Dark Matter (3 page)

Not that we’ll be roughing it at Gruhuken. We’ve got a crate of books and a gramophone player, and even a set of Royal Doulton china, donated by Algie’s mama. Sometimes I wish it wasn’t going to be quite so easy. It’s as if we’ll be playing at being in the Arctic. Not the real thing at all.

Talking of the real thing, in the morning, we’re joining our ship, the
Isbjørn
, and its skipper, Mr Eriksson. He’s a hardened sealer and trapper who’s overwintered on Spitsbergen a dozen times. I’ve never met a trapper, but I’ve read about them and I know my Jack London. They’re the real thing. Battling the elements, shooting seals and polar bears. In Norway, people look up to them as ‘true hunters’. All of which I find a bit daunting.

The books say the golden days of trapping were
when Spitsbergen was a no-man’s-land. I still can’t get over that. The idea that until a few years ago, a wilderness not far from Europe belonged to no one: that a man could literally stake his claim wherever he liked, without seeking permission from a living soul. It sounds wonderful. But it came to an end in 1925, when the islands became part of Norway.

The stories they tell of that time! Marauding bears. Lethal accidents on the ice. Men going mad from the dark and the loneliness, murdering each other, shooting themselves.

There’s even a name for it. They call it
rar
. Armstrong shrugs it off as a ‘strangeness’ which comes over some people when they winter in the Arctic. He says it’s simply a matter of a few odd habits, like hoarding matches or obsessively checking stores. But I know from the books that it’s worse than that.

And they talk of something called
Ishavet kaller
, which seems to be an extreme form of
rar
. It means ‘the Arctic calls’. That’s when a trapper walks off a cliff for no reason.

One time, not long ago, they found four men on Barents Island starved to death in their cabin, despite having piles of ammunition and guns in perfect working order. The man who wrote the book says they’d been too frightened to leave the cabin –
for terror of the
deadness beyond
. It makes a good story. But how could he possibly know?

Rar. Ishavet kaller
. Cabin fever. Nerve strain. I can understand why it used to happen in the old days, when men were utterly cut off, but it’s different now. We’ll have a gramophone and the wireless.

And maybe, after all, that’s for the best. I mean, compared to those trappers, we’re amateurs. Algie’s the only one who’s ever been to the Arctic, and that was only six weeks’ shooting in Greenland. No sense biting off more than we can chew.

I’m writing this in my cabin. My cabin. OK, it stinks of seal blubber and it’s only slightly bigger than a coffin. But still. The
Isbjørn’s
beautiful, a jaunty little sailing ship, just how I imagine the one in
Moby-Dick
– only with a 50 h.p. Diesel engine that belches greasy black smoke. The ever-accurate Hugo tells me she’s a ninety-foot sealing sloop (whatever that means), and that the crow’s-nest, three-quarters of the way up her mast, is the mark of a true sealer. Inside, she’s mostly hold, with four tiny cabins off the small saloon (I’m in one of these). I don’t know where the crew sleeps, or even how many there are, as I can’t tell them apart.
They’re all splendid Nordic types with formidable beards and amazingly clean overalls.

Mysteriously, they don’t stink of seal blubber, but everything else does. The rancid, oily smell has soaked into the woodwork. You can taste it in the drinking water. Hugo and Algie are looking green, and I’m feeling a bit queasy myself.

Somehow, we got everything on board, and the crew didn’t drop any of my wireless crates. They’re safe in the hold, thank God, not on deck with the dogs.

Those bloody dogs. I know we need them for the camp on the icecap, but I wish we didn’t. According to Algie (our self-styled huntsman and dog-driver), Eskimo huskies are the toughest and best able to stand the cold, which is why we had them brought all the way from Greenland. Eight of the brutes: filthy and overexcited after nine weeks cooped up in the holds of various ships.

To the upper classes, dogs are a religion, so Gus, Hugo and Algie already adore ours. They tell me they’re ‘really very friendly’ and gave their new masters a rapturous welcome. I wouldn’t know, I wasn’t there. I don’t like dogs and they don’t like me.

Gus says this lot will win me over in the end, but I wouldn’t bet on it. They look like a pack of wolves. Shaggy, with teeth that can crunch through saucepans, and alarming ice-blue eyes. Cunning, too. While the
crew was getting them aboard, one clawed open the bolt on its crate and escaped. After an epic chase round the wharf, it fell in the harbour, where it swam in circles, yowling, until it was rescued. Algie says the only thing that scares a husky is the sea. Well then it shouldn’t have fallen in, should it?

I’d assumed they’d be going in the hold, but the others vetoed that as cruel, so they’re loose on deck: curled up on coils of rope, or prowling between crates. I’m not looking forward to five days of picking my way through a thicket of fangs.

I read somewhere that in Greenland, if a sledge-driver stumbles in front of his dogs, they eat him alive. Algie says that’s rot. But how does he know for sure?

I’m still troubled by what happened, so I’m going to try and get it straight.

We hadn’t seen much of the skipper till he joined us for dinner, so to begin with, we were a little intimidated. He looks like a Viking: sharp grey eyes and a grizzled beard. He’s got a handshake like a vice, and he calls me ‘Professor’. He calls us all ‘Professor’. I don’t know if he’s making fun of us or not.

We four sat like schoolboys dining with the
headmaster. The saloon’s cramped, warm and smelly, with a constant throb of engines, but extremely clean. Dinner was a tasty fish stew, with coffee the way Norwegians like it: viciously strong, with nothing so frivolous as milk or sugar.

Skipper Eriksson is a man’s man, all right. Probably a hard drinker when you get to know him, with a fund of dirty jokes. But I like him. I respect him, too. He was born poor. Not middle-class poor like me, but real, grinding, rural poor. He’s been a sealer since he was eleven, and has worked his way up to being skipper and part-owner of the
Isbjørn
. To his credit, he treats us with neither envy nor scorn, but simply as rich young ‘yentlemen’ whose mystifying pleasure it is to spend a year in the wild, studying the weather.

The subject of Gruhuken only came up once, and it was Gus, as Expedition Leader, who introduced it. ‘So, Mr Eriksson,’ he said towards the end of the meal, ‘we’re delighted that your splendid ship is to be our home all the way to Gruhuken.’ His tone was polite but firm, and his message was clear.
We mean to go to Gruhuken, and we don’t want any objections from you
.

The Norwegian’s smile faltered, but he didn’t take up the challenge. Dropping his gaze, he rubbed his thumb across his lip. ‘She is a good ship, ja. I hope you will like her.’

I exchanged glances with the others, and Gus gave a satisfied nod. Good. That’s settled.

But later, while the others were talking, I caught Mr Eriksson watching them. His face was grave. Then his eyes shifted to me. I smiled. He didn’t smile back.

Whatever his reservations about Gruhuken, I’m glad he’s keeping them to himself, because I don’t want to hear them. I don’t want anything to get in the way of our plans.

Over cigars (Hugo’s diplomatic way of breaking the ice), I’d been planning to ask the skipper what it’s like to overwinter in the wilderness, but somehow I couldn’t. I had the same feeling I used to get when I was a boy, longing to ask Father about the Great War. I couldn’t do it then and I couldn’t now, maybe because I sensed that it wouldn’t do any good; that he wouldn’t tell me what I want to know.

Luckily, fat Algie wasn’t nearly so scrupulous. Like a big russet labrador, he simply blundered straight in and asked. And to my surprise, Mr Eriksson readily opened up. Or rather, he seemed to. But I noted that his stories were always about others, never himself.

The best one was about a trapper who was overwintering with a companion in a tiny hut on the coast of North-East Land. Halfway through what Mr Eriksson calls ‘the dark time’, the other man fell sick
and died. The trapper couldn’t bury him, as the ground was frozen, and he couldn’t build a cairn over the body for fear of attracting bears. So instead he simply kept it with him in the hut. Two months with a corpse. Then the spring came, and he was rescued by a passing ship.

When Mr Eriksson finished, there was a respectful silence. ‘And when they found him,’ I said at last, ‘was he – the survivor – was he all right?’

‘
Ja
, for sure.’ Mr Eriksson’s tone was brisk.

‘But two months . . . How did he manage?’

‘Singing songs. Reading his Bible.’ His gaze skewered mine, and he chuckled. ‘Not everyone go crazy, Professor.’

I flushed. ‘I only meant it must have been hard.’

‘Hard?
Ja
.’ He said it in the Scandinavian way, on an in-breath, which makes it sound oddly like a gasp.

‘But what I want to know,’ said Hugo, leaning forwards and fixing the Norwegian with his dark, inquisitorial gaze, ‘is
why
? Why put yourself through it when the risks are so enormous, and the rewards so uncertain?’

Eriksson shrugged. ‘Some men are poor. Some have troubles. Some want respect.’

‘What about you?’ I said. ‘Why did you do it?’

His brow furrowed. ‘
Ach
, I don’t know. In the open country a man can breathe with both lungs.’

Gus nodded. ‘And I suppose it must have been even better when it didn’t belong to anyone.’

‘No-man’s-land,’ I said. I asked Mr Eriksson if he missed that time.

That’s when it happened. The Norwegian paused with his mug halfway to his lips and looked at me. His features went stiff. His small eyes drained of expression. It was unnerving. We all noticed it, even Algie.

Unsettled, I wondered if the skipper was angry. I had the distinct impression that he suspected me of some hidden meaning.

‘I only meant the freedom of it,’ I said quickly. ‘To be able to go where you please. Do what you please. That – surely that must have been wonderful?’

Mr Eriksson dropped his gaze. He shook his head. ‘No.’

An awkward silence.

Then Hugo turned the conversation, and shortly afterwards, Mr Eriksson set down his mug and went back to the bridge.

I’ve described this in detail, because I’m trying to make sense of it. I like the skipper. The last thing I want is to offend him. But for the life of me, I can’t see how I have.

Did I touch some raw nerve? Or is it simply that he thinks we’re fools: crazy young ‘yentlemen’ out of our
depth? Maybe that’s why he told the story about the trapper. A warning.

But we’re
not
ill-prepared, and we’re
not
out of our depth.

And no matter how many stories he tells, I’m not afraid of what’s in store for us at Gruhuken. I’m looking forward to it.

Now I know I’m really in the Arctic.

Until this morning, it’s been two days of rain, followed by fog. We kept bundling up and going on deck, but there was nothing to see except grey sky melting into grey sea. We haven’t seen much of Mr Eriksson, either. Since dinner that first night, he’s had most of his meals in his cabin, and on deck he seems preocupied. The sea has been calm, with only a gentle swell, and Hugo and Algie have found their sea legs. We’ve got used to the smell of blubber, and no one’s been sick; but we’ve all been a bit subdued.

And now – the ice.

According to Mr Eriksson, it’s a belt of drift ice a few miles wide, and nothing to worry about; the
Isbjørn
can take it in her stride. But that doesn’t begin to convey what it’s like.

It was eerie, peering through the fog at the sea turned white. Huge, jagged floes like pieces of an enormous jigsaw, dotted with pools of meltwater, intensely blue. I hadn’t expected it to be so beautiful. It brought a lump to my throat.

Mr Eriksson cut the engines, and I leaned over the side and gazed down at the rocking, jostling shards. Then I became aware of an odd, rapid popping sound; a brittle crackling, very low, but continuous.

The others came to see what I was looking at, and I said, could they hear it? Hugo said, ‘Oh, that’s just air bubbles in the ice, being popped by the slapping of the waves.’

‘Sounds as if it’s talking to itself,’ I said.

Hugo shook his head and grinned. Fat Algie goggled at me as if I’d gone mad.

Gus threw me a curious glance. ‘I was thinking the same thing.’

The others drifted away, but Gus and I stayed.

Gus leaned over the edge, his fair hair lifting in the breeze. ‘Our first ice,’ he said fondly.

I nodded. ‘It’s OK, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, yes. It’s grand.’

‘Sorry. That’s what I meant.’

He sighed. ‘You know, Jack, sometimes you can be a tad oversensitive.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Yes, really. I don’t care what words you use.’