Chasing the Light

by Jesse Blackadder

  Hjalmar, still eating, smiled. ‘Always a pleasure. I won’t be a minute, ladies, if you don’t mind waiting a little.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Lillemor said, raising her voice to be heard from the other end of the table. ‘Ingrid, Mathilde, let’s wait for Hjalmar outside.’

  She pushed her chair back and stood, and Mathilde and Ingrid followed. The three of them pulled on their heavy coats in the saloon’s vestibule and stepped outside.

  It was a shock, moving from the cosy interior of the saloon to the external reality of a ship surging through the wind and waves of the Southern Ocean. Even in the darkness it was possible to sense the horizon stretching out in every direction and the ship moving further away from civilisation every hour. They went down the steps to the mid deck and crossed to the railing. Lillemor blinked in the wind as she positioned herself in between Ingrid and Mathilde.

  ‘When will we start seeing icebergs, do you think?’ she asked.

  ‘Lars says by tomorrow, in all likelihood,’ Ingrid said. ‘I can’t wait.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Lillemor said, glancing behind to see if Hjalmar was coming. She couldn’t resist a little investigation. ‘I bet Captain Riiser-Larsen has left some broken hearts behind when he’s gone off exploring,’ she said, lowering her voice.

  ‘I expect so,’ Ingrid said.

  Lillemor turned to Mathilde. ‘Did I hear you and Hjalmar talking about Amundsen?’

  Mathilde nodded. ‘He was telling me about one of his rescue missions. Do you know, if Hjalmar hadn’t got all the men squeezed on one plane and into the air, they would have died after their other plane was damaged.’

  ‘Well, it’s true enough, Mathilde; he was a hero,’ Lillemor said. ‘But not an infallible one. They spent weeks carrying snow to try and make a runway before someone worked out they just had to stamp on it to flatten it. That lost time nearly killed them all.’

  There was a laugh from above them. ‘Sadly you’re right, Mrs Rachlew.’ Hjalmar’s voice came from the stairs. Mathilde frowned at Lillemor.

  Lillemor smiled. It looked like she was accurate about Mathilde’s weakness. ‘Ah, Hjalmar, here I am blackening your name,’ she said. ‘How frightful of me.’

  The three of them turned to meet him as he came down onto the deck.

  ‘It’s true; we were so cold and frightened we lost our judgment,’ he said. ‘If we’d had women with us I doubt we’d have been such idiots.’

  ‘I don’t like you making fun of us.’ There was no laughter in Ingrid’s voice.

  Hjalmar became serious. ‘I’m not at all. Women bring out the best in men, I believe.’

  ‘Funny then that you’re not taking any women with you,’ Lillemor said, to see how he’d respond. ‘No explorer seems to want women along, no matter how nicely we ask.’

  ‘Unlike Mawson, I wasn’t inundated with requests from women to come on my expedition,’ Hjalmar said. ‘But then, I’m not nearly so handsome as he is.’

  Lillemor laughed. ‘Oh, you’re not so ugly, Hjalmar.’

  ‘Just let me light my pipe, ladies,’ Hjalmar said. ‘Then I’ll show you inside the planes, shall I?’ He began packing tobacco into the bowl, standing with his back to the wind to shelter it.

  ‘It’s rather a pity we’re not coming with you,’ Lillemor said. ‘Mathilde and I think exploration sounds much more romantic than whaling.’ She glanced at Ingrid and smiled. ‘Although of course we’re very pleased to be guests on Thorshavn.’

  Hjalmar lit the pipe, puffing rapidly. ‘It’s not romantic. Just you wait till we’re in bad weather. When the boat’s iced from stern to aft and the wind’s strong enough to sweep you off the deck, you’ll be grateful to be safe in Thorshavn’s big steel hold and not shivering on little Norvegia and praying she won’t be splintered on a growler.’

  ‘Are you ever afraid?’ Mathilde asked.

  ‘All the time,’ he said. ‘Exploration means heading into the unknown, in a boat small enough to move easily through the ice. We could be caught and crushed, or sunk or lost at any time. If someone as experienced as Amundsen can die, any of us can.’

  He glanced at Mathilde and cleared his throat. ‘Of course, it’s a different matter on Thorshavn.’

  ‘Why do you do it?’ Mathilde asked.

  ‘The question explorers always get asked,’ he said. ‘It’s so expensive and so dangerous, why do we keep going?’ He leaned against the railing and rubbed his chin. ‘The Poles have a pull on you. Once you’ve visited, you always want to come back.’

  ‘Really?’ Lillemor asked.

  ‘I’m like a fool in love,’ he said. ‘The North Pole is my first love, but now I’ve been south I have a secret mistress and I can’t stay away from her.’

  Lillemor saw the colour rise in Mathilde’s cheeks and sensed Hjalmar’s sudden embarrassment. It was banter he might have made with a woman like Lillemor, but not with the three of them.

  ‘I think this is such a fascinating question, with so many answers,’ she said. ‘Ingrid, I’d love to know – what is it that brings you south?’

  Ingrid was looking out at the ocean. ‘My husband’s business interests are here. He very much wanted to see them first hand.’

  ‘But what about you?’ Lillemor persisted.

  ‘When I was a child I wanted to go to the South Pole, especially after I met Amundsen. He promised I could go with him, but when the time came, he made the decision to go south after he’d already left Norway, so I missed out. It looks like this is the closest I’ll get.’

  Interesting, Lillemor thought. She turned to Mathilde with an eyebrow raised.

  ‘I’m here to rest my nerves,’ Mathilde said. ‘My family thought an expedition to Antarctica would be a nice way for me to relax.’

  There was an awkward pause. ‘And what about you, Mrs Rachlew? Why did you want to come with us?’ Hjalmar asked.

  ‘I met Amelia Earhart a few months ago and I was inspired,’ Lillemor said. ‘I think it’s time women did courageous and wonderful things. I’m very grateful to have this chance.’ She was looking at Ingrid as she spoke, hoping the woman would feel her sincerity.

  ‘Let’s go and have a look at the planes,’ Hjalmar said. ‘Did you know, ladies, Qarrtsiluni is a Lockheed Vega, the same type of plane Amelia Earhart flew across the Atlantic?’

  As they followed Hjalmar towards the back of the boat, Lillemor thought of Amelia. No woman had yet flown over Antarctica, she remembered.

  CHAPTER 19

  ‘Look up!’

  Mathilde squinted obediently into the sun, blinking. Above them, Lillemor was silhouetted, bending her head to look into the viewfinder of the camera. Next to her, Ingrid patted her hair and adjusted her beret.

  The ship began to tilt to the side and Mathilde took a tighter grip on the railing. Lillemor had already spent considerable time setting up the shot, posing them so that the mid deck stretched out behind them and she could get the ocean into the background.

  ‘The wave’s coming,’ Lillemor called down. ‘Hold on and smile.’

  ‘This feels so silly,’ Ingrid said.

  Mathilde looked up at the bridge, looming above Lillemor, and was grateful that at least they were posing behind it rather than in view of the captain. A wash of spray flew across the deck, splashing them as the ship rocked. Mathilde shivered. They were well into the fifties latitudes now and the air temperature was close to freezing. Thorshavn ploughed south, so heavy and unswerving it seemed nothing could knock it from its course. Against the resistance of the ocean and wind it seemed unstoppable.

  ‘Are you done yet?’ Ingrid called up.

  Lillemor raised her head. ‘There’s one more wave coming. Just stay there another minute.’

  Ingrid’s hair was blowing loose and Mathilde watched her try to tuck it back out of the wind’s way. The ship started to ride over the next swell and they smiled at Lillemor with fixed grimaces as the spray showered them from behind.

  ‘Done!’ Lillemor called. ‘You l
ook fabulous. Very adventurous. What about a round of rummy to warm up?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Ingrid said. ‘Coming, Mathilde?’

  ‘I’ll just say hello to the dogs,’ Mathilde said. ‘I’ll be up soon.’

  She waited until Ingrid had climbed the stairs and the two women had passed out of sight before she turned to the huskies.

  For the past days the scenery had been unchanging; grey and rough. The winds blew and the waves swelled under them, pummelling the ship and tossing it as if from hand to hand. In bed Mathilde slid from one end of her bunk to the other, gripping the edges till her knuckles whitened. In the saloon they clung to their plates and cups, and the mess boys dampened the tablecloths to stop the crockery from crashing off.

  Time was starting to hang heavily on all of them and playing cards, with Nils or Hjalmar or Hans making up a fourth, helped it pass. But Mathilde was lonely. She and Lillemor, by unspoken agreement, left each other largely alone. Lillemor would sit up late talking to Lars and Ingrid, or flirting with whatever men were around – Hjalmar by preference, Mathilde thought, but it seemed any of them would do. Mathilde watched, sometimes amazed. Didn’t men realise they were being played for fools? But Hjalmar became animated in Lillemor’s presence, laughing and joking, matching her move for move, quip for quip. Nils tried to compete with him, cutting in with poorly planned jokes that fell flat, but he was such a nice man that everyone laughed anyway and Mathilde hoped he didn’t hear the edge of pity in their voices. With Lars, Lillemor was serious, discussing business and economics with a surprising grasp of details. Hans Bogen developed a stammer whenever he was with her, and picked at the skin around his nails until they bled. She’d even succeeded in prising a smile or two from Horntvedt, in itself a miracle.

  Mathilde watched Ingrid and Lillemor together, and thought that any observer would conclude that theirs was a long and established friendship. It threw her own isolation into sharp relief. She didn’t know how to make normal womanly chit-chat any more, she thought.

  If it weren’t for Hjalmar, Mathilde would have made no impact upon the life of the ship. She was resigned to it, would have tolerated it, but then he’d pass her on the catwalk, or stop and talk to her when she’d crept away to play with the puppies, and she couldn’t recall when she’d last had conversations like those, not since Jakob had died of course, but perhaps not before then either. Hjalmar talked to her easily, without any suggestion of the flirtatious tone he took with Lillemor. They might have been friends, in fact, the way they conversed, about dogs and music and the sea.

  When she could be sure no one was looking, Mathilde spent her time with the huskies, which had been moved to a corner of the forecastle below the line of sight from the bridge. The dogs were uncomplicated: happy to see her, glad of attention, philosophical when she left. The puppies were a different matter, with their intense feelings and wants. Catching sight of her approach they’d cry out for her to hurry up, wagging their tails so hard their whole bodies wriggled. In her arms they’d squirm with pleasure, and if she left them, they’d cry out in sorrow.

  She had a favourite. Babyen, the smallest of the litter, the one Hjalmar had let her hold on the first day. A little male marked in black and white, his tail already curling up over his back. Unlike the bigger pups, he’d lie in her arms for hours, drowsing while she stroked him. She always made sure she was alone with them; such tenderness was a vulnerability she didn’t want to show. Lillemor seemed to have an unerring instinct for spotting weaknesses and storing them away with a knowing smile, and the thought of what she might do with them later was frightening.

  But Mathilde was sleepy after a rough night of sliding around the bunk, and the sun was warm in the corner of the forecastle where she’d tucked herself with the weight of the pup on her lap and she let herself drift, her back pressed against the ship’s metal side, her body vibrating pleasantly with the engine. Her eyes were closed; she could feel herself slipping into a doze, a delicious dropping down, her muscles loosening, relaxing.

  The sounds of the ship took on a musical quality. Thorshavn creaked and groaned around her as it moved through the sea, every joint and seam, every piece of the ship that touched another piece making a musical connection, with the underscore played by the ocean, a steady swishing as the ship’s prow carved through the waves.

  ‘Mathilde?’ The voice was soft and deep, almost a part of the sleep she was sliding into. She was dreaming it, surely. Was it Jakob’s voice?

  ‘Mrs Wegger?’

  Her eyes flew open. Hjalmar was standing there, leaning against the railing looking down at her. She sat up, jolting Babyen, who woke and stretched, his paws extended, his tongue curling, finishing with a doggy squeak before shaking his head.

  ‘You startled me,’ she said, hoisting the pup into her arms and scrambling to her feet so quickly that her head swam.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,’ he said. ‘You’re wanted for cards. But first I have something to show you.’

  She looked at him inquiringly but he put his finger to his lips and shook his head. He took the pup from her, deposited him on the deck and gave him a little shove to send him back to his kennel mates. He took her around underneath the bridge to the other side of the ship and stationed them in the lee of the wheelhouse, a spot that Mathilde already knew was invisible from above.

  ‘Can you see it?’ he asked.

  She stared out at the horizon, squinting. The temperature difference between her sheltered spot out of the wind and facing straight into it was extreme, and her eyes watered. The boat rose and fell, the horizon was jagged, there were deep troughs between the swells. At first she couldn’t see what he meant. Then she glimpsed something at the far range of her vision, pale, almost ethereal in the distance.

  ‘The first iceberg,’ he said. ‘It’s good luck to spot it.’

  ‘But you saw it first,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t count,’ he said. ‘I want you to have that bit of luck.’

  She kept her eyes trained on the horizon. ‘Don’t give it away so easily, Captain. You might need your luck when the ship’s iced from stern to aft and the wind’s strong enough to sweep you off the deck and there are growlers everywhere.’

  He chuckled and she smiled to hear it. He had a nice laugh, open and warm. Lillemor’s laugh made her shiver, as though she were executing some exquisite cruelty.

  ‘You could do with some luck, Mathilde,’ he said. He only called her that when they were alone, but she wished he wouldn’t. You couldn’t ever be sure, on this ship, that no one was listening.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said lightly.

  He stepped a little closer to her until their sleeves were almost touching and she fancied she could feel the warmth of his body.

  ‘Mrs Rachlew is ruthless,’ he said softly, turning his head to speak close to her ear, but not too close. ‘Be careful of her.’

  Mathilde felt cold fingers of wind find a crack between her scarf and her coat and work their way inside. She shivered. ‘I’m of no significance to her.’

  ‘She’s very ambitious.’

  She shrugged. ‘She can achieve whatever she likes. I don’t care to stop her.’

  ‘You’ve spotted the first iceberg. Discoveries can happen as easily as that. The right place at the right time, a bit of luck and there you go.’

  ‘Then don’t do me any more favours,’ she said. ‘Just ignore me.’

  ‘Is that what you’d like?’

  She should have answered at once, without hesitation, but she paused and he saw it.

  ‘You need a friend on board,’ he said. ‘I’d like to be that friend.’

  ‘Why?’

  It was his turn to pause. ‘Mrs Rachlew will probably get her wish and land first,’ he said at last. ‘Ingrid will get her name on something, no matter who sees it. There seems to be no one looking out for you.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, Captain, but I don’t need your pity,’ she said.

&n
bsp; He didn’t answer and she regretted it then, but his open favour would only cause trouble and she was better to discourage him.

  They heard a shout from up on the bridge and both turned towards the sound.

  ‘They’ve seen it now,’ he said. ‘We’ll keep it our secret, who really saw it first.’

  ‘I just want to get home safely to my children.’

  ‘You’re making history. Don’t you care?’

  She laughed then, but it was bitter. ‘I’m not the kind of woman whose name will appear on maps.’

  ‘I’d like to name something after you,’ he said. ‘Some strong little headland or promontory.’

  Mathilde didn’t trust herself to look at him. How should she respond to such a thing? ‘You could name one of the pups after me,’ she said, and risked a glance.

  She’d been joking, but he wasn’t smiling. He looked at her and in his expressive face she saw concern and regard. She knew him capable of acting with Lillemor’s skill, having watched him banter with her. Could she ever trust him?

  ‘I’m going up,’ he said. ‘It looks like a good one, that iceberg, and we may pass it closely. Enjoy it.’

  She didn’t watch him go, but she could hear his footsteps quite clearly clanking across the deck and echoing up her legs, the way she could feel everything on the ship as a vibration through metal. She’d wait, she decided, down there. It was only a piece of ice after all. What was the fuss? There’d be plenty more coming and she’d seen enough white frozen stuff in Norway to last her a lifetime.

  CHAPTER 20

  Ingrid awoke, dry mouthed, alone in the bunk, her head aching. A soft grey light glowed through the porthole. In a strange reversal of rhythm, as the days grew longer the weather grew steadily colder. Her blood still moved to the seasons of Norway and knowing the long dark days and the cold that hung over the country at that moment, the shifting hours of light and time left her disoriented. But the main culprit, she knew, was the extra aquavit she’d drunk the night before, ostensibly to celebrate the first iceberg, but in reality to drown the disappointment of seeing nothing more than a white blob in the distance.