by Jeremy Page
After several minutes, I crawled back to the men and announced I was finished. I was enthralled by the experience. The absolute rarity of these birds made my observations unique. I was sure my notes would become a celebrated document. This would be a defining moment in my career and my life.
When I buckled my satchel, I noticed Captain Sykes watching me attentively. ‘A most satisfactory visit,’ he said. ‘Your observations looked methodical and accurate, but most complicated. Do you think you have made enough of a record?’
‘I think so,’ I replied. ‘Although I suspect it would take years to truly learn these creatures.’ I gave him a grateful smile, wishing to show how satisfied I was.
‘Good. We shall wait for you to move to one side, and then we will capture them.’
I started at his words, not understanding him.
‘Capture? What do you mean?’
‘It is best that we are very careful not to leave any marks on the bodies. We will drown them.’
I waited for this to be some form of untimely joke. I had seen it before, at the dinner table, moments when he tried to provoke others by a turn of phrase or outlandish comment, for no other reason than his own amusement. But the captain met my gaze head on, unflinching, and I knew very quickly that it was far from a joke. This was a very serious matter indeed.
‘Captain Sykes, did I hear you correctly? You wish to kill these birds?’
He was unapologetic. ‘Yes, Mr Saxby.’
The others in the party had grown quiet and still, noticing that their captain’s tone had raised to that of a straightforward challenge.
‘But you cannot kill them,’ I said.
Sykes scoffed, with ugly intent. ‘Of course I can. I am trying not to be blunt with you, Mr Saxby, but you must understand the nature of the situation. Open your eyes—on this rock is our fortune.’
‘For us? What fortune?’
‘Not just for me, you understand, nor the owners of the Amethyst. But all the hands on board are on a share of profits.’
‘Is this a joke of yours?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘You intend to—’
‘Correct, Mr Saxby, I do.’
‘I would never have anything to do with what you might be suggesting.’
He dismissed me with an offhand gesture. ‘Your choice. It makes no odds to me.’
‘Do you quite appreciate the discovery we have made here?’ I continued. ‘On this bare rock are the last birds of this species anywhere in the world. There are no others. We …’ I looked around at all the group, searching for support, ‘—man—has killed all the others.’
‘So you have said, on many occasions. It is that fact that I fully understand. If there were thousands of these birds, then they would be worthless, fit for a greasy meal or the stuffing of pillows. But you have explained the situation clearly. Each of these birds is a fortune, collectors or museums will fight for them, and if we bag the entire lot, then we can virtually name our price. Do you understand simple economics, Saxby? The last few of a commodity are precious. But the last one of a commodity is incalculable.’
‘Economics! How dare you, Sykes!’
‘Careful in your tone with me.’
‘I will speak as I wish, damn you!’
‘I am still your captain.’
‘Not on this rock you aren’t!’
Sykes took his time to reply, attempting to defuse the situation. ‘Mr Saxby, I think you have a skewed impression of our trip.’
‘What you are saying is disgusting. Men—can’t you see what is happening here? These are the last of this species. If you kill these birds, it will be a moment that can never be reversed. Do you know what you’re talking about, Sykes? Is that what you want? You are talking about conducting an extinction.’
Sykes tried to laugh it off, but this time I thought he sounded a little less sure of himself. ‘What I am talking about is making money. I am talking about a comfortable retirement. I am in the business of looking after myself—just as the eider feathers her nest with her own down. You have seen the state of the Amethyst. She is worm-bored and iron-sick. Why, I could list the repairs required all day, and still I would not be finished. With the sale of these skins the damages of many years can be repaired, the debtors paid off, and I shall have a comfortable old age.’
‘With Mrs Sykes and the roses around the door?’ I said, reminding him of the displeasure he’d once expressed to me at the thought of retirement. It was privy information I was wrong to disclose. He glared, insulted that I should attempt to judge him publicly. I noticed the darkness of the ring that encircled each of his corneas, as if the colour of his eyes had a stagnant, dead fringing.
‘You are wrong to ask the men what they think, Mr Saxby. I am their captain and they will do as they are told. You are also wrong to cast an opinion on my own private affairs. You know very little about me, but I shall tell you this: I have skippered these frigid waters of the North Atlantic and the Arctic oceans for thirty years. Indeed, you are not much older than that, I believe, so consider for a moment that when you were crawling as a baby, I was here, at the top of the world, looking across a dismal sea. I have lost friends and cargoes and I have faced winds and ruinous waves and errant bergs and I have hated every blasted year of it. You see? I am an old man and I will shortly be dying, no doubt, and here, on this rock, I have alighted upon a fortune. My business is not sentiment and it’s not love. My business is money, and it’s the business of all who are on my ship, too. I will remind you what we are looking at. They are birds, nothing more. I see little difference between these fowl and the Sunday roast which is served on my plate.’
‘You are entirely missing the point, Captain Sykes. Knowing the difference between these birds and your Sunday roast is exactly what it means to be a man.’
Sykes stood up from the rock, exasperated. ‘You’ve made your position clear. I think we have talked enough.’ He looked to the men, all of whom readied themselves for his command. But Sykes evidently felt he had not won the argument yet. ‘Say we left these creatures,’ he began, trying a new tack, ‘do you think they will live? If it’s not us then it will be someone else. These animals will die, you can be sure of that. I can sail my ship away but a different ship will be here, the masts will come over the horizon, perhaps this season, maybe next. A different captain will stand upon this very rock and I tell you he will be rubbing his hands and his conscience will be clear. It is the way of the Arctic: if there’s profit, it will be taken, whatever the cost.’
We stood facing each other. I was aware that I was standing in his path, between him and the birds.
‘I cannot stop you, Sykes. You have your mind set and you have men here to do your dirty work for you. But you can stop yourself. You may be right to think others will come here, but your argument is still that of a coward. You are hiding behind the prospect of other gutless men to excuse your own lack of fibre. It does not make you right. You are proposing the murder of these last few birds for what? For a few tins of varnish for one ship on one part of the world’s sea. Your ship will rot one day, whether you repair it or not, and you and I shall be gone, too. But we have a chance here, to trade in a currency that you don’t seem to understand—a currency of legacy. What is the purpose of being a man, other than to make sure that we can be guardians of what we have been given and pass it on to future generations? You have a chance here, today, to make sure this ledge of rock is not remembered as a place of permanent absence.’
Sykes adjusted his feet and gave me a wry smile. ‘Pretty words for a young man. But ignorant, too. You seem keen to urge me to be true to myself. Well, I am a ship’s captain. I look after myself and my men. You, sir, are a collector. You are paid by the very same museums that have demanded this wretched bird for their display cabinets. In my world this bird is a lousy meal of greasy meat. It is your world that has placed a price upon its head. I suggest you take note of that, and your responsibility within it. I shall act as a ca
ptain and you, Mr Saxby, should act as a collector.’
I looked at the other men, at French, who eyed me with a curious glance, and at the sailors who sat, oppressed and uncomfortable with the discussion. And I saw a great deal about human authority. All of us, equal in body, but completely under the rule of the captain. Only French would be able to defend me, but he remained silent.
Captain Sykes knew I could do nothing more. He straightened his jacket and addressed the sailors, directly.
‘Men, go to the birds. You will do as Mr Saxby did. You observed how he walked softly on his heels and without sudden movement. Place your jackets round them and bring them to the inlet. We will drown them there.’
The sailors, all four of them, stood and obediently removed their jackets.
‘Tread like this,’ the captain said, demonstrating the lightness of step that I had noticed on board the Amethyst.
The men walked in a line down to the rock where the great auks stood, the place where I had sat, euphoric, making my sketches. As before, the birds showed no awareness of approaching danger, even while the men crouched down with their jackets held open. Again, I was reminded how similar in size the bodies of these birds were to those of young children, how the outstretched jackets resembled a gesture of fatherly protection, of offered warmth. Yet as the men moved, at a signal whispered by one of them, and four of the birds were gathered, I saw a struggle of wings within the jackets that revealed the true dimension of what was happening.
‘Please, captain!’ I implored.
The men quickly returned with the four birds. Sykes pointed at the inlet of water.
‘For God’s sake, do not do this!’ I exclaimed, but knew it was futile. The birds were already as good as dead. Sykes raised his hand at me, instructing me to be quiet, as the men took the auks to the edge.
One of the men waded into the inlet and was passed a bird. Without hesitation he pushed it underwater. I saw the muscles on his arms knotting with the struggle against the buoyancy of the animal, and then, after perhaps half a minute, a renewed struggle that boiled against the surface as the bird began to kick and fight below. The man shut his eyes as the water splashed his face, while the other men stood watching, holding the next three birds, until the inlet calmed from beneath, the water rising in soft folds then smoothing until it was still.
He brought the bird out, its neck hanging lifeless across his forearm, and laid it on the rock as he might a towel. I felt a sudden hotness within me, an urgency to act, yet helplessness, too. I cannot stop the drowning, I thought. It will occur and I can do nothing. The water will take them. I am too late. I felt a sense of peril reaching out for me, too, something I could not quite perceive, but rising as unstoppable as water, wishing to claim me.
A second man started to pass his bird down, but the first sailor wanted none of it.
‘No. You do it,’ he stated.
An anguished look passed between them, and I realised the second man to go into the water was Martin Herlihy. I watched him with acute awareness. We had climbed to the top of the island together, that morning. Alongside his brother, we had relied upon each other among the gannets. Allies of sorts: it gave me hope. And I remembered another aspect to Martin’s character—how he had reacted when French had killed the greenfinch. His expression of doubt, then, and an expression here, too, of an intense and heartfelt worry. This might be the moment the day would be redeemed—if the sailors refused to act, surely Sykes would be forced to give up. I stood, and walked towards the inlet, offering my support and sensing a growing chance of salvation.
‘Martin?’ I said.
But Martin Herlihy was deliberately refusing to look me in the eye. He stepped into the water and thrust the bird below the surface, doing as the first man had done, until the auk was drowned.
All four birds were slaughtered in this manner and laid out carefully on the wet rocks.
‘Well done, men. I’ll see you get a good drink tonight,’ Sykes said. ‘Just the other three and we’ll be done.’
The men raised no objection. Wet and sullen, they began to move back towards the rock. Feeling a surge of anger rise in me, at my powerlessness, at my part in this ugly display of human weakness, I ran past them, shouting and waving my arms like a madman at the birds.
In an instant the auks sprang alert, scrabbling across the rock and diving into the sea, launching themselves and paddling swiftly from their platform, just their necks raised above the water. I turned, triumphant, searching out the captain’s expression, only to see him glowering at me, dark eyed, with a murderousness that quite terrified me.
‘Bring him here!’ he ordered.
‘I am not part of this!’ I shouted.
I felt my arms being held as the sailors brought me back up the rock.
Sykes visibly controlled himself, thrusting his hands in his pockets as if to prevent himself from striking me. ‘Sit here, Mr Saxby. That’s right, next to me. That was a silly and pointless thing to do. If you do it again I will have you sent back to the boat and you will be restrained.’
I sat on the rock. ‘Not quite extinct,’ I said, satisfied.
Captain Sykes raised his eyebrows at me and actually smiled. He sat by me and stared out to sea. Beyond the rocks, the mist was drifting thickly above the water. I thought, a couple of times, that I could see the dark silhouettes of the three birds, swimming this way and that, but the mist was dense and misleading. Many objects appeared to exist out there, where we knew it was just empty.
‘We shall wait,’ Sykes said, gravely.
We sat like that for about ten minutes, not speaking, but staring out at the greyness of the light and mist and water.
Eventually, a small shape began to condense and, pulling through the fog with an oaring motion of its wings, one of the great auks returned.
‘Oh no,’ I whispered, ‘do not come back.’
It climbed out heavily, dragging its long wings and waddling up the wet rocks to the place where it had stood, before. It shook itself down, and nestled its beak into the soft plump shape of its throat. A few minutes later a second one appeared and, finally, the last. Each climbed out in the same manner to perch on the rock.
‘Now,’ Sykes commanded, quietly. In his tone there was no concealment of the warning he was giving me.
The men had lost their patience and their heart. They quickly gathered the birds, making no mistakes, and took them to the inlet, all three of them wading in at the same time.
‘Captain Sykes, this time I shall watch,’ I said. He regarded me, puzzled, but recognised too that I must witness what was going to happen. The moment of extinction.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I understand.’
We stood at the water’s edge while the birds were held under the surface. I watched their dark fluid shapes, kicking and struggling as the last bubbles of air escaped their beaks, and I watched as the water once more became completely still.
‘It is done’ Sykes said.
For the first time, French spoke. ‘Should we skin them?’ he said. It was difficult to read anything into his expression. As always, his face seemed caught between conflicting attitudes.
‘No,’ Sykes replied.
‘Very well. Shall I have the men carry them to the boats?’
‘Not yet.’ Captain Sykes was in no hurry. He stood presiding over the dead bodies of the birds, laid out at his feet, as if conducting a valuation. They occupied such a small space, their necks arranged in parallel, the entire species reduced to a row of wet feathers and lifeless bodies. It really was done. They had become extinct.
‘Good,’ Sykes said, solemnly. ‘Men, we will sit on this rock and watch the sea.’
French shifted his stance, uncomfortably. ‘For what purpose, sir?’
‘We must make sure there are no others.’
I turned away, repulsed. The meticulous nature of his slaughter appalled me. ‘When will you be happy?’ I asked.
He didn’t answer. Having no choice, I sat
with the others, gazing into the mist, listening to the laps of water rising and slipping from the rocks and aware, pointedly aware, of the great absence that faced us. A sea that appeared not only empty of great auks, but empty of all life. The murderousness of the last hour felt as though it stretched across the ocean, without boundary. Man, his greed, seeing no obstacle, neither outside nor inside himself.
We waited for a long time. Once, Captain Sykes asked the men to sing, and they responded with a low-voiced work song about turning the capstan. Sykes appeared to enjoy the sound, tapping his foot and nodding his head, seeking a diversion. Not one of us looked at the row of birds by the side of the inlet.
At last, with nothing emerging from the grey sea or the mist that swirled above it, the captain ordered the men to take the birds back to the boats and return to the ship. He referred to the auks as ‘our cargo’.
I looked at him, prompted by his callous choice of word. ‘I wish to stay, for a while,’ I said.
‘Whatever for?’ he replied.
‘We will never again be able to observe these birds. I feel I should record as much as this rock can inform me—about their diet and behaviour.’
He regarded me, quizzically. ‘As you wish,’ he said, briskly. ‘Mr French, stay with Mr Saxby for his observations. Make sure nothing untoward happens. We will return to the Amethyst. I shall leave two men for you in the second boat.
‘Martin,’ the captain ordered, ‘make me a dog-vane of those feathers, will you.’
‘Aye, sir,’ Martin replied. He went to one of the birds and carefully plucked some of the finer feathers from beneath the neck. He bound them carefully on a length of twine and fashioned a small loop at the top, suitable to hang from a finger. When he handed it to the captain, Sykes held it up, satisfied, letting the air stir it.