by Jeremy Page
‘See, gentlemen, the wind comes from England today,’ he said, proudly.
I waited until he had left, standing among the remnants of the nesting site. A feather by my feet, a pattern of their guano and the meals they might have eaten there. An almost painful absence. I was aware of the presence of Mr French, standing a few feet away. Upright and motionless, silent too, looking out at the sea.
I challenged him. ‘What have we done here, Mr French?’
He looked back at me, grey-eyed. ‘I had no idea the captain would do this.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you did nothing to argue against him.’
He had his argument planned. ‘There was no point.’
That rigid inflexibility. I became emotional. ‘This is the point! These bare rocks are the point, Mr French.’
‘I could do nothing, and neither could you,’ he said, simply stating the fact.
I stepped away from him in disgust. Mr French, full of such unyielding posture, embodied everything I most detested. Man and his murderousness, and, hand in hand with his murderousness, his ultimate lack of conscience.
The inlet where the birds had been drowned had become quiet, the water was clear and pure. Seaweed and anemones shone in bright colours of blood and rust below the surface. There was no trace of the murder that had been done there. The water had closed and returned to all it was before.
I collected as much as I could. Scraps of feather, remnants of fish and shell that might one day tell the diet and habits of these birds. It was a desultory experience.
‘I have enough,’ I told French.
‘Your cap,’ he replied, pointing to the rock at the edge of the sea. It must have fallen when the men had brought me back to face Sykes.
I went to retrieve it, thinking of the moment I had scared the birds into the water. How euphoric I had felt. How senseless it had turned out to be. As I bent down to pick up my cap, something moved in a crevice a few feet beyond. Almost instantaneously I saw the unmistakable head and beak of a single great auk, turned awkwardly at me, eyeing my movement with deep suspicion. Partly hidden, stuck at the tapering point of a crack through the rock, but a sight that was as miraculous as any that I have seen in my life. A great auk, watching, parting its beak, alive, beyond the certifiable fact of the extinction I had just witnessed. I stared at it, incredulous at this species’ ability to flout the murder that has relentlessly flowed towards it.
Very quickly I had to make a decision. French was behind me, anxious to leave, and I had no reason to stay. I went to him brushing off my cap, and together we lined up to climb around the large boulder that led to the dock.
It was only on the other side, with the view of the tethered boat forty feet away, that I turned to French and held his arm.
‘Mr French. There is an eighth.’
I watched him closely while he understood the implications.
‘Show me,’ he said.
I led him back to the rock where, as before, the great auk looked up at us from its position deep in the crevice.
‘Is it injured?’ he asked.
‘Possibly.’
He stretched down and, with surprising gentleness, stroked it on the back of its neck. He looked up at me with a questioning expression.
‘I don’t understand. Why would you lead me to this bird, knowing what we have done here?’ he asked.
I smiled, still jubilant with the discovery, but with growing doubt, also. ‘I’m not sure, Mr French. But I do know this bird is not safe here. Sykes is right in one thing—other profiteers will come to this rock and kill them, I am certain of it.’
He nodded. It was an unavoidable truth.
We continued to look at it, knowing it was the last great auk in the world.
French sat down on the rock and held his ankles.
‘What do we do now, Mr Saxby?’
I had already decided. ‘We shall take this bird and conceal it on board. It will be butchered if we leave it here. And when we perceive the chance, I suggest we release it onto the most isolated rock, reef or skerry the Arctic can offer us. This bird, Mr French, will die a free bird.’
He seemed acquiescent.
‘Mr French, you will have to help me with this.’
‘Yes. I will,’ he replied. ‘I will help you.’
13
THE BIRDS ARE DEAD. I told her that. I felt the rage that had overwhelmed me on Eldey beginning to re-form. The captain is a mercenary, a simple and ignorant man. Despicable was the word I called him. A man of greed and no conscience. I told Clara these things as, in a rush, I conveyed all that had happened. How the mists had covered the cliffs, about the sight of the dolphins as they hunted, and how the day had started as one full of wonder and natural awe. I told her of the gannets spearing the water around the boat, like pieces of falling masonry, and how the same birds—by the countless thousand—had appeared brutal and ungainly on land. I described the miraculous vision of the auks in the mist. And the sense of miracle, how it had continued as we had approached them.
To all this she listened calmly, sitting on the edge of her bunk, her cabin the only true sanctuary the ship had to offer me. She moved just once, to stand and close the door with a soft click.
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘We murdered the birds. The men were ordered to drown them in an inlet of the sea, and I watched them perform it. The captain has made these birds extinct.’
‘But why?’
‘For profit.’
‘Profit?’
‘Sykes will be able to sell his skins to museums and collectors for any price he fancies.’ I looked out of the porthole, at the gunpowder-grey expanse of the ocean, which had an aspect of total lifelessness. An Arctic Ocean where every creature that lived there, whether as solitary as the whale or the bear, or in the colonies that clung to its barren coasts and isolated rocks, all the seals, geese, birds, walrus and deer, each one of them fit for murder, their bodies turned into barrels of oil and sacks of feather, their bones fashioned into corsetry, their tusks carved into ornaments and false teeth. Slaughter was everywhere.
‘I had no power to stop them,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know what to expect on this voyage, but it wasn’t to find that man’s most obvious mark on the world is of his violence. Life has no value here. Only the dead have value.’
I pictured the eighth bird, the one that Mr French and I had brought back to the ship, concealed in a slack cask. Saved, but now imprisoned. My joy in finding it had quickly been sobered—the species would still become extinct.
I knew I would need her help. I told her how by chance, on fetching my cap, I had discovered the last one of the great auks, that it was alive and, with French’s assistance, I had secretly brought it back to the ship.
‘Where is it hidden?’
‘Below deck, at the bow …’
Clara raised a finger to her lips, urging me to keep my voice down. ‘Edward,’ she whispered: ‘he likes to listen through the wall, I am sure of it.’
I nodded, cautiously. ‘There is a small locker containing the anchor chain and miscellaneous stores. French described it as a type of lazarette. It really is a particularly grim and dark place, but perfect as a place of concealment.’
‘But do you trust that man?’
I felt at a disadvantage. ‘I think … Clara, I had very little choice in the matter.’ She looked unsure. ‘If the bird had stayed on the rock,’ I said, urged to explain, ‘it would have been killed by any other trader, collector or profiteer that sought it out, probably in a matter of weeks when the weather improved. I asked French because I couldn’t save it by myself.’
To all intents a practical answer, not a preferable one. I remembered how gently French had touched the great auk, stroking its back as it had sheltered in the crevice, and how, when I had asked him plainly for his help, he had replied with a simplicity that was to the point and without edge. If I had doubted his motivations, or suspected him of d
uplicity, then his actions alone had reassured me. It takes a good deal to go against the law of a ship. I wanted to tell Clara how carefully French had concealed the bird in the slack cask, binding its beak to avoid its making a sound on the row back. How he had personally escorted the luggage, distracting the men and officers enough, and with calm authority, so that he could bring the bird below decks. ‘I have placed it in the anchor locker,’ he had told me, when we had met, soon after. ‘It is a quiet store and the bird will not be disturbed as there is virtually no need for anyone to maintain that space.’ He had been quietly satisfied with his achievement, even clicking his heels as if to indicate a job well done. ‘At some time in the future we might be able to find a better location,’ he added. I had watched him, grateful as he walked off, his hands held behind his back, a finger twitching in his grasp.
‘Clara, Mr French has taken a huge risk in secreting the bird on board. For that alone I think we can trust him.’
She was apologetic. ‘Please forgive me. I am not quick to trust men. That is something you may not appreciate yet about me.’ She scrutinised me with an amused look. ‘So this bird, it’s there now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right under Sykes’ nose. Well, you really are quite a devious man!’
‘Well, yes I suppose I am.’
‘Devious, but splendid too. Will it be safe?’
‘French seems to think so. There’s a tradition of hiding things in that locker space, apparently. We bound the bird’s wings, until it is used to its new surroundings. Our job is simple—we have to keep it fed and watered. When we find an isolated part of the coast, we can set it free.’
‘That is your plan?’
‘Absolutely.’
She considered it. ‘Yes. I like it. And I shall be a part of it. I can promise to you—you and I shall set it free.’
We sailed west-south-west towards the southern tip of Greenland, resolutely; each time I passed the twin binnacles at the helm I saw the needle quivering at this same mark. The ship moved with a swift motion, helped by a steady wind that filled the sails for hours at a time. Going before the wind, it is called, with the ship’s bow towards its destination, many sails billowing and useful, and all hands untroubled with the progress and trim. Yet for me, the atmosphere on board the Amethyst had changed.
As I stood beneath the masts, I felt the presence of the hams and meat hung above me, wrapped in muslin burial shrouds, as if the very ship was flagged in death. Bodies of seals and auks in the hold; the proximity of man’s butchery. Bletchley had never truly recovered from the hunting excursion on the ice. He still talked about the seal that he had shot being on board, haunting him with its presence. He told me it had looked at him at the point of its death and stared right through him into his soul. When he said this—while he cracked walnuts in front of the wood-burner—I tried to make light of it. I answered the seal was not a sentient animal, that nature had given its eyes a largeness that meant the seal was often mistakenly seen as having compassionate and intelligent thought. He listened, his head angled birdlike, with a quizzical expression as if to say he was having none of it. Secretly I was greatly troubled. How could I forget the seal that had likewise looked at me at the edge of the colony? How the look in its eye had literally stopped me in my tracks. Hadn’t I, too, felt my soul weighed by an animal that seemed more human than was possible?
Captain Sykes was indecently happy for the next few days. Whether it was the progress of his ship, heading towards Greenland, or the thought of his unexpected windfall in the cargo beneath his feet, he would trot across the deck with the light-footed gait of a man half his age.
‘Mr Saxby!’ he called one morning, loud enough for the entire ship to hear. ‘Join me in my cabin, if you wouldn’t mind.’
We had been on deck, and as he’d said this, he’d ushered me, without option, towards the aft companionway that led almost directly to his cabin door. I followed him, obedient, promising to myself I would not lose my temper.
Inside his cabin, Captain Sykes sat on a small padded armchair and instructed me to sit on the settee, as I had before. In front of me, on a low wooden table, Simao had already set up a coffee pot for two people, alongside a freshly baked cake. Sykes must have planned this moment. He gestured to the pot, which was covered in an embroidered cosy.
‘Shall I?’ he said, offering to pour. ‘You are the kind of fellow that takes two lumps of sugar.’ I let him do as he wished. He poured the thick black liquid into the coffee cups and added two lumps of sugar from a tray, using a surprisingly dainty pair of silver tongs.
‘Would you like another game of draughts?’ he asked, hopefully.
‘Bullet against bone?’ I replied. ‘How ironic. Do you wish to test me again, or just want to beat me?’
He regarded me sagely, stroking and flattening his moustache either side of his nose, as if already considering a move of his players.
‘I went to sea when I was twelve, Mr Saxby, working the slave route from West Africa to the Caribbean. My duties were largely below decks, spreading sawdust on vomit and blood and sweeping it up to the best of my abilities. We had the negroes on bunks, in the dark, and while we worked they would spit or they would shout in strange languages. Do you have any idea how much the negro can spew in the duration of a voyage? I will let you imagine how unpleasant it was down there. Please, take some of this parlour cake with your coffee. It is exceptional. On the return leg we brought spice and produce to Liverpool. There was nutmeg and cinnamon and pepper and fresh pineapples. We would sit on deck, eating mangoes and papaya, and had very little to do. I spent many hours drawing and that is where I began to practise my art of needlework.’
Sykes stopped for a dramatic pause, eating a slice of the cake with an elaborate savouring of it.
‘As I said, delicious. I learnt very early on,’ he continued, ‘that the sea trades life and death with equal measure. We stacked pineapples on the bunks where a few days before I had pulled dead men from their chains. Why, this very ship, Mr Saxby, was originally launched as a trader of slaves. You may not have appreciated that. I suggest, during your wanderings to the lower deck, that you examine the bulkheads, for there you will see the wood is riddled with fixings where the slave chains were attached. Quite hazardous, even now. If the negro could write, he would have scratched his initial there, too. The point being, ships have long lives that equal the journeying of any one of us. They might start sailing in warm waters, then are laid up in ordinary for many years on a Welsh beach or in an Essex creek, before some new vision is applied, they become refitted and re-conceived, new thwarts are cut in, bows strengthened, new masts erected or taken away, royals and upper topgallants added and cabin quarters refitted to accept the likes of paying passengers, such as yourself, Mr Saxby. The velvet settee and the mahogany table is for your benefit, sir, a sailor will sit on a bucket and he’ll be glad of it. Through it all, these ships have lives very similar to our own—they adapt and survive and continue their purpose, and very little stops them, short of reefs and bergs and insurmountable seas.’
‘Why are you bothering to tell me this, Captain Sykes? I am hardly in the mood to listen to you.’
‘Because I wish to clear the air between us, Mr Saxby. On the island of Eldey we had a difference of opinion. You conceded to my authority, as you had no choice, but we are both men and I wish to put you straight. You may see the death of the birds as a loss to the world, but I see it as one day in the life of the sea. There are days of profit among days of privation. That is all there is to say on the matter. You will accept that as you will accept the order of this ship, to which, for the time being, you belong.’
‘I believe you know my position very well,’ I said. ‘I have not changed my opinion at all.’
He gave me an appraising look. ‘I am prepared to offer you a share in our profits.’
I refused to answer him. He faltered. The mention of money was vulgar, and only strengthened my moral position.
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p; ‘As you wish,’ he said, with indifference. He ate some more of the cake, making small appreciative noises as he did so. ‘You will do one thing, though,’ he said. ‘While you are on board this ship you will not stand up to me in front of the men.’
‘I understand. I shall not do it.’
‘It has been brought to my attention that several of the men are not content with the events on that rock of yours. I simply cannot have dissent among the crew.’
I was surprised. Nothing that I had witnessed had suggested this to me. ‘What have you heard?’ I asked.
‘Fo’c’sle rumours, that is all. But a captain should not hear even that.’
‘Who has told you?’
‘Mr French,’ he replied, simply. ‘I rely upon my officers, Mr French in particular, to inform me of all that is going on on board ship. Are you aware of Mr French’s role?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ I said, cautious.
‘He is a fool, of course,’ Sykes said, lightly, his eyes squinting into narrow slits. ‘He failed the navy in peculiar circumstances, that is for sure, but I am duty bound to give him a home here.’
‘Why is that?’
‘He is family.’
‘Family?’
‘A distant cousin. My wife believes there is a family resemblance in the way he carries himself, but I fail to see it.’
‘I had no idea you were related.’
‘It is little known. But you appreciate my point, Mr Saxby. Mr French is my eyes and ears.’
‘An aide-de-camp.’
‘You could say that.’
‘You have nothing to fear from me,’ I said, thinking rapidly how this news had altered the situation. French and Sykes, despite their regular spats, were to be considered in a different light. I could not estimate the unknown loyalties they might have.
Sykes pointed to an instrument that was bolted to the ceiling, above his bed. ‘That,’ he explained, ‘is known as a tell-tale compass. I watch it from my pillow. You see, a captain is always at the helm, even when he’s not.’