by Rebecca Hunt
14
April 1913
We don’t have long, so let’s do the very best we can for Napps and Millet-Bass, Lawrence had told the men assembled on the moonlit beach. It was too cold for the search party to stay on Everland for more than a couple of hours. The minus thirty temperatures meant breath vapour immediately crusted into solid ice on their balaclavas. It felt like their teeth were being screwed out at the root.
While Lawrence’s group marched west and Addison’s group went east along the beach, Coppers and McValley’s team set off towards the cove at the northern end of the island. The men privately cursed Addison. They imagined him receiving a thump to the stomach or a smack on the mouth. Lawrence was envisaged chained in the hold and flogged. It seemed the only purpose of this useless task was to remind every man of his paralysing vulnerability when off the ship and make him cramp with desperation to be back on it. At that moment, they’d never loved anything more in their lives than the leaking old Kismet.
‘I’d rather sail in a bin, I’d feel safer,’ Castle had said that morning at breakfast. The faces around the table in the Officers’ Mess were shades of green. The Kismet’s tendency to roll in choppy weather could reduce even the hardiest sailor to a seasick mess, and the wind had blown savagely all night. Feeling delicate, the men stared at their bowls and thought the porridge had an oily sheen, toadish. Today the lamps hanging from the ceiling seemed to cast out a repellent orange light. Even milky tea was as offensive as a cup of petrol. The men drank water in queasily tiny sips and tried to ignore Castle.
Castle’s alliance with Napps meant he was now treated with extreme wariness, as if his unpopularity was contagious. Too much fraternization with Castle and they might also start blurting out oppositional statements whenever the Mate’s chronic failings were discussed, or spring to Napps’s defence with a seemingly mad wish to antagonize the more frightening personalities. And fine, if Castle wanted to act like a gutsy little cockerel kicking its spurs at a pack of angry dogs every time Napps was discussed, then let him. But it was the opposite of what they wanted.
‘This wreck will fail us so fast you won’t even know you’re about to drown until you wake up bobbing by the ceiling,’ Castle said, ostensibly to Smith, yet mostly to the audience he knew were only pretending not to listen. ‘One day we’ll be sitting down to dinner and the floor will just burst in half.’
‘That’s an awful thing to say,’ Smith said.
‘No need for thanks,’ Castle answered to noises of stifled amusement from around the table. ‘You’ll be recording this conversation in your diary tonight and the main mast will suddenly crush your bunk.’
The atmosphere lost its chill. It was so easy to forget to dislike Castle.
That the men hadn’t slept well or eaten anything at breakfast left them less resistant to the brutal temperatures as they searched. The cove was encircled by a barricade of hundred-foot-high cliffs, its beach strewn with large free-standing stones and sprawling granite outcrops which projected from the ground. Coppers and his team disappeared from sight into the sandy enclosures behind the rocks as they searched, their voices echoing. Giant human silhouettes rose up and stalked across the cliff face as the men passed by with their burning torches.
‘We’ve already looked over there,’ Coppers said when he saw McValley set off alone to the far end of the cove. ‘We’re about to leave.’
‘Who’s Second Mate? You?’ McValley said.
Coppers was emboldened by his suffering. ‘Five minutes, McValley,’ he said, swallowing compulsively in reaction to the sensation that his throat was being glazed with ice. He was unable to stop himself visualizing his intestines as a frozen coil of rope.
‘Yes, yes,’ McValley replied with his typical disregard as he walked away.
The glacier was hidden in the dark somewhere to the left of him, slowly churning itself into the ocean. McValley could hear the gunshot cracks of ice breaking as he dug the toe of his boot into snow which had built against seams in the rock, patting his boot at the drift to spread it and see if there was anything underneath.
Noticing a five-foot-high crescent-shaped fissure in the cliff-side, he went to grope an arm around inside. It was only when he was shoulder-deep in the fissure, his head pressed against the stone wall to maximize his reach, that he thought of the possible outcomes. He was probing the blackness with a grasping hand, expecting what? Perhaps to feel something yield stiffly once his fingers met it. To have his hand close on a face. To brush over eternally open ice-silvered eyes that didn’t flinch when they were touched. McValley yanked back his arm, pebbles grinding under him as he scrabbled clear.
‘Four minutes,’ Coppers said distantly. ‘I’m serious, McValley.’
‘Yes, I know,’ McValley replied, standing very upright. He smiled in an insinuating way. It was an act of self-conscious assuredness for anyone who might be watching. He repeatedly checked the area behind him to be sure no one was. Isn’t it funny, his expression said, that I’m even bothering.
Further along trapped snow had amassed in the windshield of a boulder ridge. Ice scattered as McValley chopped at it with his heel, exposing a darker inorganic texture. Kneeling to investigate an object frozen into the ground, he prised at the loose edges and then methodically levered it out.
McValley grunted his way off his knees with the bag. The leather was rimed and bonded to seal the bag into a flattened pouch. It didn’t contain much, just a few sledging biscuits and other miscellaneous bits of food. He prodded through it and found a weathered photograph of a young woman iced to the bottom. Carefully peeling free the photograph, he squinted at the woman. Then he flipped the photograph to peer at a handwritten quote on the reverse.
‘We’re about to launch the dinghies,’ Coppers shouted.
‘I said yes! I said yes all right!’ McValley called. The flour-fine sleet blew past his legs in vaporous patterns. A granular dusting collected on the photograph.
‘You’ve got thirty seconds, McValley, or I’m coming to fetch you.’
McValley knew the quote. Hard pounding this, gentlemen. Let’s see who can pound longest. Dinners habitually recited these words from the Duke of Wellington whenever he started to lose a game of cards, which was every single time he played. And McValley thought he recognized the woman as Elizabeth Dinners.
‘How could they leave you, Dinners,’ McValley said. Then he stopped himself. He was talking to a photograph. He made another insinuating smile to disguise his embarrassment, a performance only he benefited from, as no one else was around.
Coppers shouted again from the opposite side of the cove, where he was waiting with all the other men, ready to leave Everland.
‘Then goodbye, Napps, wherever you are,’ McValley said to the empty cove. ‘You may have fooled some, but you never fooled me.’
15
November 2012
Decker was talking on the radio phone to Dutch Andre, notifying Aegeus of their intention to visit the Joseph Evelyn as part of the next day’s schedule. He had a technique of repeating questions as he answered them so his audience could follow the conversation.
‘How’s Jess doing? Yes, she’s amazing. Yes, Brix is amazing.’ Decker grinned at Brix. ‘And how am I doing? Well, hm. Not bad.’
He laughed at whatever Andre said. ‘You ask if I’m okay, and I’d say okay is the wrong word. A better word would be mangled.’
Brix stopped smiling. ‘You know what?’ she said. ‘I think I left my journal in the work tent.’
Both Decker and Jess now joked about their collection of bruises and sprains. Muscles never got the chance to fully recover before equipment had to be loaded or unloaded again, or some other exhausting duty had to be done. And despite trying her best, Brix’s inexperience meant she didn’t have that shorthand knowledge which got jobs completed swiftly, with minimum fuss. She needed guidance, but it wasn’t always convenient to ha
ng around teaching her when there were a million things to do. So while her colleagues ended each day shattered, Brix remained embarrassingly preserved. She was very conscious of being the least trashed. Although Decker was too kind to ever mention it, she was also aware that her share of the workload still had to be done, and it was he who did it.
Jess had been motioning for Decker to give her the phone the instant she realized it was Andre at the other end. She practically snatched the receiver from him.
‘Ha-ha!’ Jess said, oblivious to anything except Andre. ‘Aha-ha!’
‘Where are you going?’ Decker said, confused by Brix’s sudden tenseness. When she didn’t answer he threw a filthy sock at her leg. ‘Hey, what’s wrong?’
Brix was already crawling out of the tent. ‘Nothing, I’ll be back in a second,’ she said with the emphatic merriness of the secretly upset. Then Decker understood.
‘Film night?’ Jess screeched into the phone. ‘No! I can’t believe I’m missing it. Have you got any plans?’
‘Brix, I didn’t mean—’ Decker glanced quickly at Jess to check she wasn’t listening. ‘We’re a small team with a lot to do. That’s all I meant. The “mangled” comment wasn’t about you.’
‘I’ll only be a minute,’ Brix said, not looking at him. ‘My journal’s in the work tent and I should probably get it.’ It wasn’t a convincing lie. The diary was in the right-hand pocket of her fleece, which was balled up beside her sleeping bag among the other clothes.
‘Oh, Kimiko, huh? Sounds nice. Cosy,’ Jess said with a strange laugh.
Sitting on the crate in the work tent, Brix shut her eyes and pressed her cold fingers against them. It was as refreshing as if she’d applied slices of chilled cucumber. ‘You’re useless,’ she said to herself, which was also kind of refreshing. It was cathartic to feel so shamelessly miserable. Whether or not Decker admitted it, Brix worried she was a burden. Taking a long, wallowing mud bath in despair, she thought about her ineptitude. She was a needy, revolting baby of a woman who couldn’t even return with the stupid diary she’d allegedly gone to fetch, as she hadn’t put on the stupid fleece. Because self-pity isn’t interesting for long, Brix gradually bored herself into the state of empty-brained gormlessness that comes after a torrential outburst.
She’d been in the tent for quarter of an hour when a voice outside said, ‘Knock, knock.’ Decker’s face appeared in the doorway. ‘Found the journal?’
Brix wiped her eyes with a sleeve and sat up straighter. ‘Yes, found it.’
Decker looked at her empty hands. ‘Cool.’
At first Brix decided she’d make it easy on them both by acting as though the past fifteen minutes hadn’t happened. Then she decided this was a wasted opportunity to talk openly with Decker. There was also a residual trace of self-pity. ‘I don’t blame you if you’re sick of me.’
‘Brix.’ He leant his head to one side in the way of the sorrowfully misunderstood. ‘I’m not sick of you. Not for a moment.’
‘Jess is, and she’s got a lot less of a reason to be annoyed than you have.’
‘Jess is a hard-ass,’ Decker said. ‘Don’t let her get to you, chief.’
‘Hard-ass’ was an overly forgiving description of Jess’s attitude in Brix’s opinion. ‘Would it be simpler to explain the situation to her?’ She’d considered telling Jess the whole story, out of spite as much as anything. Just to see Jess’s reaction.
‘Truthfully?’ Decker made a reluctant noise. ‘No. Don’t say a word about it.’ He crossed his arms tightly, his hands clamped in his armpits, and breathed out in a low whistle. ‘Well, I’m guessing you’re as cold as I am. So should we stay here and die of hypothermia, or do you want to come back with me?’
Ideally there’d have been a third option which allowed Brix to stay alive and remain in the work tent indefinitely. Since there wasn’t, she gave her eyes another wipe and followed him out.
Everland was as silent and barren as usual the next morning. Snow fell thickly, its sound-dampening quality similar to high altitude pressure in the inner ear.
The Joseph Evelyn’s transformation from dinghy to carcass was still in its very infant stages. It would be the work of centuries to strip the frame to its skeleton and wear it into collapse. Protected by the Antarctic Heritage Trust, the boat would remain on Everland as one of the world’s most famous but least seen cultural artefacts. One edge of the upturned Joseph Evelyn was partially elevated by a large rock to create an opening wide enough for someone to squeeze through. Brix remembered Captain Lawrence’s book. Along with maps and photographs, Lawrence had included some illustrations from his journal. One was of Dinners being rescued from the dinghy by lots of identically posed men. It wasn’t a great sketch, as Lawrence could only draw people standing upright, side-on. Yet now Brix was here in the same place, she could visualize those sailors shouting for Napps, their boots pounding in the dark.
‘Strange atmosphere, isn’t there,’ she said pointlessly to Jess. ‘Evocative.’
If Jess heard, she didn’t respond. She crouched to peer into the empty dinghy.
The cove was just beyond the dinghy, a distance of perhaps forty metres. Like the ruins of a fortress wall, the cliffs were notched and crumbled, arching round to meet the ocean. The beach was cut into sections by mounds of rock, some car-sized, some three-metre-tall hillocks, all studded with limpets. Huge columnar stones, tall as the cliffs, had been isolated from the headland by millennia of erosion. Now standing alone, they resembled battered monuments. The columns stationed closest to the tide were ringed with trenches of seawater, rags of black seaweed drifting beneath the surface. Fur seals colonized this beach every year, although there were none to be seen. The cove’s melancholy beauty was compounded by its history of missing and abandoned men. With enough time, the emotional impact of any tragedy becomes fossilized. The wrongness or sadness can still be appreciated, but it can no longer be felt. However, being at the cove undid that remove. The men’s pain became too easy for Brix to imagine, which meant it became too real to disregard.
She’d given herself the job of documenting their first venture to the Joseph Evelyn. Since the bear-paw mittens she wore over her woollen gloves were useless for fiddly tasks, Brix took off the mittens and stuffed them in a coat pocket. Unzipping her bag with hands that were already numb, she removed the camera and checked the battery was charged. She thought she heard something fall to the ground as she yanked the mittens from her pocket, which was crammed with the normal junk, from tissues and glucose energy sweets to ChapStick and a spare camera battery. Brix was searching to see if she’d dropped anything when Decker called across.
‘What do you guys make of the rope?’
Although the dinghy was too far from the sea’s reach to need securing, a frayed rope ran from the boat’s gunwale to a nearby stone embankment, where it was tied to one of the rocks. Decker had clambered up the embankment and was perched on the top, examining the knots.
‘Does the placement of this rope make sense to you?’ he asked.
‘Maybe it’s a guide?’ Jess answered.
‘To where?’ he said, climbing down again. ‘Why guide yourself to a dead-end?’
‘Has something been left there?’ Brix said. ‘Perhaps for safekeeping?’
Decker’s head was visible as he scouted around behind the embankment. ‘Nope. Nada.’
The natural metabolism of time was suspended in Antarctica. There were stories about the eerie spectre of domestic life found in expedition huts after decades of vacancy. The galley would be discovered stocked with immaculately preserved food, a batch of pristine yet historic scones cooling for ever on a rack by the stove. In the riotous scramble of the ship’s arrival an officer’s reading had been interrupted and his book was open on the table beside the salt cellar and a bread roll with one bite missing. Cutlery lay haphazardly around unfinished meals, and coats hung in the porch
above a messy line of boots. Jumpers with holes darned in mismatched wool lay crumpled on the bunks. There was no dust and no decay. The process of deterioration was on such an infinitely low heat that the butter still held knife marks.
In these places the past didn’t linger but invaded with a clap of immediacy. The thirty-two-thousand-year-old Chauvet cave paintings in France, and Brix’s Egyptian mummies, possessed a similar type of magic. All those remote, long-extinct people who never seemed as real or vivid or loud materialized to cause a tremor of recognition. It was uncanny, and drew something shivering and electric out of modern minds. As with every shock to apathy, it briefly allowed your own death to come close enough to speak in your ear.
Decker stood beside Jess as Brix balanced her camera on a rucksack and set the self-timer to take a photograph of them in front of the Joseph Evelyn.
‘Part fungus, part plant, with a life cycle so slow it’s immortal by our standards.’ Decker gestured towards the lichen on a stone near the dinghy. Big as a monster pumpkin, the stone had a large orange doily of lichen crusted over the top. ‘Virtually unchanged from when Napps saw it,’ he said.
‘Really?’ Jess said.
‘Yup. With around a millimetre of growth each century, this lichen is thousands of years old.’
Decker went on to explain that, if you thought about it, their lives were little more than a flash of light in comparison. Look at us against the lichen’s permanence, he’d said, and we are what? Bang, gone in the same minute we arrived.
‘That’s sort of depressing,’ Jess said.
‘Yeah, you bet it is.’
Brix ran to get into the shot. The timer was blinking red when Decker suddenly ruined the photograph by bending to pick something up which was lying half buried in the snow.
When Brix saw the set of quad keys in his hand, she experienced a pressure drop of shame through her chest. Decker’s kindly expression somehow made her feel worse.
‘Doubt I need to elaborate on what a bad idea it is to lose your keys,’ he said, almost as a jokey aside, as if this wasn’t Brix’s mistake but a screwball fluke they’d laugh about later. Then he pretended to reflect. ‘Tell you what. New rules. From now on we’ll keep your keys in Jess’s bag, with Jess’s keys. Good plan, uh?’
