The Surfacing (33 page)

I believe that is very close to blasphemy, Mr Morgan, he said. What you have just
suggested.

You are right of course, Morgan said. The Lord is watching over us and directing
our doom or our salvation, as He sees fit. He dropped a lump of sugar into his cup,
stirred it conscientiously.

I do not think we can know His mind, Mr Morgan, and to cast a judgement on His motives
and manner and final ends is a terrible vanity, that a man would do well to quell.

That sounds very like a threat to your captain, DeHaven said.

Morgan took another sip. Like tar oil, he announced. It sounded too much like praise
for Cabot to take offence. In a way, the chaplain is quite right, Morgan said. All
in all, I am a vain man. Complacent too, on many fronts. Although I like to think
that, in a private moment, no one knows better
than I the depths of my own ignorance.
Does it trouble you, MacDonald, having such an incompetent man in command? My immorality,
of course, we will not even mention.

We must place our faith in a Higher Power, is all I say, Mr Morgan. Accept that we
are not entirely masters of our own fate, nor do we need to be.

Too true, Mr MacDonald. Too true. We are all ignorant and powerless. To a greater
or lesser extent, obviously, Morgan said. It was he who was threatening now.

That is what I believe, MacDonald said.

And you believe, too, I suppose, something to the effect that it rests with God to
console, or chastise, or care for, or neglect, or even afflict each and every man
as He sees fit, according to processes and principles beyond our understanding.

God is good, MacDonald said. That is all we know. I think you must have proof enough
of that in the shape of your little boy. He was inching back from the edge.

You must admit that on occasion it is difficult not to doubt. There is a great deal
of contrary evidence put in our way.

We are tested every day.

Is that what He has been at, these past eighteen months? Testing us? Morgan said.
Stack us one on the next in our little box, and let us brew? Day after day, night
after night, staring at each other's faces, and staring at the planks, and breathing
each other's stink, two winters and two summers now, and another one coming on? Whatever
else may be said of Him, He has patience, I'll give Him that.

I would not presume to say, Mr Morgan. In any case, I don't believe patience is a
term that can be properly applied to the Almighty.

Yet, if nothing else, I think we can safely say that we have been tested. Unless
of course you think there is some other agency at work?

It has been a trial, yes. The purpose of the trial, I do not know. As I have said,
wherever we see the sign of direction, we have no means of judging if it be for a
first or final end.

Mr MacDonald, Morgan said, I do not mind being tested.
Only, I think I would like
a clear choice, between one thing and the other. One choice would be easy, of course,
and wrong. The other painful, and right. That is generally how it works, I believe.
But what have I had to choose between, these past two winters? If I knew that, I
think, it might have been easier to face.

We must trust, MacDonald said, that will all be revealed in time.

7th April

A lone snow bunting was perched on their main topsail yard. They had last seen him
at Beechey, in another life. Since then he had been to America. Within days, Morgan
knew, the sky would be alive with them. The thought irritated him profoundly. He
could not imagine what lured so many so far, to such an inhospitable place.

They come here to breed, DeHaven said. As you yourself did.

They watched him gorging himself on their piles of filth. The men leaned over the
gunwales, flinging down bits of bread and tack. It looked like they were trying to
frighten him away.

They'll be an absolute blessing, DeHaven said. And I don't just mean the hospital.
The little lad, fresh meat will do him no harm at all. Mince it up good and get those
new teeth of his to work. And the men too, as soon as we get enough of it into them,
I can get the gymnastics going again.

Morgan spent all the next day out on the ice. Scanning, spotting, taking aim. By
late morning everything was
wrapped in gauze. By mid-afternoon, he felt he was looking
at the world through some kind of window that was at once dirty and bright. By afternoon's
end, he had bagged almost fifty, and wandered miles from the ship, almost to the
island. He brought his compass up to his nose, cupped his hand as a blinker, to look
for the sun. The light blared up off the snow. He could see nothing. He was blind.
With the birds strung boa-like about his neck, he shuffled westwards. Every few minutes
he roared for help.

They had hoisted their train-lamps onto poles, set them up in two converging lines,
that stretched from the ship almost a quarter mile. Banes and Blacker and DeHaven
watched their captain groping his way from post to post. Bloated with laughter, they
crouched behind one of the whaleboats, as he stared stupidly into the future, calling
out was anybody there?

He knew they were watching. He could hear them, was deciding what to do. Since boyhood
he'd been able to load his gun in the dark. He loaded it now, and knelt, and fired
a shot as level as he could out over the snow. He paused to listen. As far as he
could tell, nothing had been touched. He turned a few degrees to his left and started
to load again.

10th April

Ba, little Tommy said.

No one seemed to hear. Brooks and MacDonald were lying on their backs, reading and
pretending to read. At the table, DeHaven was playing with the numbers in his notebook,
as though his calculations were rules to be obeyed.

Ba, he said again. Bread was what he meant. He sat in the chair Cabot had made for
him, in what had once been Myer's place. Head of the household, they said. Life was
better with him aboard.

Without looking up, DeHaven tore a few scraps from the loaf and flung them down the
table.

He's not a bird, Morgan said. Can't you just reach over and put it on his plate?

Today, for the first time in an age, dinner would be something called stew. To celebrate,
Cabot had baked a batch of fresh loaves, and the sinister smell of it filled the
ship, making them all homesick.

Not the crust, Morgan ordered. The scraps were too big, and too many. Delighted,
the boy would grab and shove them all into his mouth. Morgan was terrified of him
choking, and he choked at least once a day. He would go red in the face and fall
silent, then begin to jerk his head back and forth, trying to cough up the lump wedged
in the back of his throat.

20th April

It was the 20th of April, a Friday. They were going to visit the island at last.
They were ready. They were better and stronger almost every one. The fresh meat had
worked wonders, and DeHaven's exercise drills, and now they were scrambling over
the ruins to the threshold of a new world. Overhead, the sky was a fake blue. Their
little ice-hole was a pool of gold. All about them the snow fell in lone feathers,
that vanished even as they touched ground. As they came to the edge, the
leaders
pulled up to wait for Morgan, let him come to the fore. Warily, as though it might
not bear his weight, he stretched out his foot to step onto the land.

It was worse than threadbare, he would write that night. Yet they had set out for
it every man as for a tropical promise, primed for admiration and delight. Now they
stared up at the starved, sterile slopes. They stood and stared at the walls of rusted
rock, that rose plumb into a pewter sky.

They walked the shore, scanning the skyline, scanning the stones at their feet. If
nothing else, he hoped for some scrap of larch or pine, to prove that their drift
was not unique. That was what he was reduced to. They did not find enough for a matchstick.
They found nothing at all. No one was looking for them. No one had passed this way
earlier, hoping to be found.

Then a hundred yards ahead, MacDonald was roaring and waving grandly, like a shipwreck.
A campsite, Morgan thought. A signal-post. A skeleton. He stumbled along the shore.
The man stood pointing dumbly. As Morgan came up they all stepped back to let him
see. He lowered himself to his knees, bent his face almost to ground. It was a lone
dropping, not much bigger than buckshot. It was certainly too small for a hare. He
rolled it between finger and thumb, crushed it, held it to his nose.

They spent all afternoon hauling themselves to the top of the cliffs, for a better
view.

Magnificent, DeHaven said.

They built a cairn, knee-high, tacked one of her old red petticoats to a pole, planted
it. It was the loudest flag they had.

Half a mile offshore, Morgan paused to look back at the lump of rock and ice. Already
he understood that they could not winter here again, so close to where they had wintered
last year. The men could not stand it, stripped now of all prospect of release or
relief.

Beside him, the men had stopped to watch the sinking of the sun. It sat on the southern
horizon, growing fat. Some unseen weight seemed to be forcing it down, flattening
it out.
Morgan watched without shade. The thing was trembling, alive. In the end
it went down with quiet dignity, in a sea of flame. They could not have been more
solemn had they gathered to watch the scuppering of a ship.

22nd April

It was a lovely thing, that they said had cost Cabot a full week's work. Sound, balanced,
trim. The wood neatly carved, the loose grain buffed bright. A seat in front, a standing-rack
behind, with handles just the right height. Morgan stood looking at it, warm with
gratitude. He had not expected this or anything like it. He had not suspected the
source.

They brought the boy out to show him the prize. They set him down and fitted his
hands to the push-bar. Leaning into it, he began to plod across the snow. Morgan
watched with terror, sure it would shoot away, the boy would topple, strike his head.
It did not happen. It was exactly what he needed to help him walk. He was an invalid
taking first, miraculous steps.

The men had been at their exercises, but all now stopped to watch. They shouted down
from the deck, urging him on. The voices were melodious, home-brewed. It was a joy
to listen. The sun drenching everything, warming his face, warming his hair. The
quiet, delicious pride. Morgan felt benevolent towards them all.

By now the boy had mastered his technique, was leaning far forward, putting all his
weight into it, quick with his feet. A yard behind, Morgan kept his stride. The tracks
wandered loosely left and right.

She runs beautifully, he shouted to Cabot. Everyone could hear. Cabot did not answer,
was busy with his pipe. After much ritual tapping he put the thing between his lips.
A stream of blue smoke poured into the air. Nearby, the gulls were brawling over
the garbage.

Morgan stood the boy up on the platform, put himself in front, began to pull on the
rope. Almost immediately came the first sounds of complaint. He wanted his father
to stop, and did not know how to wait. Already he was trailing a foot behind him,
like a man descending from a moving train. As soon as Morgan stopped, the boy let
go the bar and fell backward. The head hit the snow with a thump. He lay there offended,
splayed. There was a burst of laughter from the men, quickly snuffed. Morgan was
rushing to help but Tommy was already rolling onto his front, getting his knees under
him, straightening up. He stood and staggered forward, five or six steps, fell over
again. Unaided, he still could not manage more than that. Eventually he made it to
the front of the sledge.

He stood there swaying, rope in hand. That was the role he wanted now. He looked
around for Dadda, wanted Dadda exactly where he himself had been a minute before.
So Morgan crouched down and took hold of the bar and duck-shuffled as best he could
behind the sledge, as though the boy were pulling him along.

He kept falling over and kept getting up, finding the rope, resuming. An example
to us all, Morgan shouted. There was no need, the men were cheering every time he
struggled again to his feet. Finally Morgan could stand the lesson no longer. He
went and picked him up and sat him on the front.

Stubborn little tike, Brooks said.

That'd come from the father's side, DeHaven said.

Tenacious
is the word you're looking for, Morgan said.

Or stubborn, DeHaven said. Or pig-headed. They all sound good to me.

His mother, too, can take a little credit, I think, Morgan said.

Tommy sat up proudly, paraded his smile. Again and again Morgan wheeled about to
bring him past the gathered men, to renew the applause. He kicked his legs in delight,
revelling.

Morgan felt – He did not know what he felt. His wife had once stuck a knife through
every one of his shirts, at the heart. It was the kind of nonsense of which she had
always been capable. He had worn them anyway, as punishment. Under his jackets, the
slit could not be seen, but he'd felt more vulnerable, physically, in that particular
spot. He felt the same thing now. In the armour, an invisible rift. That was the
danger. That was where he would be hurt.

He felt himself tapped to the source, the endless supply. He felt glutted and generous.
He called Cabot over, held out the rope. Here, he said, I give you my son.

The runners slurring along the ice. The boy stretching his neck, to check his father
saw and understood. His smile was perfect, painful to see. Morgan did not think he
could stand to watch it much longer. He could not stand to think that some day soon
he would be leaving it behind. They passed from sight, behind the ship. Close by,
the boy's excited cries had been barbed and sharp. In the distance, they seemed painfully
weak.