The Voyage of the Unquiet Ice (21 page)

But in the days and weeks following Trap Island, as the
Chloe
fought its way deeper and deeper into the north, he was forced to confess that he'd had no conception at all about what real cold was – or at least, he hadn't known that cold upon the land, cruel and biting though it could be, was a toothless thing compared to the utter misery of cold upon the ocean.

At first there was the rain. It embraced them as they departed the Trap and then fell ceaselessly for the next five days, grey and steady, driven by a frigid gale that ebbed at times but never faltered. Duty topside became a sodden, numbing ordeal, and men would hurry below at the end of their watches, blue lipped and shivering, in search of their last dry clothes, or to warm themselves by the fires that burned in the ovens of the galley.

But even the luxuries of dry clothes and fires were soon to be lost, for on the sixth day north of the Trap the first true arctic squall struck. In itself it was no great storm, merely a swift moving front of wind and heavy rain and dark cloud that swept over them and was gone – but it was followed within the hour by another, with stronger winds and darker clouds, and then another again, more severe yet, and then another still.

Word passed about the ship; they were crossing now into the Latitude of Storms. This was a zone, feared by all north-faring voyagers, of unchangingly hostile weather; a high circle of the world around which – regardless of the season – an endless succession of squalls formed and raged and died, one after the other, wheeling west to east in great spiralled arms; a forbidding and unwelcoming region of the sea. Indeed, according to Ship Kings lore, the storm latitudes spoke a last warning to the unwary captain: you have strayed too far to the north, turn back now, before it is too late!

But the
Chloe
could not turn back, it must win through to the Ice. And so they pushed on, ever northwards, and hour after hour, day after day, the squalls kept coming, each front looming rapidly over the western horizon to rush forward and batter the ship. The sky would turn black, the wind would heighten to an unnerving shriek, icy rain or hail would lash the ocean, and the waves would rear up with a new ferocity and hunger.

The
Chloe
was equal to it all, yes, but it was a fiendishly uncomfortable time for the crew. Sea sickness was rife, for even under reduced sail the battleship was permanently heeled far to one side, either smashing its way bone-jarringly through the swell, or surging over the crests in stomach-churning swoops. Below decks all was a cacophony of clattering gear and groaning timber, with bruised and swearing and vomiting men constantly being hurled off their feet by sudden rolls and drops.

And everything was drenched. Ever and anon some great wave would rear high enough to break across the
Chloe's
main deck; and those topside would suddenly be waist-deep in freezing water; and despite the closed hatches, icy cascades would rain down through the lower decks, soaking all beyond hope of drying out again.

Dow was as sodden as anyone. Indeed, for the first time since his eleventh birthday, his timberman's jacket failed him. It was waterproof enough in the forest, and upon fair seas – but now it became saturated through. Also, although he remained small in build for his age, and the jacket had been many sizes too large when his mother gave it to him, it was a close fit on him now, leaving no room beneath for jumpers and jerseys. So Dow put it away and adopted the same winter gear as the rest of the crew – a hooded and voluminous anorak made of layers of thin leather, specially oiled against the sea, and stuffed between with down.

Nevertheless he was still eternally cold and wet, for nothing ever dried out properly, and even the smithy was no refuge any more; it was too rough for Johannes to safely light his forge, so it was as frigid there as anywhere else on board. Even the cooks in the galley could not keep their ovens lit during the worst times, and so for days on end there was only cold food for the crew to eat – and no hot drinks to be had either.

What Dow would have given for a tot of whisky, to warm his insides at least. This was the first truly foul weather he'd experienced since putting to sea, and as much as he'd longed to be tested by such conditions, the relentlessness of it was exhausting, and he found himself dreaming idly at times of the blazing fires and warm cheer of the Barrel House back home.

But there was no whisky on the
Chloe
. The Ship Kings imbibed only beer by day – a thin brew at that, compared to the black New Island ales – and then wine by night, thick, red, and bitingly dry. Dow could barely stomach the stuff. Even fortified wine, or sherry as the Ship Kings called it – issued to the crew now, as the cold deepened – was no improvement. It burned the throat a little, like whisky, but still, it
wasn't
whisky …

‘No,' laughed Johannes, down in the smithy on the first night that the sherry ration was passed around. He had refused a tot himself, only watched in amusement as Dow had gulped his own, grimacing at the taste. ‘I didn't think you'd take to it. But each to their own tipple. Dry wines for the proud Ship Kings, and sour whiskies for you dull New Island folk. But do you want to try a real drink, Dow, from my own Twin Isles?'

They were hunkered about the workbench, as around them the ship rolled and creaked and clattered. Nicky, who'd been bent with his head to his knees, unfolded with an interested look as the blacksmith rose and went digging to the bottom of his sea chest.

‘Here now,' said Johannes, pulling forth a large earthen jug, stopped with a cork. ‘This is what a frozen soul needs when beset within the storm latitudes – a memory of sunshine and blue seas and warm air; aye, and of a warm smile, too. It's a rare commodity on a vessel like this, I can tell you.' He took a long and grateful swig, then passed it to Nicky, who did the same.

Then it was Dow's turn. He upended the jug – and was spluttering instantly at a foul, sickly-sweet spirit.

‘What on all the oceans is
that
?' he asked, thrusting the jug away.

‘That,' said Johannes feelingly, ‘is rum.'

After a long tormenting week of this, the days growing darker and shorter, the squalls abruptly changed – and got worse. They ceased to hurl rain or hail, and instead hurled snow, becoming full-fledged blizzards.

Again, Dow found that weather he'd known on land was quite different from the same weather at sea. In the highlands a blizzard turned the world a soft and glowing white, but at sea a snowstorm only served to make the world blacker, for the heaving ocean swallowed the flakes whole, and the whirling snow itself blotted out the lowering clouds, so that all was lost, even during the brief hours of daylight, in a grey nothingness.

The
Chloe
itself, on the other hand, did indeed turn white; but not with the gentle contours of snowdrifts – for snow merely washed off the deck as it fell – but rather with the hard, brittle gleam of ice. It began to form everywhere now, in sheets underfoot upon the deck, in slippery sheaths about the masts and spars, and in icicles that hung weeping from the frozen rigging.

Immediately men were put to work breaking it up with picks and axes, for if too much ice grew it could overbalance the ship and capsize it, especially in such heavy seas. Great jagged chunks were sent crashing over the side, but the gangs had to work continually to avert the threat, for the ice thickened remorselessly upon itself. And though the
Chloe
bore few sails in the storms, those sails still needed tending, and so men were continually aloft too, battling with the wind and frozen spray.

No one, it seemed, had time to sleep or dry out. The watches were altered so that no man worked more than two hours topside at a stretch, nevertheless, when the sailors came below again they would be nearly prostrate with cold and weariness, their hands red-raw from the axe handles, or stripped of fingernails and useless with cramp from climbing the frozen shrouds. Falls and slips were common on the treacherous decks or from the icy rigging, and sick bay was kept busy with a procession of cracked heads and broken bones.

Dow too worked at chopping the ice. The cutter crews – on standby now to launch at short notice – had been relieved from regular duties, but Dow's crew had volunteered even so to take their turn with the axes, under the direction of Lieutenant Samson.

It was hard labour, but the eight men toiled at it stoically, and as a team, for their landing on Trap Island had forged a bond between them, and even Samson was growing more confident in his role as their commander. Still, there was no shortage of swearing and cursing as they worked, damning the ice and the weather and the dire state of the voyage in general.

‘And what would any of you lot know?' Alfons mocked his fellows one afternoon, in response to such carping. It was a day towards the end of the second week of the storms, and – during a rare break between blizzards – their gang was labouring to clear ice on the forecastle. ‘Things could be far worse than this, take my word for it.' The poet was one of the few sailors on board who had ventured this far north before. ‘We've had an easy passage so far, truth be told – as many a ship before us has not. Our luck is holding.'

Dow couldn't help himself. He looked up, red-faced from swinging his pick. ‘An
easy
passage?'

‘Oh aye. These are mild squalls for winter. We've lost no masts or spars to the wind, and the ice has grown slower than it might. What – did you think the northern sea could bite no worse than this?' The old man gave a laugh. ‘No, as I read it, your albatross has arranged a smooth run for us.'

One of the sailors rolled a worried eye. ‘Maybe, but will his bird clear a path through the Ice as well?'

Dow did not like this talk of the albatross being
his –
but nor did he think he should deny it openly. Instead he merely asked Alfons, ‘Is it far, the Ice?' Privately, he could scarcely believe that it could be so cold, and the days so dark, without any ice even being sighted yet.

The poet shrugged. ‘I'm no navigator. Only this I know. The one other time I voyaged in these waters – and that in the summer months – the Ice lay well beyond the zone of storms, and even further still, across a sea of mists and drifting fogs. Only then was the first berg was sighted.'

And so it proved.

Two days after the poet's pronouncement, the last of the snow squalls blew shrieking over the
Chloe
and was gone, and – amazingly – the sun itself peeked out for a time through broken clouds. It was now only a dim white disk sitting low in the southern sky, less than a hand's-span above the horizon, even though the hour was close to noon. And soon enough it was gone again, leaving only a cold twilight, deepening into long evening.

But the weather continued to abate and by midnight the gales had dwindled and the great swells too were dying away. By next morning – very suddenly it seemed after fifteen days battened down by the weather – the ship was sailing upon an eerily smooth sea. It was as if they'd entered a tranquil eye at the top of the world, around which the latitude of storms might rage unending, but where within there was only calm.

The sun, however, was not seen again. The sky grew leaden once more with high cloud, and down upon the ocean, shreds of mist – contorted into strange shapes – rode in slow billows across the water, borne on vagrant breezes. Sometimes these mists sailed at the level of the mastheads, like sombre roofs over the sea, and other times they blanketed the ship entirely, so that all sides were hemmed in by grey, silent walls.

And the cold!

Less ice formed on the ship, now that there was no snow or spray from storms, but the air itself – even when motionless – had taken on a new crystalline edge, freezing and sharp as a blade. Breath crackled in men's lungs, and so penetrating was the chill that the very timbers of the
Chloe's
hull seemed to be turning brittle and inflexible, so that instead of creaking and groaning they too now cracked and snapped. And to touch any surface topside with a bare hand was to risk losing skin.