by Cormac James
Even had the hauling gone tolerably well, it was too narrow a calculation, leaving the ship so late, he wrote. It was too far to ask, in such little time, in such a landscape, of such men. However painful a concession it may be to make, we are left with no choice but to recognize these unforgiving facts. To do so would be the bravest action yet from men who have never once shirked – With the policy of a lacemaker, he lifted his pen a fraction of an inch off the page. He raked the nib through what he’d written and began again. Following a tedious sequence of privations and hardship, in the course of which, on a thousand occasions, the company’s tenacity, their humility, and their powers of abnegation have been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, we are now obliged to concede our adversary’s supremacy. That concession made, it would be both foolish and useless to persist longer with our current plan. In my opinion the only proper course of action is now to retreat to the ship. We have given our all, and for the present must agree to trade hope for patience.
He put up his pen again. There was perhaps too much resignation in it, too much failure, and he knew well the thing was more complicated than that.
2nd August
Out there, Morgan said, there’s a certain line.
The famous line, DeHaven said. I thought we’d already reached it. I thought that’s why we stopped.
What I mean is, beyond a certain point, you can’t change your mind anymore. You lose that luxury. You can’t just turn about and come back.
Dick, I went with you to Beechey. I know as well as anyone where it goes. Banes too, and Daly. And we’re all ready to face it. Doesn’t that tell you anything?
And what about Tommy? What about Kitty? It’s not just our own lives we’re playing with now.
The rules have changed, DeHaven said. As though they had merely stepped from one court onto another, to play a different game.
Every man for himself now, is that it?
It was a pure miracle she ever got so far north, DeHaven said. You know well she’ll never again sail.
Perhaps next year, Morgan said.
Why would next year be any better? Why not worse?
Possibly, Morgan said.
So you’ll trek south as far as you can, then trek all the way back to the ship, again?
If I have to.
And how many times are you going to do that?
As many times as I have to.
You can’t, DeHaven said. You can’t keep doing that year after year, the rest of your life.
Why not? Morgan said.
It was still early morning, but already the day was glaring, severe. The dream was gone. The sun drenched everything in its brilliant, bitter logic. Under their feet, the ice was sizzling incessantly. They were standing at the edge of the floe. Against bears, Morgan had brought the gun.
A return to the ship is not necessarily a concession of defeat, I told him, Morgan wrote. It is merely deferring hope, not abandoning it. It is reserving our energies for something less heroic, and more likely to succeed. I implored him to consider the matter from that perspective. In the stores, I reminded him, not counting what we might shoot, at full rations we still had sufficient for two full years. Tinned meat. Tinned fruit. The very best preserves. Chocolate and jam. Beer and spirits and wine. You saw the way we were living before we came out, I said. How bad would it be?
A cheap enough ransom, if you ask me, for a year or two years of a man’s life, DeHaven said. A few spoonfuls of jam, a few tins of salt meat. He looked north. The horizon there was still a little troubled. Everywhere else it was clear, clean day. It’s not the food or the cold is killing me, he said. It’s this endless waiting. Whatever’s out there, why not at least walk out to meet the damned thing head-on?
Look at them, Morgan told him. Look at me. The evidence was there for all to see. The grey hair. The grey faces. The bodies thin like never before.
But it was no good argument. Trumping everything, from the tent came the wicked smell of warm chocolate. It was the old world calling. DeHaven took a good deep breath of it and held it in.
What about Tommy? Morgan said. It had always seemed DeHaven was fairly fond of the boy. This was as close to pleading with him as I could in dignity allow myself, he wrote afterwards. If ever the child fell ill, I told him, I would not know what to do.
He’s your son, DeHaven said. Your charge, not mine.
My charge? Morgan said. The pronunciation seemed difficult. His skin was tingling, tight, no longer fit. The gun was too heavy in his hands.
They stood listening to what sounded like the fussing of fat in a hot pan. It came from the edge of the floe.
All I want, DeHaven said, is to make a decent shove for it. To give myself that chance. Instead of sitting around here like a fugitive, waiting to starve or freeze to death.
You want to walk all the way home, is that it? Morgan said. Just point your nose in vaguely the right direction and keep going on sheer bloody-mindedness. Keep putting one foot in front of the other, and hop across the cracks?
Exactly.
Morgan could not see if the man was smiling. The beards now masked almost every hint of humanity, good or ill.
And the boat? Morgan said.
The boat is what’s holding us back. We take what we can carry, no more.
And when you come to open water? You’re planning to swim?
It hasn’t helped us cross much water so far. It’s been more of a brake than anything.
Morgan took a step closer to the edge, touched the barrel tip to the surface, to test it. He lifted his left leg an inch off the ground. The ice under his right foot began to cede, with a vulgar sucking sound.
The thing is physically impossible, Morgan said. The state of the ice. The state of the men. I know it and you know it. The thing simply cannot be done. You do know that, don’t you?
No I don’t.
And when there are no more floes, what will you do? When it’s young ice like this, or no ice at all. You’ll walk across the water, is it? Like Jesus himself? You and your disciples? All the way to Melville?
Yes, DeHaven said. If that’s what it takes. Yes.
Morgan was staring down at his own boots, apparently shy or unsure. Inside those boots, his feet had finally shrunk again to something approaching a normal size.
Go on, then, he said.
Close along the edge, the new ice looked like unpolished glass. Farther out it shone more brilliantly, in places seemed almost wet. The thing was too well painted. It looked like a perfect match.
Morgan lifted the gun and pointed it at DeHaven’s face, and nodded at the lake of young ice before them.
Go on, he said. Now’s your chance, once and for all, to make me shut my mouth. Back on the floe, wreaths of snow-dust like spun sugar were lifting into the air. DeHaven stood at the edge, with Morgan just behind him, and the gun in-between. He cocked the wing. The sound of it was very clear. He shifted his weight to his front foot, pushing the barrel right up against DeHaven’s teeth, and as he did so DeHaven’s hands came up to save himself. But Morgan jabbed the tip hard at the face, and sent him sprawling backwa
rd.
DeHaven stood at the edge, the tip of his fingers at his bloodied lip.
One foot in front of the other, Morgan said. That’s how you start and that’s how you go on.
DeHaven slid his foot onto the young ice. He shuffled forward, several yards. Stood there swaying slightly, like a drunk. He twisted his head to look back. But Morgan too had stepped out from the edge, and was closing in again.
Since morning the ice had been basking in the sun and in places was now glossed with a slick film. Still DeHaven inched his way forward. Every now and then he glanced over his shoulder, to check was Morgan still following, still pointing the gun. Morgan tracked him through the sights, and tried his best to keep up. Any moment he expected the man to disappear, as through a conjuror’s trap. He did not. He was there still, far out, ever farther ahead, trying to get out of range or trying to draw him on.
Morgan’s own boots sloshed along like a mop on a flooded floor. Beneath them, he felt the ice working to take his weight. In the end he slowed and stopped and stood watching the miracle. A lone man, far from the edge, walking on water. Under that distant figure, sea and sky rippled and shone, silver and blue.
In the mirror under him was a world muddled and bled. He watched the dream settle, resolve. He saw the choices made. They seemed so simple now, so obvious. He squatted down, drew out his knife. It went right to the handle, like a skewer into a hot cake. He didn’t dare draw it out again. He didn’t dare move. He was trying to think, and trying to breathe. He was waiting for the terror to drain away. The ice under him was as rotten as damp card and had no good reason to bear his weight.
He thought of how far it was back to the floe – what he took for solid ground. A fanatical voice was telling him he’d already gone too far. But other thoughts, too, were careering through his brain. Behind his eyes, the clockworks were turning as fiercely as they ever had. There was something alive in his flesh, like the first thrill of sickness. It was a deep, abiding ambition, that only he could properly appreciate. Its magnetic pull, downwards. Its mute tenacity. It had stayed with him when so much else had abandoned or faltered. It had not taken root. It was not new. It was the rage to fail.
In the end he gave a good long roar for help. He stood listening to the better silence. The day was fading at last. Any second he expected to see a pinpoint of light floating in the distance, in the direction of the boat. It hardly mattered. At that distance he could not summon it. He had no whistle, no bell, and feared a shot would send him through. He roared again as loud as he could. The fool stood waiting for an echo. The other man was ready to renounce.
DeHaven was far ahead of him now, at the very limit of his range. But Morgan himself could not take another step. It was as though he were physically carrying the boy on his back. He stood there sickened with longing and love. He understood it now. The thing was not a gift but a burden. It had weight.
Under him, the sea entire started to creak, then to crack. It did so carefully, crazily, with a long luxurious rip. It sounded like the leisurely fall of a tall tree. It felt like the entire solid world beginning to cede.
2nd August
DeHaven heated the seal blood over the lamp, then poured it out. Don’t think about it, he said. Just get it inside you. It’ll do the rest itself.
Morgan looked at his cup as though at something he’d hidden and hoped never to see again.
Drink it while it’s warm, you fool, DeHaven said. That’s half the good of it.
It tasted not unlike raw eggs.
The Eskimos drink it don’t they? DeHaven said.
I’m not an Eskimo, Morgan said. He could barely whisper. He sounded aged, hoarse. At just that moment, he wrote later, I was as weak as I had ever been in the presence of those in my command. I considered them in their bags. Many refused to catch my eye.
How was I to know I’d go all the way through? he said.
The laws of physics, DeHaven said. You’ve heard of them, haven’t you? Or maybe you thought they didn’t apply to you personally?
When he woke the next day, it was with the body of an older, weaker man. He felt sick to his stomach, and cold to the core, with knowing pains in every muscle and joint. A caricature by some unknown hand was pinned to the pole by his head. It was his portrait, in Franklin’s pose, with Franklin’s uniform and hat. The thing was very well done. They said nothing, of course, until he reached to take it down. Then they roared like madmen.
After breakfast DeHaven ordered him to sit up as best he could. He held Morgan’s bare wrist between his fingers and studied his watch. He pressed the flared end of his tube to Morgan’s bare back. The wood was cold.
Breathe in, he ordered. Now hold it. Now breathe out.
Inch by inch, breath by breath, he shuffled around Morgan’s back, searching for something, that Morgan was convinced he would find. He looked into his ears, his eyes, down his throat. To Morgan it felt as though he was looking much farther. Finally, DeHaven told him to put on his shirt. How long do you give me? Morgan asked.
The flap had been rolled back. Outside, towards the horizon, the sea entire was filled with blood. In Morgan’s portfolio, mocking, was a letter of recommendation from Her Majesty to the Chinese.
For three days he lay quaking under the covers, letting his mind drift where it would. Hour by hour, breath by breath, something essential was draining away. He could not even sit up, they had to slide the pan under him, and feed him spoon by stupid spoon.
Good boy, DeHaven jeered. Very good.
5th August
The years had passed. They had all grown older, each in his own way. The life and the weather had done its work. The faces looked like parchment now. In the end Morgan asked them directly, one by one, who wanted to push on.
Banes, he said. I suppose you’ll be leading the charge.
Banes would not look at him. Morgan still looked quite weak and quite ill. It was another reason not to stay. He was the worst of their prospects, in the flesh.
Leask, Morgan said.
Sorry sir.
Mr Daly.
Yes sir.
Yes what? Yes you want to push on, or yes you want to return to the ship?
I want to push on sir. But we’ll come back for you and Miss Rink and Tommy, sir. Be sure of it. Just as soon as we possibly can.
Thank you Daly, Morgan said.
John Daly, he wrote. Without a shadow of a doubt the hardiest individual I have ever known bar none, and the most faithful. I do not mean to embarrass him by this accolade, which is free of all exaggeration. He is a model for diligence, devotion, and toughness. He is more man than any of us, and he too wants to go on.
They had a quiet dinner. Morgan did his best to get them to talk, to show he held no grudge.
What will you do afterwards? he asked. When you get back. Do you think you’ll sign up again?
I don’t think so, no sir, Daly said. I think I’ve done my stint.
Where will you live? Back home?
Very likely, yes sir.
The Mammy’s cooking, Morgan said. It’s been the downfall of many a great man.
Afterwards, he walked ou
t alone for a smoke. Even when he was done he lingered, half-heartedly tidying the empty tins, checking the straps, the halters. For the moment, he refused to go back inside. There was nothing in there for him now but looks of condolence. Eventually DeHaven followed him out.
It’s hard to stomach, I suppose, for some of them, Morgan said. But I understand.
What’s there to understand? DeHaven said. They want to survive, that’s all. They want to go home.
What Morgan meant was, he understood why they had been obliged to wait. The thing no longer looked quite so much like an abandon. They needed it to look like bravery. They needed a good fund of hardship – a long, harrowing tale – to buffer and blur the capitulation. Morgan himself, of course, minded a contrary logic, had always loved the choice everyone else refused to understand.
They stood at the edge. The lake had all been painted over again. A few days before falling in, he’d seen a vast, sly shadow, deep down.
They say the whale’s closest relative is the hippopotamus, Morgan said. Naturally, when you hear that first, you dismiss it out of hand. But you get used to the idea, after a while. And you end by saying to yourself, why not?
If I wanted the joys of family life, DeHaven said, I would have stayed at home. That’s what I tell the men.
By now the sky blushed orange, pink, pearl. The cracks spidered their way towards the horizon, north and south. DeHaven was headed back to the boat. Morgan watched the man leap. The huge pans were shifting under him as he made his way.
To this point, he wrote, I always considered the decision to go back a concession, nothing else. The rest was mere fuss and pantomime – salvage, I thought. I thought that by persisting, day after day, I could put myself beyond their reach. I was wrong. The bond is stronger – the call louder – the farther I go and the longer I stay away.