The Surfacing (6 page)

From a distance, later, DeHaven watched his friend trying to walk from the dancehall
across the beach, towards the governor's house. He watched the man falter and dither,
stagger on only to stall again, as if unsure of his bearings. Now he gathered resolve
and lunged forward, swaying outrageously, like a ship in a heavy swell. Beside him,
the sea glittered like silver foil in the moonlight, and slopped beery foam onto
the sand.

At six o'clock in the morning, still singing, the men took hold of the capstan, and
began to haul up. Some of the girls stood crying silently on the shore. About the
ship, the gulls swooned and mimed in the wind. Morgan had been found and carried
to the jolly-boat and laid along the bottom, and that was how
he quit Disko – snoring,
unconscious, almost forgotten, in a leaky boat trailed behind the ship.

Even as the last whaleboat was pushing off from the beach, Rink tried to convince
them to wait. Myer was out at the ship, of course, and there was no one to appeal
to but the drunken crew. They left him letters for the next homebound ship, whenever
that would be.

25th July

All sails set, they ran along smartly under the cliffs. For two days now, a strong
wind from the south had been driving them on. It felt like proper progress at last.
On deck, Morgan listened to the jibes batted back and forth overheard. They were
no more anxious, it seemed to him, than men making a jaunt from Kingstown to Holyhead.
They seemed utterly indifferent to their own fragility, and that of their ship.

Up the coast the whalers were all gathered just off Upernavik, where the ice now
pushed right in to the shore. Like them, Myer made fast to the floe to wait for an
opening. Immediately, a boat came working its way towards them through the mess.
It was Captain Parker, of the
True Love
. He had mailbags for them from Scotland,
but no news of Franklin.

Myer insisted the man stay to dinner, and all through dinner interrogated him. True,
the ice was fairly rotten, Parker said. But what did that matter without the wind
to scatter it? No, he said, this year he did not think they would find a way. Neither
their nor his nor any other ship. Of course, Parker told the table, I'm not a prophet.

Myer insisted on telling the man their own story, blow by blow, as though inviting
him to approve or find fault. The long weeks trapped in the floe, the daily crush,
the ice that simply would not be bullied aside. He'd left himself open to accusation,
he was sure. Now, listening to him interrogate Parker, Morgan wondered was Myer looking
for a way in or a way out. Coaxed by the lamplight, he felt something very like pity
for the man. The weeks refitting and recruiting at Disko had done little for him.
Since taking to sea he'd been tired and sick. He looked older, starting out a second
time.

Afterwards, as usual, MacDonald retired to his cabin early. Now Myer too stood up,
saying he was not altogether well. That left Morgan and DeHaven and Brooks, and Cabot
clearing away, and Hepburn already in his bunk. They had all understood the conversation
with Parker. As soon as the ice loosened any, they would begin to bore again. They
would have to bore as far as they possibly could, for the sake of the log. Myer had
even convinced Parker to sell them a sail and yards, that would let them add a main
topsail to their spread.

Pure folly, DeHaven said, almost to himself. The ship and everything in it, he meant,
or what was waiting for them in The Pack.

How do you mean? Brooks said. It was a challenge of sorts, a show of loyalty to the
captain.

He means we're too late, Morgan said. He could not contemplate an argument. Like
Myer, he'd been not a little tetchy since shipping from Disko, and in every half-heard
word now felt some little barb. He would not be easy, he knew, until they entered
the ice again.

It's still the middle of the summer, Brooks told him.

The solstice was six weeks ago, Morgan said. In a month it'll be September. He was
tracking the calendar, counting the days. September, he said, as though that would
settle the argument once and for all. It did not. It was only a word. It was still
bright, close to midnight. Men were sleeping up on
deck. All the evidence was against
him, and it was pointless trying to explain. Nonetheless, they were too late. That
was the simple fact. Even if the passage went fairly well, it had been a lost race
from the start, having to return to Disko, leaving again late in July. This far north,
the doors did not stay open long.

26th July

He did a round of the ship after breakfast, to distribute the letters from Parker's
postbag. He handed each one over and quickly moved along. It was a poor life had
sent most of them out, he knew, and precious little promise in it anywhere, no matter
how hard a man looked, to tempt himself back.

He found Banes on deck, trying to tempt the cat with a frayed bit of rope. But Banes
refused to take the thing. He needed Morgan to read it out.

Would you not prefer to go below? Morgan said.

I don't care who hears, Banes said. It's not me had the writing of it.

It was a single sheet. Morgan tore it open and folded it out. He began to read it
aloud. First the formalities. Then: Well I bet you will be surprised to hear that
Anna Lennon is married. She married James Dempsey the schoolmaster last month in
Cork. They had a good day out. Everyone here was surprised at the news. I expect
you will be surprised yourself.

Who was she? Morgan asked, wondering was the news proof or reprieve.

A girl I knew, Banes said. I know the fellow too, fairly well.

Another of his conquests, many and varied, DeHaven
jibed. Leaving other men to clean
up his mess after him. Isn't that it, Dan?

That's it exactly, sir.

They had been ready for days. They were only waiting now for the word from above.
Above, the canvas was slapping joylessly against the masts. The wind from the south
was failing, that till now had held The Pack in place. Already the ice seemed a little
looser. Tomorrow morning very likely they would begin to bore.

Myer was studying the whalers through the glass. One by one, he noted their names
in his book. What it was proof of, Morgan did not know. After a time Morgan himself
stood out at the bow and studied the land. At the far end of the glass, he saw another
life and another age. The houses were all sod, walls and roof. He felt he was looking
all the way back to Ireland, his father's estate, the life he'd left behind.

He watched until his eyes began to water and the world began to dance. He shook out
his head and saw the vision was not merely private. Between ship and shore the air
was dancing as over a stove. It was the warm air. It was like staring drunk through
old glass. The men did not like it. They stood frozen at their tasks to watch the
bergs being hoisted into the sky. Morgan stood on deck as rapt as any of them.

As evening came on, they heard a new song set adrift from Parker's ship. The voices
were brazen against the rough silence of the sea. Cabot stood alone, listening, tears
in his eyes.

That's not French, Morgan told him, as though to set him straight.

Basque, Cabot said. They used to rule the seas up here. All this. The first of the
whalers. The bravest and the best. And all is left of that now is a few old songs.
He shoved the butt of his hand against his eye. It will be a time before I will hear
them again, he said.

You could teach them to us, Morgan said. Beef up the repertoire. God knows I'd be
glad to hear a new tune.

It is not the same, Cabot said.

No, Morgan said. I suppose not.

There had been a letter for Giorgio, the cabin-boy, from his father. Morgan read
it to the whole deck, with a sick taste in his throat. We had a letter from your
brother Jim, he read. He told us he does not think you care so much for the life
of a sailor. However much it may seem a hard life and a strange one to a young boy,
you must put up with it now. Maybe you will like it more with time.

4th August

At midnight Morgan hauled his mattress up on deck and rolled it out. Still he could
not sleep. Below it had been too warm. Here it was too bright. The moon overhead,
and the stubborn sun, and both giggling below, in the long crazy lead they'd been
ploughing through the floe. He got out his mother's letter again, that had been waiting
for him in Parker's bag.

Dear Richard, it said. It is with deep regret I am writing you these few lines, in
the hope that they may somehow find you, wheresoever in the world you may be. Your
father was buried yesterday 28th. I am only after coming back from the funeral at
Bandon, where all our people are buried as you know. He had a very happy death. You
can rest easy on that count. It was a grand funeral. The bishop insisted on saying
it himself, on your account I believe. 79 yrs he was according to the Bible. I am
congratulating you on your birthday 19th July whether yet to come or already gone.
I hope you will enjoy many more years. I hope too you have seen sense and are now
living a better life than previously. The weather
here is still very hard and cold.
It is terrible hard on all the Old People, and there is plenty about the place I
think will not see another winter through. I myself will be 71 years in September.
I am going through life here alone now the best I can, but I am lonesome as I have
not a single one of the family with me. That is not what I expected of you. I did
not think ye would forsake me every one. I am very anxious to hear from you at least
one last time before I die. I am lonesome here now after your father of course. To
the end like myself he could see neither sense nor virtue in your pursuit of hardships
and labours to which you were never bred. We could never neither of us ever comprehend
why you went and quit the Land Service. I expect a long letter soon and don't forget
it. God bless you and watch over you day and night wherever you may be.

He remembered his last visit home, calling to his father's room. He'd opened the
door just enough to stick his head in, to ask was it a good time? The doctor was
bent over the bed. The old man was getting his daily dose, the doctor said. Morgan
chastely closed the door. Going down the stairs, his mother was coming up. He stepped
back against the wall, so they would not touch as they passed. Afterwards he waited
almost an hour down in the kitchen, warming himself at the fire, before he could
muster the courage to go up again. For this, his last visit, he wanted the old man
in a proper state – beyond the first flush of stupidity, the first grin of relief.
He wanted him well enough to pretend he wasn't in too much pain. By extension, that
he wasn't in pain all the time, that he hadn't always been in pain, more or less
constantly, more or less unbearably, all his life. That it didn't matter his son
couldn't do anything about it, was helpless, like a parent with a suffering child,
because nothing more needed to be done, it had been dealt with, he felt considerably
better now. So Morgan waited a long time at the fireside before going back up.

He had mentioned the letter to no one, and most likely never would. It was something
he wanted to keep for himself, apparently. Why, he could hardly say. In so many things,
he
was a mystery to himself. Perhaps those aboard were not fit to share it, in his
slighted mind. Yes, that felt right. That felt like a reasonable counterweight.

Now in the silence he could hear scraps of ice nibbling at the hull. Still he could
not sleep, and in the end he climbed down and walked out in the queer twilight, under
its spell. He could see clearly that the thing had relaxed. He watched the cracks
breathe, felt he was standing on the back of a lazy Leviathan. All day there'd been
a fair breeze blowing that worked with the tide to open everything up. They'd been
boring a week now, were making much better progress this time round. He wondered
would it last. He hardly cared, now, if it all closed up again. The prospect no longer
vexed. Now he was simply glad to be back in the ice. Now he felt and enjoyed its
preserve. On the open water he'd still felt too close to Kitty, to Disko, to home.
Now he breathed deeply and freely, great lungfuls of cool, clean air. More than anything
he felt relief.

10th August

In the officers' cabin, they all felt the breeze, and all lifted their heads. It
was MacDonald, in the open doorway. Most likely there would be some extra duty for
one of them, or something very like a reproach.

Mr Morgan, I wonder if I might talk to you privately, he said.

Of course, Morgan said. He turned his book face down on the table. It was something
he would take up again exactly where he'd left off. But Hepburn and Brooks were already
on their feet, and already stood between him and the door.

We're going to take a little turn, Brooks said. Stay where you are.

Too quickly, they were gone. Morgan was still sitting at the table, looking up.

There is someone wishes to see you, MacDonald said.

Here I am, Morgan said.

It would be better if you came with me.

Morgan studied the man's face, searching for the eloquent clue.

Trust me, MacDonald said. It was not an order but an appeal, and an offering.

Morgan got to his feet slowly, burdened. Do I need my coat? he said.

No.

MacDonald led the way, the few steps down the corridor to his own cabin. He opened
the door and stepped aside, for Morgan to go ahead. Morgan stepped inside, and MacDonald
stepped straight in behind him, closing the door. She was sitting on the bed, her
legs folded beneath her tailor-fashion, her back to the partition wall.

Morgan stood there in silence. He needed a moment to let the information soak right
the way through. To open himself up to it, physically.