by Ben Jones
It was impossible not to think of meat. I thought of roasts most often, and steak with butter on them, and salt in big flaky hunks; I thought of corn on the cob, bursting sugar corn that stuck in your teeth. I checked my teeth with my tongue, bit my tongue in anger, and tasted the brick-dusty poverty of my own blood. I thought of cakes also, of hot doughnuts glazed with sugar and rich chocolates—not the bitter, dark chocolates but the sweet, buttery milk chocolates—and eggs hard-boiled, deviled with mayonnaise, of plates of hash and ketchup and runny eggs, of mopping them up with toast, and glazed hams as big as my head, covered by pineapple and cloves, and drinking the fat from the pan and juice from the pineapple, and dark hunks of brown sugar and cloves. I thought of legs of lamb and mint jelly, and sprigs of real mint, and turkey bursting with stuffing and surrounded by roast potatoes, and pork chops double thick and smoked, and handfuls of bacon and spicy sausages that spit water as you bit into them. And I saw the sad and worried face of Hunt over a basket of rolls.
Several of us lost teeth, and our gums swelled until they were like old, crumbling rubber. Eating the shrimp became very painful and some elected to suck on them, then swallow them whole, rather than lacerate their mouths further. We ceased to use the lanterns entirely and spent hours huddled in the darkness waiting for the flash of the stove. Griffin rationed the oil carefully, and the snow in the pot was now barely melted when we were passed our cups and the stove extinguished.
The doctor took advantage of the spare minutes when the stove was fired to examine each of us on alternating evenings. He prodded our gums and looked at our pupils and the color of our throats. It was during one such examination that he determined Creely’s feet had to come off. I had been seated nearer the entrance—now built up into a nice tunnel by Ash—and so had not seen them. But I was called to lean down over his chest while the others held his arms and legs. We waited while Adney fired the lantern, and listened miserably as the doctor sharpened his knife and saw as best he could on a rock. He cut free the boots and cut through layers of socks. They progressed from gray to black to blacker. He drew up the pants legs. Creely’s feet were more than dead, they were badly rotten; both feet were entirely black—not blue-black like a bruise, but coal black, as if they bore no relation to flesh whatsoever; streaks of black like a clutch of shadows covered his lower leg and extended up beyond his knee, blending at the top with his fish white flesh. Dr. Architeuthis looked grimly at Griffin and then West. I suppose there was some mercy in that we could not smell the rot so strongly in the cold. Reinhold and Adney held his legs.
We did not even have a drink to offer him; he chomped on a piece of oar until he bit through it. Soon after that, he passed out while the doctor sawed. Blood soaked the floor of the hut, and froze underneath us, sealing our bags together. At last the doctor sat back and laid down his tools. He heated the pot to searing and held it against the stumps; the metallic stench of burned blood filled the air. There was no sound from Creely. Dr. Architeuthis bound up the stumps delicately and fell back against the thwarts. The lantern was extinguished and time passed.
In the morning, the doctor was in good spirits again. Creely had survived the night, though he had not regained consciousness. The doctor spooned some tea into Creely’s mouth and felt his pulse.
“What is the chance for his weakness to yield to other disease?” asked West.
“Even if he can recover from the amputations, he is unlikely to survive. He is, however, perfectly safe from disease. That is one of the benefits of the Arctic. There is no disease here.”
“What do you mean, we can’t get sick?” asked Reinhold. “We are sick, all of us already.”
“What you feel is your body consuming itself,” said the doctor. “It is a peculiar genius of your body to preserve itself despite you, and in the most remarkable ways. Your debility is caused entirely by gaps in the things your body needs—fuel most of all, but other elements vital to the smooth functioning of your systems. It is deficiency you are feeling, not the presence of disease. You have likely never been so free from disease in your lives. Preston, for instance, has ceased to cough. Do you see?”
And so he had.
This was not a comforting thought, however, and it shifted my attention back to my own body, and to my cannibal heart. Never had it seemed so clearly evil, so clearly my enemy, prolonging itself as it fed on me like some wasp breeding a larval horde in its host. My own health had been steady—I was exhausted all the time, and weak, but I could rise from my bed every morning, for the nothing that was worth. I had taken to eating the strip of pemmican I was given to fish with, until eventually it was withheld. I caught nothing, though the nets continued their steady, if limited, production. There was no game.
The doctor continued his measurements and agitated for a trip north, but even West felt we lacked the resources. He himself was not strong enough to go, and he would not part with the necessary supplies to let the doctor go.
One black morning, Adney leaned forward over the stove.
“Morning, boys. Merry Christmas.”
Griffin lit one of the candles and ordered the remaining two biscuits be added to the morning pot. He read a psalm and let the stove burn as we sat in silence together.
Adney raised his mug. “Tomorrow better than today,” he said, and smiled.
We drained our cups and moved out into the cold.
fifteen
That afternoon, I returned from empty nets to huddle in my coat. Creely mumbled softly—half conscious but not lucid. We jumped as a loud crash shook the boat and the roof shuddered over us. Outside, Reinhold roared: “Come on out, ladies, Santa’s here!”
We stumbled into the weak moonlight and saw that he had gotten a seal, our first. We shouted in disbelief and laughed and clapped him on the back. Even West came out for a look. It was good size, almost seventy pounds, and a sleek black with mottled gray around its flippers. Reinhold fired his rifle into the air to bring back the other hunters.
“He was sleeping up on the ice; I practically kicked him in the head,” he said. “Couldn’t get my gloves off to fire the rifle—had to bash him to death with the rifle butt.”
I shouted with joy—the others danced around me singing and jumping. West clapped him on the shoulders. We brought out the pot and Reinhold butchered the seal with extravagant care. We gathered all of the blood in mugs and passed them around. It was still warm and tasted salty and fishy and delicious. We got two full mugs each, enough to make me feel gorged.
Reinhold stripped the skin and separated out a thick layer of blubber, then cut the dark meat into strips and piled the organs in a small heap. He cut off and separated the bones and piled them up on the side. He wrapped them all in a square of cloth and presented it with elaborate ceremony to Griffin.
“Well done, Reinhold, well done,” said the captain. “I think this rates an extra Christmas hoosh.”
We piled back into the hut and gathered around the stove. Adney fired it and threw some of the seal meat into it, then added a little of the blood and some of the bones. We sat in the soft orange glow of the stove as the smell of the hoosh flooded us. Griffin let it actually melt and warm, and the hut became warm. He read some psalms and a blessing and we dug in. After weeks of tepid water, the hoosh was syrupy in my mouth, and the meat swollen and sweet.
With a dozy moment to sit back, I thought of Aziz, making tea on his small stove, and wondered if he held on, somewhere in the cold and darkness, scrabbling out his days in the hold of the ship; or if the Narthex had been driven under the ice and if, after a moment of terror, he was peaceful now, and carried along in a current I had traced out months ago, before we had descended into the chaotic ice.
Ash fashioned a blubber lamp, balancing a wick in a pot lid; it felt unnatural to be able to see finally. We were filthy and grubby, our faces gaunt but greasy from the hoosh; our patchwork clothes had disintegrated into gray rags.
But with our bellies full and the hut warm, we settled back happily and
had a sing. The doctor used the light to examine each of us, clambering over Creely, who was singing his own, unrelated song. We all had some scurvy, and some frostbite, but nothing too serious. Then he pushed us back and began to examine Creely.
His stumps were black under the bandages, but seemed to be no worse than they were before. He finished with the legs and began to unwind the cloth around his hands. Several of the fingers stuck to the fabric and separated from the hand; they were like black twigs. He looked over to West.
“We shouldn’t even—,” began the doctor.
“Save what you can,” said West.
“There’s no chance to save anything, Mr. West,” said the doctor. “We’re just putting him in pain. There is no logic in it. And no mercy,” he added.
“Do your best for him, Doctor,” replied West.
The doctor set his jaw and balanced the lamp on the thwarts. Reinhold and Adney leaned over onto Creely’s arms and Reinhold began talking soothingly to him.
The knife was not sharp, and even the dead flesh was obdurate. Creely began by screaming, then raving, and gradually was silent, as the doctor moved from knife to saw. The hut filled with the awful, muted smell of rot, and blood flooded onto the rocks. At last the doctor sat back, wiped off the knife and the saw, seared and bound the stumps tightly in the remains of the gloves, then pulled the bag back on. Creely’s head lolled back and we sat in silence. The lamp was extinguished.
He cried out in the night, jerking upright and beating his stumps on the thwarts until Reinhold and Adney wrestled him back down again. He raved again, and was still. In the morning, the captain ordered another hoosh for all of us from the seal meat. Reinhold was able to get a few sips into Creely, though he did not wake. Griffin ordered us about our tasks again: Adney and Reinhold out to hunt; I to the nets. Preston had regained the strength to go with me now, and it was nice to have even his silent company. West and Griffin remained behind with Ash, who dug out space for the meat at the far end of the hut and piled up the boats with snow to provide more insulation.
The weather was cold but not brutal, and the wind was light. Over us, the stars echoed the ice; the moon, now full, sat high up, silvering the blue ice and casting shadows into the darkness. The nets were empty and the line empty. I baited the hook and threw it back in. Once we had finished resetting the nets, Preston began to wander up the shore ice to the north, and I followed. We reached camp and kept going; there was no sound or light from inside the hut, and no one moved on the shore.
The ice was smooth and even; the wind had polished the center clear. We marched quickly along, the sense of progress itself giving us an energy to go faster and farther; the horror of the hut pushed us off, our clothes stained with the blood of Creely, the silent ice a balm.
The moon, I noticed, did not pass across the sky, but hung over us like judgment. Preston shuffled ahead, not looking back, but aware of me behind him. In the low but steady light, the shore ice shone clear and we went north through a long curving bay, around a headland, past a low set of cliffs, then across a broad lane like a river; then passing under the eaves of icebergs, we pushed up almost to the shore. We saw no flicker of life as we passed along, no rustle out on the endless expanse of the pack, no tumble of gravel or flutter of grass. Even the wind had fallen to nothing.
Then, ahead of us on the ice, we saw a dark figure moving toward us with great rapidity. There was a metallic scrape that echoed across the ice. It was Dr. Architeuthis; he glided up to us, his face flushed.
“Skates,” he answered to our looks. “Primitive to be sure, but very effective. Ash made them for me from the braces on the dinghy.”
We stood for a moment in the quiet. With our momentum stalled, I suddenly felt very tired.
“How far north have you gotten, Doctor?” asked Preston. “Have you seen the Barrier?”
“I have been almost twenty miles north on two occasions,” answered the doctor. “I was hoping tonight with the moon to be able to see it and gauge the distance accurately, or perhaps at least to see the fog of the vents, but I did not. It is so close—we are practically there.”
“Did you find any more wood? Or animals?”
“I have been focused on measuring, and certainly the variance in salinity is highly promising. We must take a portion of the meat while we have it and push north before our strength has left us entirely. We will have ample time and resource to recover from there. We will laugh to think we stayed in that freezing hut so long.”
“Yes,” agreed Preston. “The ice is so easy to travel on; we should make fifty miles in two or three days.”
“You must help me,” said the doctor. “West is the key. He will not authorize an expedition unless he is able to go himself. If he assents, the captain will not stop us.” He turned and scratched off down the channel.
“Come on, Kane,” said Preston. He too turned and headed after the doctor.
By the time we reached the hut I was stumbling and exhausted. The light from the entrance shone almost cheerily, and I could smell the hoosh as I approached. Inside, everyone was chattering. Creely was sitting up, a cup of hoosh balanced in his lap. Griffin was spooning it into his mouth with great care.
I took my place and Adney handed me a steaming mug with two thick strips of seal meat in it. I took a draught of the broth and caught one of the strips in my teeth, then passed the mug to Preston. He eyed me evenly over the edge of the mug as he sipped. I glanced down at West, who was gulping greedily at his meat, his small eyes peering into the mug, looking for whatever last little bits might be due him.
Creely’s face was wan, but he managed to smile weakly as he sipped the hoosh. He was balanced somewhat awkwardly, leaning against Griffin as he tried to hold himself upright. His arms were crossed around the mug in his lap, and what remained of his legs stuck rigidly out into his bag.
“Douse the stove,” ordered Griffin. “And today’s the last of the oil. We’re on blubber from here, with a small reserve for emergencies. Mr. Ash, see to the lamp.”
Ash took down the blubber lamp and began fashioning a pot lid into a deeper reservoir. He mounted a bracket on top so we could begin cooking over a blubber flame from now on. The blubber stove was extremely smoky and the light was dimmer and more yellow, but it worked well enough.
I had imagined that the hunger would end at some point, that I would get drifty and dizzy and no longer care about food, but I cared deeply, and incessantly—I cared about nothing else, even being warm.
The next day, the nets held a few shrimp, but a surprise waited on the end of my line. When I was able to chip it loose from the ice, it tugged back sharply, nearly jerking the line from my hands. I wrapped the line quickly around my arm and began backing away from the hole. The line jerked and tugged, biting into my sleeve. I gave a final tug and a small Arctic char flopped on the ice. I was thrilled—our first fish! It was small—surprisingly so, given the weight on the line—but it was food. I moved it carefully back from the hole and broke its neck on the ice before pulling the hook free. Preston came over smiling. He cut open the fish’s abdomen, wrapped the intestine around the hook, and threw it back in. We looked together at the fish sitting on the ice, and then at each other.
“It’s all or nothing,” he said, “We can’t have caught half a fish.”
“It’s small in any case,” I said, “and besides, we need our strength to keep fishing.”
We squatted down on the ice and Preston cut the fish into chunks. We each got two handfuls of the clear flesh, sucking it off the bones; he ate the liver, I the heart; an eye each, chunks of the rubbery stomach. He scraped the skin over his teeth, and gnawed at the edges beneath the scales. It had only a faint taste of oil in the flesh; the rest just tasted like the cold; but it did fill me nicely, and I could feel my stomach burning pleasantly as I disgested. We made our way back to the hunt after brushing each other clear of scales and bones.
We had not been the only lucky ones. Reinhold had shot another seal, this
one smaller than the first, but still a banquet. By the time we returned they had butchered it and made up a blood hoosh with chunks of seal fat floating in it. The blubber stove burned brightly—Ash had figured out how to make it both bright and hot and divert the smoke it produced into a funnel-like chimney. We had so much meat now that it crowded the south end of the hut, and pushed us up against the entrance. The shrimp were added to the heap, and Griffin increased rations to two hooshes a day. We felt like kings. I did my best to forget about the fish—we all had enough now in any case. It was of no consequence.
That evening we sat long in the light, watching the wick burst with light. West pulled himself to the center of the hut, his back against the heap of meat.
“You have all been most patient,” he began. “It has taken us a long time to pull ourselves away from the danger of immediate starvation. Now we must turn to survival. We have enough meat to survive to the return of the sun. Animals will arrive again in numbers the closer we get to that time, so our hunting and fishing should be more productive. In the meantime, we have the resources for a group to push north for the islands. If we are successful in reaching them, we can return for the others. We will build our strength in the warmth and then push back to the south to meet the whalers.
“If we do not find them, we can return, hunt heavily to prepare for our journey, and push south then. In either case, we will be moving by the middle of March, before the ice breaks up. We will not need to rely on our boats then, and should be able to reach known shores over the ice, riding the pack south if need be.”