by Rebecca Hunt
What will you call it, Napps?’ Lawrence had asked through gritted teeth, as men crowded around him. He wouldn’t have chosen to give Napps the honour of christening a dustbin, let alone an island, but tradition dictated that the first man to set foot on virgin land also got to name it. He could hardly change the tradition now.
‘ . . . Everland,’ Napps had replied to cheers from the crew.
Napps had insisted that he and his two men leave once the island was within sight. Manoeuvring the Kismet through the potentially reef-laden waters was slow and unnecessary, he’d said, when the dinghy could easily row across. Whilst this was all true, Napps’s chief motive for departing was that he needed to get away from the Captain before he killed him. Despite days of arguing, both he and Addison had failed to talk Lawrence out of his senseless decision to include Dinners in the Everland team, and Napps was about ready to choke the stupid Captain to death.
Napps had a way of looking directly at Lawrence, but also through him. He retrieved an envelope from his jacket pocket. ‘Could you put this with the post, sir?’ he said, using the condescendingly polite tone which could be relied on to enrage Lawrence. ‘I forgot to do it myself.’
‘Is it a written apology to me, your Captain?’ Lawrence asked. ‘It should be.’
‘It’s a letter to my wife.’
To Lawrence, the relationship between the First Mate and the Captain had a clear structure. The Mate was a commanding presence, yet the Captain was indisputably superior. But Napps had a natural authority which Lawrence neither possessed nor could imitate. And to see how the men instinctively deferred to the Mate kept Lawrence awake at night, pacing his room with envy-induced heartburn.
When he first hired Napps, Lawrence had congratulated himself on being the cleverest man alive. By employing this impressive Mate, he, Lawrence, was free to be an adored Captain who never need sully his days with the management of apishly behaved sailors. He’d leave all that unpleasantness to Napps. Except what he’d actually done was employ someone who was not only exceptional at his own job, but far better at being a Captain than the Captain.
‘Shall we clarify a few things?’ Lawrence said, snatching the envelope from Napps’s hand. ‘We’re here to advance science for the British flag by exploring uncharted territory across the Antarctic continent and claiming new discoveries of interest. So you’ll go to this island with the team that I, your Captain, have appointed, while we sail round Cape Athena for a last geologizing excursion. It’s not some epic quest, Napps, I’ll be back to collect you in a couple of weeks.’
Lawrence’s manner had changed as more excitable men packed around them, watching Millet-Bass and then Dinners climb down the rope ladder on to the dinghy.
‘Look, you’re sure you don’t want the Kismet to take you closer to shore?’
‘Positive, sir,’ Napps had replied. And what a mistake that had been.
The Joseph Evelyn’s journey to Everland was supposed to have taken about four hours, but Napps, Millet-Bass and Dinners had now been in the dinghy for six hellish days. Napps could hear Millet-Bass slopping around with a bucket behind him, trying to bail. The ten-foot dinghy was wallowing so low each swell caused water to gush across the brim. In the semi-lucid trance of the very ill, Napps pulled at the oars and considered that beyond the terror and almost out-of-body levels of exhaustion, his principal torment was actually thirst.
‘Keep on at it,’ he croaked to Millet-Bass.
The storm had broken with no warning less than an hour after they had boarded the dinghy. Waves rose into unfathomable masses and the sky blackened. For the next two days, the men buried themselves among the cargo while the boat fell sidelong into deep trenches and veered close to rolling. Ropes snapped and loose supplies volleyed down the length of the boat or disappeared overboard, along with their rifle. The mast shattered off and lanced through the heaving incline of a mountainous wave. Hiding under an oilcloth, the three men clung to each other as Napps shouted encouragements and the dinghy threatened to shred beneath them. He said, ‘We’ll survive it,’ which they obviously wouldn’t. They were going to drown or freeze. ‘We’ll be all right,’ he said, guessing they’d probably be dead before dawn.
On the third day he’d weakly lifted his head to discover they were on a flat ocean which stretched away emptily in every direction. The sky was a crystal blue and the wind was so tame it barely wrinkled the surface of the water. Napps snarled his face into an expression of utter repugnance. Preparing the soul for annihilation was difficult work, and all he’d been rewarded with was a miracle. He watched an albatross glide a low nomadic route towards the horizon and wondered if he had the courage to kill himself. He only needed to leap into the sea. Bludgeoning his head against the torn mast stump was another alternative. If he dug out one of the clasp-knives without Millet-Bass stopping him, he could perhaps slash his own throat.
‘Shame we lost the gun,’ Millet-Bass said hoarsely, looking at the albatross. Apparently they weren’t bad to eat, even raw. Also, don’t imagine blood isn’t a drink.
To have the gun, wished Napps.
He assessed their situation. Fact number one was that Napps didn’t believe they had any chance of ever finding either the Kismet or the island. They were just too lost. Fact number two was that the mercilessly lucky fluke which had spared him had consequently trapped him into dying a terrible, lingering death. It was something he needed to make peace with, as did Millet-Bass. The scrawny Dinners didn’t have this problem. Unlike the two robust men, he’d been ruined by the storm.
When they pulled him from the oilcloth, he lay rattling on the floor like a man succumbing to venom, his legs and arms twisted into distortions.
Batter holes in the dinghy with an oar to sink us, Napps thought when Millet-Bass asked him what their plan was. Or throttle me with your bare hands. But he’d had his chance to kill himself and wasted it. So he could either sit here waiting to die, or he could die whilst striking out towards an island they could never expect to reach. At least the second option gave him something to do. ‘Fetch the compass,’ he said to Millet-Bass.
They started navigating the Joseph Evelyn towards Everland, using Napps’s calculations and logistical guesswork. Too ill to row, Dinners was placed on a bed of sacking, where his condition slowly worsened as frostbite set in and his face became a swollen mass of sores. Napps looked at him and privately cursed Lawrence with every vile word.
The quantity of their supplies which had been smashed or washed away by the storm included their drinking water. The only remaining cask was three-quarters empty and tasted strongly of seawater. They took minuscule sips and managed to make it last for another day before it ran out and they began to lose their minds with thirst. Their lips split and they couldn’t swallow the wet, briny sledging biscuits. The salt that scorched their skin and crusted on to their clothes seemed to produce an evil capillary action which sucked the moisture from their internal organs. Their tongues swelled into throbbing log-like clubs, but Napps ordered them not to eat the snow, reiterating that the worthlessly tiny amount of water yielded from ingesting ice did nothing apart from poison the body with cold. And although they were all aware of this, each of them secretly took little mouthfuls to relieve their diabolical thirst and then sat in agony.
Dinners continued to deteriorate until on night five, convinced he was dying, he cried for his mother. The other two tried to reassure him and told him he would feel better tomorrow. Chin up, they said, you’ll be fine. When Dinners apologized for crying, Millet-Bass’s expression was so desolate it was clear he didn’t believe what he was saying any more than Napps did.
The impossible notion of reaching Everland alive had presented itself on the morning of day six in the form of a greasy rug of kelp floating on the sea. Despite knowing kelp always grew within proximity to land, neither Millet-Bass nor Napps could tolerate the pain of being hopeful, even as the frequency of the pa
tches increased. Several hours later their oars were clogging in huge mats of kelp, and hope had become like a filthy secret which both men were too ashamed to speak of. Once Millet-Bass spotted a cormorant, a bird species that never went too far from shore, the suspense became a kind of sickness. To believe in salvation was just as gruelling as accepting defeat.
If Napps had imagined the moment he saw land, he’d have pictured himself howling with joy. Instead the shock left him sounding confused. ‘ . . . We’re saved,’ he said absently as Millet-Bass hammered his fist against the dinghy in such ferocious delight it seemed he’d punch through the wood.
Everland appeared as a black-and-white-striped molehill in the distance, its profile dominated by the squat peak of its volcano. Snow banks had lined the island’s dark terrain with thick vertical bands which ran down from the higher slopes to the beaches. A glacier lay across the volcano’s shoulder like a crumpled stole, and filled the waters ringing the shore with splintered ice. What struck Napps, at that moment, was how much the low belt of cloud encircling the island resembled a halo.
‘Keep on at it,’ he said to Millet-Bass as they rowed a path around the loose ice, being doused with spray as the waves crashed against them. A tidal current funnelled the dinghy towards a cove, and Napps leapt into the waist-deep water to guide the Joseph Evelyn past the reefs.
In his haste to assist Napps, Millet-Bass practically threw Dinners overboard, where he sat gasping in the water until Millet-Bass splashed across the side and grabbed him. Running through the waves with Dinners in his arms, he headed to the beach. Napps saw him talking to Dinners, crouched in front of him and holding his face. Dinners was nodding, yes I will, and Millet-Bass turned and charged back out to Napps.
Astonished by their weakness, Napps and Millet-Bass pulled the dinghy beyond the tide’s reach and overturned it to stop it filling with snow. Millet-Bass propped up one side of the boat with a large rock to keep the inside aired and prevent rot or mildew from setting in. Then they relayed to unload the provisions, wheezing as they hauled crates of canned food and sacks of flour. Boxes of biscuits were dumped in the cove with tins of sugar and tea. Millet-Bass lugged sodden piles of equipment and the bulky tent while Napps struggled to cope with even a few pots. The drawstring ration bag of rocks Dinners kept with him as a charm was found, along with the small sledge flag his wife had made. The leather wallets containing the men’s diaries and a few weathered photographs were thrown on top of everything else.
Millet-Bass’s chest was heaving. ‘There, fur seals,’ he said, pointing towards a group of seals thirty yards further along the shore. ‘Thought they were extinct.’
Leaning on his knees, Napps glanced at the seals. ‘Yes, for several years now.’ Then he looked again. ‘Ha,’ he said, staring at them closely. ‘Fur seals. You’re right.’
With dusk already greying into evening, they packed a sledge with essentials and went to collect Dinners, who begged for his bag of rocks.
‘That was a precious waste of time,’ Napps said when Millet-Bass came tramping back with Dinners’s bag. ‘We have better things to do. How’s he going to appreciate his rocks? He’s barely conscious, someone’s going to have to carry him.’
‘Would you rather tow the sledge?’ Millet-Bass asked dryly. Napps didn’t dignify this with an answer. He lifted the delirious and boyishly light Dinners while invincible Millet-Bass toiled off with the heavy sledge.
Napps decided to locate the campsite in a central position on the long beach. It was fifteen minutes’ walk from where they’d unloaded the supplies and offered a wide panorama of the ocean which would allow them to see the approaching ship. After they’d put up the tent and transferred Dinners into his reindeer-hide sleeping bag, Napps explained that one of them had to do a reconnaissance of the area and search for water. He was holding an empty gallon can.
‘I’ll do it,’ Millet-Bass said, reaching for the can.
‘You stay here,’ Napps answered, striding away.
‘Isn’t it safer if I join you?’ Millet-Bass shouted after him.
‘Cook something,’ Napps said without looking back. His mood had taken an odd turn. A strangeness was building inside him and he didn’t think he could resist it.
The craziness ruptured out once Napps discovered a spillway, one of the many glacial streams which flowed down to the sea. Emitting a weird strangled whine, he knelt to fill the can with water and found he couldn’t quite hold the can properly, or stop it dropping from his grip. And he couldn’t prevent himself exploding into laughter so violent it didn’t have a sound. Safely out of sight and earshot, he held his sides and screeched with it. He put his head on the ground and laughed into the sand. The can of water was kicked empty as he stomped in circles, bellowing thank you, thank you, thank you to a nameless, nonexistent providence. Sobbing with laughter, he gradually composed himself, then refilled the can and returned to camp.
That night they feasted. Their gorging was so extreme it was almost torture. Millet-Bass stirred pemmican, the concentrate of protein and fat, with crumbled biscuit and water to create a thick hoosh. Another meal of pemmican was followed by more tea, more cocoa, corned beef and a tin of peaches. Napps took his turn to feed Dinners, whose deadened hands were useless, and Dinners was barely able to swallow what the spoon ferried to him because Napps was impatient.
Dinners didn’t say much, but smiled and tried to be cheerful as they rubbed him with blankets and dressed his horrifying feet with boric Vaseline. They shook him awake and gave him brandy, then kneaded his fingers straight and bandaged his hands. Once finished, Millet-Bass and Napps tamped their pipes with tobacco and smoked.
This simple enjoyment, teamed with their ballooned stomachs, transported them into a new plane of cosmic pleasure. They revelled in the glory of dry land and the numb satisfaction of gluttony. Millet-Bass’s hat was off and his dark hair was ratted into several horns, his mismatched red beard like the stuffing from a chair that had spent twenty years mouldering in the rain. Using Millet-Bass as a mirror, Napps knew he’d have an equally furry, haggard appearance. No one who loved them would recognize them now. They were unidentifiable beast-men.
5
November 2012
Decker finished confirming weather conditions to Aegeus and crawled out of the tent they’d call home for the next two months. This ‘living tent’ looked like an orange tepee, with a diameter and height of roughly two metres. In terms of internal floor space, it translated into an area about the size of a children’s inflatable paddling pool.
Decker said, ‘Toshi again.’
This time Toshi wanted his guitar. All radio conversations to check in with the base ended with a similar request. It was a classic fieldwork joke. Whoever answered the call at Aegeus noted the weather and then immediately started haggling for coveted belongings if they died on the trip.
‘Good, give him the guitar,’ said Jess. After enduring six months of Decker’s tiny playlist, everyone now shivered with hatred when ‘Hey Jude’ twanged out.
‘Shut up, no,’ Decker answered. Field assistants, they were always the same in his experience. Fun but mouthy. Jess laughed.
A field assistant wasn’t a scientist, and had no scientific qualifications. Their role was to support the team by cooking, maintaining equipment, keeping the camp running smoothly, and generally helping out with whatever needed doing. They tended to be adventurous, practical types, often trained in outdoor pursuits, and the blonde tomboyish Jess was a textbook example. She’d worked for three years in the Mountain Rescue, spent two summer seasons as an Alpine guide, and had been on five expeditions with Aegeus. It was good going for someone who was only twenty-nine, although Jess possessed a toughness and self-sufficiency which made her seem older.
The red and white Twin Otter plane was now visible above them as it relayed back to Everland. Even with these perfect conditions, getting the camp established was an epic operat
ion which had already taken more than fifteen hours.
Sitting in what felt like a winged jeep, their first sight of the island had come when Oar pointed out a dirty mist of volcanic steam on the horizon.
Jack the co-pilot’s voice blared over the tannoy. ‘Say hola to your new home, amigos.’
‘Ever-ever Land,’ Jess shouted above the engine noise. The nervous excitement had given them all a sort of headache. ‘Second to the right, and straight on ’til morning.’
‘Let’s hope Peter Pan had some pretty hardcore bushcraft skills,’ Decker replied as the plane flew over ragged escarpments and cliffs, ice slopes fanning out across the beaches. ‘He’d need more than a load of magic buttons.’
Jess put her forehead against the window to look at the glacier passing beneath them. ‘Everland does have a history of Lost Boys, though, if you think about it.’
Guess so, they agreed, their ears popping as the plane descended.
Brix’s initial reaction to Everland had been disappointment. She’d climbed out of the plane and thought, really? It had none of the remote splendour she’d expected. Instead the Antarctic presented her with a rubble moonscape that had all the charm of a builders’ yard. The coarse shingle and claylike sediment of the beach were puddled with water, and the snow lay in semi-thawed porous films of grey ice which disintegrated underfoot. Everything was shades of ash and tar and mud and rust, except the sky, which was the colour of dirty wool. The volcano that comprised seventy per cent of the island was a drab, slagheap-like mound when seen up close. Everland was silent and lifeless, and brutally unimpressive. More than bleak, it was ugly.
Fieldwork missions had a well-established procedure. The first flight brought in the expedition party, plus essential survival gear in case weather blocked the plane’s return and they were stranded. In good weather it took two and a half hours to travel to base, and the same back to Everland with more supplies. Once they’d unloaded, the Twin Otter immediately wheeled round to depart, Jack making a sign of the horns hand gesture in the mini-cockpit as the plane took off.
