a day or two, Myer said. If it was not the outlet Myer dreamed of, they were to about turn and push south to Beechey, inspecting the coast along the way, whatever its trend.
It was now eight o’clock in the morning. Morgan stood watching a tiny spot of ink on the beach, a few miles away, in the direction of the ship. The spot had definitely swollen. It was a man. They would have to wait.
Grog and cold tinned pork in an unspoiled setting, he shouted as he came in, gesturing grandly. How could I stay away?
There was not time to quiz him. The men were already crawling out. They had heard the shouting. They all shook his hand heartily.
Aren’t you going to show me round the château? he said. He seemed not a little giddy, perhaps from the cold.
He crawled into the tent, and Morgan followed.
You need a new maid, he said, when he saw the wreckage.
Well, Morgan said, it’s just impossible to get good help these days.
The men were standing just outside, could hear everything. Morgan asked him what he would like to drink. He had made his decision instantly. He had no way of forcing him to go back, and out here he could not risk having an order refused.
What are my options? DeHaven wanted to know.
Well, just at the moment I’m afraid my cellar is a little understocked. He rooted out a bottle from one of the bags. The label says cognac but it’s lamp oil. You can have that or you can have rum.
I’ll have whatever you’re having, DeHaven said.
A wise choice, sir, if I may say so. Grog all round then. Bien corsés, as Cabot says, and to be honest I think I prefer the French notion of straight-laced to our own.
One by one the men were crawling back inside. It was too cold to stay standing out there for long. Morgan lit the conjuror himself. DeHaven stretched his hands towards the flame.