by Stef Penney
Hyland is a narrow, intense man with thin, chiselled features and a wispy blond beard, vigorous and seemingly immune to cold. Initially, Lester had liked this intensity; he reminded him a little of his younger self. Now he realises his mistake. His other recruits are more biddable: George Shattuck and Philip Royce are young men from good families who sat in his office and demonstrated a flattering respect for Lester’s achievements. Shattuck is the expedition’s biologist, and Royce is another of those keen, well-connected young men – Lester met so many – who was looking around for something to do, but whose sheer willingness to please (and family’s generous donation) made him an irresistible choice.
Lester learnt lessons from his first expedition, and avoided more experienced scientists with ideas and ambitions of their own which conflicted with his drive to explore. But it is a fine balancing act between choosing men who can lead others when necessary (that is, when he deputises them to carry out a task vital to his overall success) and those who thirst to be a leader on their own account.
.
They are now only days away from his long-planned departure for the Pole. It is early in the season – the sun is just a dull glow on the southern horizon – but, because they are further south, they have further to travel, and must make both outward and return journeys before the warming sun makes travel over the sea-ice too hazardous. It is a daring attempt. Lester almost believes they could do it. But Hyland has a way of puncturing noble ideals.
‘How are your bowels?’
They are standing behind the wall of wooden cases that separates Lester’s bunk from the rest of the hut, and (usually) lends him a fragile, much-needed privacy. It has been temporarily co-opted as Hyland’s consulting room.
‘Oh, you know,’ says Lester. ‘All right.’
‘Sluggish?’
‘Well, sometimes. Whose aren’t?’ He forces a smile.
‘Mine are fine,’ says Hyland. He has no sense of humour. Lester has no sense of humour either, but does not realise that they have this in common.
.
In the darkness of the February afternoon, Hyland carries out the latest of his fortnightly checks on the health of the expedition’s members. Although just twenty-five, he is a strong character who has gained in stature over the winter. Lester has tried to get on with his plans, but he has – to be frank – not been entirely well for several weeks. He finds his usually formidable powers of concentration drifting, and his thoughts dwelling on all the things that have gone wrong. He suffers from stomach cramps (not unusual with their unbalanced diet, but still). Worse, he has become uncharacteristically clumsy. This morning, he stood up to leave the breakfast table and somehow knocked over the jug of coffee. What frightens him about this trivial incident is that, even replaying his actions in his mind, he cannot understand how it happened. He has never done such a ham-handed thing in his life. To make it worse, he swore in front of the others, and saw from their expressions that he had lost face. He wonders, for the first time, if they see him as an old man.
‘I don’t like the look of your tongue,’ says Hyland. ‘And you’re pale. How are you sleeping?’
The doctor peers into his eyes under the hanging lantern. Lester almost recoils. Hyland’s skin is unpleasantly smooth and tight. The eyes seem merciless, as though he senses weakness and is homing in for the kill.
‘I sleep fine. Damn it, Hyland. It’s February! We’re all pale. We’re all sluggish. That’s what happens in winter. You haven’t been here before, but the winter night is simply to be got through. I’ve been doing a lot of work that you probably don’t appreciate – writing and planning for the spring. I have hundreds of calculations to make, thousands of decisions to weigh! When you all retire for the night, my work is only half done. I have the well-being of the Eskimos and the sailors to consider as well! I have . . . I’m wasting time with you now. I need to get on. Perhaps you could continue with the others in the main hut.’
Hyland has taken a step back, and his eyes widen.
‘I mean no disrespect, chief. I’m simply trying to carry out my duties. If you are overburdened, could you not delegate some of your tasks to the rest of us? We are often underemployed, and—’
‘I am not overburdened! And my decisions cannot be delegated. When you have more experience, you will appreciate these things.’
Hyland swallows. ‘Of course.’
He nods, blinking, and goes out, grappling with the red blanket that serves as a door. A minute later, Lester hears him talking in a low voice to someone in the main room – yes, Shattuck. Undoubtedly talking about him. Annoyingly, he was thinking of delegating some of the calculations. But if he does it now, Hyland will think that he is taking his advice . . . Will that weaken him in their eyes? He reflects that he would, anyway, have to check over somebody else’s work. Taking responsibility, doing what needs to be done – that is what a leader does.
He doesn’t remember having these doubts on the last expedition. Has he changed over that time, or does the fault lie in the men he has chosen? He never thought that he would feel nostalgia for the uncouth Erdinger or de Beyn’s irritating levity. And he positively misses Frank Urbino. The doctor was such a good companion: strong, helpful, practical. Most of all, loyal – an incalculable virtue. What a pity things came out the way they did . . .
Two days later, preparations for the polar journey are finished. Calculations have been completed and checked, rations packed into sledging cases. Lester and Philip Royce, along with two Eskimo drivers and forty-eight dogs, are due to leave.
After breakfast, Hyland hands Lester a letter. In it, he states that he has diagnosed the leader with the early stages of pernicious anaemia, and possibly scurvy, and, in his opinion, he is not fit for the journey to the Pole. Lester takes him aside and relieves him of his duties as his doctor.
‘You cannot!’ cries Hyland, aghast. ‘I am the medical officer and I have to tell you what I find. I have a duty!’
‘It is not your duty to interfere with the expedition’s goals. In any case, I dispute your diagnosis. I feel fine!’
Hyland shakes his head. ‘What if your condition leads some of the men into peril?’ His face is even whiter than usual under his fur hood, and he appears to be trembling with emotion. ‘That would be on my shoulders.’
‘My condition? I have no condition! You are not God, Hyland! You are a very young man, with very little experience of this part of the world. With little experience of medicine, I might add. We are all here to serve a greater purpose for our country – that is my duty, and I must fulfil it. All other duties are secondary.’
There is a pause.
‘Will you please clarify my position, sir?’
Lester bares his teeth. ‘Of course. You will carry out your medical duties to the best of your ability, but if anything appears to threaten the plans of the expedition, you will inform me, in confidence, before you do or say anything else.’
Hyland draws himself up, becoming even taller and narrower. They are both shivering, having stood outside for the last five minutes in temperatures of minus twenty.
‘Very well. I strongly suggest that you increase your intake of raw liver. It may help with your symptoms—’
Lester tries to smile through his anger. ‘Thank you, that will be all, Dr Hyland.’
‘One more thing – Royce’s toe is refusing to heal. I cannot recommend that he . . .’
By the end of April, Lester has to concede that his polar attempt has failed. Perhaps it was always going to fail, because the Pole was too far from their starting point. But he was not helped by Philip Royce being too lame to walk, or by the Eskimo dogs falling prey to a mysterious illness that halved their numbers in the first two weeks of the journey. The final blow came when he, with Shattuck (a poor replacement for Royce, it turned out – by turns vacillating and stubborn) and the two sled teams, driven by Metek and Sadloq,
after struggling for days across a wilderness of crumpled sea-ice, came to a stretch of open water that cut right across their path. They explored the shores of this huge lead, but it stretched out of sight for miles east to west, and was more than three hundred yards wide. Shattuck had the temerity to say what a pity it was they had not brought the collapsible boat. There was one in the hut, but it had been sacrificed (he really had no choice) in the complex calculations of weight, food and distance. Lester ordered them to make camp and they waited to see if the lead would close up or freeze over – the sea-ice was always moving, and their position shifted even as they sat there, the icepack drifting them to the south-east. But the open water remained, and more dogs died.
Lester wondered if the lead was a permanent feature of the polar pack. Three of their remaining dogs were lost when a piece of ice broke off their shore and floated away in a gale. They never saw them again. Metek and Sadloq were restive and sullen, muttering to each other and falling silent when he approached. After a week of waiting, while Lester calculated their dwindling food supply, dividing it into the miles between them and their destination, and the Eskimos threatened to leave them, he gave the order to return. Only he knew that, with their painfully slow rate of travel, their food had never been sufficient in the first place.
.
After his bedraggled return to base, he has to think up ways of salvaging something from the wreckage of his expedition. Well, he has been further north than anyone else – although by a paltry twenty-two miles, which is almost humiliating. He wonders whether to stick it out until next season, but doubts he could carry the men with him. It is all due to the infernal bad luck of the sinking of the ship – without it, the crew are a dead weight, on the verge of mutiny. All they want is to go home. With just a few good men, the right men, he could do it, but not with a hut full of whining, idle sailors. Was ever an explorer so beleaguered as he?
.
Lester often works out his plans by writing letters to his wife. Dearest Emma, to whom he can write anything. Anything that reflects his best self, and thus recalls him to his duty, his honour and his destiny. She is a good wife: loyal, patient and proud. Before he left on this latest venture, she had crushed him to her (she is a robust woman) and said to him, ‘I know you are a hero, my dear. I always knew, ever since we first met. I knew that my children would have a hero for a father. No matter what happens, I will be behind you.’
He weighs up his success, or otherwise, in her eyes. It makes for a chilling appraisal. Newly discovered land – none. Sponsors’ names immortalised on map of same – none. Meteorites – none. Mummies or similar sensational artefacts – none, and no chance of them. Miles northing – a few. A paltry, ignominious few. Simply to get home, they will have to sled south to the Eskimo villages and hope to get picked up by a whaler.
He can spin a story of disaster and shipwreck and survival, but he needs something else – something unprecedented and newsworthy. Otherwise, his career as an explorer will be over before he has had the chance to really achieve anything. He thinks of his forebears in impossible endeavour, of Hannibal and his battle cry: ‘Find a way, or make one.’ So be it.
Chapter 34
London, 51˚31’N, 0˚7’W
Summer–Winter 1895
At the supper party to celebrate the publication of her new book, Jessie Biddenden was taken aback when Flora Athlone congratulated her with a hug; although possibly not more taken aback than Flora herself – this was, after all, Jessie, by whom she had always been intimidated. Iris, who could see Jessie’s face over Flora’s shoulder, smiled knowingly to herself. Anyone for whom Flora had any tenderness noticed a change in her: she touched them more often; leant towards them, laid a hand on their arm. Some put this new warmth down to maturity; some, when the news about Freddie’s illness became widely known, to her assuming a more maternal role towards her husband. It took Flora some time to realise what she was doing; her body was bereft, it cried out for contact of any sort. She drew her friends to her, because they were all she had.
.
Iris was the only one who knew what had happened in Liverpool, and Flora made her swear never to talk about it again – this on the evening Flora told her that Freddie had suffered a paralytic seizure, and that she would not be going to Switzerland, after all. A terrible blow, a double blow, but it was not, Iris thought, like the day she had found out about Mark Levinson’s marriage. Flora had grown up since then. Iris felt sorry for her – the romance had been such an adventure, and Iris felt that, after four years of presumably thrill-less marriage to Freddie, she deserved some adventure. But, as Flora herself said, it was not as though she and the man in question had been intimate for very long. It was really just a . . .
Here, Flora paused in front of the open window and allowed herself to be dazzled by the sunlight that poured into Iris’s drawing room.
‘Just . . . an experiment. To see what it would be like. After all, even without all this, there could be no future to it, could there?’
‘I suppose not – living so far apart,’ said Iris.
Flora had not turned round from the window, and Iris wondered if she should go to her, offer a condolence. She thought her friend looked unwell, and her eyes were puffy, as though she had been crying. Otherwise, she did not seem particularly upset – she was dry-eyed and frowning in apparent concentration at the trees in the park opposite. Children’s cries, laughter – the sounds of an English park on a summer evening – wafted in through the window. Perhaps she was just preoccupied with Freddie’s illness – that was quite enough to worry about. Flora let out a sigh and turned away from the blazing sunlight.
‘I’d better go back. The doctor is coming again later.’
Iris quelled her Presbyterian distaste for scenes and took Flora’s hands in hers.
‘I’m so sorry about this, Flora. Please give my love to Freddie. Let me know when I can come and see him. And, of course, if there is anything at all I can do . . .’
Flora held on to her hands in a way that was uncharacteristic of her. The look in her eyes gave Iris a tremor of concern.
‘Actually, there might be something . . .’
At that moment, there was a noise on the stairs that meant Helen had returned. Automatically, Iris withdrew her hands and turned to check her reflection in the mirror, biting her lips, wondering (as she always wondered) if Helen would be in a good mood.
‘Why don’t you come here on Thursday? Around two. Can you do that?’
Iris stepped away from her as footsteps mounted the stairs. Flora nodded. The door burst open (Helen never just opened a door) and she marched in, unbuttoning her gloves and throwing them on the sofa. Everyone agreed she was more dazzling than ever. There was something almost horrible about her vitality, like that of a carnivore whose existence is predicated on many small deaths.
‘Lord! It’s that hot . . . Hello, Flora.’
‘Hello, Helen. I’m sorry, but I’m just on my way out. My husband is not at all well.’
‘Oh. Sorry to hear it.’
Flora almost admired the way Helen flaunted her insouciance while mouthing platitudes. Then Helen smiled, and glanced from Flora to Iris with a look that was so bold, Flora caught her breath. When she looked at Iris again, she knew that Iris had shared her deepest secret with her lover. She found it difficult to forgive her.
Flora went back to Iris’s house that Thursday, not because she wanted to, but because she did not feel she had a choice. She had never liked Helen – had given up trying to disguise it – and particularly did not like the fact that Iris was so in thrall to her. Helen seemed to her the most self-centred person she had ever met. Iris never denied it.
They sat in her drawing room, full of a reflected green light from the plane trees outside. Flora did not know how to begin.
‘I’m sorry, my dear, but I don’t have all day. What is it?’
&nbs
p; ‘What I’m going to say, Iris, I don’t want you to tell Helen. Will you promise, please?’
‘Yes, all right,’ said Iris, frowning.
But after Flora had explained her difficulty – it did not take long; a humdrum, depressing tale – Iris was silent for a minute.
‘My dear, I’m afraid that Helen is precisely the person I must tell. I don’t think I know anyone else who could be of help. She herself has been in this situation. She went somewhere in Pimlico, I think, and it was no problem at all, over in a flash, apparently, so . . .’
‘Oh. Well, if you think there’s no other course . . . I can pay. That, at least, isn’t a problem.’ She kept her eyes on the floor and said, in an exhausted voice, ‘Lord, Iris, it’s such a mess.’
Iris reached over and took her hand.
‘Come, come. It is an unfortunate set of coincidences, to be sure, but one thing at a time. Do I take it that your gentleman friend doesn’t know about this?’
Flora shook her head. ‘No. There’s no point. Especially now.’
For the first weeks after Liverpool, Flora existed in a state of feverish, sometimes dream-like excitement. With Freddie, little by little, she sounded out the idea of a summer trip to the mountains. She wanted to try alpinism, she said; it would be good practice for the next northern trip. She thought first of Austria, then seemed seized by the idea of Chamonix and the Mer de Glace . . . Cunningly, she wove a web of half-truths and misdirection. She told Freddie she had decided on Switzerland because, there, she could meet an industrialist and his wife: potential sponsors who would be spending the season in Zermatt. The whole fabrication sounded fantastic to her, but Freddie made no adverse comment, nor did he press her for details. The very fact that he displayed so little interest made her wonder whether, in fact, he suspected the truth; in which case, did that mean he understood? Even condoned it? For a time, she allowed herself this thought, and was comforted by it. They were getting on well – better than they had for a long time. One evening, they were talking, when Freddie stopped, almost mid-sentence, and smiled at her.
