The Surfacing (16 page)

A real lady you think, when you meet her, Cabot said. But I tell you, once when you
put a little wine into her, she's a dog.

We all have our crosses to bear, Morgan said with a smile, but he pitied the man,
his near horizons, and how little he had left to defile.

In the end Kitty said a few quiet words, trying to calm him without giving him an
excuse to flare up. Cabot gave no sign he heard. He checked the level of his glass,
filled it up. Then the saltcellar was somehow knocked over, and Kitty reached for
a pinch, to flick over her shoulder.

Leave it, Cabot said quietly, still staring at his plate.

It's bad luck, she said, smiling. Her hand was stalled in mid-air. She still had
a smile between her teeth, but she'd heard the iron in Cabot's voice.

Cabot lifted his head and looked her straight in the face.

Bad luck? he said, and he sounded confused. That means things could get worse? Is
that what you mean? He looked her straight in the eye, waiting for the explanation.
Go on, he said. I'm listening. I am only ears, like you say. Allez! He was shouting
now, wild-eyed, choking on the words, spit spraying in all directions.

Day after day, week after week, he stood in the galley punching holes in metal tins.
Ever since the news of his boy, all he wanted to do was drink and sleep. He had grown
thin. Overnight, he had grown old. Now he looked like he'd been whipped. Eventually
he blew himself out. He'd been tired and shamed and determined to make the most of
it. Morgan felt sorry for him, and embarrassed, because he hadn't yet learned how
to hide behind himself.

A little later Cabot swaggered off to empty his bladder. He's just drunk, Morgan
told her. Because of his little boy, he meant. She'd just been in the wrong place
at the wrong time, Morgan told her, but there was more to it than that. From the
day she came out of MacDonald's cabin, Cabot had been watching her. Tonight she'd
set her swollen body opposite him, began to manoeuvre it, and dared him not to admire.

Where do you think he's gone? she said. He still had not come back.

There's a fair chance he just lay down on the ice, Morgan said. Unless one of his
friends goes out to get him, he'll fall asleep and freeze to death.

Apparently a rather pleasant way to go, she said.

Apparently so.

5th October

Crushed and blind, it was hard to imagine they were still being driven north; they'd
had no observation now for three days, and Myer refused to believe it, as he refused
to believe that winter had definitely set in. Except for her cabin, he still refused
to let them set up the stoves, as though this must necessarily stave off the worst
of the cold.

Then, early on the morning of the 5th, to the west, through thick fog, Morgan thought
he spotted something like a headland. Their last bearings had put Beechey more than
fifty miles to the south. They tried sounding, but could find no bottom, even with
the hundred fathom line. They could not say where they were.

The barometer was falling. The deck was covered in snow as dry as eiderdown, knee-deep.
On the galley roof sat a lone raven, huddled there in stern judgement. It was one
of their old friends from Beechey, the one with the cloudy eye – the only one who
had not yet abandoned them.

They hove to and bore up about breakfast-time. Morgan thought he'd snatched another
glimpse of something solid through the veils, due west, but could not say for sure.
They ran on until mid-morning, until the fog started to come off. Something very
like a coastline was pushing through. The rest of the fog came away, and he told
the helmsman to stand off, until he could properly fix the ship. But the headland
opposite resembled nothing on their charts.

Inland, there was rock and ice and frozen snow and nothing else, as far as the eye
could see. As bleak a country as I have ever seen, he wrote. Beside it, Disko is
a pleasure garden.

A nice prospect, DeHaven said. He was too impressed, and trying to stir up a little
scorn.

Morgan did not answer. It was too soon to summon a front. He stood there marvelling
morbidly. It was a dismal spot, without the slightest tint to the sterility. This
would be their refuge, if they were crushed.

By dinner-time the sun had dropped low enough to block
out something like a line
of hills much farther to the northwest. It was more of Cornwallis, or some northern
reach of Devon Island, or an altogether new and unknown part of the globe. Between
the ship and it, there was a wall of ice the colour of granite. In the log, Myer
was already calling it The Fixed Ice, as though to reassure himself they could go
no farther, that this year's limit had finally been set.

8th October

It was the 8th of October. The air was alive with a million specks of light. The
sky was remarkably clear, and Morgan spent all morning aloft, scouring for anything
that was not white. Far out in the Channel he could see the black lines, the great
rivers like open wounds, the steam rising from every one as from a hot spring. Down
on the deck, they could see none of that. They were down there now, laying bets with
Petersen on what they could get the dogs to eat.

By noon the southern skies were ablaze. The low sun caught the masts to the root,
and their shadows stretched farther north than he could see. He let the shadows lead
his eye, and at the very edge of the northern horizon spotted something being carried
through the air. He watched it drift over and beyond the ragged line. It looked like
a courier balloon. But who would have sent it up, and to what end? Franklin, he knew,
had been equipped with several, as they themselves were. Still, he did not call it
out, or call anyone to come and confirm what he thought he saw. This was a secret
he wanted all to himself.

He'd done his sums. He'd made his observations. Three
more days, his sums said, would
carry them right to the edge of the map. By now Beechey Island was more than eighty
miles off. He felt a strange sense of achievement. He had read every account of Arctic
voyages, and no ship had ever let itself be trapped so far north so late in the year.

Overhead the rigging stuttered. The mast thermometer gave 13°. Beside it, the galley
blow-hole billowed ginger steam. Beside that, the hatch door was now the door of
a sauna, as though fires were everywhere raging below. There were not. Miss Rink's
apart, not a single stove had been set. No matter. Walls and ceiling alike were slick
with sweat, and that sweat dropped onto their faces as they read or ate or slept.
They slept and woke, read and wrote, ate and drank, and kept themselves inside now
as much as they could. Proud atop their pedestal, they drifted north and northwest.

After lunch Myer summoned the officers to a conference. He had made a decision, Morgan
supposed, and now wanted it confirmed. He gave them each a sheet of paper to complete.
They worked in silence for a minute or so. Myer shuffled and squared the papers into
a pile, went through them in silence, one by one. Their quickness had taken him by
surprise. Morgan stared at the untouched cup of tea on the table before him. The
surface was troubled, trembling. They were drifting again. Finally Myer cleared his
throat and began to read aloud:

Mr Morgan. Direction South, Inshore, Practicable or Not, Not. Offshore, Not. Direction
North, Inshore, Not. Offshore, Not. Dr DeHaven. South, Inshore, Not. Offshore, Not.
North, Inshore, Not. Offshore, Not. Deliberately, proving his point, Myer went through
every sheet, every answer, and the answer was always the same.

After dinner he had the men gathered, and announced his decision to winter locally,
rather than attempt a return to Beechey.

The situation of the lost ships makes inconceivable any
immediate attempt to extricate
ourselves from our current impasse, he said. Those inclined to doubt that obligation
need only imagine our own situation should we continue in our drift, cut off from
all communication with the civilized world, and all proper source of provision, in
these latitudes during all the coming winter, and the five winters following. With
that in mind, I believe the most useful course of action for us now would be to get
in with the land and find a safe anchor for the coming cold months, all the more
readily to commence exploring in the spring. That is the very best we can do for
our friends, I believe, at the present point in time.

10th October

DeHaven was pointing at the sky. He let Morgan find the marvel. It was a pigeon,
perched on the Crow's Nest, looking as perfectly stupid as ever a pigeon looked.
No one moved. No one spoke. They were afraid of scaring him off. They set out a heap
of crumbs and a saucer of warm water, to tempt him down.

Immediately he saw it properly, Morgan saw their mistake. He looked glum. The hope
had been overwhelming, of what the world unbidden might have sent out to find them.
But it was one of their own – a bird they themselves had sent out two days before,
to give the world their latest news.

What were you expecting? DeHaven said. An olive branch?

Beyond the gunwale the ice looked solid, deeply bruised. They watched Morgan hustle
the unhappy thing into a corner of the deck. He gently cupped it in his hands. He
flung his arms into the air. He'd already done this a dozen times. He might
as well
have flung a crumpled news-sheet at the horizon. The thing flapped once and spiralled
slowly onto the boards. In the end they gave it to Cabot to cook. Afterwards, below,
the men were unusually silent, almost sad. They would be last to leave the dance.

It was the 10th of October. Twilight in the morning and twilight in the afternoon.
They came to rest somewhere along the northeastern curve of Cornwallis Island, just
outside a little inlet that Myer said would make a perfect refuge. They tried to
bully their way in, and could not quite manage it. They were fifty yards short, no
more. They anchored their last cable to the rocks and tried warping. The ice was
too thick. They hardly gained a yard. Already Myer was talking of cutting a canal
to get themselves in. In the meantime, he ordered the cable left in place, for security.
They drew it as tight as they could, and the very first night the thing froze. Thick
as a man's arm, stiff as iron, and slumped in mid-air. Morgan could see they would
never coil it again.

That night, as usual, he lay awake listening. Apart from the dripping water, it was
strangely quiet, and he liked it no more than he had liked the noise. Ordinarily,
the crush – the collisions – sounded like heavy artillery. Now, from far out in the
Channel, they sounded like distant surf. Immediately about the ship there was no
more than a murmuring. All the aimless days, the abandoned efforts, now had a single,
specific goal. Looking back, it seemed not to matter if they'd done any one thing
or its contrary. The final amount was the same. All their struggles, and all their
concessions, had brought them to this spot.

11th October

Now that they were fixed for the winter, Myer ordered Banes to build a porch around
the hatchway, and ordered Morgan to see it was properly done. After a while DeHaven
came up to keep him company. He had been down with Kitty again. These past few days
she'd not been well.

How is she? Morgan asked.

Worse, DeHaven said.

They stood on the open deck in their furs. From out in the Channel, they could hear
the workings of the old mill. On the southern horizon, the frost-smoke was the colour
of tobacco. At their feet, the steam was seeping out through the chinks in the boards.

Another nice day, Morgan said.

Calm, DeHaven offered.

Dry.

It could as well clear up as come down.

It could.

Day by day, they were honing the performance.

You making any progress, Banes? Morgan shouted. For the moment I don't see much to
show for all that noise.

None at all, sir.

You just banging those planks to keep yourself warm, is that it?

That's about the size of it, sir.

That afternoon, the two men made a three-hour tramp over the land, and returned without
having fired a single shot. A month before, at Beechey, time after time the Brent
geese had come lording down over them in great braying flocks from the north, stirring
up loons and divers to flatter the air.

There's got to be something somewhere, DeHaven said. She needs fresh meat.

As they turned back for the ship, they saw a single flock of snow bunting trembling
in the air, far out over the Channel, pointing south.

The next day Morgan headed out alone over the ruins of the floe. Inside the ship,
he knew, she was waiting patiently, purring almost. Later, she would say nothing
of his long absence. She never did. She knew well he had to come back.

He squatted down in the lee of a hummock. The snow was impeccable. The water in the
ice-hole was a pool of ink. An hour later, a nicely-bloated calf struggled up onto
the ice. He settled the stock, pulled the trigger, and watched the thing wobble back
into the water with a neat splash. His powder had been spoiled by the cabin damp.