The North Water

by Ian McGuire

  “You will find it a backwards sort of place,” Black tells him. “The land about here is poor and the Shetlanders show no interest in improvement. They’re peasants and they have the peasant virtues, I suppose, but nothing else. If you walk about the island a little and see the miserable condition of the farms and buildings, you’ll soon know what I mean.”

  “And what about the townspeople? Do they make some profit from the whaling trade?”

  “A few do, but most are merely corrupted by it. The town as a whole is as filthy and iniquitous as any port—no worse than most perhaps but certainly no better.”

  “And thank fucking God for that,” Cavendish shouts out in response. “A decent drink and a good wet slice of pussy is what a man requires before he commences the bloody work of whaling, and fortunately those are the only two products that Lerwick excels in.”

  “That’s quite true,” Black confirms. “If it’s Scottish whiskey and cheap sluts you’re after, Mr. Sumner, you are certainly in the right place.”

  “I feel fortunate to have such experienced guides.”

  “You are fortunate,” Cavendish says. “We’ll show you the ropes, will we not, Drax? We’ll show you all the ins and all the outs. You can rest assured about that one.”

  Cavendish laughs. Drax, who has not spoken since they left the ship, looks up from his oar and stares at Sumner for a moment as if deciding who he is and what he might be good for.

  “In Lerwick,” Drax says, “the cheapest whiskey is sixpunce a glass and a decent whore will set you back a shilling, or possibly two if your requirements are more specialized. That’s about all the know-how anyone needs.”

  “Drax is a man of few words, as you can see,” Cavendish says. “But I like to blabber so we make a fine team.”

  “And what about Jones here?” Sumner asks.

  “Jones is a Welshman from Pontypool, so no one ever understands a word he’s fucking saying.”

  Jones turns around and instructs Cavendish to go fuck himself.

  “See what I mean?” Cavendish says. “Complete fucking gibberish.”

  * * *

  They begin at the Queen’s Hotel, then move on to the Commercial, then the Edinburgh Arms. After leaving the Edinburgh Arms, they go over to Mrs. Brown’s on Charlotte Street and Drax, Cavendish, and Jones each pick a girl and go upstairs while Sumner (who can never perform after laudanum and so makes the excuse that he is recovering from a dose of the clap) and Black (who insists with a straight face that he has promised to remain faithful to his fiancée, Bertha) stay downstairs drinking porter.

  “May I ask you a question, Sumner?” Black says.

  Sumner, peering back at him through a thickening haze of intoxication, nods. Black is young and eager but he is also, Sumner believes, more than a little arrogant. He is never openly rude or disdainful, but one senses sometimes a self-belief which is out of scale with his position.

  “Yes,” he says, “you certainly may.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “In Lerwick?”

  “On the Volunteer. What’s a man like you doing aboard a Greenland whaling ship?”

  “I explained my situation in the wardroom the other evening, I think—my uncle’s will, the dairy farm.”

  “But then why not find work in a city hospital? Or join another practice for a time? You must know people who could help you. The job of surgeon on a whaling vessel is uncomfortable, dreary, and badly paid. It is usually taken by medical students in need of funds, not a man of your age and experience.”

  Sumner blows twin tubes of cigar smoke out of his nostrils and blinks.

  “Perhaps I am an incurable eccentric,” he says, “or just a fucking fool. Did you ever think of that?”

  Black smiles.

  “I doubt either is true,” he says. “I have seen you reading your Homer.”

  Sumner shrugs. He is determined to stay quiet, to say nothing that might suggest the truth of his estate.

  “Baxter made me an offer, and I accepted it. Perhaps that was rash of me, but now we have begun I’m looking forward to the experience. I intend to keep a diary, make sketches, read.”

  “The voyage may not be as relaxed as you think. You know Brownlee has a great deal to prove—you heard about the Percival, I’m sure. He was lucky to get another ship after. If he fails this time, that will be the end of him. You are the ship’s surgeon, of course, but I have seen surgeons made to hunt before. You wouldn’t be the first.”

  “I’m not afraid to work, if that’s what you mean. I’ll do my share.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you will.”

  “And what about you? Why the Volunteer?”

  “I’m young, I have no family still living, no important friends; I must take risks if I’m to get on. Brownlee is known for being reckless, but if he succeeds he may earn me a good deal of money, and if he fails no blame will attach to me and I’ll still have time on my side.”

  “You’re shrewd enough, for a young man.”

  “I don’t intend to end up like those others—Drax, Cavendish, Jones. They’ve all stopped thinking. They no longer know what they’re doing, or why they’re doing it. But I have a plan. Five years from now, or sooner if I get my share of luck, I’ll have my own command.”

  “You have a plan?” Sumner says. “And you think that will help you?”

  “Oh yes,” he says, with a grin which hovers between the deferential and the supercilious. “I expect it will.”

  * * *

  Drax comes back down first. He lowers himself into a chair beside Black and lets out a long and noisome fart. The other two men look at him. He winks, then waves to the barmaid for another drink.

  “For a shilling I’ve had worse,” he says.

  Two fiddlers start up in the corner and some of the girls begin to dance. A party of deckhands from the Zembla arrives and Black walks over to talk to them. Cavendish appears, still buttoning up his britches, but there is no sign of Jones-the-whale.

  “Our Mr. Black over there is a smug-looking little prick, int he?” Cavendish says.

  “He tells me he has a plan.”

  “Fuck his fucking plan,” Drax says.

  “He wants his own ship,” Cavendish says, “but he won’t get it. He has no fucking idea what’s going on here.”

  “And what is going on here?” Sumner asks.

  “Nothing much,” Cavendish says. “The usual.”

  The men from the Zembla are dancing with the whores; they are all whooping and stamping their feet on the floorboards. The air is filling with sawdust and peat smoke. There is a warm, fetid odor of tobacco and ashes and stale beer. Drax looks disdainfully across at the dancers and then asks Sumner to buy him another whiskey. “I’ll give you my note of hand,” he offers. Sumner waves him away and orders another round.

  “You know, I heard all about Delhi,” Cavendish says to him, leaning in.

  “And what did you hear?”

  “I heard there was money to be made. Loot aplenty. You get anything?”

  Sumner shakes his head.

  “The Pandys cleaned the city out before we got inside. They took it with them. All that was left when we arrived was stray dogs and broken furniture; the place was ransacked.”

  “No gold then?” Drax says. “No jewels?”

  “Would I really be sitting here with you two bastards if I was rich?”

  Drax gazes at him for several seconds, as if the question is too complex for an immediate reply.

  “There’s rich and rich,” he says eventually.

  “I’m neither one.”

  “You saw some famous butchery though, I’d bet,” Cavendish says. “Some heinous fucking violence.”

  “I’m a surgeon,” Sumner says. “So I’m not impressed by bloodshed.”

  “Not impressed?” Drax repeats, with a mocking carefulness, as if the word itself is girlish and faintly absurd.

  “Surprised then, if you like,” Sumner says quickly. “I’m not surprised
by bloodshed. Not anymore.”

  Drax shakes his head and looks across at Cavendish.

  “I’m not too surprised by bloodshed myself. Are you surprised, Mr. Cavendish?”

  “No, not too often, Mr. Drax. I generally find I can take a little bloodshed in my stride.”

  After finishing his drink, Drax goes upstairs to look for Jones but can’t find him. On his way back to the table, he exchanges words with one of the men from the Zembla. As Drax sits down, the man shouts something back at him, but Drax ignores it.

  “Not again,” Cavendish says.

  Drax shrugs.

  The fiddlers are playing “Monymusk.” Sumner watches the grubby, mismatched dancers as they swirl and stamp about. He remembers dancing the polka in Ferozepore in the days before the mutiny, he remembers the damp heat of the colonel’s ballroom and the mingled scent of cheroots and rice powder and rosewater sweat. The tune changes and some of the whores sit down to rest, or bend over, hands on knees, to better catch their breath.

  Drax licks his lips, gets up from his chair, and walks to the other side of the room. He edges between tables until he is standing next to the man he argued with minutes before. He waits a moment, then leans forwards and whispers some carefully chosen foulness into the man’s ear. The man spins round and Drax punches him twice in the face. He raises his fist a third time, before he can deliver the blow, he is dragged backwards and is set upon by the other crewmen.

  The music stops. There is screaming and cursing and the noise of breaking furniture and smashing glass. Cavendish goes over to help but is immediately knocked to the ground. It is two against six. Sumner, watching, would prefer to stay neutral—he is a surgeon, not a brawler—but he can count well enough, and he understands his obligations. He puts down his glass of porter and steps across the room.

  * * *

  An hour later, Drax, raw-knuckled, cock-sore, and reeking of whiskey, rows a diminished party back to the Volunteer. Jones and Black are absent, Sumner is coiled in the stern groaning, and Cavendish is lying next to him snoring loudly. The sky above them is moonless and the water around is the color of ink. If it were not for the whale ship’s lanterns and the speckled lights of the shoreline, there would be nothing to see—they would be surrounded by emptiness. Drax leans forwards and then pulls back. He feels the heaviness of the water and then its release.

  When they reach the ship, Drax wakes Cavendish from his stupor. Together they pull Sumner up onto the deck, then heft him down to steerage. His cabin door is locked, and they have to fish in his waistcoat pockets to find the key. They lay him on the bunk and pull off his boots.

  “This unfortunate fellow appears to be in need of a surgeon,” Cavendish says.

  Drax pays no attention. He has discovered two keys in Sumner’s waistcoat pocket, and he is now wondering which lock the second one opens. He looks around the cabin, then notices a padlocked trunk sitting next to the medicine chest underneath the bed. He gets down on his haunches and prods it with his forefinger.

  “What are you doing?” Cavendish asks him.

  Drax shows him the second key. Cavendish sniffs and wipes a fresh smear of blood from his split lip.

  “Probably nothing in there,” he says. “Just the usual shite.”

  Drax pulls the trunk out, opens the padlock with the second key, and starts looking through the contents. He removes a pair of canvas trousers, a balaclava helmet, a cheaply bound copy of The Iliad. He finds a slim mahogany case and opens it up.

  Cavendish whistles softly.

  “Opium pipe,” he says. “My, my.”

  Drax picks the pipe up, looks it over for a moment, sniffs the bowl, then puts it back.

  “That’s not it,” he says.

  “Not what?”

  He pulls out a pair of sea boots, a watercolor box, a set of linens, a woolen vest, three flannel shirts, a shaving kit. Sumner shifts onto his side and groans. The two men stop what they are doing and look at him.

  “Check the very bottom,” Cavendish says. “There might be something hidden at the very bottom.”

  Drax sticks his hand in and delves about. Cavendish yawns and begins scratching at a mustard stain on the elbow of his coat.

  “Anything there?” he asks.

  Drax doesn’t answer. He puts his other hand deep into the trunk and pulls out a grubby, dog-eared envelope. He removes a document from the envelope and hands it across to Cavendish to read.

  “Army discharge papers,” Cavendish says, then, after a moment: “Sumner’s been court-martialed, no pension, out on his ear.”

  “For what?”

  Cavendish shakes his head.

  Drax rattles the envelope, then tips it upside down. A ring falls out. It is gold with two good-size gemstones.

  “Paste,” Cavendish says. “Must be.”

  A small, rectangular looking-glass with beveled edges is attached by brass corner pieces to the bulkhead wall above Sumner’s head in testament to the vanity of some previous occupant. Drax takes the ring, licks it once, then scrapes it across the surface of the glass. Cavendish watches him, then leans forwards and looks hard at the resulting line—long, gray, and undulant like a single hair plucked from the scalp of a crone. He licks his index finger and wipes away the dust so as to better gauge the true depth of the scoring. He nods. They look at each other carefully; then they look down at Sumner, who is breathing heavily through his nose and appears to be soundly asleep.

  “Hindoo loot from Delhi,” Cavendish says. “The lying bastard. But why not sell it on?”

  “Just in case,” Drax explains, as if the answer is obvious. “He thinks it makes him safer.”

  Cavendish laughs and shakes his head in amazement at the folly of such a notion.

  “A whaling voyage is full of dangers,” he says. “A few unfortunates amongst us will not get home alive. That’s a simple fact.”

  Drax nods and Cavendish continues: “And if ever a man perishes while on board, of course, it is the appointed task of the first mate to auction off his possessions for the sake of the poor widow. Am I wrong?”

  Drax shakes his head.

  “You’re right,” he says. “But not yet. Not in Lerwick.”

  “Fuck no. Not yet. I don’t mean yet.”

  Drax puts the ring and the discharge papers back in the envelope. He puts the envelope back into the bottom of the trunk and arranges the rest of the contents over it just as before. He closes the padlock with a click and pushes the trunk back under the bed.

  “Don’t forget the keys,” Cavendish tells him.

  Drax returns the keys to Sumner’s waistcoat pocket and the two men step out of the cabin into the companionway. They pause a moment before parting.

  “Do you think Brownlee knows?” Cavendish says.

  Drax shakes his head.

  “No one knows but us,” he says. “Just thee and me.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  They sail north from Lerwick through long days of fog and sleet and bitter wind, days without ease or letup, when the sea and sky meld together into a damp weft of roiling and impermeable grayness. Sumner stays in his cabin puking incessantly, unable to read or write, wondering what he has done to himself. Twice they are hit by gales from the east. The cables screech, and the ship slumps and pitches amidst the seething hillocks of an adamantine sea. On the eleventh day the weather settles and they encounter sea ice: shallow, disconnected blocks of it several yards across rising and falling on the moderated swell. The air is newly cold, but the sky is clearing and they can make out in the far distance the white volcanic nub of Jan Mayen Island. The slop bags are heaved on deck and gunpowder, percussion caps, and rifles are given out. The crew begin molding bullets and sharpening their knives in preparation for the sealing. Two days later, they see the main seal pack for the first time, and at dawn the next day the boats are lowered.

  Out on the ice, Drax works alone, moving back and forth, patient and relentless, from one group to the next, shooting and clubbing as he goes.
The young ones shriek at him and try to waddle away but are too slow and stupid to escape. The older ones he puts a bullet in. When he has killed a seal, he turns it over, cuts round the hind flippers, then slashes it open from the neck to the genitals. He pushes the edge of his knife into the gap between the meat and the blubber and begins to cut and prize away the outer layers. When he is finished, he hooks the severed skin onto a line for dragging and leaves the blood-sodden and meat-streaked krang, like a gruesome afterbirth on the snow, to be pecked at by gulls or eaten by bear cubs. After hours of this, the ice pack is as spattered and filthy as a butcher’s apron, and each of the five whaleboats is laden with a reeking pile of sealskins. Brownlee signals the men back. Drax hauls his last load, stretches himself, then leans and dips his flensing knife and club in the salt water to rinse off the accumulated gobs of blood and brain matter.

  As they are winched on board in dripping bunches, Brownlee counts the sealskins and calculates their value. Four hundred skins will yield up nine tons of oil, he estimates, and each ton at market will bring in, with luck, some forty pounds. They have made a good beginning but must press on. The seal pack is beginning to divide and scatter, and there is a small flotilla of other whaling ships, Dutch, Norwegian, Scotch, and English, gathered at wide intervals along the floe edge, all competing for pieces of the same prize. Before the light fails, he ascends the crow’s nest with a telescope and decides on the most promising spot for the next day’s hunt. The pack is unusually large this year and the ice, though uneven and thin in places, is still navigable. Fifty tons would be within his grasp if he had a passable crew and, even with the slender bunch of shitwicks he has been given by Baxter, he believes he can net thirty easily, possibly thirty-five. He will send another boat out tomorrow, he decides, a sixth boat. Any cunt who’s breathing and can hold a rifle will be out there killing seals.

  It is light at four, and they lower the boats again. Sumner is sitting in the sixth boat with Cavendish, the steward, the cabin boy, and several of the more persistent malingerers. There is eighteen degrees of frost outside, it is blowing a light breeze, and the sea is the color and consistency of London slush. Sumner, who fears frostbite, is wearing his Ulan cap and a knitted muffler. He is holding his rifle clamped between his knees. After rowing southeast for a half hour, they see a dark patch of seals off in the middle distance. They anchor the boat to the ice and disembark. Cavendish, whistling “The Lass of Richmond Hill,” leads the way and the rest follow after him in a straggly single file. When they get within sixty yards of the seals, they spread out and commence shooting. They kill three adult seals and club to death six infants, but the rest escape unharmed. Cavendish spits and reloads his rifle, then climbs to the top of a pressure ridge and looks around.