The Surfacing

by Cormac James

  Still this southerly wind has not failed, he wrote. Only he seemed to know the consequence. The men seem blissfully ignorant of the true nature of our predicament, he wrote, that we are being constantly carried back towards the ship, despite our Trojan labours at pushing south. Today I totted up my columns again. Travel now 58 days. What is opposite, under Gain, I hesitate to write a second time, but Kitty, it seems tantalizingly near.

  24th July

  They had a proper fight, in a proper ring. Cabot and Banes. Morgan didn’t ask why. He didn’t want to have to untangle the knot. It was cold and damp. They were hungry and half blind. They were lost. He was surprised there was not trouble more often.

  Now Cabot was sitting on a crate with his shirt front pressed to his face. Younger, Morgan had boxed no few proper contests, and recognized Cabot’s disappointment, how fierce it was. He himself had renounced such exposure. He stood by the boat contemplating the man. This was his turn, Morgan thought. This was the watershed. Henceforth he would only ever put in a respectable effort, never again a phenomenal one. Henceforth there would be some extra element of measure in everything he did. Orderly advance or orderly retreat, in another world, where winning and losing were not quite so far apart.

  With considerable effort, Cabot was now trying to pull his shirt over his head. The cloth was wet with sweat, almost transparent, pasted to the skin. It was too tight. Cabot could not manage it. Suddenly he was flailing and thrashing, ripping wildly at the thing clinging to him. There was a long wretched rip. Then another. Still Cabot was struggling, trapped.

  Morgan could stand it no longer. He stepped over, to help pull the man free. The shirt ceded with a generous sigh. The wallop and smack, as Cabot flung it down. Afterwards he sat sobbing, face hidden in his hands.

  Someone had set soap and a bucket of water nearby. It was for both men, to work themselves over, then work themselves over with snow. Banes was still standing a little way off, waiting politely. He caught Morgan’s eye and raised his eyebrows, but Morgan quickly shook his head.

  Cabot should have known better, of course, than to make the challenge. Morgan should have known better than to let it run. Banes was so much the harder man. But Cabot had nursed a reckless hope, as though anger must be ballast enough.

  Morgan hunkered down in front of him, a hand on each shoulder, trying to look him straight in the eye. Cabot was staring at the ice between his feet. Mumbling to himself. As though he alone of all the men could not hear the kind and wise father’s voice. Listen to me, Morgan was saying, trying to sound severe. Listen to me now. It’s over. Finished. Done. You have to swallow it, that’s all. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about. As though he himself had been in the ring. As though he too, tomorrow, would be pissing red on white.

  26th July

  From outside came the sound of a foghorn, and not a man so much as lifted his head. It was not a foghorn. It was the wind in the mouth of an empty tin. Not distant but local, and no summons, but mere noise. They knew the difference by now.

  They were now in the last part of July. By now their stories were all well bled, and they ate their breakfast without a word. It was a solid silence, but for the sound of each spoon scraping its own little tin pot. The soup was a rude mix of barley and bread-dust, and other scraps and sundries he tried not to recognize. They prodded the stuff with their spoons. They bowed their heads. Obediently, the spoons ferried the stuff to their mouths.

  Cabot, DeHaven said. Yet another triumph. He had closed his eyes for ecstasy.

  They sat all day in the boat, not quite sure what they were waiting for. Officially, they were waiting for more heat, or more cold, or more wind, or wind from some other quarter, to melt, or freeze, or open up the floe, or properly close it.

  You are Agamemnon at Aulis, DeHaven told his friend.

  He was waiting to set out, Morgan said. We’re trying to go home.

  They tried again to shove the enormous blocks aside with their poles. This useless porridge, he wrote, in which element we can neither properly sail nor push nor row. The hours passed peacefully, unhindered. Only the misers had any shred of tobacco left. For weeks now the majority had been smoking tea-leaves. The more adventurous had taken to smoking Promethean primers, mixed with regular match-paper, rolled in pages of the Bible. It was another of Cabot’s concoctions, to which Morgan refused to object, as long as the tarp was folded back.

  They played whist. They played casino. With their catapults, the men bombarded their former camp. Cabot sat alone in the stern mechanically bailing out onto the ice. He looked a deeply unhappy man. He no longer knew where to rig his faith. Nothing had changed, and their crisis was come.

  What’s the secret? Morgan asked.

  There’s no secret, DeHaven said. He was gathering. Play the cards in your hand and the cards on the blanket, that’s all. Stop trying to play everyone else’s cards too.

  The wind was swinging round to the east, setting them in a slow clockwise spin. The men stood motionless, shut their eyes, but their orbit could not be felt. Morgan told them to line up something on the boat with something much farther off.

  31st July

  From close by came a gnawing, mechanical sound, that seemed very nearly to be coming from inside his own head. It was Cabot, grinding his teeth again. Morgan drew his hand up out of his bag, groped at the dark until he found the right face, and touched his fingertip to the jaw. It was quiet, instantly.

  Afterwards he slept. In the early morning, he began to dream. In the depths of his dream a man was shouting, but even as he dreamed he knew to pay it no mind. They were always too ready to see a new lead, land, a water-sky. The slightest hint of anything strange – even bear droppings – still sent them galloping across the snow. They were too ready to be saved. It’s nothing, he promised himself, already too anxious to stay asleep. Because there was something else under the shouting, that was not quite right. It was a softer layer – a kind of a gentle, mechanical whirr. Soon it was a ferocious metallic clattering, boring past the tent. By the time Morgan woke properly, it was the only sound in the world.

  Rats! Cabot was screaming. Rats!

  That’s not rats! shouted someone else.

  Morgan parted the flap, pulling on his boots. The entire floe was shimmering, like a field of wheat. They seemed not to be advancing, merely swarming over the ground, like bees on a bush. He could smell them, he thought. The day was noticeably darker. That was how many they were.

  He tried to fix his eyes on a single one, to follow its progress. It was impossible. They were too many, too crowded and too busy, and all too alike. Many had stopped to sniff at their boat, their crates, their slops. He watched one creeping along the gunwale, at the bow. It reached its forepaw over the edge and sadly drew it back. He watched the little whiskers working, the little claws. Soon it was testing the air again, stretching farther. Suddenly it fell.

  The men were thrashing at them with blankets, with knotted shirts, trying to keep them away from the tent. Cabot had hoisted the open food bags into the air, on the steering-oar, to keep them safe. But they were scampering up the man’s body, his raised arms, and on up the wood. Morgan listened to his scream.

  Within ten minutes they were gone. The ground looked trampled, soiled. In the distance, the gulls
were swooping down to carry them off. He watched one struggle in the beak, drop and fall and bounce.

  They look like they know where they’re going, DeHaven said.

  Do they? said Morgan. Perhaps you want to follow them?

  They can’t run forever without food.

  Maybe they’ll run till they drop.

  Do you honestly imagine they’ve left food and land to run mindlessly over the ice, and on into the open sea?

  Morgan shrugged. Who could say? Who knew what promise they’d overheard?

  They themselves had been wandering aimlessly. It was the favourite occupation of their race. He saw it now with arrogant clarity. The lemmings showed him something else. What that was, he did not know. But he envied their sense of urgency and purpose.

  1st August

  Daly stood at the door of the tent.

  It’s Cabot, sir, he said.

  What about him?

  He’s out beyond the hummocks.

  Doing for himself what no other man can do, Morgan said.

  No, sir. He’s took your fowling piece.

  Morgan was suddenly interested. A bear? he said – but even as he said it he knew the shotgun was useless against a bear. Still, in the first, nice panic he was scanning left and right, wondering where the rifle was, thinking only of how the flesh would be a resurrection.

  You’d better come, Daly said. I believe he’s a mind to use it on himself.

  He was sitting on a block of ice. He held the gun by the barrel, with both hands. He’d made a deep dent in the snow between his feet, to lodge the stock. He’d obviously heard them coming, but did not look up.

  Suddenly DeHaven stepped forward and yanked the gun from Cabot’s grip. Cabot made no special effort to keep it, to resist.

  That wasn’t so hard, was it? DeHaven said brightly. He balanced the thing in his hands, and seemed to be admiring the weight. He tucked the stock to his shoulder, held it level and wheeled slowly, as though scouting for game. The tip stopped six inches from Cabot’s face. Cabot refused to look away. He was looking right up through the sights.

  Would you like me to do it for you? DeHaven said.

  Cabot showed no sign he’d heard.

  You’re hoping we’ll beg you not to, is that it? Dear old Cabot, that we couldn’t possibly manage without? Him and his wondrous knack of splitting a tin of pork. Is that it? Is that what’s behind this whole song and dance?

  Still Cabot did not react. It was a private conspiracy.

  One less mouth to feed, is all it will be, DeHaven said. One less body to warm.

  The barrel tip by now was right up to the mouth. As it touched the lips, both Cabot’s hands came up instinctively, to hold it off.

  No dithering now, DeHaven ordered. Be quick about it, at least. You press the trigger, you won’t even hear the shot. He sounded angry. He flicked the wing. The action was loud and clear. He shifted his weight to his front foot, shoving the barrel right up against Cabot’s teeth. Still Cabot refused to cede. In the end DeHaven stepped back and left him holding the gun to his own face.

  They watched and waited. Then Cabot was doubled over. They watched him retch and watched it steam. Afterwards they watched the pool of vomit burrowing.

  Leave him be, Morgan said. He turned and walked away, back towards the tent.

  He could not feel as sorry for Cabot as he might. It was too easy to imagine the strange buoyancy the man must now feel, the relief. Morgan himself knew it too well, from his drinking days. This was always the best time, these first few minutes, when you felt cleaned out and calm. This, now, was your reward. You’d done your penance, and were ready anew to meet the world head-on.

  Back at the boat Morgan got the rum keg and poured. Somehow he felt he’d earned it. He was on his third drink when DeHaven arrived. Morgan watched him help himself, then raise his cup as for toast or celebration.

  Well, he said, that’s that nonsense settled for good. As I always say, nothing like a gun-barrel in the mouth to clear a man’s mind.

  Morgan made no remark. I used to hope he might consider me a friend, he would write later. Since leaving the ship, somehow that hope had drained away. I naively supposed that by quiet attention, and by my own uncomplaining example, I might gain the man’s confidence and respect, that the immediate presence of qualities he himself sorely lacked might prove a positive influence. Morgan wondered why, and for whom, he wrote such elegant lies. He had merely wanted Cabot to work and obey, and not complain. Until now he thought he’d managed the man rather well.

  The noise was neat but dull, and soon smothered by the dumb horizons. It was the sound of a single shot.

  Someone go quick, Morgan said. See what the fool is after doing to himself.

  No one moved.

  You, he told DeHaven. You’re the one was cheering him on.

  DeHaven began to button his coat. Knowing Cabot, he’s probably missed, he told the tent.

  About three minutes later, DeHaven came strolling back. They were all waiting outside.

  Well, he said, I stand corrected. I didn’t think he had the spunk.

  Already they could see the birds wheeling beyond the hummocks, dropping down out of sight, lifting up again, carrying the precious flesh away. Only Daly did not look up. He was greasing his leather, and apparently deeply taken with the task.

  Mr Daly, Morgan said, would you please go and cover him up, quickly. Take the sail, the groundsheet, whatever you need.

  They watched Daly rummaging in the boat.

  What are we going to do with do with it? DeHaven said, when Daly was gone.

  It?

  The body.

  Cabot, you mean?

  I mean Cabot’s body. His mortal remains.

  I don’t think I understand your question.

  Well, I presume we can’t eat it. That would never do. We ate every one of the dogs, but we can’t lay a finger on him, on it.

  He’s not a dog, Morgan said.

  Unfortunately.

  This is Cabot you’re talking about.

  I know, DeHaven said. Good fresh meat, that’s perfectly fine for the birds to feast on, but not a starving man.

  We’re not starving yet.

  No, but we very soon will be. And even then we couldn’t touch it, you’re right. And why? Because certain ladies and certain gentlemen in London, if ever they got word of it, might disapprove. What a world we live in.

  That’s the world you’re rushing back to, Morgan said.

  DeHaven sighed grandly. Well, he said, we should at least post a man out there with the rifle. It might well draw in a bear.

  The others walked out after Daly, to have a look. Morgan lingered in the tent. The stench there was sickening. For weeks now the faces had been black with grease. God knows what they would become without me, he thought. Bit by bit, he began to fling Cabot’s gear out onto the ice. As though it somehow smelled worse than the rest. A spare shirt, a spare collar – the man had brought a collar! – mittens, boot-hose. He would have to bu
rn the man’s letters before the others got their hands on them. He turned up Cabot’s sack and shook everything out. Everywhere his mind turned, it was ready to understand. He might have helped, he supposed. Of course there was no helping someone like that. Still, he could not quite manage to condemn the man, except the inconvenience. It was nothing he had not many times thought of for himself.

  When he was done he went to check the parcel. Approaching, he lifted his gun and fired into the air, to frighten off the birds. It was like a pillow exploding. He stood over it awhile. He did not know where the men had gone. All around he could hear the ice at work. The real world wasting away. A few feet ahead of him, he watched a long tongue of ice politely detach itself from the main. It touched the surface and slid under with a stifled laugh, like a doused torch.

  The distant world made a very fine picture indeed. But the beauty and strangeness of it could not quite disguise the simple truth. They stood before an abyss. The mess went on forever. Cabot was dead. Almost every promise now seemed false. Two months, he reminded himself. It had been a credible attempt. Creditable, even. He could do whatever he wanted now.

  For dinner that night they had cold pork and chocolate and made no attempt to light the conjuror. No one was yet ready to take Cabot’s place. Afterwards he watched them making themselves comfortable, settling in. Tonight there was little chat. What’s done is done, DeHaven said.