The Surfacing

by Cormac James

  Not a bad way to go, when all’s said and done, DeHaven said.

  How do you mean? Morgan said.

  A smile on your face, all is right with the world, and a minute later . . . bonne nuit.

  He might have preferred a few more rounds of the carousel, all the same.

  Perhaps. But I hope when my time comes it’ll be as quick and as quiet.

  I thought it was raging and cursing you wanted to go, Morgan said.

  Under their feet and all around, the ice was awake. They listened to it fret. They stared at the spot. They did not yet dare to be bored.

  The boat had ferried and unloaded its passengers, was coming back.

  Well, DeHaven said, at least we now have an extra bunk. Maybe we could send Hepburn down with the men.

  Geoff, Morgan said, the old man deserves a little comfort.

  And the rest of us don’t? We’re living one on top of the other, the four of us, in that little cell.

  Maybe we could send Hepburn down to berth with the crew, have MacDonald take his place, and MacDonald give you his cabin. Would that suit your convenience?

  It would, DeHaven said.

  They passed the Women’s Islands early the next morning, the 1st of June. By breakfast-time the wind began to fumble, and falter, and even as he sat eating Morgan could feel the life draining from the ship. By noon the wind had died to nothing, left them sitting like fools in thick fog, amidst phantom fragments of the floe. They could not see fifty feet. It did not matter. Morgan knew exactly what lay ahead. They were making their way north as into an estuary, that had been narrowing from the off, since Disko. Miss Rink had told him what every one of the whalers had told her – that where Myer hoped to pass, up along the coast, they would find a solid white wall.

  2nd June

  They were set in a pane of glass, a mile from the shore. The surface was sprinkled with thousands of eider ducks, as far as the eye could see. The world was at peace, the morning impeccable, the bergs sparkling thoughtlessly in the sun. All day long, there had not been a breath of wind.

  Morgan was standing alone in a boat by the shore. Even a mile off, he was sure he could smell the dried cod. The mists and showers had ruined it, but Myer still insisted it would do for the dogs. To shut it out, Morgan closed his eyes, felt the cool air creeping over him, down off the glacier. Then he heard the thunder. The entire face of an iceberg was falling away, to reveal the same face again, shed of its mask. At the ship, too, they heard the guns in the distance, and saw the birds begin to bob. The wave reached them minutes later, and set the ship in a lazy roll.

  The next morning the canvas began to stir, and the light ice began to drift away from the wind, southward. They watched the pieces sail by. They spotted a seaman’s chest. Morgan told Banes to row over and fish it out. The label was ruined for reading but they could tell it was neither Erebus nor Terror. Inside were last year’s Almanack and a fine pair of riding boots.

  That evening, from the Crow’s Nest, free sailing was announced to the west, well inside The Pack, but from there stretching to the horizon. Myer declined to go up and see it for himself. He did not need good cause, only a good excuse. The next morning, he announced, they were going in.

  4th June

  All morning they forced their way through the mess, until they made what Myer had baptized The Open Water. They drove hard, free and unhindered, north and west. By noon, from the deck, they had sunk the coast.

  From the Crow’s Nest, Myer was shouting down directions. Brooks was at the helm. Morgan sat on a crate near the stern, smoking his pipe, trying to pretend he knew nothing of what was going on. But overhead Myer was bellowing like a schoolboy. Ahead of them now was half a mile of water at most.

  The ice was visibly nearer. Inside it, the little lead they were aiming for was the colour of ink. Another order was roared from above. Morgan watched the men heaving frantically at the braces. She turned shyly towards the gap.

  The first contact put him lying on the deck flapping frantically at the cinders on his coat. All around him, fish were hopping off the boards. Far above, a man was screaming. It was a voice Morgan had never heard before. The shock was done, no more fish fell, but their dead eyes like dried peas rattled over and across the deck, as the ship ground and grunted, and bulled for an even keel.

  Afterwards, Morgan brushed himself off and went to the bows, to see where their commander wanted to go. Even here at its widest it was a nice fit, and tighter still in the distance. Myer seemed not to notice, but called for a full spread of canvas, even to studding-sails, and ordered all hands out on the floe, with picks and pinch-bars, to work them farther in.

  At dinner that night, Myer did not say a word, and his officers did not mention the ice, or what they had been at. They leaned their elbows on the table, heads down, hunched under an invisible weight. They ate their food mechanically, but when Myer coughed, as though clearing his throat, all the forks stalled in mid-air. Still Myer said nothing. They kept eating, and the cutlery kept creaking and squealing on their plates.

  After supper Myer sent Morgan forward to the crew’s quarters to get Daly, their strongest man. Out on the ice, they watched Daly crouch down, to lift their smallest kedge. The thing weighed at least one hundred and fifty pounds. They watched him waddle. There was no protest or complaint.

  Now then Doctor, Morgan said, there’s a nice specimen for your collection. He could feel it inside him, the jealousy, now well awake. The man was of a different breed. The veins were standing out on his forearms, and the forearms looked carved from wood.

  They watched him go. To his friend, quietly, DeHaven wondered about the wisdom of sending a man out over doubtful ice, carrying an anchor.

  He is a sailor in Her Majesty’s Navy, Myer announced, turning to face his accuser. If he is not so fond of danger, he should have stayed at home to dig potatoes.

  From the bows, they watched Daly hack a hole in the surface with some class of hatchet. Into this hole he hooked the anchor. He threaded the hawser through the eye. The slack was wrapped round the capstan. The men got into place, three to each arm. It was now half past eight at night. They leaned into the bars. The hawser rose up off the ice. It began to tremble. Soon they could hear it crack and splinter, like wood. The object of their efforts was beautifully simple: to pry apart the two halves of the world with their bows, and drive themselves into the crack, where the danger was greatest.

  They had not been heaving two minutes when Myer swore he’d seen a definite twitch in the floe. It was like a wedge being hammered home. Ten minutes later, when they paused to swap teams, Morgan saw that a crack about two inches wide ran crazily out from the bow for a hundred yards. That little gap, of course, was nothing and everything. Somehow they had managed to push apart two floes each as big as a nice-sized cricket field.

  Quod erat demonstrandum, Myer announced, waving his hand grandly at the entire visible world. Proof of a principle I have cherished all my life, but never before been furnished with so perfect an example. That every force, however small, against opposition however great, must ultimately have its effect, if exercised relentlessly. Naturally – the hand dismissed the notion prettily – the orthodox mind insists the thing cannot be done. We ar
e simply out of our depth, n’est-ce pas? He showed the sceptics his sorry specimens, and their surrounds. This against this. One was small and weak, the other giant and indifferent. Now the hand showed them the new crack in the floe. Was ever evidence more eloquent? he asked. It has been done. We have done it. That is why a man must never listen to reason. He must merely exercise his will unceasingly, and only afterwards stop to consider what he has achieved.

  When they paused to swap teams again, Myer sent Morgan down to check the progress. He knelt on the ice to peer into the crack, to see how deep it was. To Morgan, the thing seemed no wider than before.

  Put your hand in, said DeHaven, who was standing over him.

  Morgan looked up, looked offended. Are you out of your mind? he said.

  What are you afraid of? DeHaven said.

  Put your own hand in. If you’re so brave.

  What are you afraid of? DeHaven said. The anchors are well dug in. The hawser is brand new. The tension is good. Or do you think someone up there is watching and waiting? Do you think this has all been contrived, just to trap you?

  Morgan curled the tips of his fingers around the top of the crack.

  Deeper, DeHaven said.

  Morgan slid in his whole hand, to the wrist.

  Deeper, DeHaven said.

  He forced his arm almost to the elbow, until it was firmly wedged in place. He had to tug hard to get it out. The skin was striped, white and red.

  Now you, he said.

  DeHaven looked at him askew. Me? he said, perplexed. Are you out of your mind? He was grinning superbly. Just how stupid do you think I am?

  Up at the capstan, they leaned into the bars, and groaned, and cursed, and changed teams, and leaned into the bars again. For four long hours they stuttered forward, inch by inch. By midnight they had driven themselves quarter of a mile deeper, and the vessel stood motionless – dead centre of a vast, featureless plain. But for a few streaks of water, the world around them was now perfectly white.

  13th June

  Eighty-five feet high, Morgan stared over the frozen sea. Myer had sent him up to scout for a better lead. The order was perfect proof, if ever he needed it, that Myer was a fool. There were no better leads. To every point it now looked the same – proof, in turn, that the fool had led them into a trap.

  They had warped all day every day for a week now without interruption, and today they were at it again. This morning, for no particular reason, the floes had relaxed a little, and it was a more polite affair than usual. From above, Morgan watched them strolling round and round. It looked like the visites of a French quadrille. The smart chatter of the pawls was music enough, he thought, after the strain of the previous days.

  About eleven o’clock he saw that half a mile ahead the ice opened up into a kind of canal. From boredom, he called it out. Myer immediately hustled the men off the capstan and down onto the floe. The traces were passed down and every man rigged. They shuffled across the ice until the lines grew tight, and then they leaned forward, as into a stout headwind.

  Unseen, Morgan looked straight down the length of the mast at Myer winding his chronometers again, and imagined putting a bullet straight through the top of the man’s head. It would be an easy, undeserved end. He imagined the mess. He wondered what they would do. He himself was next in line for the command. He could always say he had been climbing down with the gun. He had been sure it was not cocked. It would be interesting to see who was willing to believe.

  16th June

  The last of the slack was brought in, and the men leaned into the bars. For the moment, Brooks let them make their own pace. After a few minutes stretching, tightening, threatening, the ship suddenly jumped forward, or backward, about an inch. It felt like the first jolt of a departing train.

  Well now, DeHaven declared, maybe there’s something in that house besides smoke.

  Morgan, in his spoiled mind, wondered if the ice anchor was not coming home. The heaving began again, and soon it seemed to him, by closing one eye, and taking a bead on the bowsprit, that the ship was shuffling ever so slightly to starboard.

  By now Brooks, the mate, was fearlessly goading the men as they filed past: Come on now boys and make a name for yourselves! Can’t ye feel it, honeys? The meat is gone out from it entirely! Are ye Christians or what kind of men are ye? Will ye not heave then, for the love of Christ? Heave now and be saved!

  The feet were starting to scramble. Myer pretended he did not see. Brooks took a step forward and addressed directly those at the bars:

  My dear boys, what had ye for breakfast at all? White bread and fresh butter is it? Damn it all to hell, Mr Daly, is it idlers only they’re breeding in the county of Cork these past thirty years?

  He had the teams piped down every fifteen minutes, for a five-minute pause. He did not want them looking any farther into the future than that.

  After watching them for an hour, Morgan removed his jacket and shoved in beside the men. Soon his legs were faltering. Faltering, he goaded himself with half-forgotten insults, and imaginary slurs, searching for strength in anger and shame. But by the time Brooks finally piped them down for their midday meal, he was stupid from fatigue.

  Halfway down the deck was a long flat crate he could lie on, if he could get to it. He shuffled across the deck like a man chin-high in water. Every breath now was effort or relief. He sat down stiffly, with old age in his legs, and stared into the darkness of the hatch. The sunlight blared up off the wood worn to a sheen and he could see nothing. As he lay back, and his head touched the boards, a strangled sound came out of his throat.

  A gentle breeze was flowing over the ship, teasing the dangling lines. From nowhere, the cat sprang up onto the roof of the galley, spotted him, and shrank. All around, the sullen faces were watching.

  Eventually Morgan stood up again, shuffled to the gunwale, unbuttoned his flies, and began to piss over the side. It sounded exactly like a tearing sheet. He watched the hole widen and darken. The thing seemed so easy. The ice seemed impossibly soft.

  At lunch, Myer told the officers that they must meet the difficulty head-on. They must not shirk for so much as a moment, nor seem even to think of it. They must try every device and example to buoy up the morale of the men.

  All the same, it’s little enough gain for so much sweat, Morgan said. The day before they’d named their progress in yards. Today they named it in feet. It might be as well, Morgan said, to wait for the ice to slacken a little, which it surely must, and spare their strength.

  Mr Morgan, Myer said, in such an enterprise as ours, the one sure warrant of discipline is the faith of those below in those above. But if you prefer dismay, distrust and disorder, it is easily bred. You have merely to hesitate at the first difficulty, and the job is done. If ever you have the privilege to command, try to remember that.

  After lunch, Myer decided to change the angle of traction, again.

  An excellent idea, DeHaven said.

  They watched the men tugging at the anchor, which had burrowed deep into the ice.

  The finest naval mind of his generation, Morgan said.

  You do realize, DeHaven said, that there are men now sitting in armchairs in London would give th
eir right arm to be in your shoes. To be able to say they were right there in the thick of it, by Captain Myer’s side. In Paris too, he said, pointing. Cabot had propped open the galley door, stood there watching with a pained look on his face.

  Believe me, Morgan said, I feel it a privilege and an honour. I’m sure I’ve done absolutely nothing to deserve it.

  The men began to heave again. Ten minutes later, there was a wretched rush of noise. The men leapt back. Something had snapped. The new hawser was actually smoking, as it surged from the snatch.

  And that there now, DeHaven nodded sternly, is why Mr Gordon Myer is commander of one of Her Majesty’s finest sailing ships, and you, my dear fellow, are merely . . . He fluttered his fingers nimbly.

  A witness to history, Morgan said.

  Brooks was ordered to dismantle the capstan, to find out what exactly had gone wrong. Myer waited to watch him knock out the first of the blocks, then turned towards Morgan and DeHaven. It was not possible he had heard. There had been too much noise.

  Perhaps, Doctor, you think you would do better in my place, Myer said. He stood facing them both.

  DeHaven held his stare. To be perfectly honest, Captain, I don’t think I’d have got quite so far, he said. I don’t think I’d have tried quite so hard. Certainly not along quite the same lines as yourself.

  Luckily for all of us, my friend cannot aspire to command, Morgan explained. However much he might like to do so. There was a kind of regret in his voice, theatrical, but what he said was true. In certain arrangements, the expedition was not altogether regular. DeHaven was a civilian, under contract.

  If life aboard a naval ship is too trying for Dr DeHaven, he can renege on his contract whenever he likes, Myer said. Though he’ll find it’s rather a long walk home, I think.