by Ken Altabef
The arrival of the icebreaker HMS Vengeance was suitably dramatic. The helmsman brought her in dangerously fast, under heavy steam.
Many of the Eskimos who had assembled on the dock, mostly grown men, shrieked at sight of the ship barreling into port. Gekko himself winced just a little, thinking for certain they were going to smash the jetty to pieces. Smashing was the very reason this ship had been built, after all. Its tall V-shaped prow resembled nothing so much as the front end of a locomotive. The shorefast ice growled as the point of the prow tripped the cusps of the broken plates of free-floating ice in the bay and swept them carelessly aside. This was a noisy entrance and an impressive one, but completely unnecessary.
The compliment of seamen on the ship’s main deck stood stolidly in place, a grand contrast to the whooping native onlookers, as the ship came to a perfect stop and slowly tacked into position along the blessfully unharmed jetty.
With military precision, the planks were extended and the landing party formed up on the deck. Six men disembarked. At the head of the procession was a stocky, full-bearded man of late middle-age. The blue and gold cap on his head and his confident, commanding presence marked him as Captain Leonard Hopcraft Dicker. He strode the wobbling planks with as sure a step as if they were cemented in place. Five men, all wearing knee-length Navy jackets, followed after.
Gekko stepped forward and offered his hand. “Welcome to East Koryak, Captain.”
“First Lieutenant,” said Dicker, quoting Gekko’s army rank. He nodded and returned a hearty shake. His gaze swept the crowd on the dock, seemingly disregarding the civilian assistant manager Henry Jackson as anyone worth acknowledging, and lingering for just a moment on the woman standing beside Gekko. Noona was the only woman present, and overtly conspicuous in her white-fox trimmed parka.
“We won’t be staying long,” said Captain Dicker.
“How long?” asked Gekko.
“Just want to square up a few things that we need and we’ll be on our way.” Dicker handed a small packet of sealed envelopes to Gekko. “Mail from home,” he said. He cast another glance at Noona and smirked. “I didn’t know you’d taken a native to wife.”
Gekko let out a sort of embarrassed half-chuckle.
“Ma’am,” said Captain Dicker, with a bow toward the lady.
Noona said, in perfect English, “That’s a very handsome ship, Captain. ‘Sails of silk and ropes of sandal, such as gleam in ancient lore; and the singing of the sailors, and the answer from the shore’.”
“My, my…” smiled the Captain, “Your English is very good, young lady. And quoting Longfellow, no less.”
Gekko added, “She’s well versed in French as well.”
“I’m sure,” said the Captain. His tone was impatient and snidely judgmental, giving Gekko the impression he had misinterpreted the comment as lewd in some way.
Gekko snapped back to his best military manner. He tipped the mail packet toward the Vengeance. “She is quite a ship.”
“A Royal beauty,” said the Captain. A proud smile revealed a bridge of revoltingly yellowed teeth. “Three hundred and twenty-four tons, with a draft of eighteen feet below sea level. Those three masts are mostly for show, you know, Lieutenant. A friendly breeze may speed our way and save us a bit of coal but belowdecks she’s powered by the best steam engine His Majesty’s engineers have ever produced. A full ninety horsepower in calm waters, when she isn’t smashing through ice pack, that is. Fourteen commissioned Navy officers, forty-three able seamen and fifty-some-odd Royal Marines.” He took Gekko by the elbow, “We need to talk in private.”
“Of course.”
The two began walking toward the trading post. Captain Dicker added in a low voice, “Not getting too cozy the natives, are you?”
“I’m all right. All business. What supplies are you carrying?”
“We have ample provisions for two years at sea, canned food, salt pork and hard tack, mostly. She’s carrying a hundred and ten tons of coal, anthracite and coke. That should more than see us through.”
“Good,” said Gekko. “I haven’t any fuel to spare. We went through all our coal oil during the winter. Won’t see another shipment for a few months. Not that it matters much at all. To us, this is a warm, summer day.” He waved the mail stack across the long stretch of half-melted tundra.
“Fine by me,” said the Captain. “In 1898 I shipped as first mate on a coastal-mapping expedition along the Boothia Peninsula. The expanding ice cracked our hull like an eggshell. We made two hundred miles overland from Cape Felix. A year and a half on the tundra with nothing more than canvas tents and cold-weather slops. By the end we’d eaten everything but our shoes. Only six of twenty men made it back, and I was the only one to still own all ten toes. So this is a spring day to me as well. And the Vengeance is good with coal.”
“Right,” said Gekko. “So what can I do for you?”
“Fresh meat,” roared the Captain. “Fresh meat is what we need. Just the thing to keep away the scurvy, or so my ship’s doctor tells me.”
“We deal in skins, sir. The natives take the meat for themselves, store most of it in their ice caches for winter. I can have them dig some up, but if it’s fresh meat you want I’ll have to send them out after it. We have quite a few able-bodied men hanging around here. It’s a simple thing to organize a few hunting parties armed with rifles on loan. With any luck they’ll be back in a couple of days with sleds full of caribou, some musk ox, snow hare and fox. If you want ptarmigan and other fowl it’ll take a bit longer as they’d have to travel all the way to the cliffs and back.”
“The roast pheasant will have to wait. We don’t have that much time to spare. I want to be out of here in two days.” The Captain glanced quizzically at the bright night-time sky. “Forty-eight hours — you know what I mean.”
“Yes, sir,” said Gekko. “I’ll send them out right away.” Captain Dicker had already turned back toward the bay when Gekko asked, “What do you really think is going on up there at the pole?”
Dicker answered in a low, confidential tone. “Well I don’t know, but we’re ready for anything. I’ve enough men and arms to face down a substantial enemy militia. Mark my words, the Russians are up to something there. King Nicholas has his eye on Europe, you know that. And we’ve been getting all kinds of magnetic disturbances off the scale.”
“How did you measure those, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“We sent an airship, one of our new gasoline-powered dirigibles, which I guess you’re not supposed to know about, being an Army man. The Buckingham Arrow, she’s called. You know the Americans have their California Arrow, built by their man Baldwin?”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“Ours is better. 53-foot, 20-horsepower Curtiss engine, top of the line. Well, when our fellows got her near the pole all hell broke loose. The engine stopped dead. The instruments went crazy. We expect a certain magnetic problem at that latitude of course, but the magnetometer burst into flame. We don’t like flame on board a helium aircraft, now do we?”
“I suppose not.”
“You’re damned right. Not. The pilots were so frightened they had to turn her back before the whole thing came down. You see the problem?”
“It can down our airships?”
“Looks that way. And that’s not a good thing with the Germans and all their damned Zeppelins zipping around. We can’t let something like this stand.”
“But what the devil is causing it?”
“Damned if I know. It gets worse. There’s talk the Russians could be testing some type of new weapon, possibly based on atomic theory. That’s really all we know.”
Gekko nodded. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, then. Think you can sail your ship all the way to the pole?”
“We won’t have to get all the way to the pole. We just have to get as far as the Russian base. If we have to winter in the ice on the way back, we are prepared do so. We have enough rum, anyway. That’s the main thing. Th
e men will put up with hardship and cold and inactivity and all the rest only so long as they have their daily ration of grog. That’s basic military theory.”
“I know,” said Gekko.
They laughed together.
Gekko wished he had never opened the letter.
He had only sat down at his desk to go through the mail and sort it. Most of the post was addressed to the previous general manager, Randy McPearson. McPearson had been dead for several months, murdered by some rogue Eskimo man. Gekko put the personal letters aside, in order to send them back. The business correspondence he stacked for later.
But there was one letter of a highly personal nature, addressed to himself. He stared at the delicate feminine script on the envelope and sighed deeply. It was from his wife Margaret. Only in the arctic could you receive an urgent letter from a dead woman, a full two months after she’d been laid to rest.
Don’t open it, he told himself. Tear it up. Burn it in the Primus stove. There’s really no point in reading what it has to say. The episode was a closed book. It can’t possibly matter now.
And it would have been easy to destroy the letter, to pretend it had never found its way all the great distance north to this isolated trading post. Lord knew, half their mail wound up cast aside somewhere out on the tundra as it was.
But for Walter Gekko, it was impossible not to read the letter. He had to know.
He read:
“My Dearest Husband,
“This note will, of twin necessities, be brief. I grow so very tired of late. I only hope to set down these thoughts and seal the envelope before I must sleep. Secondly, I need write what I must before the strength of my resolve fades away. I pray if Annie should find this missive sitting on my desk, she should recognize her duty and post it immediately, unopened and unread by anyone else.”
This language, sounding so very, very ominous, gave Gekko pause. His eyes shot to the bottom of the page. The letter was dated 12th June, 1905. His fears were confirmed. That was the day before Margaret had died. He read on:
“As I said, I must need be blunt. I know this is my last letter to you. I know that I am dying. I know I will never see you again. Pay no attention to my Uncle’s demands for your immediate return, as I know you will not.
“That part is easy to write. And so is the next bit. I want you to know, my husband, that I love you dearly. I have, I think, loved you from the day we first met.
“And now to finish quickly. I am aware also that you do not love me. Your reasons for our marriage are your own. I wish you to know that all our affairs are in order, and everything we own will remain in your name. I don’t believe my Uncle will risk a scandal. More than that, I want you to have everything that is due. I want you to be happy. I hope when you do make your return it will be with all fingers and toes and both feet intact. I hope that you take up residence in our house and sometimes think of me and remember that I loved you.
“That is all I can write now.
“Tender love,
“Signed, Margaret Appleby Gekko.”
Gekko folded the letter and placed it back into the envelope. He was in fact a very wealthy man. The house Margaret had mentioned was a titled estate in Paddington Road, a magnificent house and grounds, and it was his, free and clear. The uncle had let him have it. As she had predicted, the Earl of Saxonhurst had no stomach for a drawn-out and very public legal challenge. The luxurious house and grounds were currently enjoyed by the working staff only. Gekko had no plans of ever going back there.
He sat for a long time at the desk.
CHAPTER 15
OLD BEA
“I don’t know what the hell it is,” said Henry Jackson.
Jackson, Captain Dicker and two sailors from the Vengeance stood with Gekko and Noona at the west-facing entrance to the warehouse. Huge curls of thick black smoke were rising from the rocks not twenty yards in the distance.
“It’s a fire obviously,” said Captain Dicker.
“Yes sir, but,” answered Jackson, “that’s just the thing. There can’t be any natural fire. You see, there’s nothing to burn.”
“Something’s wrong,” said Noona.
“I know,” said Gekko.
A shot rang out. The right side of Jackson’s head exploded, spraying blood and god-knew-what-else at Gekko and his wife. The assistant manager’s body crumpled to the ground. Gekko’s first thought was for Noona. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her to the ground. “Get down!”
The Captain also went into a defensive crouch immediately, saying, “Cover! We have to find cover.”
Gekko studied the plain. The shot had come from their left, judging by the effect on Jackson’s head and the angle of the body. But given the range, he couldn’t see anything that would indicate where the attacker might be hiding among the rocky escarpment. “Where are they?” he muttered. “That shot came from the north, high ground.”
There was no more time to think.
Sleds and dogs came racing into the field, piloted by rough men in brown skins.
Not many natives had remained at the post, with the offer of double money for fresh meat. These were just the few hangers-on who were too old or drunk to hunt effectively. They raised shouts of “Yupikut! Yupikut!” as they began to run frantically about. They were entirely unarmed.
The raiders were very well experienced at attacking from their sleds. They rode in like silent death, striking the helpless men with war clubs, using the forward momentum of the sleds to add deadly strength to their arms. Even their dogs were trained for silence as they ran men down. Many of the raiders had pistols, but did not fire. The only noises were the shouts and death cries of the victims, making the attack seem surreal and utterly terrifying. The screams of one poor soul rose into a tortured and rapid climax, broken only when he paused to draw in a ragged breath.
“Damn raiders,” said Gekko.
“What?” asked the Captain. “What can they want?”
“Damned if I know.”
Gekko was disgusted at the death of Jackson. He had been a good fellow, even if completely incompetent in the face of danger. He didn’t deserve to die like a dog. Worse yet, Gekko realized Jackson had taken a bullet that should have been meant for him. These Yupikut were not without the rudiments of strategy, and the first order of business in a raid was to eliminate the commander of the opposition. They must have believed that Jackson was the post manager. He had been the assistant to McPearson. They obviously didn’t know Gekko had taken control.
One of the sleds bore down on their position and the driver, a huge man, tall and built like a musk ox, swung his club at Gekko’s neck. A head shot would have been easy to duck, coming from such a tall man, standing atop a sled, but a strike to the neck was a different matter. Of course that was precisely why the raider had chosen that tactic. Gekko could not duck the blow and the sled was coming at him too rapidly to allow an effective evasive movement.
He snapped both hands up, crossed at the wrists, to ward off the bludgeon and redirect its force to the side. The attacker had not expected, or perhaps had never before encountered, such a move. The strike was turned away and the man toppled from his stanchion. His dogs were so well trained, they stopped running immediately.
Gekko hadn’t a moment to react before the man came on fast, a thick blur of shaggy bearskins. His face was hidden behind a half-mask, an ivory carving of a bear’s skull, which covered his forehead and nose. Gekko ducked under another strike with the bludgeon, turned his adversary about, and kicked him in the seat of the pants. The man was too big for this to have much effect, but Gekko could think of little else besides wrecking his knuckles punching the mask. The man swirled around, a pistol in his fist, but Captain Dicker intercepted, a burly man himself, taking the fight away from Gekko.
Dicker gave as good as he got and both men soon sported bloody noses, the ivory mask knocked asunder. Someone fired a shot at them. The bullet tugged at the shoulder of Gekko’s woolen greatcoat, but didn’t penet
rate. Poor aim, he guessed, or a shot taken from a moving sled.
“We need weapons,” he muttered. He circled Noona closely. Trying to keep her behind him was impossible. They were completely exposed out in the open. Luckily, as far as the raiders were concerned, the woman was the least of their targets. Gekko knew they would much prefer to take her alive.
Dicker, having been knocked to the ground, stood up. He was breathing heavily and wheezing, but had apparently driven the big raider off.
“We have to get inside,” said Gekko. He picked up the pistol the raider had dropped. It was a one-shot French dueling pistol with a hand carved walnut stock accented by a lock plate, cock, and trigger guard all engraved with a design of swirling oakleaf plumes. An elegant weapon. Gekko used it to put a ball between the eyes of the next Yupikut that stood in their way.
Captain Dicker heaved open the heavy corrugated metal door of Old Bea’s rear entrance. Four seamen had been passing time in the common room of the post drinking tea and coffee, talking, and having a smoke. With all the commotion they had gathered at the south window, debating what best to do. When the Captain entered, bleeding from a deep cut above his eye, the men snapped to attention.
“What the devil’s going on?” asked one. “Sir.”
“We’re under attack, idiot,” was the Captain’s retort.
Gekko unlocked his private office. All the rifles had gone out with the hunting parties. And most of the able-bodied men as well. This attack had been well-planned. He distributed the remaining firearms to the sailors, handing a Flintlock dress pistol to the Captain.
“Well, we have a fighting force at least,” said Dicker, as he inspected the gun.
“Why not just let them take what they want?” said one of the sailors. “It’s our duty to safeguard the ship, not the post.”
