Chasing the Light

by Jesse Blackadder

  This was her world for the next six weeks. There was little of it, and no place exclusively her own. There was a very long way to go, Ingrid realised, before the scenery changed and she could finally see the ice she longed for. For the first time it occurred to her that she might become bored.

  She heard voices approaching and felt a flash of irritation at the disturbance. Hjalmar appeared around the side of the planes, and, behind him, Mathilde.

  ‘Oh. Ingrid.’ Mathilde stopped. ‘I didn’t know you were here.’

  ‘Mrs Christensen, I trust you were able to eat your breakfast in comfort?’ Hjalmar said.

  ‘No thanks to our captain,’ Ingrid replied, her voice sharper than she intended. ‘It seems the bridge is too sacred for someone to eat there.’

  Hjalmar propped himself beside her, leaning against the railing for balance. ‘Have you spotted the albatross?’

  ‘Where?’ Ingrid asked.

  ‘Let us try to find it,’ Mathilde said. She came and stood by Ingrid at the railing and they both gazed out at the horizon. Mathilde leaned forward and put her hand to her brow to shield her eyes from the glare. The ship rose to crest a wave.

  ‘There!’ she exclaimed and lifted her arm to point.

  ‘A wanderer, by the looks of it,’ Hjalmar said.

  By the time Ingrid could make out a distant moving blob, she felt sour and annoyed. She pulled her beret down around her ears and tucked the fur collar of her coat around her face. Mathilde moved around the railing, following the bird’s path.

  Hjalmar glanced at Ingrid after Mathilde was out of earshot. ‘Horntvedt is old fashioned, and passengers have to respect a captain on his ship. It’s not personal.’

  The wind whistled behind them through the struts of the aeroplanes. ‘That almost makes it worse,’ Ingrid said. ‘I already feel like a piece of baggage, just like Qarrtsiluni there, carried on the deck all that way and good for nothing.’

  Hjalmar turned his head to take in the aircraft’s sturdy lines. ‘Poor old thing. Your husband is a romantic. You can’t name a plane after the soul of a whale and then expect it will rise up and find its brethren for the slaughter. We always called her Grey to stop such superstitions, but I think they’ve clung to her anyway.’

  He watched the albatross for some time. ‘This first part of the trip is hard, rolling and pitching for days with nothing much to see and no one having their sea legs,’ he said at last. ‘Even the best sailors are cranky. When we get to the ice, it’s another world.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ Ingrid turned back to the railing. The wandering albatross swooped into view again, closer this time, and she could make out the extraordinary width of its wingspan. It hung in the slipstream behind the ship, effortlessly keeping aloft. She’d read that such birds lived at sea for years, taking sustenance from the fish they caught and only landing to carry out their biological duty to breed. At the thought of it she felt a dull ache in her abdomen.

  Hjalmar called out to Mathilde. ‘Mrs Wegger, would you like a coffee?’ When Mathilde reappeared around the side of the plane, he looked at Ingrid. ‘Do you want to come too?’

  Ingrid shook her head. Staring at the albatross had disoriented her even more. The ship’s movement was making her queasy and the thought of succumbing in front of them was unbearable.

  ‘No, thank you,’ she said.

  They seemed to hesitate and her mouth flooded with saliva. She couldn’t remember when she last vomited, but there was no mistaking the warning signs.

  ‘Leave me alone please,’ she said through gritted teeth.

  They stepped away and up the stairs and Ingrid tried to fight off the sensation. Then the ship rolled and her stomach did the same. It was an awful feeling, as though her body had suddenly become her enemy. A second rise and fall was all it took. The spasm gripped her and she bent double over the railing. Her stomach emptied, its contents shooting out into the wind and falling into the ship’s wake.

  She hung, suspended, drooling, gripping the railing, despising her own weakness. In her excitement about Antarctica she’d somehow forgotten the long, rough voyage to get there. She had no function in the smooth running of the ship, no reason for existing in this streamlined, industrial factory. Perhaps Horntvedt was right that there was no place for women here.

  CHAPTER 16

  Mathilde walked across the catwalk, feeling Hjalmar close behind. Unaccountably she was the only one of the three women who wasn’t seasick and she felt a moment of grim satisfaction. Ingrid had been a pale shade of green when she ordered them away from her, and back in Mathilde’s cabin, Lillemor had fallen back asleep after the doctor’s injection. Unguarded, clammy-skinned and pale, her face was quite severe in its lines. Without the electrifying effect of her personality, Lillemor’s was a plain enough countenance after all.

  After the stuffy air of the cabin, the wind was fresh and cool on Mathilde’s skin. It smelled simple, of salt and sea. She blinked and inhaled deeply a few times, then looked around as they walked above the mid deck of the ship. She’d not really absorbed the ship’s layout the day before. They were on the raised catwalk that joined the rear superstructure where the cabins were located and the front, housing the bridge and the saloon. Ocean and sky spread out in every direction.

  But the way Ingrid told them to leave her alone reminded Mathilde of how powerless she was on the ship, no matter how strong her stomach, and it was a depressing thought. It hung over her as Hjalmar guided her down the stairs to the mid deck.

  ‘Mrs Wegger, look in here,’ he said, bringing her to the side of a wide wooden box lashed to the deck.

  She peered in and six sets of eyes peered up at her, wreathed in the thick smell of wet dog. The surprise of it jolted her from her thoughts. ‘Puppies?’

  ‘Too young to leave their mother and she’s my best team leader, so they had to come along. Want to pat one?’

  At her nod he reached in and hefted one out by the scruff of its neck. The adult huskies, with their snub noses and thickset features, weren’t especially attractive animals, but the pups were clown-faced and charming. The creature hung limply in Hjalmar’s grasp, staring at Mathilde. He brought it closer and the pup suddenly flipped out a pink tongue, catching her nose. It made her laugh unexpectedly. A quick laugh, just a pulse beat long, but a real one. She held out her arms.

  Hjalmar deposited the pup into them. It squirmed, trying to turn around and lick her. One of the dogs growled, but a stern word from Hjalmar silenced it.

  Mathilde felt the pup’s warmth in her arms as it wriggled to get in closer to her, and she hoped her pang of longing didn’t show. Aase was reasonably amenable to being held, but not for too long, and Ole would endure the confines of her arms for less than a minute, as if they both sensed the vortex of grief in such hugs and instinctively avoided it. But the pup was either oblivious to such things or knew itself immune to human sorrow. It rested its muzzle on her arm, wriggled around to get comfortable, and fell asleep.

  ‘He likes you,’ Hjalmar said. ‘His name is Babyen. The runt.’

  Mathilde kept her eyes on the top of the pup’s head. This was too dangerous; she was too exposed. After a moment she thrust out her arms and shoved the puppy towards Hjalmar. ‘He’s heavy,’ she said.

  The pup whimpered at the sudden awakening, a sound that could have come from her own throat. She turned away.

  ‘Would you like to see the forecastle?’ Hjalmar asked. ‘You may get a little wet.’

  She turned to him. With both Ingrid and Lillemor out of action, she had a chance to assert herself. ‘I’d like to see the bridge.’

  He smiled. ‘Very well, why not? There’s a few rules – no touching the instruments, no distracting the captain, no loud talking. Just common sense.’

  ‘I’ve plenty of that,’ she said. ‘Lead the way. It’s easier for me to follow you.’

  As she walked behind him, it occurred to her that here she could be anyone. Lars and Ingrid only knew her superficially from home.
Lillemor didn’t know her at all, and neither did Hjalmar or Nils or anyone else on the ship.

  She wondered if she really knew herself. Away from her ordinary life, out of her marriage, perhaps she was braver and more adventurous than she’d imagined. Perhaps she could stand up to these people with the same kind of effortless power that Ingrid seemed to have and simply demand to get her way.

  Hjalmar opened the heavy door and waved her inside. ‘Captain Horntvedt, Mrs Wegger would like to see the bridge,’ he announced.

  She stepped out of the wind. It was warm and a little fuggy inside, with a commanding view of the ship and the immensity of the ocean ahead of them. Mathilde looked around and saw Horntvedt at the wheel. His animosity was palpable, strong enough to drive her straight back out the door again if she allowed it.

  She forced herself to walk towards him. ‘Thank you, Captain; it’s kind of you to allow us in here. You can be sure I won’t disturb your concentration.’

  She’d taken him by surprise, she saw, as he wrinkled his brow, but she’d surprised herself even more. She crossed the bridge with calm, measured steps, bending her knees to accommodate the ship’s motion and hoping she wouldn’t miscalculate and careen into a window or wall. But she made it without incident to the far side.

  ‘Mrs Wegger, good morning.’ Lars was standing by the window with a proprietorial air.

  ‘Good morning, Consul,’ she said.

  ‘I thought my wife would be with you.’ He looked questioningly over at Hjalmar.

  ‘Your wife preferred some time alone for bird watching,’ Hjalmar said. ‘And Mrs Rachlew is a little poorly this morning.’

  Mathilde walked across to the windows. From this vantage point she could see down onto the forecastle and ahead to the expanse of ocean. Sandefjord, like most of Norway, was a small and complicated place, with a multitude of rocky bays and inlets fringing the coast, knolls and boulders cropping up in back gardens and between houses. But here the open ocean was space and simplicity; here was nothing but wind blowing across emptiness and the ship making its steady way forward. She liked its rise and pitch; it felt like a living creature, bearing them south in safety. Here, there was nothing she could do, no decision to make, no responsibility for anything.

  The albatross made a graceful arc across the front of the ship. Lars took up a pair of binoculars to follow it, and then handed them to her. She raised them to her eyes, taking a moment to adjust her vision.

  The bird wheeled, barely moving its expanse of wing, and then dipped down. She was sure it would be caught by a moving swell. It disappeared and she stood on her toes to try and see it again, moving the glasses. Yes, there it was, skimming so low that surely its wings were brushing the water. She wondered if they ever misjudged, dropped a wingtip too low and catapulted into the sea. Or were they born with the knowledge of how to move through the world? There was nothing flustered or ungainly about them. She’d be like that if she could, Mathilde thought. Riding the cross currents of the voyage with supreme calm.

  A waft of tobacco smoke drifted past her nostrils. Mathilde recognised it as the same type Jakob smoked and the scent brought his presence back with a wallop. For a second she could see him before her, puffing on his pipe and regarding her. It was the first clear image she’d had of him in a year, and she gasped.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Wegger. Does the smoke trouble you?’

  She turned her head to see Nils still holding a match. He’d taken his pipe out of his mouth to speak to her and she could see it was in danger of going out.

  ‘It’s fine,’ she muttered, and turned away from him. But Jakob was gone after just one tantalising glimpse. She could have cried out with the pain of it, and she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to control herself.

  She’d forgotten him, and the children, for a few minutes. She couldn’t afford such a thing. She had to keep the children alive with the strength of her memories, of them and their father. She breathed in as deeply as she could, drawing the whiff of tobacco to the bottom of her lungs, trying to call her husband back.

  CHAPTER 17

  The bout of seasickness passed, leaving Ingrid quivering. She leaned on the railing again, training her eyes on the horizon till her belly calmed down. Her head ached and she pressed her fingers to her temples, bracing her ankle against the stanchion to keep her balance. Perhaps it was just as well they’d not gone to Antarctica in Polaris all those years earlier, she thought. It was much smaller than mighty Thorshavn and would have tossed more violently.

  She’d watched Polaris being built during her engagement, visiting the yards weekly with Lars to see how she progressed. The shipbuilder showed them the precious bow timbers, cut from a single oak tree selected for its curve, and the Norwegian fir and greenheart that sheathed it, with every joint and fitting cross-braced. As well as three masts for sails, Polaris had a powerful coal-fired steam engine.

  ‘The only living ship stronger than this is Fram,’ the builder had declared.

  But it turned out that their journey to Antarctica was a young man’s promise, made by Lars when the century was still new and Norway was freshly independent from Sweden, and no one knew what it meant to be rocked by a world war. Ingrid had fallen pregnant in the first winter of marriage and Motte was born around the time Lars’s business partner, the explorer Adrien de Gerlache, ran into financial difficulties and pulled out of Polaris.

  The conversation they’d had that night marked the first branch in their paths.

  ‘Can’t you find another partner?’ she’d asked him. ‘Perhaps my father?’

  Lars had shaken his head. ‘De Gerlache is an explorer. I needed that experience as much as his money.’

  ‘You’re not giving it up?’ Ingrid asked, her heart sinking.

  ‘It’s not a good time right now,’ he said. ‘Setting up the stock exchange is a big job, and there’s the steamship company, and your father thinks we should get involved in hydroelectricity.’

  ‘But when will we go to Antarctica?’

  Lars waved his hand. ‘We can’t go now, not with a baby. And Polaris would need to take tourists to Svalbard to shoot bears for a few years before I could afford to send her to Antarctica, even with another partner.’

  ‘Shoot bears?’ Ingrid asked, her belly sinking. In her arms, Motte squirmed.

  ‘The ship has to pay herself off,’ he said. ‘That was always the plan.’

  Motte set up a wail that matched the surprise Ingrid felt. ‘You never mentioned this.’

  Lars got up and put his arms around Ingrid and the baby. Cuddled between them, Motte stopped crying and hiccupped.

  ‘My love, if I told you everything going on in my business, you’d be bored stiff,’ he said. ‘I’ve got my fingers in a dozen pies. I want a break from all that when I come home.’

  Without a partner the building took longer, but Polaris was eventually finished and launched at Sandefjord with great celebration in 1912. Given that Bolle was born nine months later, Ingrid thought she was probably conceived the very night of the launch. There was no question of going anywhere with two baby girls, and in the middle of 1914 Lars told her that he was selling Polaris to Ernest Shackleton.

  ‘I don’t like the look of what’s going on with the Serbian war,’ he’d said. ‘It’s time to call in some investments. Shackleton’s getting a bargain, but it won’t hurt my reputation to sell her to an explorer of his fame.’

  ‘What’s he doing with her?’ Ingrid asked.

  ‘He’s planning to cross the Antarctic continent from sea to sea,’ Lars said. ‘He’s missed his chance at the Pole, but an explorer can always find another first.’

  Ingrid felt she was seeing Lars through new eyes. His spirit was entrepreneurial in essence, she finally understood. He didn’t adventure for the simple pleasure of it. She felt a deep sadness come over her.

  ‘Bed?’ she asked him, standing up.

  ‘You go,’ he said. ‘I’ll be up shortly.’

  Ingrid kissed him
on the cheek and slid her hand down his chest, nuzzling her face into his neck. ‘Can’t it wait?’

  He chuckled. ‘I have to finalise the paperwork for Polaris. Shackleton wants her as soon as possible.’

  Ingrid straightened. ‘Don’t be long,’ she said, trying to keep the disappointment from her voice.

  ‘I’ll be right up. Oh, and Shackleton’s changing her name. He wants to call her Endurance.’

  ‘Isn’t it bad luck to change a ship’s name?’

  Lars had shrugged. ‘I don’t believe in those old superstitions.’

  But Ingrid wasn’t surprised when, in 1915, as Europe exploded into war, the Antarctic pack ice took Endurance in its fist and slowly crushed her to pieces. Those hand-carved timbers still lay in the deep, drowned in some ice-covered ocean in the south.

  Now, all these years later, she was sailing to Antarctica in a motor tanker as the middle-aged wife of the fleet’s owner.

  The two planes rattled above her head, and she glanced up at Qarrtsiluni. The enclosed cockpit looked warm and sheltered. Ingrid ducked under the wing and reached up to the handle of the rear door. Her gloved hands closed around the metal – she could feel the cold of it even through the leather – and she pulled the handle down. The door creaked open. Ingrid glanced around to make sure no one could see her, and reached inside. The small set of steps folded up into the plane itself. They were stiff and it took her a while to work them free.

  Ingrid placed her foot on the first step. It felt different from being on the ship; less solid. She reached up, grasped either side of the door and pulled. Her feet began to slide and she threw herself forward and landed half inside the plane. It rocked as she pulled herself into the passenger compartment. She tucked her legs in, pulled the lever that brought the steps folding upwards and shut the door.

  In the passenger seat she sat low so her head was less visible from the outside. The wind whistled past the shrouds. She felt at home in Qarrtsiluni’s cockpit, safe and enclosed. Her stomach settled immediately without the confusion of sky and sea and ship moving in different directions. Ingrid looked down at the instrument panel and wished she knew how to fly. Imagine if she could pilot the plane to the continent, land on the ice, switch off the engine and revel in the silence.