The Surfacing (21 page)

But they can resupply us, said Banes.

Who?

The other ships. You said it yourself, a dozen times.

And if the other ships are gone? If they struck out in September, before it all closed
up?

They'll have left supplies. Not necessarily for us, but for Franklin. Surely.

And if they haven't? If they've already found him, and shipped out? How are they
to know we've drifted north, and not gone home before them?

I'm not afraid to take that chance.

You think it's just a question of courage? You think you have more of it than me?

Banes did not bother to respond. That made the answer obvious. DeHaven had said nothing
either. It sounded like a conspiracy.

You've obviously been talking to Dr DeHaven, Morgan said.

It took Banes a moment to soak this up. I don't know what you mean, he said.

Of course you don't. You think he came along to admire the scenery. Or for the pleasure
of our company, perhaps.

That night he lay awake, playing the same scene over again. He had been protecting
himself from every imagined accusation, should they push on and not go back. He had
been playing the Devil's Advocate, but now wondered had he played it too well.

When they woke, DeHaven was gone. He could not be gone long, Morgan decided. His
bag was still warm. Through the glass Morgan watched him climbing the headland. Why
he had decided to climb the headland, Morgan did not know. To cut overland? Morgan
scanned and found him again. He had already stopped to lean on his knees. He had
started off too eagerly, overestimated himself. Before he was halfway up, the wind
began to swing round to the northward, and within an hour a gale had come on.

All day the snow came squalling over them, and all day they lay in their bags, sleeping
or smoking or cobbling. Morgan was quiet. Visibility was zero. It would be useless
to search.

You're just going to leave him out there? Banes said.

Shut your mouth, Cabot said.

If you care so much about the man, Morgan said, why don't you go? Well? What are
you waiting for?

By next morning it had calmed enough for Morgan to go out. He told Cabot to soak
and set fire to DeHaven's bag, to send up smoke, and stop the smoke if ever DeHaven
came back.

Even as he took the first step, he knew he was wasting his time, that this was all
just for show. He was loyal to that idea and nothing else. It was almost ten before
he reached the top of the headland. He'd not seen the slightest trace in the snow.
Far below, the last of the smoke had faded long since. He stood and turned on the
spot. He'd learned to look closely, to let himself be distracted by the details,
but today that wasn't enough. He stood a long time looking towards Beechey. He could
feel, physically, the magnet's lure. Old friends. The old life. A temptation he did
not quite know how to resist. Behind him, the
Impetus
and everyone on it were now
almost beyond reach.

It was noon. A lone figure came trudging towards them over the tragic snow. They
rushed out to meet him, arms flapping, staggering through the drift like men wading
into the sea. Afterwards, their disappointment was not easy to hide.

Eight hours later, they were eating their pemmican, warm in their bags. They had
hauled all the way round the bay, along the beach, shouting his name. For good measure,
every now and then Morgan had clambered up to bellow into a crack in the cliff face.

He's gone to Beechey, Cabot said.

Deserted, you mean, Banes said. He was accusing Cabot of speaking Morgan's lines,
and Cabot looked to Morgan to object.

I'll leave that for Captain Myer to decide, Morgan said. He's gone. Very likely he's
frozen. They say it's not a particularly unpleasant way to go. A bit like falling
asleep, apparently.

The faces soured. This was a new tone, and a new voice. They had a new, strange taste
in their mouths.

Morgan could not understand the man, why he'd gone on ahead, alone. Had he really
thought Morgan was ready to turn back, so close to their goal? He had merely wanted
the explicit endorsement of the other men, and to acknowledge the risk they ran,
pushing on now. He wanted it all on record – his alibi – for his superiors to read,
if ever he did not return to the ship.

Alone, on foot, pushing hard, a man might make it in a day or a day and a half, if
he didn't stop. If he stopped, he would close his eyes, and fall asleep, and freeze.
If the ships were still there, he could invent any story he liked. Blame the storm,
say he had been lost. In any case, he would be saved. Even if the ships were gone,
he might not be condemned. As Banes said, they would have left a cache of supplies
for Franklin. Food and fuel, maybe even a boat. All he had to do, to stay alive,
was stay on his feet.

Gentlemen, Morgan said, with a false, cheery voice. Tomorrow we have another long
day ahead of us, and I am now turning out the lamp. I wish every one of you goodnight.

He woke at six, lit a match, counted the heads. They were all still there. He watched
the flame crawling along the wood, feasting on the soft white flesh of it, and the
puny black skeleton left behind. He watched the froth riding ahead. He watched the
fingertips begin to glisten and brown. They were somebody else's fingers. They were
leather now. They would decide for themselves when to let go.

He lit another match, and lit the conjuror. The warmth would wake them one by one.
He pulled on his boots and went outside. He walked over to the wall of hummocks,
out of sight. Found a niche where he would be sheltered on two sides at least, and
that's where he squatted down. It was his first proper movement in a week. Afterwards,
he turned to look at the thing and found it already frozen. In the days and months
to come he would be leaning into the traces, or lying in his bag, or in a bunk inside
a ship, or in his very own feather bed back home, and all the while what had once
been inside him would still be lying here in the ice, unseen and soon forgotten,
even by Morgan himself, much as it was now – not being slowly absorbed back into
the earth, with a life of its own, but frozen in time.

He was grateful, even glad, that DeHaven had gone on ahead. It was a perfect reason
now to push all the way to Beechey, and at Beechey who knew what they would find?
He was sure Dr DeHaven had got lost and merely gone on ahead of them, he told the
tent. They themselves would now temporarily abandon the sledge, the quicker to push
on, and catch him up. It ought not to be much more than the matter of a single day.
At Beechey, he said, they would recover their friend, make their communication to
Austin, renew their supplies, then retreat to the ship, exactly as planned.

5th November

Lancaster House, it was called. The words were burned into the lintel. Morgan stood
alone in the doorway. The men were inside, lying on the bare shale. He looked north
and south. It was now calm and clear, visibility anything up to seven or eight miles.
They'd found no trace of DeHaven here or anywhere else. Offshore, there was no hint
of a mast. That put the ships at an impossible distance. Trapped out in the Sound
as helpless as themselves, or in some safer haven.

The house itself was empty. Austin had taken everything, left only a few lumps of
coal in one corner, a few broken staves, two split tins of hotch-potch. If they did
not want to freeze or starve, they had to return to the ship.

In the mute panic of his mind, Morgan struggled to
understand. He had imagined how
easy it would be not to go back, if the ships were gone. Lancaster House would have
food and fuel enough for six months, he'd told the men. If the expedition ships were
gone, they could stay all through the winter, in relative comfort. Next summer, a
ship would pick them up. They had pushed on to find the missing man, they could say.
It would be true. It would be almost the entire truth. They could say they had been
trapped. A storm, an accident. The long hard winter would be testimony in their favour,
against almost any charge.

All his life, he sometimes thought, he had deliberately courted shame. That was why
he had accepted this particular commission, that men ten years younger had turned
down. That was why he had accepted command of the sledge. Perhaps, as usual, he had
been punishing himself for other failures, or other flaws, or testing for them. It
was a young man's vanity that he clung to, or that clung to him – the thought that
he could still redeem himself. From what, he didn't know. He presumed it didn't much
matter by now. But time and again, year after year, he put himself farther, longer,
deeper. So far, he had always managed to come back. And even that, in his ruthless
logic, was a mark against him. This time, he'd gone farther than ever before. Coming
down the coast, he was putting himself beyond danger, he thought. Every extra step,
he thought, was more room for manoeuvre. In any great space, he now saw, the room
for manoeuvre was minuscule.

He stepped into the lee of the gable, out of the rising breeze. His face inches from
the frozen wall. He closed his eyes, felt himself swaying gently, let himself lean
forward until his head touched the stone. Through his head-furs, the thing felt as
cold and solid as steel. Arms by his side, body stiff, he leaned into his forehead,
confided it all his weight. The pressure grew. His body was trembling. He clenched
his teeth, and clenched his throat. Let his head drop back, his mouth open to the
sky. Emerged a pitiful sound. It felt as though something was physically draining
out of him, something
he'd been trying desperately to contain. He had thought it
a reserve of strength, but it felt more like a weight, a burden, that he was now
being relieved of. He had arrived, he knew, at a very particular moment, a very particular
spot. Whether it was a moment of great weakness or of great strength, he could not
say. He could not now tell the difference. It was the courage to surrender, perhaps.

Afterwards, as he turned to go back inside, he saw a head at the door, instantly
withdrawn. It was Cabot, he thought. It did not trouble him, the discovery. It would
do him no harm, he guessed, to be thought a little queer in the head.

6th November

The next morning they had a good breakfast of pork and chocolate, with a double dose
of spirits, and at eight o'clock they started for home. They did not look any more
to the south. Whatever calamity or miracle each man had secretly hoped to find at
Beechey, that was all behind them now.

Until yesterday, every step had been a step farther out, that would have to be paid
for a second time, on the way back. He had thought of it bravely, the volte-face,
the first unimpeachable step towards home. From then on, he was sure, the steps
would be easier to make, as you counted them down. He was wrong. The road was as
heavy as ever, the day was calm, and he was soon dripping with sweat. The beach was
covered with snow, and they advanced pedantically, step by stupid step. They were
heading back to their last campsite, where they'd left the sledge. They were taking
the long way round. If DeHaven was still alive, there was still a chance they might
meet him, Morgan said. More than once he looked out over the bay. The floe had been
shattered by the gale, and every crack stuffed to the brim with snow. In his mind,
he saw a lone figure leaping grandly across the cracks. Or scraping his feet along
the ground, feeling his way in the dark, blind. No matter how careful you were, every
so often you would sink to your knees, or your waist. Sooner or later, you would
simply disappear.

At their last campsite, the sledge was still there, but the oilskin cover was badly
torn. Each man gave it a shameful glance. The snow roundabout had been trampled flat,
and soiled.

It is a bear, Morgan said. It was an official announcement. He was furious at the
doubt, the hope. Look at the dung, he said.

On all sides were familiar horizons. From hereon out, whatever he did would not be
enough. Whatever they suffered, it would be deserved. He was coming back at least
one man short. Already he heard the insinuations, in the captain's cabin, and traded
freely amongst the men.

DeHaven had made a kind of burrow for himself, a hundred yards north of the camp.
He heard the voices, crawled out, managed a single, strangled cry. His feet were
in a bad way. He looked and sounded like a man catatonically drunk. He had lost his
goggles and was totally blind.

They set up the tent around him, stripped him naked, began to rub him all over, all
five of them, as hard as they could. Every now and then they dribbled a little rum
or hot tea into his mouth. They kept at it all evening and much of the night.

The next morning they carried him out in his bag and laid him on top of the sledge,
and tied him down. He was mumbling something, Morgan saw. He put his ear right up
against the lips.

Of course I will, Morgan answered him, in a knowing voice. That's exactly what I'll
do. Good and tight, he told Banes. We don't want him falling off.

Cabot and Banes laid the buffalo skin over him.

Let's try not to smother the man, Morgan said. If I can at all manage it, I intend
to bring him in alive.

That first day they were twelve hours under weigh, minus two hours for stoppages,
to rub the hands and feet again.

Don't listen to him, Morgan told them. It's for his own good.

They were twelve hours under weigh that day, and that night in the tent he could
see the men were in need of consolation. He trawled his mind and found nothing.
Yet often that day, even during the worst of it, he'd felt he was precisely where
he ought to be. Where the beach was flat, they found the tracks they'd made coming
south. It was a purpose-built road, that promised slick, easy pulling, all the way
back to the ship. The deep tracks, the flat course, the obstacles nicely navigated
– everything was tailor-made. All they had to do was slot themselves in.