The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica

by John Calvin Batchelor

  If I am vague about the course of events immediately after Lena’s suicide, it is because I was never told the complete story, and also because I do not want to try to remember too acutely, afraid of what I have forgotten. I remember this: I did not forgive them their trespasses, and they did not forgive mine. I know I should now, so long after, all of them broken and gone; I cannot. No, that is wrong.

  I see now that the reason I could not forgive them was that I could not forgive myself. There was shame and disgrace for everyone. I am not sure now what could have been done to stop the feud, as I have not been sure what could have been done to save Peregrine’s feud. I have endeavored to explain the depths of the fears, why those poor people on South Georgia could have fallen to such a wicked, wicked extreme. I have no heart to repeat the excuses for them. I know that one must be taught to hate. They were taught by expert brutes operating under every flag on the Atlantic, especially the Union Jack. And those bold gangsters who broke into the Frazer home, who were also pathetic children, were taught by their parents and elders to hate what they could not understand, such as the beasties in the camp, such as Robby Oldmizzen’s damaged mind in his twisted body. Fear, hatred, revenge, deceit, whatever the resentments built up among the families on South Georgia, there can be and should be no final excuse for what we did to each other without mercy. Lena Rose was dead of shame. Elephant Frazer was dead of revenge. Ian Brackenbury was dead of hatred. Abigail was dead of deceiving herself she could stand up to the darkness. Christian Rose lingered a week, tormented by his castration, and then took his own life one night with a knife provided by his brother, Saul Rose, with his two sons looking on, agreeing. Dolly Frazer descended into a mourning that was a tomb. Gaunttown staggered with dread. Davey Gaunt, Jane’s younger brother, who worshiped Germanicus and Lazarus at the same time, challenged Horace Oates, a Rose cousin, to a knife fight over a point of honor, cut him badly, was jailed with us for attempted murder.

  “Them’ll give us no trial,” said Davey as we circled the fort’s yard for our daily exercise. He provided reports from Gaunt-town’s factions that worried both Germanicus and Lazarus. “Them can’t let us free. We be less’n beasties now.”

  “You and me and Motherwell be Volunteers, they owe us a hearing,” said Germanicus.

  “Them Volunteers stand with the Hospidar,” said Motherwell.

  “You might be right,” said Lazarus. “If Christian Rose had lived, he and Trip Gaunt might have been able to stand up to the Hospidar. Now all three of the major families involved are splintered. If we had law! But there isn’t law now other than the Hospidar. Even Brackenbury, for what good he could have done, is reduced for his son’s crime. I thought I could talk us out of this. I don’t see how I can get you people to stop this eye-for-an-eye nonsense you prefer; like, well, not even beasts fight like this.” “There’s truth,” I tried. It sounded a tinny plea, affected. “I’m the president of the Assembly.”

  “There was an Assembly, and you were its president, as long as Elephant Frazer said so,” said Lazarus.

  “There be justice,” said Germanicus. “What’s right. What’s our’n to take for what’s taken. What I say, when I say it.”

  “When will you understand?” said Lazarus. “Without law on paper, truth is what they say, justice is what they do! My constitution is the only thing that could have saved the Frazers, that could have saved us and this island.”

  “Isn’t it the will of the people that we’re here?” I asked.

  “No, Grim,” said Lazarus. “Sheep follow fools, and wolves in masquerade, and sometimes even wolves. We have a small chance. The Hospidar might not be able to untangle this mess. He can’t just seal us up, and he can’t shoot us without a trial. He might slip and give us a chance to speak in our own defense.”

  “We’ll have our time,” said Germanicus, “and not for talk.” There was a trial. It was for Robby Oldmizzen. The Hospidar outwitted all of us, even Lazarus, who had seen the end but not the means. The people, Lazarus’s mystical insurance, were not invited. The panel of judges, jurors, and prosecutors were one and the same, the Hospidar careful to sit by without voice. Robby was made to stand throughout, in his Volunteer uniform, an honor that was cruelty because he had never been able to balance well with his crippled side, and because he had not healed from either the gunshot wound he had received at the Frazer camp or the beating he had received when they hunted him down in the high heath after the fire. Longfaeroe acted as Robby’s defense counsel, and it was from him we learned the details. Longfaeroe urged Robby to tell the truth, to obey his commanding officers, and to trust in the Almighty. Robby admitted to nothing about the original attack on Lena, the knifing and ravishment. He could not recall that she had been attacked, said he did know something bad had happened to her, and that was why he was kept apart from her. The crucial turn was when they asked him to recount his whereabouts the day of the wedding. They did not tell him where Lena had died. Robby wept at the thought of Lena dead, said, “I was at God’s house.” He would not say he had been at the quay. No one had seen him there. They did not call the old sealer, Petey, who Christmas Muir had told me had seen Lena go into the water. Robby could not recall how he had gotten down to the church—if that was what he meant by “God’s house”—or where he had gone afterward. When they asked him why he had fled the Frazer camp if he was innocent, he said he thought he would be blamed for the fire. They asked him if he had started the fire. Robby said, “Divil did it.”

  Therefore, Robby Oldmizzen was found guilty of ravishing Lena Rose and of drowning Lena Rose. He was also found guilty of setting the fire at the Frazer camp, killing nine more. He was sentenced to death, by firing squad since he was still a Volunteer.

  “Brilliant in their determinist way,” said Lazarus after Longfaeroe had come to us to report. He seemed admiring of the Hospidar. I faulted him for it then, still do.

  “They have no shame,” I said. “I’m partial to Germanicus. The time is past for talk.”

  “It’s the will of the Almighty. Let it be,” said Longfaeroe. Lazarus snorted, and sighed. Longfaeroe continued, “Heed the words of captive Zion, Grim. ‘The memory of my distress and my wanderings is wormwood and gall. Remember, oh remember, and stoop down to me. All this I take to heart and therefore I will wait patiently: the Lord Jehovah’s true love is not spent, nor has his compassion failed, they are new every morning, so great is his constancy.’ And hear me, Grim. ‘The Lord Jehovah may punish cruelly, yet he will have compassion in the fullness of his love; he does not willingly afflict or punish any mortal man.’ You, Grim, know what I say. This is the time of the afflicted and the patient. It’s your time.”

  “You want me to do what?” I said, exasperated. I thought Longfaeroe’s words gorgeous and compelling. The Bible’s words (and also Beowulf’s) are the only art I have had in my life. They give me great comfort, yet they also bewilder me. That was my predicament standing there before Longfaeroe’s quotation from what I now know was the book of Lamentations—Zion in exile and woe. I was frustrated by the power of poetry to take me out of my self, to make me feel reconciled to history, even when it was outrage. I collected my grief, and then I challenged Longfaeroe with the specifics of crime devoid of metaphor. “No David, now, Reverend, we’re in the lion’s den. And Abigail is dead! Murdered with Adam and Gabe! Robby wasn’t at the church. Never! They have no proof! Do you really believe it’s God’s will that a lie should bury Abigail? Do you really believe—you! not God, not anyone else, you!—do you believe Robby killed Lena? And set the fire?”

  “Abigail is gone to a sublime father,” said Longfaeroe, trying to be the cold man he was not; for his coldness was a masking of his fear to face the inexplicable accidents that had taken from him his wife, two daughters, two grandsons, and were about to take his dignity if he persisted to vouchsafe the slaughter of innocent Robby. I pity him now, did not then as he continued, “Abigail was a willful child, sinned to take up that rod. I believe the Almighty ha
s a purpose for what wee Robby has done. You are the purpose, Grim Fiddle.”

  “You do hear him, Grim? Sublime, he says,” said Lazarus.

  “Grim stands with me,” said Germanicus.

  “Fight the Hospidar,” said Motherwell.

  “Kill Roses,” said Davey Gaunt.

  Wild Drumrul and Otter Ransom nodded their agreement.

  “You are pulling at me!” I exploded. I looked at them, looked at myself, said, “Grim Fiddle stands with Grim Fiddle!”

  Robby Oldmizzen was brought down to our dungeon the next day. We were given our Volunteer uniforms, except for Lazarus. We expected the worst. We tried to comfort Robby at mealtimes, were dragged down by his alternate hysteria and torpor. Robby had lucid moments. He begged me to forgive him for Abigail. I did not want to hear it, hoped he would forget the subject. But then, at dinner the night before the scheduled execution, he tried to give me his food. He said, yes, he had killed Abigail, he had killed Lena. I told him to stop. Germanicus and Lazarus watched us, no pity in their eyes. I told Robby that he was innocent. He replied by asking why he had run from the fire if he was innocent. They had wrapped him in their lies, and it was the only comfort he had, so he pulled it close. Robby fell down before me, grabbing at my boots; I tried to get him up. Through his tears he said, “She tol’ Rob to get the bairns, Mister. She did. She say, poo’ Rob, get the bairns and tell Grim. I’s afeared, Mister. I couldn’t, Mister. The Divil was there. He scared Rob away. The flames was Hell. And that pitchfork proddin’ me, here, see, holes from that pitchfork.”

  “What did she say to tell me?” I asked.

  He said he could not remember. He said the “Divil” killed Abigail and the babies.

  The execution was delayed three more days. I see now it was the Hospidar’s will that we be worn down by Robby’s plight. It did seem to work that way. The gloom that had descended on Germanicus also fell on me. It was not the darkness of the berserker, however, more a tightness in the chest, bad breathing. Abigail’s death became worse for me as it receded into history. And to have to watch Robby’s fantasies was hard test. There were no lessons in it; more of the nothing of endings. Germanicus, Lazarus, and I drew apart. When they marched us out that raw November morning, we condemned were divided by anger and fear. Still, our enemies had underestimated what men might do when up against the darkness with scores to settle. I did not expect a better world after death, nor Longfaeroe’s “sublime father.” I did expect Peregrine and Grandfather, and Abigail, and I would have some high dreams to report, how their Grim had trampled on the wisdom pronounced by his grandfather at his birth: “My son, fear Lord God and grow rich in spirit, but have nothing to do with men of rank!”

  The president of the Gaunttown Assembly stood across the yard from the governor-general of South Georgia. The Hospidar was broad, blue-eyed, gray-maned, a short boulder with carnivorous eyes and a sharp tongue. I towered over him; he stared me down. Robby was taken to the wall of the courtyard. Saul Rose, now colonel commanding the Volunteers, read the charges and sentence of the court-martial. I turned away. I could hear Longfaeroe’s prayers, the orders to set, the blast. I thought then, what had Germanicus and Samson, and I, saved Robby for at 2 de Diciembre? For this, another blast, this time from his own people? I thought then, what a terrible dare it is to intervene in another’s fate, how twisted the results could be. I think now, curious penitent, that decency is always worth a dare, no matter the results.

  Saul Rose approached me, offered me his pistol, handle first, ordered me to administer the coup de grace. I did not respond. He asked Germanicus.

  “No’ for Rob I’d shoot,” said Germanicus.

  “And who’ll offer a gun to shoot you in the head when it comes to that?” said Lazarus. Saul Rose smiled, offered the pistol to Motherwell, Otter Ransom, and Wild Drumrul, none of whom responded. Burl Lindfir did the job.

  “Ye men are guilty of insubordination in time of war,” said Saul Rose, and then he turned to look at Germanicus and said with viciousness, “and also of cowardice,” to the man whose father he had harpooned. The Hospidar had finally managed to avoid the tradition of a trial; we could now be shot on the spot. Saul Rose continued, “I commend yerr fate to my governor-general.”

  The Hospidar came to us, surveying our faces, I studied him as well, as he walked before us, small steps. He did not seem resolute. It came to me that he might not have known what he was going to do with us. I saw the weight of his office, the strain of his long-pursued ambition, and that it was as wearying to him as our fracturing was to us. I took that as a lesson; as Lazarus preached, it was not possible, or desirable, to rule innocently. In the month since our arrest, and his elevation to despot, the Hospidar had tired, wavered. I know this might seem simple, but I saw then and still do believe that we were more fearsome to him than he to us. And for all Lazarus’s conviction that there was no law or justice on South Georgia other than the Hospidar’s, I declare now that there was a truth to what had happened, to what Germanicus and Lazarus and I represented, and that it slowed the Hospidar’s hand: truth can be smeared, can be interred, yet perhaps it cannot be erased.

  “Think me the famous serpent, so laddies?” he began. “Ask away, what could be done? That daft boy took the risk, took the penalty. This island be damned if I let him free, Lena’s killer not named. I take the risk now, me and mine, and aye, schoolmaster, we’ll take the penalty if it comes. Who can say what comes now the ice be gone? Say ye, Germanicus Frazer? Did yerr dad? Aye, he were a bold one. I’m not scratchin’ that. Mark him now! Left us, forgot us, took to feud as man and not governor-general. I don’t say I would’ve done different. Happened to him. I must be bolder, and must judge the weak, as Frazer did not. I must hear my charges, as Frazer did not. So with ye, laddies. Would ye be free, ye would kill me, or perish for tryin’. Ye, Germanicus Frazer, now first of yerr clan, would cut out my innards, and Saul Rose’s afore me. Ye, schoolmaster, would spread yerr lies at the womenfolk again, taking man from wife, son from lassie. Where on this island could ye be free? At Shagrock with the nigs, or at the Cape? Nay, for them don’t want ye there. In the beastie’s stew? Nay, for them don’t want ye as we don’t want them. And ye, Grim Fiddle, the hardest man I ever sawd in a fight, no ten of my men could match ye. How could we turn our backs on ye, the more with yerr lot at yerr side? Begod, Grim Fiddle, ye’re the one I mark most, for ye have claim to my post. Are ye able to it, then? Did ye give right when they called for Lena’s ravisher? Did ye give right when ye were ordered to finish the daft boy? That he was, daft and a killer. Ye would not! Ye thought of yerr own ways, and not of this island’s. Ye’re not man for this office. I’m keener than ye, for I’m for what has to be done to keep here, give right when they ask for right. I say, I’m right for bein’ bold, and ye’re wrong for ye’ve not been bold.”

  I tried to talk, a hesitant contrition, for I took his words hard, not truth, but then again, not lies.

  “Keep yerr tongue,” he shouted. “I’d dun ye for no less than ye dare to judge me. I won’t do it now. It’d do no right. Ye’re guilty of withholdin’ this island its right. I was aimin’ to give ye a choice. That wall or get out. There be no choice. Yerr black hearts’ll rot what ye have touched, dead or livin’! It be my say so that ye and yerrs, and what man or woman who won’t speak against ye, be sent from South Georgia. My last words. Damn ye!”

  What do I take most from this? I permit myself now, this long afterward, to answer drolly: the human comedy of it. Two by two they marched us into King James, my friends and my dogs, and more, including the Zulemas and other beasties representing threat to the Hospidar. I suppose that we were granted King James could seem merciful; it was not, for no man on South Georgia would have dared risk superstition to sail the Frazer schooner. The Hospidar had accused Lazarus of dividing families; he outdid him: son from father, daughter from mother. The Frazers and their cousins were divided with a knife; those that would not speak openly against Elephant Frazer and German
icus were sentenced to exile. The old sealers were put to the test as well, Christmas Muir and Peggs marked along with many of their recalcitrant mates, like Ugly Leghorn and Ensign Ewart. Also, the misfits and delinquents in Gaunttown who had no familial bonds were grouped with us—thieves, hoarders, drunkards, sheep-poachers, even the slothful and covetous. We got some of the hags, and we got two of the wild boys who had been in the mob at the Frazer camp. Most surprising—not to me but to the Hospidar—were those who volunteered to come with us though they were not put to the test of allegiance: Longfaeroe, without a bitter word, saying he meant to follow Grim Fiddle to “glory”; and Annabel Donne and her brother, she a midwife and Falklander widow who was in love with Longfaeroe; and Jane Gaunt’s brother, Davey, saying he would serve death itself rather than Robby’s executioners; and Meg Frazer’s morose second husband, Half-Red Harrah (a loss to the Volunteers because he was one of the best whalers on the island). King James was filled until it spilled over, and a second sealer ship, Candlemas Packet, was crammed with beasties and indigents, captained by Sean Malody, a half-breed Falklander who had a blood feud with the Brackenburys. In all, South Georgia cleansed itself, South Georgia sullied itself.