The Surfacing (45 page)

He thought of how far it was back to the floe – what he took for solid ground. A
fanatical voice was telling him he'd already gone too far. But other thoughts, too,
were careering through his brain. Behind his eyes, the clockworks were turning as
fiercely as they ever had. There was something alive in his flesh, like the first
thrill of sickness. It was a deep, abiding ambition, that only he could properly
appreciate. Its magnetic pull, downwards. Its mute tenacity. It had stayed with him
when so much else had abandoned or faltered. It had not taken root. It was not new.
It was the rage to fail.

In the end he gave a good long roar for help. He stood listening to the better silence.
The day was fading at last. Any second he expected to see a pinpoint of light floating
in the distance, in the direction of the boat. It hardly mattered. At that distance
he could not summon it. He had no whistle, no bell, and feared a shot would send
him through. He roared again as loud as he could. The fool stood waiting for an echo.
The other man was ready to renounce.

DeHaven was far ahead of him now, at the very limit of his range. But Morgan himself
could not take another step. It was as though he were physically carrying the boy
on his back. He stood there sickened with longing and love. He understood it now.
The thing was not a gift but a burden. It had weight.

Under him, the sea entire started to creak, then to crack. It did so carefully, crazily,
with a long luxurious rip. It sounded like the leisurely fall of a tall tree. It
felt like the entire solid world beginning to cede.

2nd August

DeHaven heated the seal blood over the lamp, then poured it out. Don't think about
it, he said. Just get it inside you. It'll do the rest itself.

Morgan looked at his cup as though at something he'd hidden and hoped never to see
again.

Drink it while it's warm, you fool, DeHaven said. That's half the good of it.

It tasted not unlike raw eggs.

The Eskimos drink it don't they? DeHaven said.

I'm not an Eskimo, Morgan said. He could barely whisper. He sounded aged, hoarse.
At just that moment, he wrote later, I was as weak as I had ever been in the presence
of those in my command. I considered them in their bags. Many refused to catch my
eye.

How was I to know I'd go all the way through? he said.

The laws of physics, DeHaven said. You've heard of them, haven't you? Or maybe you
thought they didn't apply to you personally?

When he woke the next day, it was with the body of an older, weaker man. He felt
sick to his stomach, and cold to the core, with knowing pains in every muscle and
joint. A caricature by some unknown hand was pinned to the pole by his head. It was
his portrait, in Franklin's pose, with Franklin's uniform and hat. The thing was
very well done. They said nothing, of course, until he reached to take it down. Then
they roared like madmen.

After breakfast DeHaven ordered him to sit up as best he could. He held Morgan's
bare wrist between his fingers and studied his watch. He pressed the flared end of
his tube to Morgan's bare back. The wood was cold.

Breathe in, he ordered. Now hold it. Now breathe out.

Inch by inch, breath by breath, he shuffled around Morgan's back, searching for something,
that Morgan was convinced he would find. He looked into his ears, his eyes, down
his throat. To Morgan it felt as though he was looking
much farther. Finally, DeHaven
told him to put on his shirt. How long do you give me? Morgan asked.

The flap had been rolled back. Outside, towards the horizon, the sea entire was filled
with blood. In Morgan's portfolio, mocking, was a letter of recommendation from Her
Majesty to the Chinese.

For three days he lay quaking under the covers, letting his mind drift where it would.
Hour by hour, breath by breath, something essential was draining away. He could not
even sit up, they had to slide the pan under him, and feed him spoon by stupid spoon.

Good boy, DeHaven jeered.
Very
good.

5th August

The years had passed. They had all grown older, each in his own way. The life and
the weather had done its work. The faces looked like parchment now. In the end Morgan
asked them directly, one by one, who wanted to push on.

Banes, he said. I suppose you'll be leading the charge.

Banes would not look at him. Morgan still looked quite weak and quite ill. It was
another reason not to stay. He was the worst of their prospects, in the flesh.

Leask, Morgan said.

Sorry sir.

Mr Daly.

Yes sir.

Yes what? Yes you want to push on, or yes you want to return to the ship?

I want to push on sir. But we'll come back for you and
Miss Rink and Tommy, sir.
Be sure of it. Just as soon as we possibly can.

Thank you Daly, Morgan said.

John Daly, he wrote. Without a shadow of a doubt the hardiest individual I have ever
known bar none, and the most faithful. I do not mean to embarrass him by this accolade,
which is free of all exaggeration. He is a model for diligence, devotion, and toughness.
He is more man than any of us, and he too wants to go on.

They had a quiet dinner. Morgan did his best to get them to talk, to show he held
no grudge.

What will you do afterwards? he asked. When you get back. Do you think you'll sign
up again?

I don't think so, no sir, Daly said. I think I've done my stint.

Where will you live? Back home?

Very likely, yes sir.

The Mammy's cooking, Morgan said. It's been the downfall of many a great man.

Afterwards, he walked out alone for a smoke. Even when he was done he lingered, half-heartedly
tidying the empty tins, checking the straps, the halters. For the moment, he refused
to go back inside. There was nothing in there for him now but looks of condolence.
Eventually DeHaven followed him out.

It's hard to stomach, I suppose, for some of them, Morgan said. But I understand.

What's there to understand? DeHaven said. They want to survive, that's all. They
want to go home.

What Morgan meant was, he understood why they had been obliged to wait. The thing
no longer looked quite so much like an abandon. They needed it to look like bravery.
They needed a good fund of hardship – a long, harrowing tale – to buffer and blur
the capitulation. Morgan himself, of course, minded a contrary logic, had always
loved the choice everyone else refused to understand.

They stood at the edge. The lake had all been painted over again. A few days before
falling in, he'd seen a vast, sly shadow, deep down.

They say the whale's closest relative is the hippopotamus,
Morgan said. Naturally,
when you hear that first, you dismiss it out of hand. But you get used to the idea,
after a while. And you end by saying to yourself, why not?

If I wanted the joys of family life, DeHaven said, I would have stayed at home. That's
what I tell the men.

By now the sky blushed orange, pink, pearl. The cracks spidered their way towards
the horizon, north and south. DeHaven was headed back to the boat. Morgan watched
the man leap. The huge pans were shifting under him as he made his way.

To this point, he wrote, I always considered the decision to go back a concession,
nothing else. The rest was mere fuss and pantomime – salvage, I thought. I thought
that by persisting, day after day, I could put myself beyond their reach. I was wrong.
The bond is stronger – the call louder – the farther I go and the longer I stay away.

6th August

He spread one of the oilskins. As at a market, he set out his wares. He laid out
the smallest compass and one of the sextants. I don't suppose they'll save you if
you run into any great difficulty, he said. But it will be some comfort to know you
have them at hand.

To you or to us? DeHaven asked.

To us both, I hope.

He brought out his watch. He sprung open the cover to check it still ran. He handed
the thing to Daly. It felt as though he was confiding to their trust something precious,
that he expected to be returned intact.

I watched them pack, he wrote. Banes and Leask were giddy as schoolboys. I wanted
to see them humbled. A few days travelling will see to that, I promised myself. But
for the moment, in their minds they are still the chosen. So be it. I will admit
to being as jealous as ever of such men, but I will make no more efforts to emulate
them.

The party continuing south has been given food for 10 days. I have totted up the
weight per man. I am also giving them the spare shotgun, that in all honesty I never
cared for. I believe I have been generous with the ammunition too, of which I note
we have no shortage. Perhaps I was always expecting or indeed hoping for a separation
of some kind. Who can honestly know what one has been hatching secretly?

He looked up. Banes had their mirror on his knee, had his razor open, was splitting
matches lengthwise.

They are taking the mast, he wrote. It is the longest piece of wood we have. Also,
the grappling hook and ropes. They will move from floe to floe as best they can until
the mess begins to congeal. They say they will draw the floating fragments to them
and hop across, where the mess has not yet frozen, or is yet too thin to take their
weight. Where necessary, they shall use the mast as a sort of bridge or plank. In
any case, that is their stated plan. I think it ludicrous, but confess I did not
prod it too hard. I was perhaps afraid they would change their minds.

When they left this morning, he wrote, their packs looked pitifully small. I took
care to note the details of the scene. Even as they moved away, a dozen gulls came
down to heckle. As they came to the first line of hummocks, without breaking his
stride Dr DeHaven raised his arm and held it aloft a moment, no doubt a last signal
of his defiance to those he flattered himself were watching him go. Long after the
last of them had walked into the labyrinth, the sea-birds could still be seen wheeling
overhead, as over a fishing boat.

Morgan had already written out his latest sheet of paper and slipped it into a bottle.
He put it in the boat. This is our
furthest point south, it read. Necessity caused
us to abandon our ship, lying as she did entirely confined in ice and inept for navigation.
Greater necessity now obliges us to return to her; namely, increasing weakness, decreasing
supplies, the advancing season, and our perfect lack of progress. We shall pass the
coming winter aboard as best we can, in the hope of more propitious conditions next
spring, when we will attempt once more to return home, by the means available to
us. August 6th 1852. RICHARD SPREAD MORGAN, Acting Commander, HMS Impetus.

After breakfast, he gathered those who had chosen to return with him to the ship.
He made a little speech. The sky was fraught with birds, directly overhead. All through
his own speech, Morgan heard only their garrulous banter. They seemed determined
to shout him down. They seemed ready to celebrate. Their time had come. They hung
in the air, waiting for the men to be gone.

They piled the boat with all they were leaving behind. They knotted their Union Jack
to the steering-oar and jammed it in the tabernacle. Flushed with a strange kind
of joy, they leaned forward into the raging light. Of the flag, he wrote: It is no
boast or claim. It marks a limit, that is all, and testifies to the efforts we have
made to rejoin our former life, which even now seems to lie directly before us. More,
it testifies to our reluctance to admit the unattainable. Could it have been otherwise?
I do not know. I confess I did not expect obstacles so perfectly conceived to frustrate
us.

Last night, Morgan wrote, as I was drifting into sleep, I distinctly remembered an
event I had previously blanked from my mind, involving those two musk oxen we managed
to round up last summer. You may not remember them, as you were even then much confined
to bed. My hope, I confess now, was to keep them for milk, for Tommy, if you died.
For two months we kept them in the coal-house, but the situation was obviously ill-adapted
to their habits or needs, and they did not thrive. By September they were dying,
and
I decided they should be released. Whether or not this was out of kindness I
cannot say. I suspect it was only in order to spare us the sorry spectacle of their
lingering death. Also, you were by then much improved, and DeHaven was confident
the danger was past. I myself undid the ropes and unblocked the door. The creatures
looked at me curiously but made no move. After waiting for a minute or two, I took
one by the halter and pulled it outside, in the direction of the island where we
had happened upon them. I managed to lead or more properly pull it perhaps half a
mile. The other followed at some distance. In the end, growing cold and tired and
not a little irritated, I let go the rope and started back for the ship. When I looked
around, the animal had dropped to its foreknees. I watched as it bent its head to
the ground, then toppled onto its side, as though it had been shot. I went back and
stood over the thing, watching the steam rising from its flank, and watching its
nostrils slowly flare and pinch. As well you may imagine, there was nothing I could
do. I could not even put it out of its misery, as I had not brought my gun. After
a time the nostrils were still. Its fellow had finally caught us up and came to stand
close by. It too stared down at the dead ox, from whose body the steam continued
to rise. I do not know how long we stood there together, but in the end I began to
walk back towards the ship. The surviving ox turned to follow me, like a lovesick
puppy, and I must say I was not really surprised. The thing was alone in the world
now – for an animal, surely an unappealing thought. As I walked along I could hear
distinctly the beast labouring behind me. It was blowing hard, but scraping its way
patiently over the ice. I did not go directly up the gangway, rather stood by the
door of the coal-house waiting for it to arrive. I remember DeHaven saying afterwards
that when his own time came he hoped he would face it as well. What he meant was,
just as quietly, with equal resignation or indifference. ‘I thought you wanted to
die like a soldier, spitting and swearing,' I answered him, for that is what he had
proudly asserted many times. But he denied this and maintained what he said. I have
often thought
about the matter since, especially during my last sickness here, and
during the many other moments of idleness our travels have afforded me. What I realize
is that I want not to die but to live like an animal, to face into it all just as
quietly, with resignation or a comparable indifference, to use DeHaven's words.