by Jeremy Page
‘You too?’ I replied.
He bent his legs slowly. ‘I can, but choose not to.’
I stepped up to the wood-burner and rubbed my hands above its hotplate. A constant dry warmth rose there, but it was hardly enough to warm the room.
‘We are passing Greenland,’ I said.
Bletchley didn’t reply. Again I saw a glaze of something dark and clouded drift across his eyes. He frowned, as if trying to understand what I had just told him.
‘I am not surprised you are unable to sleep,’ he said, quickly. ‘You are full of many secrets.’
I thought I would sit by him, thinking he was unpredictable and to do so might prevent him raising his voice. The saloon at night was an intensely quiet place, the cabin doors were of thin wood and I had no knowledge of who might be listening.
‘I am?’ I replied.
He raised a finger and pretended to admonish me, as if I was a child. ‘Oh come, come, Eliot, we should not play games.’
I smiled at him, steadily, certain that he was drunk.
‘My cousin is an attractive woman,’ he said.
‘What of it?’
‘Most attractive. I know you have a similar—how should I put it—appreciation of her.’
‘You are talking about Clara.’
‘Cla-ra. Yes. The fashion for such ringlets is beguiling, I feel they resemble a spaniel’s ears, but really, she is beautiful.’ He focused on a point in the air between us and, strangely, lifted a hand as if to move it away. There was nothing there. His fingers made a little brushing motion. ‘She is precious to me, you understand that, Eliot? I told you of our special connection, didn’t I? How we used to lie in our beds and communicate with each other?’ He placed the palm of his hand upon his throat, then, quite deliberately and slowly, he stroked it down his chest and onto his thigh, purposefully sensuous. I was appalled. ‘She is like a piece of sunshine that we have brought with us,’ he said. There is very little sunshine in the Arctic seas, have you noticed? But we have it, on board. We have the sunshine with us, among the shadows.’
I stood, determined to leave him at once. Whether he was drunk or not, his incoherence was alarming. He raised his hand again, trying to prevent me leaving. ‘Do you think,’ he whispered, with stage theatricality, ‘that you will get away with it?’
Looking down, I saw him as prone and vulnerable in his chair, almost childlike, his stockinged feet pointing in at each other. A slump to his right shoulder made him look injured. He was pathetic.
‘Yes,’ I said, finding an unexpected certainty in my voice. ‘I think I will get away with it.’
Bletchley laughed, loudly. ‘A drink then, Eliot, to the sea-witch you have brought on board. A drink to the last great auk.’ He lifted a large silver hip flask and offered it to me.
‘Please keep your voice down.’
‘A drink!’
‘I would rather not,’ I said.
‘Nonsense,’ he replied. ‘Non-sense.’ He unscrewed the cap and poured a healthy measure into a small glass he had on the table.
‘Greenland, you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are agitated, Eliot. I can tell it, in here.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘Your mind is burning from the inside. Have this, it will mollify you.’
He gave me the glass. I smelt it, but didn’t recognise the origin of the spirit. It had an unusual greenish colour.
‘I do not think so,’ I repeated.
‘Please have a drink with me. Or else I will do something.’
‘You are sounding foolish.’
‘I will shout.’
‘I have had enough of this. Go to your cabin right now and lie on your bed. You are delirious.’
Edward Bletchley took a deep breath and opened his mouth. I really feared that he was on the verge of doing just what he had threatened—that he would shout, God knows what.
I downed the measure of spirit. ‘Satisfied?’ I said. The drink was sweet and woody, similar to anisette and not at all unpleasant, but I still could not place it.
‘Another, and you will sleep like a baby,’ he said, kindly.
I drank a second measure, fuller this time, by way of taking my leave of him. ‘The drink is poisoning your mind, Edward. You will become ill and useless,’ I said.
‘But at least, not sober. At least that, my friend.’
‘Go to your room,’ I said, turning towards my own cabin.
As I lay on my bunk I heard Bletchley stumbling towards his cabin. A candlestick fell loudly on the dining table. He probably would not remember our encounter by the morning, but it still unsettled me greatly. I stared up at the ceiling, perceiving a strange thickness to the air, an underwater quality that made the knots and joints of the wood swim and reassemble and fade. I thought of the coast of Greenland, several miles across the ocean, and its dark-toothed cliffs felt like the jaws of a mantrap that was widening around the ship.
Soon, I felt a pressing weight almost pushing me into my bunk, a darkness growing, sweeping into the room as I had felt in the great auk’s locker when the wave passed outside, and I was ushered into a terribly deep sleep as if a burial cloak had been laid across me.
I woke almost immediately, sensing calamity. There is no one, I thought, to witness our sinking! There is no one to survive this! There is no hope. It was a feeling so strong, so overwhelming, that I gripped the smooth rail at the edge of the bunk. In the dim light I looked at each of my fingers, an inch or two away from my face, faithfully holding the wood; the clenched grip of a drowned man.
In the same instant I realised there was something far closer and more present to alarm me. Within my cabin, I became aware of a solid shape in the shadows near the foot of the bunk.
I was suddenly, intensely awake. There were only two sources of illumination coming into the cabin. One, a glimmer of pale grey light where the thick felt curtains didn’t quite meet the frame, and a second glow coming under the doorway, where the night-lantern left on in the saloon shone on the varnished planks. It was in this light that I could see a pair of boots in my cabin. Man’s boots.
I sat up. ‘Is someone there?’ I asked, reaching for my oil lamp and tray of matches. My fingers were shaking as I struck the first match, and in the brief initial flare of the flame I saw a startling vision: a man, hooded in sealskins and fur, looking directly at me from the foot of the bunk. Smoke curled up where the match hadn’t caught, and the vision disappeared, like a theatrical trick.
Struck more slowly, a second match caught, and I managed to light the wick of the lamp. The glow sprang across the room and illuminated the man. I saw his pupils contracting. I had never seen this man before.
‘Who are you?’ I said, afraid.
The man was large, broad-shouldered and heavily bearded. A hood of fur-lined sealskin was pulled low across his forehead. His nose looked cracked and raw and the skin on his cheeks had a frozen, worn roughness to it. A thick and unkempt moustache overhung his mouth entirely, joining a grey and black beard, but it was the eyes that impressed me most. They were startling, jet black, and piercing.
‘Who are you?’ I repeated.
The man leant forward, bracing his arms on his knees. He seemed curious.
‘Do you speak English?’ I asked.
I heard the hems in his coat cracking. His clothes were ragged. The sealskin overcoat was frayed and scratched and stained with dried blood and oil. Rough repairs and patches had been sewn into it with strong stitching of a twine cut from skin. The trousers, too, had several layers, of hides wrapped and bound or stitched into each other. I waited, appalled and confused. ‘I understand,’ I said, at length. ‘I understand that I’m dreaming this.’
The Arctic is the place for dreams, the man replied in a sombre, deep voice. I almost cried out in terror.
It was silent again. ‘Do you have a name?’ I asked.
I tried to think rationally. ‘Why are you here?’
He squinted, his eyes almost disappearing in the c
reases and shadows of his face.
‘What was your name?’ I asked.
His voice was quieter now, as if he was moving away. They called me Huntsman.
15
THAT WAS MY FIRST vision. The following morning I woke agitated from my dream, for I could not think of it as being anything other than a fantasy. It had been an outrageous and disturbing vision. A man, a stranger, had sat at the foot of my bed, watching me while I slept, and the details of him—the smell of his rough seal coat, the cracking sound it had made as he moved—felt more real than I could account for. Even at breakfast, I still felt his presence, and with it an awareness that the ship had a troubling new dimension to its empty cargo spaces and bare decks. Among the shadows that filled the hull, or against the grains of wood and coils of rope, at any time I might see him again.
Simao served me, polite and attentive as always, but I could tell he was aware of my anxious state. Bletchley, too, who emerged from his cabin with his customary loud yank of the latch, but then stood so awkwardly, staring at the fire, then at the back-rest of his chair, and finally at the companionway door, that I knew he must be remembering parts of the conversation he and I had shared the night before. Do you think you will get away with it? he had said, enigmatically. It still hung in the air as an unanswered question between us. I can tell it, in here, he had added, tapping his forehead as if he were privy to my inner thoughts. Your mind is burning from the inside. The man was in a very dangerous state, that much I knew. And it seemed the only possible conclusion that it had been his drink, with the strange but not unpleasant odour, that had conjured up the vision.
Bletchley was uninterested in having food. In fact, I had rarely seen him eat during the previous few days. Unshaven, roughly dressed, with one wing of his collar sticking upright, he stamped his boots into place over his stockings, issued a rough ‘good morning’ to clear his throat, and went up on deck. I was glad not to have to deal with him.
‘You are not well,’ Simao asked, with the tone of a statement.
‘I had a troubling night,’ I answered.
‘The sea runs many ways in this area,’ he said, weaving his fingers together as explanation. ‘The ship …’ He began to rock his hands.
‘Maybe that’s it,’ I said, happy with his normality, his constancy. Beyond him, I saw the companionway door swinging eerily on its hinges. I was again haunted by a presence of something I could not explain.
‘We are in sight of Greenland,’ Clara said to me as she stepped from her cabin arranging a bonnet on her head. It had an aigrette of grebe feathers, pinned to one side. I watched her fingers tying a small bow in the silk ribbon, fixing it under her chin. On her skin I noticed a dot of reflected shine from the apricot silk, as one does the glow of a buttercup held in the same place, and I realised that Clara’s health had continued to improve.
‘I saw it, during the night,’ I replied.
‘I will be on deck, if you would like to join me when you are finished,’ she said, kindly.
‘I will.’
I sat through my breakfast alone, listening to the sounds of crewmen winding the bilge pump, a duty they performed at eight bells each morning. Simao brought me oatmeal, tripe in egg batter, bread and preserves, but all I had was coffee, which Simao refilled three times and eventually he left the pot by my side. I tried a glass of ship’s water, but it tasted of rhubarb and rust. ‘The water is foul,’ I said.
‘We will get fresh in Greenland,’ Simao answered, apologetically. Then he removed the uneaten food without comment.
On deck I watched the coast passing several miles away to the north. It was barren, utterly treeless, and coloured with dark browns and greens as if it had risen, stained and weeded, from the ocean bed. It lay with this stranded aspect, so gullied and interrupted with islands and inlets that its true coast was impossible to perceive. Only in the distance, where the hills rose into bleak and cruel mountains covered in ice and mist, could I imagine a land that stretched without barrier almost to the top of the world.
I joined Clara as she watched the many islands and fjords that allowed glimpses into a sheltered coastline. She informed me that a man had been put on ice watch, at the bow. I could tell she was perturbed. She laughed quickly. ‘Eliot,’ she said, ‘striking an iceberg would be doing us a service. This land is such a desolate sight, I wish I had never seen it. Isn’t that how you feel, also? But still, it’s right to face things with an unflinching eye. I would rather face it than turn my back upon it.’
‘Clara, I need to tell you something. Last night, I had the vision of a ghost in my cabin.’
Her expression dropped sharply. ‘What do you mean? Did you know him?’
‘No. He was a stranger.’
‘What kind of stranger?’
‘A hunter,’ I said, sounding and feeling foolish. ‘An Arctic hunter. It was merely a dream, Clara, there is no other explanation, but it was so vivid, so unnatural. He was as real as you are, right now. He was in my cabin, dressed in animal skins, watching me as I slept. It was his presence that awoke me.’
‘But you said you were dreaming?’
‘I was. It must have been a dream.’
‘Did he speak?’
‘I think so, although it is difficult to remember. I believe he told me his name. Huntsman.’
She listened attentively.
‘It followed,’ I continued, ‘a most distressing discussion with your cousin.’ I explained how I had discovered him, in a half-conscious state, sitting in his chair by the wood-burner—so stiff and still that I had initially considered placing a mirror in front of his mouth to see if he was breathing. Then I explained the volatility of his mood and, in short, how peculiar and aggressive he had been. I stopped short of relaying what he had said about her. How he had run his hand down his body in a crude and vulgar way.
‘Edward can occasionally enter a very strange disposition,’ she explained. ‘But he tends to forget what he has said. From his attitude this morning I should think he is unlikely to remind you of your talk. Even so, we should be careful not to spend too much time together.’
‘Why?’
She laughed, quickly. ‘Because he is so jealous.’ She brushed her hand against mine. ‘He has been warning me against you. He says that you are hiding something.’
‘How ridiculous—Clara, don’t listen to him—he is ill.’
‘He has a playful mind, that is all.’
‘But he knows about the bird,’ I tried, chasing a doubt I couldn’t explain. ‘It may have been a rash decision to have told him.’
With some dismay, I saw that she agreed. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘probably it was my mistake. But last night I thought about the bird and it seemed so perilous. It is so dear and so vulnerable surrounded by all this. We will need allies—we will need Edward, I’m sure of it.’
Whether prompted by this, or by a feeling of being watched, I remember turning then and noticing Quinlan French, pacing the quarterdeck with the captain. He was a good half-foot taller than the older man, but was stooping to make this less apparent. At one point I saw him brush something from the captain’s shoulder, and they both laughed.
We saw a whale later that day. My first glimpse of it was a shot of steam which appeared impossibly from the surface of the ocean, about a mile distant. It was followed by the sound of men’s boots as they dashed to the side, full of excitement, as they leant out across the bow rail, pointing, one or two lifting their caps in mock greeting. The steam lingered, cone shaped, as if a cannon had fired from that part of the water. A couple of seconds later, as the mysterious plume dispersed, we heard a great rasp of breath across the deck, accompanied by a cheer from the men. I remember looking above me, for it had seemed that some parts of the sound of that breath echoed from the sails.
‘It has a calf, sir,’ someone shouted from the front, in a thick Irish accent.
I went to join them at the bow, and noticed fairly rapidly that the helmsman was bringing the ship towards t
he area where the whale was surfacing. Breaks of white water could be seen where the blows of breath erupted. I was very excited. This was not only the first whale of the voyage, but the first whale I had ever seen.
I was quickly informed that, by the peculiarity of the spout being a V shape, this was most definitely a right whale, and if I were to look closely I would distinguish the separate profiles of a mother and her calf rising alongside each other.
I was thrilled that the ship was bringing us closer to this spectacle, presumably for the benefit of the passengers, so I went to fetch Clara. ‘Why are we steering towards the whale?’ I asked one of the men in passing.
That’ll be Mr French, sir. He likes his sport with them.’ From the look on the faces of the men I saw the sport was well anticipated.
‘I can’t wait,’ I said.
‘Oh, it’ll be fine, sir. That it will.’
The men were so full of a joy that was rare to see that I felt happy with them. For the first time since being on Eldey, I sensed they welcomed my presence among them.
I brought Clara on deck so we could admire the sight. The long smooth back of the mother could be seen, rising elegantly in a curve that barely interrupted the water before descending. A couple of seconds later, a smaller back rose alongside, in perfect imitation. A breath blew up to mix with the larger one that still hung in the air. They swam in this perfect rhythm, a graceful running stitch through the miles of the sea, their backs arching as smooth as horse saddles. Occasionally the edge of a fluke would lift from the water, point hesitantly as if in a partial wave, before slapping the surface and pushing the whale lower.
The direction of the Amethyst was clearly at an intersection to the line the whales were making. We were closing the distance rapidly, and it was a beautiful motion, bringing us towards these magnificent creatures who were oblivious of our presence. Petrels and ivory gulls dived repeatedly into their wakes. As I watched, with Clara at my side, I felt a certain timelessness, that these journeying whales were on some invisible route through the oceans that they must have followed for many thousands of years. We were privileged to witness it.