by Cormac James
Layer by layer, the fingers peeled the blindfold away. DeHaven bent a little closer, touched his fingertips to the clenched right eye, as he’d once seen a faith healer do. Beside him, Cabot was holding the eyedropper in mid-air, reverently, as though it risked exploding at the slightest jerk, like pyroglycerine.
Now, DeHaven ordered, as his fingers pried the eyelids apart. The dropper twitched once, twice, and each time – the synchronization perfect – Morgan gave a whimper that sounded exactly like a little child.
The next day, the noon sun gave him 78°08' for a latitude. One or even two minutes of that might be credited to the glare and the mist and the sorry state of his eyes. But that was all the leeway he could in good conscience allow himself. He wrote the figure on the page, closed over the cover of his journal, told himself that later he would look at it properly.
That evening again he’d seen bruises on the southern horizon. Clouds, perhaps. And clouds meant water, in his scheme. At the very least a mess of leads, possibly a chance to wet the boat, maze a way south to the open sea. He could see it to the smallest detail. If he closed his eyes he could even hear it, the brutal scraping of the keel as it ran over the edge. He watched her sliding into the water, settling, sitting proudly, over and over again.
Beside him the men were snoring. From outside came the valiant grunts of the ice. From inside his chest, half smothered, came a steady, righteous industry. He breathed in and out calmly, expertly, just like a sleeper, but sleep wouldn’t come. He was too excited and too afraid, at the prospect of finally getting away.
It was the 12th of June. An early morning mist had burned off to show a thin brown shadow on the southern horizon. It held his stare. It was nothing, or it was land. He handed the glass to DeHaven, whose eyes were in far better shape. It was land, DeHaven said. Morgan took the glass again. To his mind the line of the horizon was slightly smudged, that was all. Even so, he let DeHaven broadcast the news. It was meant as an encouragement, should have quickened their efforts, but they were beyond such gallantries now. It was all they could do, at almost any moment of the day, not to collapse.
When they paused at noon, he had the men form a pyramid, triple tier, as they had so often done for DeHaven’s gymnastics, back at the ship. Three, three, and two. He struggled to the top, and stood swaying ceremoniously on the upper men’s shoulders. To the horizon the floe seemed as solid as ever, as patient and as wise. Overhead, the moon was bright as a saucer of milk. What we took this morning for land now looked distinctly like a herd of musk oxen, he wrote. I shall veer a little more to the southeast, to meet them. I am putting off any decision until then.
They were nothing but chunks of a berg which had once been rolled in the dirt.
16th June
He made a list of what they would take, what they would leave. Sextant, he wrote. Caulking Iron. Lamp. Beside Anchor, he wrote an X. Unarguable necessity, was the standard. What will enable us to advance, or to persist, and nothing else. For the moment he preferred not to calculate the total load. In any case, it was useless to tell the men what weight they must haul, if it could not be reduced.
Blue Rockets, he wrote. Fishing Gear. Harpoon. Rope. He changed his mind, and began to add it all up, pound by pound. There ought to be a direct translation, he wrote. So much less to haul, he wrote, so much more to the march, each day. He was flailing and grabbing. Every thought was now tainted with the cheapest hope. He wanted to be saved.
The floe had been shattered, but overnight the snow had grown up out of the ground to cover the cracks. He had them fan out in the traces, as wide as they could, to spread their weight. He had strapped two tent-poles together for a feeler, twelve feet long. His blind man’s cane. He wandered left and right, divining. Somewhere under the surface, invisible, was a safe way.
17th June
The distant floes were a solid blue. Overhead was a hard bright sky. Underfoot, it was like dragging through liquid mud. At noon, with his instruments, he located himself as best he could. 78°04', the instruments said. What the instruments said was that a week’s killing labour had somehow pushed them backward, several miles closer to the ship.
After lunch, he had them unload another case of ammunition, the second conjuror, the common sleeping bag.
What do you want us to do with them? Banes said.
Pack it all up properly, he said. Rainproof it as best you can.
I had them hack out a place for it in the side of a broken berg, he wrote, as though we might collect it on our return.
Afterwards, the load felt no lighter, and throughout the afternoon every few minutes he was obliged to call a pause. Perhaps it is pretending we might go on as long as we like, he wrote. I do not know. Even Daly, our hardiest man, today touched his knee to the ground. He did not complain, but it is plain to see that even he is almost useless by now. The other men appeared shrunken and wild-eyed. In the evening they swallowed their meat lump by lump. The useless food. The useless sleep. The relentless work. Every one of them was under the spell. Morgan could think of no way to rally them. I can think of no way to rally them, he wrote. They are failing every one. Today, for the first time, I begin to suspect my own determination, that it is compulsion more than resolve.
Is anyone out? Cabot said. He was scanning again with the glass, and it had snagged on something odd. Unseen, Morgan shook his head. In any case, Cabot answered himself, it is much too little. It is more like a little bear, or even a . . . dwarf. It’s starting to crawl!
Morgan took his turn to look. It was not a young bear, he said. Nor a fox. Nor a tiny man. He set no store by the sudden shifting. In the end, if studied long enough, at any distance everything out here came to life. It was nothing. It was the skewed optics, and the lack of a frame. Likely just a little bird, he told Cabot. It’s gone. Flown off. Just a trick of the light, he said, and crammed down the glass.
No, Cabot said. It was not nothing. Give it. I know what I saw.
Morgan watched him scouting again. Look long enough, you’ll find it, he thought. It was the distance in-between that was alive.
It’s up on its legs! Cabot shouted. It is no furred animal – it walks!
Morgan watched the man rushing and tumbling across the snow. He would have preferred an easy scorn, at Cabot’s easy elation. But it warmed him, to think of the man’s heart – however briefly – flooded with hope, pumping it joyfully through every vessel and vein. Even to think of it now had his own heart awake. He was jealous, he realized.
He found Cabot’s track, and started to follow, but made sure not to run. It was a lone nomad, perhaps, from some unknown tribe. It was the survivor of a wreck, that had spotted their boat, their smoke, received one of the many messages sent out from the ship, and was heading north to find it. It was Franklin himself, or one of Franklin’s men. Come staggering across the ice, sure he was saved.
Halfway out, Morgan stood to lift the glass again. He found Cabot far ahead, queerly stretched and suspended, then suddenly found the thing that was drawing them on. It was an elbow-length mitten, perhaps a fur hat, apparently abandoned in the course of a march. It was warmer now, of course. The man who’d dropped it thought perhaps he would never need it again. Morgan walked on, calmer. Soon he spotted a square blue bottle lying on the snow, that Cabot must have rushed past. Then what looked very like
a leather face-guard. It looked like the trail of another party, as worsened as their own. All at once Morgan felt a rush of pity for those men, for the futility of their task. For what they must have endured to get here, for all that lay ahead, and for the state in which they must face into it. It was as though he were hovering overhead, immune and uninvolved, looking down. He wanted to admire the hardship, but merely felt baffled by it.
That evening, back at the boat, Morgan mimicked the version of Cabot he’d seen in the glass. He made himself taller, and stretched out his arms. He flapped his arms elegantly, and tried to fly away. Now giant, he said. Now very small.
21st June
The better to husband our strength, he wrote, but did not finish it. He wondered what decision it was he was trying to obtain, by what roundabout route. Except the pretence of irritation, he knew no other way to decide. We have now been a full month in the traces, he wrote, and have used up half of our supplies, the better part of our patience, and the better part of our strength. Today is Midsummer’s Day. It is a milestone I wish were ahead of me yet. Millstone, he almost wrote. From now on the sun will every day be a little lower in the sky.
The sail, he wrote. 6 light oars + 1 steering. The mast. He was making a list. It told him where he still wanted to go. He was no longer reckoning what weight they could haul, but what weight they could float.
Sledge & Boat & Tackle, he wrote. Guns & Axes. Kettles & Pans. He totted it all up. TOTAL DEAD WEIGHT. The figure meant nothing. It would have been too heavy at half as much.
It is impossible to know what to jettison and what to keep, he wrote. Every object and instrument seems vital in one or other scenario. Without it, I imagine, we will be lost.
Again he went through his own affairs, discovered that she’d put her lambswool shawl in the bottom of his bag – the shawl she’d often used to wrap up the boy, and worn herself all through the spring. Unfolding it, he woke the smell of her soap, her hair, and the smell of something else. He lifted it to his face. Deeper down, stale and sure, was a darker tone – a hint of sweat, perhaps. Perhaps a hint of baby’s shit. He folded the thing over and set it back in his bag. He was not done with those memories, that calling. They were not done with him.
24th June
Finally, the boat stood at the water’s edge. Somehow they managed to slide it in. They drew it back and held it tight against the ice. DeHaven crawled out and slid in. He staggered onto a bench, pulled on one of the oars, and pulled the boat out into the middle of the lead. From the floe, they watched him take hold of his own hand, flop it up and down as he had so often done with the boy’s.
Bye-bye, he sang prettily. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Morgan watched another sack handed across, watched the boat sink another eighth of an inch. The gunwale was too low. Two more bodies would have put them under, he told himself. They’d brought too much. Apparently he’d expected them to have consumed more by now, or to weigh less. Apparently he’d been planning for worse.
They drove themselves forward with the oars and poles, in the manner of gondoliers. The lead was filled with rubbish. Then the floes were suddenly closer again. The sides of the boat began to bump and drag. The faces turned to him. They wanted to know what to do, where to go.
By morning the lead had closed over completely. The banks were slowly sliding past, wearing each other smooth, as though to make a better fit. After breakfast, Morgan went to the edge to judge their prospects. What he saw was a chastening. Had they not drawn up onto the floe the night before, the boat would have been crushed like an egg.
They hauled the boat to the floe’s southern edge, where they completely unloaded it. They then lowered the boat into the lead as best they knew how. Then they loaded it up again. Twenty yards farther, they passed every one of the packages up onto the ice once more, and crawled up out of the boat, and drew up the ropes, and hauled the boat up after them onto the neighbouring floe. Gain: one eighth of an English mile.
The first flakes of snow trickled idly through the air. In the southeast was a bruise-blue sky. They sat in the boat, under the cover, all the rest of the day. They played whist. They read The Vicar of Wakefield, again. They asked Cabot to tell them about France, the French. He told them of his days as a furniture-maker, as a compagnon. They listed the names of the prophets, the names of their children, the cities of India. They recited lavish menus. With great solemnity and ornament, like seanchaidhthe, they described the women they’d known. Like men turning puppets, they mocked their own efforts with their hands. After dinner, as much for distraction as anything else, Morgan asked Cabot to cut his hair.
30th June
The weather was clear. He felt it an omen. It was noon. He took his latitude, got 78°02', and did not double-check his calculations for fear it might be worse. He wrote the figure down. It was nothing but the scratch of a pen, and official confirmation that all the heartbreak of the past fortnight had been for nought. That even as they advanced, the very ground they were hauling over was moving under them, invisibly and silently, carrying them backward, north.
That afternoon: four hours, one crack. Not a man refused to participate in the farce. They were beyond that now. Outlook unimproved, he wrote. There is not the slightest prospect of navigation without the proper wind to clear us a way.
They drifted uselessly in the trash. Not enough like water to let them row. Not enough like a floe to sledge the boat. They sat in total silence for hours at a time. All around, the ceaseless rattle of thaw-water feeding the sea. Occasionally someone gave another useless pull on the oars. It was not the days lost per se which vexed him. It was the provisions swallowed without return. It was the counting down. It was the earth’s orbit about the sun.
On the 1st they had a good day, with several wide floes and long leads, and covered almost two miles, he judged. Then all night and all the next morning, it blew hard and steady from the south. To the naked eye the world held its ground, with the wind as mere dressing, but his noon observations put them markedly closer to the ship than before.
With what must have looked from any distance like unshakeable purpose, they hauled their whaleboat to the edge, unloaded it, roped it up coffin-like, carefully let it down, clambered in as best they could, loaded it up again, rowed the few yards to the edge opposite.
They waded through the sweet-water lakes now with little complaint. It was July. I now make my observations with fear in my heart, he wrote. It is reading a judgement. I have said nothing yet to the men of our Sisyphean task. He was afraid even to write the figure alongside yesterday’s, to compare. For the moment he preferred to keep it inside his head, where nothing was ever quite as definite as it would be elsewhere.
They lay in the boat, talking about nothing and everything. They watched DeHaven tamp a sprig into the bowl of his pipe. Soon he was smoking happily. His rivals watched and breathed in silence, craving those sly delights. They had long since smoked all of their own. He made no effort to hide his pleasure, and afterwards they seemed to show him a greater deference, in almost everything.
Today the shadows were sheet metal. The sky was definitely blue. The ice lay flat to the horizon, sparkling, like a vast salt lake. In the cracks, the water was molten lead. In the distance, the leads looked wide enough to navigate.
What we need is a steamer, DeHaven said.
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Cabot! Morgan shouted. Did you pack the steamer like I told you to?
After what passed for breakfast, they lifted the oars. They rolled and pulled, one single stroke. They rolled and pulled, once more. Outside it was floating ice and freezing water. It was a forgotten kingdom, a watercolour sky over thickened scraps of ocean, and at the back of the boat a sad Frenchman bailing, bailing, bailing incessantly. They were under siege. Everything was dwindling. Their stunted imaginations, their natural strength, their patience. Ambition and anxiety had given way to bored misery.
He listened to them bickering again. As usual, it was someone else’s turn to bury the slops, to lard the tarp, to pick lice. Every day without fail, someone was conned out of an ounce of bread. Today, Banes had cut Cabot’s string instead of unravelling it. That was the grief. His excuse, that the thing was not possible – what he’d done fifty times before. His fingers were numb, he said, lying there in his shirtsleeves. The knot was too tight.
There was a time, Morgan wrote, when I obliged myself always to make the peace. Now I let them concoct their grudges and flourish them. Previously, I feared they might come to blows, and that nothing could be worse. Now, between Cabot and Banes, I am merely curious to see how they go about the thing. They can kill each other for all I care.
6th July
They parked up a whole day to parch their bread. The daily traffic had by now fairly ground it down. They scattered the crumbs over the sail, and stood guard, in case the wind rose or the gulls got bold.
Baa, baa, baa, Tommy had taught them. It was his latest, favourite bird-call. He opened his mouth as wide as he possibly could. He was as proud as a young drunkard. Baa, baa, baa, he said grandly. Baa, baa, baa, echoed all the ventriloquists now, as the gulls came down. The memory was sickening. All in a rush, Morgan felt tears welling in the pipes.
